AGAINST NINE REALMS

”Young master. Weve collected everything we could in our Eastern Duan City. This book recorded where it was taken from and the summarized report. ” the servant Duan Yu trusted with the collection task said. After finishing his sentence, he respectfully handed the book to Duan Yu.

”En. Good job. ” Duan Yu nodded and received the book from his servants hand.

”Tell the kitchen to make something simple for me as dinner and notify all the servants that I want no disturbance tonight. ” Duan Yus words continued after he took the book.

”Yes, Young master. I will order the kitchen to prepare the dinner for you separately. ” the servant quickly responded to Duan Yus order.

”Go, get everything done as early as possible, ” said Duan Yu before he made his way inside the room.

The servant bowed and left Duan Yus courtyard swiftly. A while later, multiple family servants appeared and started closing the door to the walking corridor as ordered by Duan Yu. These sudden changes quickly garnered unfavorable opinions from other Duan Family members as they were forced to use a longer path to go around the manor.

A few guards were also stationed before the door to prevent anyone from entering or walking past Duan Yus private courtyard.

”Aargh! Why can I use the corridor leading to the dining Hall? My surname was Duan as well. How dare you treat me like one of the outsiders inside my own house? ” some of the family members started to complain. But their words fell on deaf ears as Duan Yus order was absolute.

Unless Duan Shunde came up and told them otherwise, these servants and guards would likely follow Duan Yus order until the next day. As the households little overlord and next patriarch on the line, who could have more privilege over him?

Multiple arguments soon started here and there and increased the level of tension. Unfortunately, they hardly disturbed Duan Yu as he was used to them. From his understanding, these troubles were short-lived, and theyll eventually get tired before continuing to live as usual.

It turned out as expected a quarter of an hour later. At the same time, Duan Yus dinner was also served by the same servant, along with a jar of wine in his hand.

Duan Yu was famished from his two-day stay inside the Ancestral Hal. Throughout the time, he hadn even had a mouthful of food in his tummy. And without further ado, he devoured the food hungrily, just like a reincarnation of TaoTie.

The wine in the servants hand was like a lubricant to Duan Yus throat when he gobbled the food.

In less than ten minutes, all the food on the table was cleaned by Duan Yu.

”Im done. Bring the dishes away and leave me alone until I call for you. ” Duan Yu said and poured the remaining wine into his throat.

”Yes, Young master. ” the servant nodded and left the room with the empty dishes in his hand. His face maintained the expression of a pair of goldfish eyes while leaving. If he wasn inside the room accompanying his young master, he would have guessed that someone else was hiding inside the room.

It was dinner time for the Duan Household about half an hour later.

”Wheres Yu-Er? ” Duan Shunde asked a servant after he sat on his usual master seat.

”Replying to milord, the young master had dinner inside his room a while ago. The young master mentioned that he had something to do and would like to excuse himself from the family dinner tonight. ” the servant that served Duan Yu reported.

”Lets eat our dinner without him then. ” Duan Shunde simply nodded and told everyone else to pick up their chopsticks.

”Father! You
e spoiling young tenth too much! As the youngest in the main house, he had his part of the responsibility. Hes already absent from the family dinner multiple times, and you
e still tolerating him? ”

”If you keep forgiving him for all these misconducts, Im afraid that sooner or later, hell start to consider himself the patriarch and not you… ” Duan Lianye said. She was the eldest of Duan Shundes ten children.

While she was the eldest, the gap between her and Duan Yu was just six years apart, meaning shes turning twenty-four this year. Unfortunately, she wasn born a male. This regret made her marriage harder due to her status as the first daughter of the City Lord.

Furthermore, her average talent and background made her hardly attractive to people with skills and aptitude. At the same time, she finds it difficult to accept those with mediocre qualifications.

This delayed her marriage, and there was hardly a proposal to request her hand in marriage.

