Chapter Fifty-Four: Farewell, Black Robes

  Mount Emei! Jiuzhaigou!

  "...Report!" A person rushed in from outside the council hall, kneeling on one knee and said: "Reporting to the leader, Master Xu has arrived."

  Wow!

  Hei Pao immediately stood up and quickly walked towards the door, with the others following closely behind. However, in just half a day, Xu Hua and his group returned to Lao Tie Shan, where someone had gone ahead to inform Hei Pao.

  Standing high up, Xu Hua gazes out at the entire Jiuzhaigou valley, where every twist and turn is filled with natural beauty. "Jiuzhaigou is indeed not bad..."

  Before long, Hei Pao and Xu Hua met again. Hei Pao was somewhat excited, but Xu Hua gave him a glance, telling him not to reveal their relationship.

  The black-robed man understood his intention, although he was in charge of the entire Jiuzhaigou, but it did not rule out that there were spies from other forces among these people. He looked at Xu Hua and the face full of scars on the black robe could not see what emotions, "Young Master Xu, it's been a long time since we met, your strength seems to have improved."

  "But being forced into a corner, I'm just trying to protect myself."

  "Consider this place as your own home from now on!" The man in black immediately turned to the group of people around him and said: "From now on, Young Master Xu will be living in my Jiuzhaigou, treat him as you would me, do you understand?"

  "Understood, got it!"

  Among them, there were original members of Jiuzhaigou and also members who had been transferred from other three major stockades. However, the name Xuhua was familiar to everyone, after all, Xuhua was a well-known figure in the entire Luocheng, even these mountain bandits often heard his name.

  Hei Pao and Xu Hua walked ahead, while many people behind them whispered among themselves.

  "Is this Xu Hua? I didn't see anything special about him either. If there's anything special, it's that he's younger than me!"

  "They say he's a ruthless and merciless demon lord? In Luocheng, he has killed many warriors, including several old-school strongmen."

  "It doesn't seem as magical as the rumors said."

  These people were from other three villages, and it was the first time they had seen Xu Hua in person. The original people of Jiuzhaigou beside them immediately reminded: "Don't say any more, Young Master Xu is not someone we can discuss, did you hear what the village head said?"

  But he didn't say that, these people suddenly became violent and said: "What's there to be afraid of, it's just talk, what's the big deal? You're too cowardly."

  The man stopped talking and everyone else thought he had given in, so they all burst out laughing.

  A group of people walked quickly and soon arrived in the hall, where the man in black suddenly turned around to face a group of people behind him and said, "All of you leave, I have something to discuss with Master Xu."

  "Yes, Chief!"

  "After everyone left and the door was closed, Hei Pao immediately said: 'Let the young master suffer a bit.'"

  Xu Hua smiled faintly and said: "You've done well enough. The relationship between you and me cannot be made public, otherwise you will also be in danger."

  With the current fervor of the people in Luocheng regarding Xu Hua's treasure, everyone related to Xu Hua will be implicated. Fortunately, Xu Hua rarely appears in Luocheng and few people have seen him, except for Xuan Ziyin, no one knows Xu Hua's background, even those forces that want to investigate Xu Hua's identity need a lot of time. However, if the black robe exposes its relationship with Xu Hua, it will immediately attract the siege of countless Luocheng forces.

  "Will you be staying for a short time this time, young master?"

  Xu Hua shook his head and said: "This time I came to find you, there is something that needs to be done, as for me, I must leave, this place is not safe either."

  "It's beneath me!" The black-robed figure lowered his head, looking somewhat embarrassed.

  "This has nothing to do with you, and Mount Lao Tie is not your exclusive territory. Bai Gu Zhai and Hei Feng Zhai are not simple either, and your pressure is also great." Xu Hua could understand the black robe, "As long as you do what I tell you to do, it's fine."

  "Young master, what are your orders? I, Hei Pao, will definitely complete them with all my might."

  "I'm going to build a force!" Xu Hua said calmly.

  The black-robed man's face showed no surprise, only a slightly low tone said: "The power of the black robe is the power that the young master controls."

  Xu Hua smiled and shook his head: "The people under your command are really too weak, they're of no use to me at all."

  "I don't know how Young Master Xu Hua's black robe is doing." The black robe thought for a moment and said, "Now the young master can already kill half-step Wu Huang, his own subordinates are indeed not worth mentioning to the young master."

  "Do you still remember the 'Body Refining Manual' you gave me?"

  "Could it be that the young master wants to train a batch of Body Cultivators?" The black-robed man was shocked, he naturally knew about the strength of Body Cultivators. It could be said that among those at the same level, Body Cultivators were even more terrifying than warriors. However, for Body Cultivators to make minor progress, they needed resources that were unimaginable to ordinary people. He himself was also a Body Cultivator, but after many years of cultivation and using who-knew-how-many resources, he had finally achieved his current strength. He really couldn't think of how the young master planned to cultivate such a batch of people.

  "Naturally, a martial artist cannot achieve rapid progress, and only cultivators can rapidly increase their strength."

