Cultivating for a hundred lifetimes to ascension-Chapter 525 - 342: Entering the Ghost Market
Chapter 525 -342: Entering the Ghost Market
A day later, Zhao Sheng returned to the Divine Prison very discreetly.
Before long, the news of Leng Sha and another’s mysterious deaths at Yueshen Lake had spread, and a multitude of Prison Guards were discussing it animatedly.
When Prison Captain Ren Zhong learned that two guards had perished at Yueshen Lake, his frown was deeper than the sky.
There was already a shortage of staff in the Divine Prison, and now two more had died, which was simply adding chaos to his burden!
Being a Prison Captain was not an easy job, and it was even harder for someone who had been assigned there out of the blue!
Thinking about having to deal with a bunch of locals again, Ren Zhong felt a headache coming on.
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After all, dying outside the prison and dying in the prison were completely different matters.
If a guard died under mysterious circumstances, the Prison Captain would also have to bear some responsibility for poor management.
Zhao Sheng had no idea how Ren Zhong was going to handle this minor trouble.
Regardless, two days later, two new people had joined the prison, and Ren Zhong was still firmly in his role as the Prison Captain.
As for the deaths of the two guards, it merely caused a ripple, which quickly faded, and soon nobody cared about it.
In this incident, the high-ranking officials of the Prison God Temple used it as an excuse to cause a small commotion, and it wasn’t until the City Governor’s Office of Chu State City paid a heavy price that the matter was finally settled.
Zhao Sheng was also called in for questioning a couple of times, but he easily dodged any scrutiny.
In the end, only two insignificant guards had died, which wasn’t enough to cause a significant uproar.
On the contrary, the death of the Black Fish God came as a surprise to the major families in Chu State City, who each sent people to investigate the matter, but ultimately came up empty-handed.
As the days passed, Zhao Sheng diligently continued his role as a Second-class Prison Guard while secretly imitating the major cultivation families within Chu State City.
Just as he had approached the Gu Family, he forged identities as an Alchemist, talisman refining master, or Artifact Refiner from another place, and thus conducted transactions with the major families in hopes of gaining access to observe their Scripture Pavilions.
The results were as he expected.
Almost no cultivation family refused the transactions because the chips Zhao Sheng casually offered were attractive enough to them.
During the transactions, he encountered attempts at “black on black” fraud, but he handled them with ease. This, in turn, caused significant misfortune for the unscrupulous family involved. The family’s Foundation Establishment Cultivators died mysteriously one after the other, leading to a sharp decline in the family’s power.
In just three years, Zhao Sheng had successfully infiltrated over ten times, and the Scripture Pavilions of more than ninety percent of the thousand-year-old families in Chu State City had become public venues for his access at will.
In those three years, Zhao Sheng also methodically improved his own realm.
After silently refining the Nascent Soul of the millennia-old ghost imprisoned on the eighteenth floor of the Divine Prison, the Karma Fire Red Lotus evolved into a nine-petaled lotus as expected.
Similarly, Zhao Sheng smoothly advanced to the Late Stage of Foundation Establishment without any complications.
The inexplicable disappearance of the millennium-old ghost also caused quite the stir in the Divine Prison.
But after a month of investigation without finding any useful clues, it was ultimately put to rest and became one of the Divine Prison’s many unsolved mysteries.
The Divine Prison had been established for a long time, and there had been countless strange and unknown incidents over its history, with endless unsolved mysteries on record. One more wouldn’t make a difference.
However, the Divine Prison used this incident as an opportunity for a major overhaul, harshly cracking down on the lax atmosphere within and significantly reinforcing its defenses, which became much more stringent than before.
Moreover, the three new Class A Prison Guards became the fall guys, receiving major demerits despite having dutifully performed their duties.
As for the spy from the Heavenly Rebel Alliance, it was pitiable that after great effort to infiltrate the Divine Prison and intending to cause a significant disturbance, they unluckily encountered this situation and were so angry they nearly broke down.
Regardless, Zhao Sheng did not admit to screwing up someone else’s plans, and even if the truth were known later on, it would be in that person’s best interests.
The Divine Prison was such a high-security area; if it were so easily breached through internal collaboration, the place would have fallen countless times already.
Having been a Prison Guard for years, Zhao Sheng had long since gotten to know every nook and cranny of the Divine Prison.
With the experience and Eye Power of someone in the Nascent Soul Realm, it wasn’t difficult to see that the most powerful aspect of the Divine Prison wasn’t the numerous Defense Prohibitions, nor the Golden Core Puppets and Formations, etc.
The most impressive feature seemed unremarkable but was omnipresent.
It was the Prison God Map engraved on the ceilings of each cell.
This map was related to an unknown Great Array, and once activated, there was a high probability that it would summon the True Body of the Prison God.
In the Sealing God Book of the Heavenly Dao Sect, the Prison God is a Divine Spirit nearly at the Emperor-level in strength, unfathomably powerful.
…
Time flies, and years pass swiftly.
Heavenly Dao Calendar, Seventh Epoch, year 1201
This year, Zhao Sheng had just celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday, but he had already broken through to the realm of Foundation Establishment Perfection and was waiting for the opportunity to advance to the Golden Core realm.
One day, the sky was faintly rippling, and a vast city located eighty miles west of Chu State City was awakening from its slumber, becoming gradually noisier.
This city, called Cangmo City, was one of the four major satellite cities of Chu State City. With its closely packed towers and shops, large tracts of low houses could be seen everywhere. The roads within the city, aside from the main arteries, were broken and dilapidated, and its residents wore old-fashioned clothing, looking mostly undernourished.
With over a million inhabitants, ninety-nine percent of Cangmo City’s population were mortals, and the vast majority were servants or members of the Slave Clan serving the prominent families and households of Chu State City.
On a street within the city, a large white rat with fluffy fur peeped out from a corner.
Its gem-like crystal eyes surveyed the street for a moment, then the rat nimbly emerged from its hiding spot, transforming into a streak of white light and swiftly moved through the forest of buildings, streets, and courtyards.
The large white rat quickly reached a huge circular square, hid in a corner, and stealthily observed the activities on the square.
