He joined the Odyssey Horizon Guild and used whatever resources and advantages he had as a no-name prince to complete their missions, and finally, he reaped the rewards for it.
He managed to find an ancient artifact, whose value he didn't know, but when he traded it at the Odyssey Horizon Guild, it garnered him enough merit points to shoot his rank from a white tier member to an orange tier member, along with having the chance to redeem it for the opportunity to break through to the palace realm, which he was quick to do so.
He was given a mystic essence mulberry fruit which gave him enlightenment along with fortifying his foundations, to the point he had the smoothest breakthrough he had ever experienced. He even had doubts if it was real.
With a palace realm foundation, he took the seat of Emperor without opposition or even asking. He used all his experiences and the preparations he had made to be an efficient ruler, all with the express purpose of pushing the empire to greater heights so his name would one day eclipse even the founder of the Twin River Empire.
He was flexible and adaptable, willing to concede when the moment called for it, and he was firm and ruthless when the situation called for it. Slowly and surely, the Twin River Empire grew with him at the helm, and the empire's golden luck was slowly being centered on him, continuously boosting his cultivation speeds.
Eventually, he managed to reach the fifth stage of the palace realm with help from the golden dragon luck of the empire, and the lingering effects of the mystic essence mulberry fruit.
When the sect master of the Lunar Bug Sect divulged the news of the map hidden beneath the Frozen Serenity Arts, he saw another opportunity, an opportunity for him to reach the domain realm and further cement himself as the immutable emperor of the Twin River Empire, as he transformed it and himself into a hegemon.
After he confirmed the existence of the map, he decided to collect a few of the original copies of the scripture, decipher the map, and then share his findings with the Odyssey Horizon Guild.
Even though he was greedy and ambitious, he had a clear mind on his abilities, and he was under no illusion that with his current abilities and reach, it was impossible for him to collect all the arts tied to the Frozen Serenity Scripture to decipher the complete, and even if by some defying luck he was able to do so, he wasn't about to charge into the grounds belonging to a behemoth sect like the Frozen Serenity Sect.
It was sure to be trapped, and that was a surefire way for him to die. To the masses, he was a fifth-stage palace realm expert, an expert so powerful he could flip the skies with his palm, boil the rivers, and shatter mountains with his breath, but to something like the Frozen Serenity Sect, just their incomplete arts were already more powerful than what his empire had.
Based on that, was a fifth-stage palace realm expert worth anything to them? If he overestimated himself and tried to swallow whatever it was they hid on the map, he would be nothing more than another reckless dead cultivator used to highlight how dangerous that place was, and a warning to others about the dangers of greed.
For him, sharing his findings with the Odyssey Horizon Guild, was the safest and clear way of improving himself. Depending on what he found, and the appraisal of the guild on its value, he was sure the rewards he got could at least support him reaching the domain realm, and if they were really good maybe a shot at the soul formation realm wouldn't be an impossibility.
For him, giving the map to the guild was a no-brainer. Why would cultivators risk venturing into dangerous places such as ruins, grottos, and mysterious realms? wasn't it all for the chance to grow stronger? and if you could do it in a safer way, who would want to risk their life? He sure wouldn't.
This was why he bided his time and collected a few of the arts here and there as he eyed the Ice Emerald Sect. He tried the soft approach with them, then when they refused, he planned to rope in a few other friends he had made over the years, along with the grand elder of the Lunar Bug Sect and forcefully take their copy with minimal risk to himself.
However, seeing the world-shaking battle ahead of him, had things proceeded as he had planned, seeing the insidious lady at the center of it, they would have likely been killed and their bodies swiftly dealt with, and none would have been the wiser about it.
After this, he had decided, he would trade in whatever he had to the guild and redeem it for whatever his findings were worth, and retire and maybe drink tea and chat with old friends like his younger days.
Any grand ambitions he had, had been snuffed out. Right now he only wanted to live a normal life as a retired old man.
As for the three organizations that bordered the Ice Emerald Sect, two of the leaders were indifferent to the whole thing, while one had cold sweats like the old retired emperor of the Twin River Empire, albeit his cold sweat was entirely for different reasons.
The two indifferent leaders were from the Five Mountain Sword Academy and the Alabaster Midnight Sect. Both organizations were rank 3 organizations with the former being the more powerful one, as it had ties with the Jade Leaf Academy, as one of its founders was a former prized student of the Academy once upon a time.
Both the Five Mountain Swords Academy and Alabaster Midnight Sect barely interacted with the Ice Emerald Sect, and with the latter's reclusive nature at the time, it was expected. As for the Lu clan, it was also a rank 3 family albeit a younger one. One of their elders broke through to the palace realm 20 years ago elevating the clan into a rank 3 clan.
It was rumored that said elder had broken through to the palace realm with assistance from the Ice Emerald Sect, as both organizations had close ties to each other.
"Renshu were you also mixed up in this? Is that how you manage to reach the palace realm?" muttered a middle-aged man with apricot robes and black hair tied in a daoist top knot.
His worried-filled gaze was focused on the cataclysmic explosion that was a thousand miles away.
"Have you found her?" he asked when he detected a presence behind him.
"I'm afraid she's gone, patriarch.."
"Damn!!!" angrily roared the middle-aged man as he punched the tree he was next to, shattering it to dust.
It took a while before he finally calmed down, somewhat.
"After this, we need to head to the Order, and report everything, all our interactions with the Ice Emerald Sect, and everything about Renshu.
All the elders are to accompany me. Relay my orders to them, and if one tries to flee, cripple them.."
The shadow figure behind him acknowledged the order, as he disappeared like a formless wind.
...
Above the Ice Emerald Sect
Feng Qiu was filled with punctured holes and slash wounds and disheveled robes, but she still had the same unworried stoic look to her, while her opponents had matching degrees of injuries.
Dai Chen, Zhang Qingge, and Wei Ying, none remain uninjured as they all had frost accompanying slash marks on their bodies.
But neither they nor Feng Qiu showed any signs of fatigue or relenting in the intensity and scale of their attacks, especially the latter whose attacks started changing.
Before they were all tied to cold yin ice, but as the fight went on, another attribute was added to her attacks, Slaughter blood qi started appearing as an opal-looking object slowly appearing in the center of her brows.
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