318: Chapter 318 Nascent Soul Ninth Level

After the Minister of Revenue left.

Chen Hu had Secretary Kong Wanwan take the Storage Ring and his orders to the National Preceptors Manor.

Inside the Storage Ring were the silver and Cultivation resources allocated to the Inspection Bureau.

The order was for the Inspection Bureau to investigate corrupt officials within the royal capital.

Having just received three Attribute Nascent Soul Stones from Chen Hu, the National Preceptor was eager to prove her worth, lest Chen Hu misunderstand that she only took benefits without doing any work.

She immediately arranged for the five hundred inspectors under her command to take action.

By evening, the five hundred dispatched inspectors had already rooted out over 200 corrupt officials with significant issues.

To save time, the National Preceptor gathered these corrupt officials and cast a truth-telling technique.

Then, these corrupt officials confessed their crimes in detail.

Upon receiving the news, the Brocade Guard arrived, with Luo Ningshuang personally leading the team.

They only waited for the corrupt officials to finish their confessions before immediately making arrests.

More than an hour later, all two hundred-plus corrupt officials had finished their confessions.

It had to be said that the officials of the Great Yong Court had rotted to the core, decaying to the extreme.

Among these two hundred-plus officials, the least corrupt had embezzled over 5 million taels.

The most corrupt had embezzled over 140 million taels.

Combined, it totaled over 2 billion taels, which already exceeded the annual tax revenue of the Great Yong Kingdom.

Moreover, the crimes committed by these officials were not limited to embezzlement; there were various other crimes as well.

After the Brocade Guard threw these officials directly into prison, Luo Ningshuang personally entered the palace to ask Chen Hu if they should confiscate the officials' assets.

Chen Hu naturally would not go soft.

He immediately ordered the Brocade Guard to confiscate their assets and make arrests.

Because it was not just these officials who were guilty, but also their family members, relatives, and subordinates who used their power to act like bullies.

After receiving the imperial edict, almost the entire Brocade Guard was mobilized to confiscate the assets of the 200-plus officials.

Such a huge commotion naturally alarmed many officials in the royal capital.

Many with guilty consciences instinctively gathered to discuss countermeasures.

Who knew if they would be next in line for asset confiscation?

Many even sought out Prime Minister Xie, as well as several dukes and ministers, to discuss countermeasures.

Afterwards, Prime Minister Xie went directly into the palace.

He was not there to plead for those officials, but rather worried that arresting too many officials at once would cause the court to cease functioning.

"Prime Minister, do not worry. I have already prepared the replacement officials. Come in!"

The next moment, over two hundred Puppet officials filed in.

Then, Chen Hu tossed a booklet to Prime Minister Xie and said, "These are the names and ability descriptions of this batch of officials. Take them to assume their posts!"

"Yes, this old subject obeys!"

Since Chen Hu had prepared the replacement officials in advance, Prime Minister Xie had no further issues.

He spent the night taking these two hundred-plus officials to assume their posts.

After dismissing Prime Minister Xie, Chen Hu issued a commendation edict to the Inspection Bureau.

Any inspector who participated in the investigation would receive a base reward of 100 taels of silver.

Those with significant contributions would be rewarded with 1000 taels of silver.

The rewarded inspectors were overjoyed; having just started their first day on the job, they had already received a reward of 100 taels of silver—they had made a killing.

Especially those few who had significant contributions and received 1000 taels of silver; their eyes lit up, and they decided not to sleep tonight, choosing to investigate corrupt officials throughout the night!

Time flew by, and it was soon the early hours of the morning.

Chen Hu pulled up the System panel.

His gaze fell on the number of underlings.

As he expected, the number of underlings had already exceeded 800 million, reaching 854 million.

And the underling points had also increased by 854 million, bringing the total to 893 million.

"It is time to increase my Cultivation!"

Chen Hu thought to himself, then immediately ordered the System: "System, raise my Cultivation to the Nascent Soul Ninth Layer!"

Instantly, 240 million underling points were deducted.

653 million remained.

His Cultivation began to rise crazily.

Nascent Soul Second Layer.

Nascent Soul Third Layer.

Nascent Soul Fourth Layer.

... Nascent Soul Ninth Layer.

After the upgrade, his originally palm-sized Nascent Soul had reached the size of a normal person.

Chen Hu felt it.

Reaching the Nascent Soul Ninth Layer, his magic power had increased by more than a thousand times.

He only had one feeling: the current him was simply too strong.

Even with a single glance, he could instantly kill his Golden Core Realm self.

Of course, a normal Nascent Soul certainly could not do that, but a Heavenly Dao Nascent Soul was different.

"System, how many underling points are needed to reach the Soul Transformation Realm?" Chen Hu asked the System once again.

