Chapter 174 – Take you to meet someone!

Outside the Ghost Mountain City gathering area, a building stood in profound silence. A figure sat alone in meditation, a gust of wind stirring up a cloud of dust.

Ye Sheng closed his eyes, his consciousness entering the Nightmare Ghost Realm.

“If I want to promote to ‘Peak Tier’, I can only rely on the Heavenly Manifestation…” In the Ghost Realm, Ye Sheng stroked his chin, deep in thought.

During this period, besides increasing the Proficiency of the ‘Diamond Demon-Subduing Sword’, he had also been grinding the Heavenly Manifestation to full Proficiency whenever its cooldown ended. After several days of improvement, the Heavenly Manifestation had finally advanced from Level 1 to Level 2.

After reaching Level 2, the Heavenly Manifestation’s Stat Panel underwent an earth-shattering transformation. The magnitude of the increase left even Ye Sheng astonished.

Swish!

With a wave of his hand, the Skill panel for the Heavenly Manifestation was summoned.

[Annihilation-grade Skill: Heavenly Manifestation (LV2), one of the Top Daoist Divine Abilities. Uses Divine Seals as a foundation to condense a Dharma Idol for combat.

Dharma Idol Attack Power Increase: +93,100%!

Dharma Idol Defense Power Increase: +65,000%!

Damage to Ghost Creatures Increase: +135,000%!

Cooldown Time: 12 hours

Current Number of Divine Seals of the Gods: 1

Divine Seals of the Gods: Primal Skyfire Divine General*1

Status: Can be activated

Note: Affected by the Primal Skyfire Divine General Divine Seal, offensive and defensive capabilities have changed.]

Ye Sheng scanned the information and couldn’t help but take a deep breath. At merely Level 2, the Heavenly Manifestation’s Dharma Idol attack power had already reached over ninety-three thousand!

Its power had directly tripled!

The astonishing potential it displayed was far beyond comparable to any other Skill he had learned. To date, it was the Skill with the greatest potential he had ever acquired.

“If Level 2 is already this powerful, continuing to improve it might truly allow me to push myself to ‘Peak Tier’!” Ye Sheng couldn’t help but feel elated.

He was also extremely curious about the ‘Peak Tier’ realm.

To truly secure a good ranking in this Federation Grand Examination, he might indeed need to promote to ‘Peak Tier’ to participate in the final battles.

“By Level 3, there will likely be another massive improvement! It might even surpass the power of my current strongest means, the ‘Diamond Demon-Subduing Sword’!”

Even if it surpassed the ‘Diamond Demon-Subduing Sword’, Ye Sheng wasn’t certain if it would be enough to reach ‘Peak Tier’.

“The cooldown time has also been reduced relatively.” Ye Sheng glanced at the Skill panel.

The cooldown time had been slashed from the original 24 hours down to 12 hours—cut in half.

Regarding this point, Ye Sheng was extremely pleased.

The greatest difficulty in improving the Heavenly Manifestation wasn’t anything else, but precisely this cooldown time.

Each time it was used, he had to wait for the cooldown to end before he could use it again. This undoubtedly greatly slowed down the Skill’s Proficiency growth, which had been a major headache for him.

“Next time, I’ll only need to wait 12 hours.” Ye Sheng said with satisfaction.

Next, Ye Sheng began to increase the Level of the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell Skill.

After maxing out the Diamond Demon-Subduing Sword, Ye Sheng had shifted his main focus to the ‘Heavenly Manifestation’ and his only defensive Skill, the ‘Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell’.

The Heavenly Manifestation could raise his Combat Power ceiling, while the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell could compensate for his defensive shortcomings. Both were the optimal choices given his current situation.

Unlike the ‘Heavenly Manifestation’, the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell had no cooldown time, allowing for rapid Proficiency improvement.

Furthermore, Ye Sheng had discovered that if the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell was shattered and then recast, its Proficiency increased even faster.

However, shattering the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell was not an easy task, as this skill possessed an excessively heaven-defying defensive power.

Even by projecting the two Beginner-Tier Giants—the ‘Fire-Red Longbow Woman’ and the ‘Burly Figure’—it would still require considerable effort to break the LV3 Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell.

