Chapter 312 – Soul Shrine

The war against the Gnoll Tribe had concluded.

The Tianyuan Legion packed up the vast quantities of loot they had gathered and stored it within the nearly infinite dimensional space inside General Dolai’s body.

They didn’t need to make multiple trips back and forth – they could transport all their spoils home in one go.

What took them the most time was the post-battle cleanup and collection of loot.

The entire process took a full three hours.

The Gnoll Tribe was large, with various supplies scattered throughout rather than stored in a centralized location, making collection inconvenient for Tianyuan Territory’s elite forces.

Collecting the Soul Sand and Remnant Souls scattered across the ground, and feeding the numerous corpse remains to the Sacrificial Black Coffin were particularly time-consuming and labor-intensive tasks.

Any other lord, even a Great Lord with deep reserves and powerful forces, wouldn’t be able to complete such cleanup work within three to four hours.

A Great Lord might command thousands of elite troops and be able to form two or three complete legions, but…

Most of their elite units hadn’t yet developed intelligence, or at best possessed only minimal, nearly negligible wisdom. While such elites were combat-effective, they couldn’t handle delicate tasks.

They couldn’t do what Tianyuan Territory’s forces could – excelling at slaughter on the battlefield while also being capable of rummaging through containers, collecting Soul Sand, hauling corpses, gathering resources, and mining.

This was what it meant to have all members awakened with self-awareness.

During the battlefield cleanup, Mu Yuan remained vigilant against other monster factions. In his contingency plans, the worst-case scenario involved one, two, or even more Legendary Realm beings showing up at their doorstep.

For this reason, he was prepared to abandon some of the spoils and had stationed scout falcons at several key points along the route, ready to sacrifice themselves if necessary.

But nothing happened.

For hours after the battle, aside from Asun catching two scouts from the Winged-People Kingdom, there wasn’t a single trace of scouts from any monster faction.

Scouts stationed near Gnoll Tribe Two and the Kobold Tribe also sent messages.

“Gnoll Tribe Two remains completely normal.”

“Am I being too cautious, overestimating the enemy too much?” Mu Yuan wondered, stroking his chin.

Deadbone stroked his chin and said, “The enemy must be plotting some grand scheme we’re unaware of. Dangerous, extremely dangerous.”

Back at the territory, Isloria immediately began detailed inventory and accounting of the supplies.

Which materials would Tianyuan Territory need in large quantities now or in the near future; which materials were unlikely to be useful and could be sold off –

All these required thorough statistics and planning.

This should have been the lord’s responsibility, but Isloria was too capable. Not only was she becoming increasingly skilled and experienced, but she also had advantages from her abilities. She could easily store and calculate data using the Starlight Orb, and with her Starlight Incarnation, she could do the work of several people, even dozens.

But Lord Mu was also busy.

Eliminating a mere Gnoll Tribe was just the beginning for Tianyuan Territory, the opening move in Tianyuan’s grand strategy.

Whether Tianyuan Territory could establish itself firmly in this region would depend on the next few steps.”The Heavenly Eye is still on cooldown. Launching an attack on the other two large tribes at this time seems somewhat unwise… Moreover, the two major legions and all our commanders have expended tremendous energy in this battle.”

Aside from zero casualties, no commanders using their ultimate moves, and large-scale spells and other methods remaining unused, the Tianyuan Territory had already given its all in this fight.

Continuing the war would be inappropriate.

Of course, the other two large tribes were quite far from the Tianyuan Territory. Even if Gnoll Tribe Two conducted a carpet search, it would take at least eight to ten days to sweep through to the Tianyuan Territory.

Lord Mu expressed no urgency.

They still had some loose ends to tie up, such as…

Two hours later,

Mu Yuan, Deadbone, Dolai, and several other commanders appeared in a dense forest, their eyes fixed on the distance.

Stare—

There, a dim, dusty shrine was faintly visible. Surrounding the shrine was a small, camouflaged monster camp hidden within the mountain forest. Tall Gnolls could be seen patrolling back and forth inside.

These Gnolls remained calm and composed, showing no signs of agitation or anger over their home base being destroyed.

They appeared completely unaware.

“It seems the monster factions have very few communication devices,”

Mu Yuan pondered.

Earlier, when Deadbone, Dolai, and the others launched a swift strike against the Gnoll chieftain, one of their strategic objectives was to sever the connection between the Gnoll Tribe and the dominant faction.

After the battle, they had discovered two or three items suspected to be communication equipment.

Mu Yuan destroyed them, along with other suspicious objects within the Gnoll Tribe.

