Xu Qing was very interested in this ninedawns. After all, taming a special and significant beast as a mount was the way to take first place in the second round. And Xu Qing’s goal wasn’t just to become a darkheaven general, but to become the Grand Darkheaven. The only way to become the exceedingly rare Grand Darkheaven was to take first place in every round of the Great Hunt.

Sadly… I don’t see how I could tame a ninedawns.

Xu Qing couldn’t help but feel some regret. He tended to act decisively, and was even willing to be a bit crazy. But in most cases, he liked to weigh all the factors before acting, which made him a bit different from the Captain. Simply put, Xu Qing was a rational person.

It was obvious that since this ninedawns beast hadn’t even been seen for years, much less tamed, there was obviously some secret about it that no outsiders were aware of. It was also easy to imagine how dangerous it would be to go after one.

Xu Qing retracted his divine will from the jade slip about the ninedawns, and went on to study information about other beasts, hoping to find a suitable target for the next round. Around then, his expression flickered, and he looked up.

It was currently night outside, and it was already past the curfew time. The night was so dark it was almost like physical ink, seeping in through the door. Then the darkness converged and formed the Captain. It was definitely a special way of making an entrance. In fact, if the Captain hadn’t made his presence known via divine will, Xu Qing might not have noticed him.

Xu Qing even did a double take, which left the Captain feeling very pleased.

“What do you think, little Ah Qing? Did your Eldest Brother make a stealthy return, or what?”

Xu Qing nodded.

“Like I said, you don’t need to worry. Those Wordless words are inimitably profound. It definitely wasn’t a waste of time for me to spend so much time in the Star Emperor Preeminence Sect.” In the end, it was a casual message from Xu Qing that got the words from the Wordless Book of Stone, but apparently the Captain was leaving that part of the story out. Looking very haughty, the Captain sat down in front of Xu Qing. Upon noticing the jade slips, he scanned them with divine will, then smiled mysteriously. “Ninedawns? Those little darlings are very hard to tame, little Ah Qing.”

Xu Qing looked closely at the Captain. “Have you seen a ninedawns, Eldest Brother?”

The Captain stuck his jaw out and was about to speak, when all of a sudden he looked in the direction of God Mountain and cleared his throat.

“Some things are best left unsaid in this city. They’re too sensitive of a subject. If you had been born a few tens of thousands of years earlier, you might have been able to tame a ‘ninedawns.’ But right now… don’t even think about it. In terms of information about them….”

Pursing his lips, the Captain rummaged through his bag of holding for a bit before pulling out a shrimp. He pulled the shrimp apart into two pieces, then blinked a few times at Xu Qing.1

Xu Qing thought about it for a moment.

The Captain waved his hand to push aside the jade slip about the ninedawns, as well as all the other jade slips. Then he produced a black bamboo slip that seemed incredibly ancient. “Little Ah Qing, I didn’t help you at all during the first round. To make up for that, I spent the past few days gathering some information. I also looked for some things I left lying around a while back. Trust me, I made out quite well!”

The Captain’s eyebrows danced up and down happily. “My thorough investigation has left me one hundred percent confident that you can take first place in the second round. In fact, you don’t have to worry about anything. I’ll take care of it all!

“Next month when the second round starts, I need to go handle something alone. You can just go ahead to the Mountain and Sea Region on your own. Forget about me. Just wait until the second round is about to end and go to hillworm lands. I guarantee that you’ll get a juvenile hillworm there!

“Hillworms are one of the top five beasts from the Mountain and Sea Region! They’re superior to ghost chariots, so if you tame one of them, you’ll definitely have the top beast in the round. Your Eldest Brother has you covered this time!”

The Captain looked extremely proud of himself.

Xu Qing smiled. It didn’t matter to him if his Eldest Brother followed through on his promise or not. The mere fact that someone was watching out for him left Xu Qing with a warm feeling.

“Thank you, Eldest Brother.”

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The Captain looked to be in a great mood as he hummed a little tune and took out a small knife, which he used to start carving the black bamboo slip. Occasionally he would blow the wood chips off his hands. It looked like he was trying to craft some sort of ancient-looking object.

Xu Qing looked closely but had no idea what the Captain was making. All he could see was something roughly crescent-moon shaped, with a lot of mysterious magical symbols on it.

“What’s that?” Xu Qing asked.

The Captain flashed an enigmatic smile. “It’s a beast-tamer’s medallion for the Mountain and Sea Region! Years ago, back when that old shrew Moonfire and I were on better terms, she had me make a lot of things for her.

“This medallion is a very useful thing. I might not have succeeded with it years ago, but that doesn’t matter. I’m going to make a total of a hundred and eighty of them. I refuse to believe that if you toss them all out at once, you can’t knock out one of those hillworms!

“You see, I’m actually very good at making these thingies. Years ago, I secretly sold quite a few of them…. I even gave them an extremely badass name.”

At that point, the Captain cleared his throat and focused on his carving work.

Xu Qing looked on with a curious expression as the Captain did his carving. He was about to ask another question when his transmission jade slip vibrated. Taking it out, he checked it with divine will.

The Captain looked up.

“It’s Grand Prince,” Xu Qing said. “He just arrived here and asked where we are. He wants to pay a visit.”

Xu Qing looked at the bamboo slip in the Captain’s hands.