  "But what about the resources? The resources needed to cultivate a batch of Body Refiners are enormous."

  "What resources? The Taihang Mountains have countless resources, are you afraid there aren't enough?" Xu Hua said somewhat disapprovingly.

  "Hiss..."

  Hei Pao was shocked again, indeed the Taihang Mountain range had countless resources, but ordinary people found it hard to survive inside. To obtain its resources, one must be powerful. Just as Hei Pao was shocked, Xuhua suddenly took out a first-class wolf demon from his spatial ring.

  Boom!

  The black-robed figure stared at the suddenly appearing beast corpse and exclaimed: "Spatial Ring!"

  Ignoring the black-robed man's shock, Xu Hua continued: "Isn't this a resource? This demonic beast meat still has a great effect on early-stage Body Refiners."

  Hei Pao nodded, burying the shock in his heart: "Young Master, if it's a first-grade demon beast, its effect on the cultivation of a Refiner is limited. Take me for example, the flesh of a first-grade demon beast has no effect on me now, and even second-grade demon beasts have little effect. Only third-grade demon beasts have a significant impact on me, but third-grade demon beasts are too powerful, even if I encounter one, I can only run away immediately."

  Xu Hua smiled slightly: "Not all third-level demon beasts are very strong, with my current strength I can already kill some of the weaker third-level demon beasts, so there's no problem in this regard. With the existence of third-level demon beast meat, these people will at least be able to become powerful enough to rival a Martial King in the future, and won't be weak."

  Hei Pao's heart skipped a beat. How could it be weak? If there were a batch of cultivators comparable to Wu Wang, they would be enough to sweep the entire Lao Tie Shan.

  "I don't know what plans you have, sir."

  Afterwards, the two of them had a long and secretive conversation. When the door opened, Xu Hua was about to go see Luo Cheng, while Hei Pao gathered all the personnel and announced several orders.

  The original territories of Qingfeng Stockade, Sanhuan Stockade and Liuyu Stockade were all abandoned, and everyone gathered in Jiuzhaigou.

  At the same time, many people in the original four villages secretly disappeared, and no one knew their whereabouts.

  "Why, why did you abandon those three major territories?!"

  "You're stupid, now the four major villages only have one strong martial arts master, how can you possibly keep up? Outside, many villages are eyeing us covetously, the village master also didn't think of this."

  "Haven't you noticed that there are fewer people around us lately?"

  "Yes, maybe the village head has something for them to do!"

  The whole Jiuzhaigou was in an uproar, but the black robe had not appeared yet. At the same time, Qingfeng Village, Sanhuan Village and Liuyun Village were occupied by Heihu Village, Dongqing Village and Wujidun Village, which made many people in Jiuzhaigou indignant.

  After several days in a row, many people left Jiuzhaigou and went to other stockades, but there were still many people who stayed here.

  Where is the man in black now?

  A few days ago, Xu Hua went to see Luo Cheng and found that he had not shown any signs of breaking out of his cocoon, so he was about to leave. At this time, the black robe told him a piece of news. It turned out that in these days, the black robe had discovered another passage in the cave.

  The two of them went deep into the cave and found that this passage was extremely long. They walked for almost a whole day before reaching the end of the cave, but here was just a small pool of water.

  "Go take a look."

  Perhaps it was because of the encounter with the green python in the water pool before, Hei Pao hesitated for a moment, but after Xu Hua went down, he also followed.

  The water pool below seemed very large, as if the entire cave was a lake. The two of them dived for quite a while before surfacing, but the scene outside left them both astonished.

  "This... could it be that we've already arrived at the Taihang Mountains? This passage actually leads directly to the Taihang Mountains?"

  The two were surrounded by towering trees that blocked out the sky, but they didn't see any mountain demons around them, which was a bit strange.

  "Could this be the territory of those green water pythons we met in the cave earlier? That's why there aren't any other demonic beasts here?" Xu Hua thought for a moment, then nodded to himself and said, "Thinking about it that way does provide a pretty good explanation."

  "It seems like this should be the outskirts of the Taihang Mountains, but I don't know exactly where!" The man in black muttered.

  "Huh......" Xú Huá suddenly discovered that behind the small waterfall in the distance seemed to be flickering with a bright light.

  "Sir, what's wrong?" The man in black asked without noticing anything unusual.

  "There seems to be something behind the waterfall, go take a look."

  This pool is also quite large, about 100 meters long and 50 meters wide. There are no living things in it, probably all eaten by the green python.

  Boom! Boom! Boom!

  The waterfall was only ten feet high, but the sound of the water rushing down was not small. The two people walked through the waterfall and found that there was actually a cave behind it.

  "Haha! Heaven helps those who help themselves, what a great place!" The top of the cave had some glowing stones, so it wasn't dark inside, and the two could see the entire cave clearly. This cave was huge, about 30 zhang long, 10 zhang wide, and 2 zhang high, and could hold quite a few people.

  "Sir, you plan..." The black-robed man also thought of Xu Hua's plan.

  "Not bad, let's take a look around and get familiar with our surroundings and position, then we can bring them here directly."