196: Treasure land becomes Jedi

"Gao Sou, this is bad! Someone filmed you kneeling and uploaded it online!"

Midnight Gao Sou froze in place for a full three minutes when he heard this news.

The battle had been too intense, and he hadn't had much time to make a choice. Coupled with his trust in Star Fiend, Midnight Gao Sou had chosen to kneel and surrender without much thought.

After Wang Long chased Ye Chun away, he immediately mobilized people to blockade the vicinity of Sanshui Sect to prevent more resources from flowing out.

As a result, he forgot to pay the local streamers hush money and failed to suppress the news of his kneeling.

However, Midnight Gao Sou then thought about it again; even if he had paid those streamers hush money, the effect wouldn't have been very good.

After all, in the Xuanhuan World, players have three main advantages over natives: first, the cheats brought by reincarnation points; second, the time acceleration and infinite restarts brought by the player mechanism.

The third point is timely information communication and video recording.

As long as a player starts playing, they can call up a period of playback at any time without needing to specifically open recording software.

Some hardcore players use the playback function to secretly learn skills or research intelligence, but for most players, this is a convenient function for uploading videos.

Once a big breaking point appears, countless videos can immediately spread across the internet.

This means that even if Midnight Gao Sou had given hush money to the surrounding streamers, countless players nearby could still upload it at any time. Although the spread would be slower, it would inevitably continue to diffuse.

"I wasn't cowardly! I was being adaptable! Do you understand what adaptable means?"

Midnight Gao Sou looked at the video with hatred, muttering furiously to himself.

The other players of Great Love Sect around him remained silent, and several Elders had strange expressions, as if watching a joke.

Midnight Gao Sou threw a tantrum, not wanting to continue watching the video. He simply buried his head in the sand, shook his head, and looked towards Sanshui Sect.

"How is Sanshui Sect?"

He wanted to distract himself with work.

An Elder of Great Love Sect, who had long been prepared, immediately replied:

"Ye Chun escaped with three Immortal Foundations, and some core members of Sanshui Sect also fled. We didn't have time to blockade them. But the subsequent Disciples of Sanshui Sect, as well as a large number of Spirit Stones, medicinal materials, minerals, and other resources, we intercepted all of them. This time, our Great Love Sect can be considered to have made a fortune."

Midnight Gao Sou's grim expression softened slightly, and he nodded gently.

In this battle, Great Love Sect also lost many players and consumed a lot of Medicinal Pills and Talismans. The cost was huge. If Sanshui Sect had only been an empty shell, the loss would have been too great.

Fortunately, Ye Chun and the others arrived very late, and their combat power was also inferior to that of Great Love Sect. Many of Sanshui Sect's resources were intercepted, not only compensating for the losses but also, as the Elder said, allowing Great Love Sect to make a windfall.

Midnight Gao Sou thought for a moment and then asked, "How is the Feng Shui Spiritual Machine? It hasn't been damaged, has it?"

The faces of the surrounding Great Love Sect Elders were all very grim.

One of the Elders was an Eighth-Rank Feng Shui Master. He took the initiative to speak, "When we broke through the Formation and entered, the Feng Shui inside Sanshui Sect was already in disarray. That old fellow surnamed He must have tampered with the Spiritual Vein, causing the Spiritual Machine at the confluence of the three waters to dissipate and then become chaotic, no longer a place for gathering Spiritual Qi. Instead, it became a desolate land with chaotic Spiritual Machine and dangerous Feng Shui, no longer suitable for Cultivation."

Midnight Gao Sou didn't know much about the Dao of Feng Shui, but he knew that Feng Shui Masters dealt with Spiritual Veins, water veins, and earth veins, and were very sensitive to changes in Spiritual Machine.

An Eighth-Rank Feng Shui Master, in this Dao, was only an getting Started. He certainly couldn't discern anything too profound.

In other words, for an Eighth-Rank Feng Shui Master to clearly perceive the danger of the Spiritual Machine was enough to show that the Cultivators of Sanshui Sect had acted very crudely, almost directly destroying the Spiritual Machine without leaving any room for recovery.