“It’s fine,” the Captain said. “He won’t have any idea what this is. After all, it’s from ancient times. Besides, even if he does recognize it, it’ll be fine. I can just make a few extra for him.”

Looking very relaxed, the Captain continued with his work.

After a bit of thought, Xu Qing told Grand Prince where they were.

It didn’t take long before Xu Qing and the Captain sensed that Grand Prince had arrived outside.

“Guyue Zhonghui is here to seek an audience with Region Lord Xu,” he said, bowing at the waist. His tone was respectful and polite.

Before Xu Qing killed Crown Prince Brightsouth, there was no way Grand Prince would have treated him like this. Even though the emperor wasn’t very fond of him, he was still an imperial prince. But after what he had gone through, his opinion of Xu Qing had improved significantly. As such, he was more than willing to act respectfully.

The door opened quietly. Grand Prince took a deep breath, quickly adjusted his clothing, then hurried inside. Upon catching sight of Xu Qing, he clasped hands and bowed.

“Congratulations, Region Lord Xu. You’re the champion of the first round of the Great Hunt!”

Xu Qing looked at Grand Prince and thought back to when they had last seen each other. Grand Prince had been severely injured by Crown Prince Brightsouth. Since then, he had matured significantly. That, coupled with the fact that he looked so similar to the emperor, he now seemed as vigorous as a soaring dragon or leaping tiger.

Xu Qing nodded and indicated for him to sit.

Grand Prince sat down cross-legged and took out three jade slips, which he placed down in front of Xu Qing.

“Region Lord Xu,” he said quietly, “after we parted, my subordinates and I scoured the lands for information about the second round. We also looked for reports about the various chosen participating in the Great Hunt. I hope the information can be useful to you, Region Lord Xu. Furthermore, there’s also news in there regarding the general situation in Firemoon Darkheaven territory.

“The first jade slip has an introduction to quite a few beasts, plus details about their habitats. There’s a lot of information there that isn’t available publicly. I got it from my mother’s clan.

“The second jade slip contains the information about the various Firemoon chosen. I heard about your fight with Tuo Shishan, who is one of the top five chosen. There’s information there about the other four, plus details about seventeen outstanding figures from subsidiary species.

“Given your battle prowess, Region Lord Xu, you probably don’t need to do more than take a quick look at the subsidiary species. But the handful of Firemoon cultivators are worth paying attention to…. To them, status isn’t really important at this point, as they’re considered the top prospects of this generation.

“Sir Heavenink is in the third stage of Void Returning, but he has battle prowess equivalent to the great circle. He’s officially ranked fourth in the Firemoon echelon, and is a member of the stewarded nation of High God Starfire. He has outstanding talent, and actually defeated Tuo Shishan in combat once.

“Fan Shishuang is also in the third stage of Void Returning, and he ranks third. He also has great circle battle prowess. In fact, he actually fought a battle to the death with an expert from another species who had just stepped into Smoldering God, and made it out alive. He’s a member of the stewarded nation of High God Moonfire.

“Master Stillwinter is in third-stage Void Returning and ranks second in the echelon. He’s a member of the stewarded nation of High God Sunfire. Known to be vicious and merciless, he fights to kill. He’s cut down dozens of cultivators from other species, and refined them into blood clones that accompany him wherever he goes. He’s mastered many techniques. In fact, he even successfully fought a Smoldering God prisoner. Granted, the prisoner was on his last legs, but in the end, he was still a Smoldering God….

“Finally there’s Sir Firedark. That’s not his real name, of course; he inherited the daoist name Firedark. He’s considered the number one chosen among the Firemoon Darkheaven people! He’s crushed all other members of his generation in the entire species! He’s only in first-stage Void Returning, but his battle prowess surpasses the Void Returning level. He actually has the power of the one-world Smoldering God level!”

Grand Prince paused to take a deep breath.

Xu Qing, meanwhile, was visibly moved. Although he hadn’t actually fought Tuo Shishan, he had felt a lot of pressure when facing him. In fact, he had often wondered if he could actually beat him in a fight. And if it was a battle to the death, Xu Qing knew he would have to pay a heavy price to win. Xu Qing felt the same sense of pressure when hearing about these other four chosen, especially the last one….

My cultivation base is fundamentally not sufficient, Xu Qing thought.

“These four aren’t like Tuo Shishan. They don’t care about becoming a darkheaven general. They just want to get into the god domain to acquire the blood of godly entities, which will help them form the foundation of their major worlds earlier than usual.”

Grand Prince was about to go into further details about the content of the jade slips, but before he did, he glanced at the Captain. At first, he had just planned to look at him briefly. But then he swallowed the words he had been about to speak as his heart started racing and his eyes went wide. Upon looking at the bamboo slip the Captain was carving, his expression became one of complete and utter disbelief.

“Is that…? A godly law medallion??”

Grand Prince’s mind reeled as he shot to his feet. He had seen medallions like this in his mother’s clan, although they only had one of them. It was an ancient thing, and also considered godly, to the point where his people would consecrate them in shrines to the gods.

1. There’s some wordplay here that doesn’t translate into English, but is obvious enough in Chinese that there were quite a few comments about it from Chinese readers. In Mandarin, the character ‘shrimp’ is pronounced exactly the same as the character ‘blind.’ What exactly does the Captain mean by all this? That much isn’t completely obvious from the context, not even to Chinese readers. You’ll have to wait until later for a more detailed explanation…. ☜