If the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell were to advance to LV4, the projections of these two would be completely incapable of breaking it. By then, to further enhance it, projections of even more powerful experts would be necessary.

Ye Sheng had considered projecting himself, as with his own execution of the ‘Diamond Demon-Subduing Sword,’ he could achieve the combat power of a High-Tier Giant, making it easy to shatter the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell.

Unfortunately… the Nightmare Ghost Realm, capable of projecting anything, had failed this time and could not project himself.

There were still certain limitations.

Within the Nightmare Ghost Realm, Ye Sheng deployed the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell, only for it to be shattered by the combined efforts of the two Beginner-Tier Giants—the ‘Fire-Red Longbow Woman’ and the ‘Burly Figure.’ He then deployed it again, repeating the cycle to increase the proficiency of the Heaven-Suppressing Divine Bell.

“Hmm?” After an unknown length of time, Ye Sheng sensed something, perceiving that someone was approaching his main body.

In the next moment, his consciousness withdrew from the Nightmare Ghost Realm.

…

“Young Master, where are we heading?” In the air, over a dozen figures sped along—more than ten Prodigies of the Xu Family at the Super-Limit Tier.

Xu Xingchen gazed into the distance at a building ahead. “We’re almost there. I’m taking you to meet someone. Remember, do not be disrespectful!”

“Yes!”

The more than ten Super-Limit Tier individuals nodded in agreement, while also feeling curious. Who could possibly make their Young Master treat them with such seriousness? This was an unprecedented first in many years.

All of them, being at the Super-Limit Tier, moved through the air with extreme speed, arriving near the building in a mere moment.

Xu Xingchen stepped inside in one stride, followed closely by the more than ten Super-Limit Tier individuals.

Shortly after entering the building, the group saw a figure seated cross-legged in the void, meditating with eyes closed. The figure wore white robes and exuded an ethereal aura.

“Boss!” Upon seeing Ye Sheng, Xu Xingchen immediately switched to a smiling face and approached him.

This scene nearly caused the jaws of the more than ten Xu Family Super-Limit Tier Prodigies behind him to drop.

They thought they were hallucinating—their Young Master was actually addressing a stranger as “Boss”?

But seeing Xu Xingchen’s enthusiastic, familiar manner as he approached Ye Sheng confirmed they had not misheard.

Their Young Master had indeed acknowledged an older brother outside the family!

For a moment, the expressions on the faces of the more than ten Xu Family Prodigies were extremely vivid!

They couldn’t help but wonder what the Family Head, Xu Chang, would think upon learning of this.

Ye Sheng opened his eyes and, upon seeing it was Xu Xingchen, smiled. “Why have you turned back? Aren’t you supposed to be acting with Ghost Mountain City?”

Xu Xingchen scratched his head, momentarily unsure how to explain the attitude of those High-Tier Super-Limit individuals.

But in the end, he couldn’t hold back and recounted the entire incident.

Upon hearing it, Ye Sheng wasn’t particularly surprised.

Great Aristocratic Families… accustomed to looking down from above, it had always been this way since ancient times. Expecting them to lower their status—such a thing was inherently rather fantastical.

Ye Sheng shook his head and swept his gaze over the more than ten individuals behind Xu Xingchen.

In his perception, all of them were Super-Limit Tier existences; any one of them alone was no simple character, yet Xu Xingchen had brought over a dozen at once.

Xu Xingchen hurriedly introduced them.

When the more than ten Xu Family Prodigies learned that the white-robed youth before them was actually a 4th Revolution Giant Tier expert, every one of them wore an expression of shock!

Especially upon learning that Ye Sheng actually hailed from Ghost Mountain City and had risen from common origins, not being a scion of a great aristocratic family, the expressions on everyone’s faces were beyond description.

Xu Xingchen sat cross-legged beside Ye Sheng, with no intention of leaving. He rested his hands behind his head and said leisurely, “Boss, I can’t bring myself to grovel before Wind Thunder City like those guys are doing. This time I’ve come… I’ve decided to follow you.”

As they spoke, a major movement from the Ghost Mountain City gathering in the distance caught the attention of Ye Sheng and the others.

“They’re leaving!” Xu Xingchen stood up, gazing into the distance as tens of thousands from Ghost Mountain City took to the skies in a dense formation, seemingly preparing to depart from this place.