Midnight Gao Sou pondered for a moment and asked Star Fiend:

"Is there a way to restore the Spiritual Machine here?"

Star Fiend chuckled, "Spiritual Machine is always easy to destroy and difficult to build. The water veins, earth veins, Spiritual Veins, and various Feng Shui Xuanhuan here are more complex than you can imagine. You need to find specialists to control the water, move mountains, gather spirits... Even if you Extraterrestrial Demons have methods to accelerate time, it would be impossible to restore this place without spending hundreds of years of Lifespan for anyone below the Golden Core Realm."

Midnight Gao Sou fell silent. Their Great Love Sect's best Feng Shui Master was only Eighth-Rank, and couldn't even figure out all the problems here. It would be extremely difficult to repair it.

And from Star Fiend's words, in addition to Feng Shui Masters, other Cultivators would be needed to assist in managing Sanshui Sect's Spiritual Machine, and even high-grade Formation Masters might be required.

After weighing the options, abandoning Sanshui Sect as a base was the optimal solution.

However, Midnight Gao Sou was very unwilling.

For Sanshui Sect, he had mobilized many players and incurred significant costs.

Although the resources found in the warehouse had allowed Great Love Sect to make a windfall, the most important Sanshui Sect itself had become a desolate land, which was unacceptable to everyone.

If they truly gave up and allowed the Spiritual Machine at the confluence of the three waters to clash, turning Sanshui Sect's Spirit Peak from a Cultivation treasure land into a dangerous desolate land, then Midnight Gao Sou would certainly be questioned by many.

Moreover, outside of Great Love Sect, there would definitely be many people mocking him, and even feeling angry at him and Great Love Sect, complaining that they had wasted a Cultivation treasure land and should have handed it over to Heshui Prefecture from the start, at least allowing players another place to cultivate in seclusion.

As soon as he thought of this, Midnight Gao Sou remembered that the video of him kneeling was still spreading rapidly on the internet, and public opinion was constantly fermenting, with many players who disliked him fiercely criticizing him.

At this time, if they also learned that Great Love Sect had painstakingly captured Sanshui Sect, only to be forced to retreat helplessly, what would Midnight Gao Sou become?

Would he become a useless person who couldn't accomplish anything?

"Is there really no way?"

Midnight Gao Sou asked Star Fiend again.

Star Fiend replied, "If you had a Golden Core, then the Spiritual Machine disturbed by a mere Immortal Foundation would be nothing; you could fix it with a wave of your hand. But unfortunately, you don't."

Midnight Gao Sou looked towards Sanshui Sect. The Spirit Peak, once enveloped in Immortal Qi, was now filled with strong winds and heavy rain, and even thick fog, becoming increasingly dangerous.

"Golden Core, Golden Core... Is Golden Core really that powerful?"

"Golden Core is the true starting point of the Cultivation World. Below Golden Core, all are like ants. The various profundities and powers of Cultivation can only be comprehended and accessed upon reaching Golden Core. Therefore, for all major Sects, only by producing a Golden Core can they truly stand firm."

Midnight Gao Sou was silent for a long time: "Then what if we take another path, and have Cultivators continuously consume their Lifespan to accelerate, can we restore it as quickly as possible?"

Star Fiend sneered, "Your Extraterrestrial Demons' methods are indeed powerful. Not only can you accelerate your own Cultivation speed, but you can also accelerate in tedious tasks like Alchemy, Artifact Refining, and setting up Formations. However, the Realm difference is too great. Even if you want to accelerate, the Lifespan you would expend would be enormous, and many Extraterrestrial Demons would die as a result.

"If the Spiritual Machine suddenly changes during this process, everything you've invested before will be wasted, and the Lifespan invested later would be even more unimaginable. Many people would die."

Midnight Gao Sou fell silent again: "In other words, if sacrifices must be made, it would be better to just let me achieve Golden Core? That would be more cost-effective?"

"The child is teachable."