Now, since this small Gnoll camp had received no news, did it mean the Gnoll overlord was also unaware of the battle’s outcome? That remained to be seen.

“The Taixuan Alliance doesn’t have many communication devices either, but they’re not as scarce as this.”

He recalled carefully—communication devices seemed quite rare.

Despite purifying many Roots of Filth and clearing out numerous monster camps and tribes, the Tianyuan Territory had never obtained even a single communication device.

The communication devices he possessed were either secondary items gifted by Liu Miumiu or Jiang Luoxing, or sets purchased from Stone Ridge Town.

Such as Twin Pearls, Communication Mirrors, Dialogue Notebooks, and so on.

The suppliers in Stone Ridge Town sourced these from other regions.

Within the Taixuan Alliance, some territories could mass-produce these items.

After gathering his thoughts, following Deadbone’s advice, Mu Yuan proceeded cautiously, conducting several probes. Eventually, he confirmed that there were no ambushes in this small camp and waved his hand…

“Take them out!”

…

The elite Gnolls met their end peacefully.

The entire forest remained serene.

Mu Yuan entered the camp. Though the camp appeared small from the outside, inside it was deep, with the Gnolls having excavated a large pit.

Within the pit lay countless skeletal remains.

From the outlines of some skeletons, one could vaguely discern that their owners had been massive and formidable in life.

The Gnolls had buried many powerful monsters here.

Why?

Mu Yuan looked toward the shrine ahead. The shrine was dusty, appearing somewhat old and damaged, covering an area of about two to three hundred square meters and standing eight to nine meters tall. Amid the surrounding tall trees and massive skeletons, the entire shrine seemed remarkably small.At the front of the shrine, two faint blue cold flames flickered on the candlestick.

Dolai reached out its hand without touching anything, yet inexplicably shivered.

“Soul Shrine”

“Description ①: A special wilderness structure capable of harvesting souls and creating remnant souls.”

“Current remaining soul power: 2.366”

“Description ②: 1 unit of soul power can create one random rare remnant soul; 3 units of soul power can create one specified rare one-star remnant soul; 100 units of soul power have a probability of creating one random exceptional remnant soul;…”

The ability to create exceptional remnant souls placed this miracle building among the absolute top tier of wilderness structures!

For Mu Yuan, he didn’t need exceptional remnant souls. Instead, he could consume 1 unit of soul power to create 100 ordinary random remnant souls, or 33 remnant souls of specific types.

Wasn’t this far superior to the neighboring Sacrificial Black Coffin?

Mu Yuan snapped his fingers lightly. Nearby, the earth bulged as white bones emerged, intertwining to form a giant skeletal hand. The skeletal hand picked up two jackalwere corpses and tossed them before the Soul Shrine.

“Prompt: Offer the corpses?”

“Prompt: Using the Soul Shrine requires offering fresh corpses. If corpses are stored for too long, residual souls will completely dissipate and cannot be harvested.”

“Prompt: Harvest ‘Jackalwere Ruffian × 2’?”

“Prompt: Harvesting complete. Soul power obtained: ‘0’.”

Mu Yuan: “…”

Dolai glared at the Soul Shrine with ill intent. “Did this broken building just swallow our stuff for nothing!” It lifted its foot and kicked violently at the structure. The ground trembled, and dust cascaded down.

However, General Dolai was mistaken about this.

Although the Soul Shrine appeared rather eerie and ominous, as a miracle building, it still adhered to basic rules. The most likely reason the shrine harvested zero soul power was…

“The two corpses we provided had no souls to begin with.”

“They were just ordinary, non-sentient little monsters.”

To test this hypothesis, General Dolai brought over the corpse of a jackalwere squad leader who had been at the Third-Order Warlord Tier in life.

“Prompt: Harvest ‘Jackalwere Hunt General’?”

“Prompt: Harvesting complete. Soul power obtained: ‘0.366’.”

This burly jackalwere corpse also dissolved into countless pale blue light particles before the shrine, floating away before vanishing.

Mu Yuan proceeded to harvest all the elite jackalwere corpses on site.

Over two-thirds of the jackalwere corpses yielded no soul power. The remaining one-third yielded a minimum of 0.1 units per individual. The highest contribution came from an aged jackalwere priest, providing 1.233 units of soul power.

Thus, the shrine’s accumulated soul energy reached 6.222 units.

“Create all Little Skeleton remnant souls.”

Outside the shrine, the two faint blue cold flames blazed brightly, continuously flickering.

Inside the shrine’s spacious hall, clusters of blue cold flames ignited one by one along both sides.

They all flickered, spreading a chilling, ominous atmosphere as if conducting some eerie ritual.