”What a mouthful of crap. So what if Yu-Er does not join us for dinner? Would that make you eat less? If you like eating alone, get back to your room. Ill order some servants to deliver food to your own courtyard from now onward. ” Duan Shunde scolded her for spouting nonsense.

He would have given her a slap as a lesson if she wasn his daughter. Of course, that doesn mean Duan Lianyes position was unimportant to Duan Shunde.

After all, both of them are his own children. And theres not a single parent out there that would be that cruel to their own kid.

(This brat… What was he trying to do? Something must have gone wrong for him to suddenly request all the Mind Clearing Verdant Pills and their unrefined counterparts to be sent into his room…)

This question constantly bothered Duan Shunde as he ate his dinner. Because it was too unusual, it made him pay less attention to the small conversation made by the other family members.

…

…

At the same time, Duan Yu is busy slapping his forehead after reading the book he took from the servant.

(How can our Eastern Duan City be this poor? Even I find myself pitiful after looking at the summarized report…)

As a city capable of housing a million people at its peak, the number of Mind Clearing Verdant Pill the servant collected was quite disheartening.

In the report, it was said that 81,000 people are living within this Eastern Duan City. But the servants barely collected 5,500 Mind Clearing Verdant Pills from them after sweeping the pill stores clean. A hundred boxes of dried Verdant Calming Grass are also written in the report, likely coming from the City Lords treasury.

Each box of the Verdant Calming Grass was enough to be refined into a hundred Mind Clearing Verdant Pills. But unfortunately, the Duan Family Manor wasn blessed with the luck of hiring a pill alchemist to refine what they have.

In this raw state, these grasses are barely worth fifty pills. They would be sold much cheaper than this price when the people from three other cities came to purchase these raw goods. Even if Duan Yu counted everything here, they narrowly had over 10,000 pills in hand.

This was quite a pitiful number for a city that housed 81,000 people inside the city wall. And its no surprise that their number has hardly grown over these years. Furthermore, their shorter life expectancy was also to be blamed.

Out of the four cities on this Huanle Continent, Eastern Duan City had the lowest life expectancy of barely one hundred years old, compared to the other three with a life expectancy of around a hundred and fifty to two hundred years old.

The Eastern Duan City might be rich, but thats only on the Huanle Continents monetary coins, which are useless when trading with outsiders from other realms.

Added with the lack of talent, people, and natural resources compared to the North, South, and West, the East was said to be on its way to demise, even without any of the three cities interrupting.

The fact might be disappointing, but that didn stop Duan Yu from trying his best. This also motivated him to do what he had to do tonight.

After bringing the relic out from his chest pocket, Duan Yu places the artifact on the table, using the folded handkerchief as a temporary coaster. He then gently put his right palm on top of the treasure to check if there was a reaction without contact with his blood.

He wasn afraid, but the two fainting experiences made Duan Yu extra careful when inspecting this treasure.

His left hand grabbed a handful of the Mind Clearing Verdant Pills as a precaution before starting. He was ready to stuff them inside his mouth to chew as soon as he felt dizzy.

(Alright… Lets get the thing started. Here I go!)

A ball of Spiritual Qi was gathered around his palm on his first attempt to activate this relic. This was also his first try to see what kind of reaction would come from contact without his blood.

To Duan Yus surprise, the outcome didn come as how he had wished for. But it wasn a complete failure either, as the handful of Mind Clearing Verdant Pills on his hand had fused together.

The twelve pills in his hand had turned into four, with the Spiritual Qi inside his body reduced by half of what he had.

Two of the four pills in his hand had the same quality as those stacked inside a pill chest. As for the remaining two, they had much better quality and transparency. Undoubtedly, this was the aftereffect of activating the relic through Spiritual Qi.

(What happened? Was this the correct way to use the relic, or was it the wrong one?)

Duan Yu asked himself since there was nobody here to answer his question. His attention was all on the two better quality Mind Clearing Verdant Pills. Although he had not seen a better quality pill before, that doesn mean hes a clueless idiot.

After all, one doesn need to witness a pig run to know how pork looks.