The System did not answer but directly injected the answer into Chen Hu's mind.

After reading this information, Chen Hu understood.

Breaking through to the Soul Transformation Realm meant transforming the Nascent Soul into a Primordial Spirit.

If one were to condense a normal Primordial Spirit, the cost in underling points would not be much, requiring only 100 million underling points.

But if one wanted to condense a special Primordial Spirit, the cost in underling points would not be cheap.

There were many types of special Primordial Spirits.

For example, the Sword Spirit Primordial Spirit, Reincarnation Primordial Spirit, Devouring Primordial Spirit, Yin and Yang Primordial Spirit, Void Realm Primordial Spirit, etc.

Moreover, the prices of special Primordial Spirits varied greatly.

For example, the Sword Spirit Primordial Spirit; if one condensed this special Primordial Spirit, not only would their comprehension when Cultivating sword Dao techniques greatly increase, but the power unleashed would also skyrocket several times over.

Furthermore, the Sword Spirit Primordial Spirit also came with a sword Dao Divine Ability.

For example, a normal Primordial Spirit and a Sword Spirit Primordial Spirit Cultivating the same sword Dao technique.

The former would take ten years to reach Perfection, while the latter would reach Perfection in one year.

At the same Perfection Rank, the former could only output 10,000 attack power, while the latter could output tens of thousands.

And condensing a Sword Spirit Primordial Spirit required 500 million underling points.

Then there was the Reincarnation Primordial Spirit, which was much more Advanced than the Sword Spirit Primordial Spirit.

When Cultivating Reincarnation-related techniques, one would almost master them instantly, and the power unleashed would be more than ten times that of a normal person Cultivating Reincarnation techniques.

Furthermore, it also came with two Reincarnation Divine Abilities.

As for the price, it was 1 billion underling points.

There were also the Devouring Primordial Spirit and Yin and Yang Primordial Spirit, which existed at the same Rank as the Reincarnation Primordial Spirit.

Both required 1 billion underling points.

And the Void Realm Primordial Spirit was of an even higher Rank than the previous four.

It came with three Void Realm Divine Abilities.

It was worth 1.5 billion underling points.

Of course, Primordial Spirits of higher Ranks than the Void Realm Divine Abilities also existed.

The starting price was 2 billion, reaching up to 1 trillion.

The one with the highest price, worth 1 trillion, was called the Chaos Primordial Spirit.

It came with twelve powerful Divine Abilities.

And every single Divine Ability was terrifyingly powerful.

Once a Chaos Primordial Spirit was condensed, one could not only sweep through the Soul Transformation Realm, but even an average Dao Integration Realm expert would be no match for it.

But it was simply too expensive.

Chen Hu could not afford it.

Even if he unified the Sin Domain and could obtain 6 billion underling points a day, it would still take months of work to save up enough.

Outside the Sin Domain, there was the Heavenly Demon Sect watching like a tiger preying on its prey.

Once the Heavenly Demon Sect attacked, his meager Cultivation would simply not be enough to look at.

Therefore, Chen Hu did not have high requirements.

He planned to condense a Primordial Spirit worth 2 billion underling points, which would be enough.

It would come with four Divine Abilities, which would basically allow him to sweep through the Soul Transformation Realm.

As long as the Heavenly Demon Sect did not send a Dao Integration Realm expert in, he could guarantee the safety of this world.

Next, Chen Hu took out the good luck card.

After silently chanting to activate it, he obtained quadruple good luck.

Then, he opened the cards for supplies, items, and army soldiers.

The rewards obtained were quite good.

The only ones remaining were the treasure hunting card, intelligence card, connection card, identity card, and Lifespan card.

Chen Hu first activated the treasure hunting card and obtained a treasure location.

Scanning it with his Divine Sense, its value was a mere few tens of thousands of taels.

Chen Hu did not disdain it and directly collected it from afar.

He activated the Lifespan card and obtained five years of Lifespan.

Added to the 8 years of Lifespan he opened yesterday, Chen Hu prepared to use them on that old codger, Emperor Jingren.

He activated the connection card and obtained a D-Rank connection.

He chose not to use it.

He activated the identity card and obtained the identity of an important minister of the Great Xia Kingdom.

After transforming and reading the memories, Chen Hu realized that Emperor Xia Wuji of the Great Xia Kingdom suspected his identity as the Hunyuan Martial Saint and had already ordered two ministers to send two Gang Refining Realm experts to assassinate and test him.

After changing back to his own identity, Chen Hu activated the intelligence card.

Today's intelligence: Sect Leader Tian Yue of the Holy Moon Sect wants to confirm the host's strength and will sneak into the palace tomorrow to test the host's strength.