“This wilderness structure seems to have some issues, just like the Sacrificial Black Coffin.”The faint, cold flames flickered for several dozen seconds as ripples spread through the ancestral hall. A total of 207 remnant souls of little skeletons appeared one after another.

Mu Yuan inspected them briefly before having Dolai collect them.

The harvest was decent.

It would have been even better if the remains from the previous Gnoll Tribe had been preserved.

…

Over the next three days, Mu Yuan closely monitored the movements of Gnoll Tribe Two and the Kobold Tribe.

Both tribes remained relatively calm, maintaining lifestyles largely unchanged from before—hunting expeditions and conducting blood sacrifices. Minor conflicts occasionally erupted between the two tribes, sometimes resulting in casualties numbering in the hundreds, though the fallen were always low-tier gnolls and kobolds.

The scent of blood gradually dissipated from Gnoll Tribe One.

No powerful gnoll figures appeared there.

However, with the disappearance of this local dominant force, traces of monster activity began emerging in the surrounding areas. Yesterday, a group of wild giants defeated several competing monster groups and occupied this prime territory formerly belonging to the gnoll tribe.

They began constructing their own structures here while gathering and recruiting more of their kind.

Within just one day, the giant population doubled, reaching 112 members.

Though not large in number, their strength was considerable.

After all, even the weakest giant possessed rare two-star quality.

Yet there remained no sign of the Gnoll Overlord.

Mu Yuan maintained 24-hour surveillance, barely sleeping, and even deployed additional reconnaissance methods around the gnoll tribe territory. While he received no news about the Gnoll Overlord, he did get word from the Elven Courtyard.

“The Legendary package I commissioned Liu Miumiu to purchase has arrived?”

“And two lords mentioned they have channels to obtain Epic Remains, asking if I still have any outstanding-grade remnant souls.”

Of course he did!

…

Although no trading gathering was scheduled for today, the Secret Realm remained bustling, with at least twenty to thirty lords present at a rough count.

Reportedly, Cold Moon City Lord had distributed numerous Secret Realm Keys during the previous gathering, significantly increasing the membership within the Secret Realm.

“Tianyuan Giant is here,” someone called out.

Of course, Mu Yuan wasn’t some major celebrity—just a promising rookie with some achievements and potential, not enough to draw frequent attention from other lords.

Only when major figures like Cold Moon City Lord arrived would they attract everyone’s attention.

“Here, everything you ordered is in this bag. Check it yourself,” Liu Miumiu said, producing a standard storage briefcase containing four sets of ‘Legendary Realm breakthrough materials.’

The Taixuan Alliance possessed complete methods for Legendary Realm breakthroughs. Their breakthrough packages had undergone multiple optimizations, offering benefits like ‘easy procurement,’ ‘wide applicability,’ and ‘high auxiliary effects.’

The Legendary Realm breakthrough package had only one drawback—it was expensive.

A comprehensive Legendary Realm breakthrough package, including auxiliary materials, venue rental, and other services, cost approximately 2,000 Soul Crystals for the full set.

Mu Yuan had no venue to rent.

What he commissioned Liu Miumiu to purchase wasn’t the complete package anyway.

He didn’t need that many materials.

His primary purchases were several smaller packages focusing on ‘enhancing sublimation state,’ ‘stabilizing willpower,’ ‘increasing endurance,’ and most importantly, ‘life preservation.’

This simplified version cost him about 500 Soul Crystals per set.

Still quite expensive.

Mu Yuan directly purchased four sets, each with different property orientations.However, the price of 500 Soul Crystals referred to the ‘standard rate’ if he were to travel to a major city and purchase them himself. Now that he was commissioning Liu Miumiu to make the purchase on his behalf, not only did he have to pay a procurement fee, but also the ‘cross-regional transaction tax’ for two people.

After all additional costs, he would need to pay the steep price of 700 Soul Crystals.

Painful, so painful!

Once Dolai and Deadbone achieved their Breakthrough, he would have to refine the legendary package a few more times based on accumulated experience. If it remained this expensive every time, he wouldn’t be able to bear it.

But then again, his territory simply had too many experts capable of breaking through to the legendary realm.

Lord Mu expressed his distress.

While streamlining costs was a matter for the future, for now, he needed to focus on expanding revenue sources.

With a snap, Mu Yuan took out several Outstanding-grade Remnant Souls, including the Outstanding III-grade ‘Blazing Gun Ranger’ Remnant Soul.

Their brilliance alone was dazzling.

The seemingly ordinary minor lord once again captured the attention of the entire venue.

(End of Chapter)