The Lord’s Empire

After returning to the real world, Zhao Fu made a bowl of instant noodles and turned on his computer as usual. He ate his instant noodles while looking through the Heaven Awaken World forum to see if there was anything new or interesting.

It turned out that there were indeed some new additions to the Heaven Awaken World forum. There was now a ‘Hero Rankings.’

Currently, there were not any actual rankings in the Hero Rankings; right now, it was just a collection of descendants of the major heroes in history.

There were figures like the descendant of the Three Kingdom’s Lü Bu, Lü Zhan, who could take on 10 bandits with his halberd; the descendant of the Tang Dynasty’s Cheng Yaojin, Cheng Daman, who wielded his massive hatchet with great prowess; and the descendant of the Song Dynasty’s Bao Qingtian, Bao Xiaoduan, who had godly deduction skills.

After these people entered the Heaven Awaken World, they received legacies and the professions of famed generals and officials. However, it was not clear if they were willing to serve the empires that their ancestors served. They were all great talents and most likely thought highly of themselves; how could they not want to establish themselves in the Heaven Awaken World?

There was also some news that Zhuge Gui, the descendant of Zhuge Liang from the Three Kingdoms, had boldly stated that he would not serve his ancestor’s master because he wanted to prove himself to be greater than his ancestor. There was also the descendant of the Ming Dynasty’s Li Shanchang, Li Jun, who had sworn to face against Great Ming…

Apart from these, what also interested Zhao Fu was that some of the ancient Schools of Thought had started to make a comeback.

There were the Legalists, who used law to rule a country, the School of the Military, which specialised in war tactics, the Taoists, who followed the rhythm of the natural world and the Dao, the Confucianists, who sought to enlighten the world, the School of Yin Yang, which synthesised the concepts of yin yang and the five elements, the Logicians, who were skilled in debating, the Mohists, who advocated pacifism and defence, the Agriculturalists, who believed that people should live off the land, and the School of Miscellany, which tried to integrate the merits of various schools, such as Confucianists, Mohists, Legalists, while avoiding their perceived flaws…

There truly were a ‘Hundred Schools of Thought’ all battling for supremacy. The Heaven Awaken World was becoming more and more interesting, and Zhao Fu lightly laughed before his expression became grim.

“The common people live in suffering, and flames of war fill the world.

The schools of thought number one hundred, but only I travel vertically and horizontally unhindered.

The sky contains the stars and the moon, and the earth contains the Ghost Valley.

One vertical and one horizontal, unable to be comprehended for hundreds of years.”

“The School of Vertical and Horizontal!” Zhao Fu looked at this School seriously. He had to take this School seriously because it was much too dangerous.

The Five Hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period and the Seven Powerful States during the Warring States period – behind each of their rises and falls was a single name: The Ghost Valley’s School of Vertical and Horizontal.

Pang Juan joined the state of Wei, and his bravery and martial might surpassed everyone else’s. He was an invincible force that gained victories over Han, Zhao, Chu, and Qi, causing the once-weak state of Wei to sweep away everything in the world and to dominate the central plains. Sun Bin joined the state of Qi, and with his matchless intellect, he reduced Zhao, Wei, Han, and Chu’s might, causing the state of Qi to once again gain dominance. After he died, his books on military strategy were passed on for countless generations.

Afterwards, strategist Su Qin advocated the ‘Vertical Alliance’ system, rallying the six states to ally against Qin, while Zhang Yi advocated the ‘Horizontal Alliance’ system, which supported alliances with the state of Qin to destroy the six states. The two people saw the entire world as a chess board and the countless lives as chess pieces.

Even though this School had very few people, it commanded both the respect and fear of all people. People respected the School of Vertical and Horizontal because gaining the loyalty of someone from the School of Vertical and Horizontal would be even greater than obtaining millions of experts. They were terrifying because they had the power to destroy an entire nation.

Zhao Fu paid some mind to this School, and he felt a strange sense of heaviness in his heart. In the end, he could only sigh and continue reading.

After this, the biggest matter pertained to the Ying family. The Ying family was looking for anyone with their family’s bloodline and claimed that they would treat him or her generously. The Ying Family also asked the person who obtained their ancestor’s legacy to quickly go to their main branch – no matter if it was wealth, power, or beauty, the Ying family would satisfy that person completely, and it would allow that person to become the inheritor of the next generation of the Ying family.

Zhao Fu thought about it for a moment, but because he didn’t want to join the Ying family, he didn’t give much thought to the matter.

However, this matter caught the attention of all of the other powerful families. In terms of strength and foundation, Xia, Shang, Zhou, Qin, and Han were the 5 most powerful overlords. After Han, China descended into chaos, and no dynasty could rival those first 5.

In this world, who didn’t have ambition or want to conquer the world? Normal families could only look up to the families with the legacies of kingdoms and nations, while those families could only look up to families with the legacies of empires with their own dynasties. Those who had the legacies of empires could only look up to those 5 families.

This was truly a new warring states period, and after finishing his instant noodles, Zhao Fu drank the noodle soup and entered the Heaven Awaken World.

……………………………………………..

After entering the Heaven Awaken World, Li Si walked over to Zhao Fu, gave him a bottle of medicinal pills, and said that they were the Little Spirit Pills that they had successfully refined. Zhao Fu took off the cap and a fragrant and refreshing aroma came out from the bottle.

Zhao Fu nodded and returned to his room to try out the effects. He took one of the medicinal pills, which was a faint red color and about the size of a soybean, and consumed it before starting to cultivate.

A few hours later, a look of joy appeared on Zhao Fu’s face – his cultivation had risen.

Name: Zhao Fu

Title: None

Profession: Demon Priest

Achievement Points: Citizen (213/500)

Race: Human

Age: 21 (100)

Stats: Strength: 9, Intelligence: 12, Constitution: 8, Agility: 10

Special Power: [Weak – Demon’s Power]

Cultivation: Stage 0-2

Cultivation Technique: Great Qin Mantra

Skills: Hell Fireball, Basic Sword Technique…

Equipment: Iron Sword…

The Little Spirit Pill greatly increased his cultivation speed. After trying out its effects himself, Zhao Fu immediately ordered some people to carefully grow the Little Spirit Grass. Following this, he took his forces into the Forest of Horrors again to look for horses this time.

This time, Zhao Fu specifically brought the Grey Wolf King. Its wounds had not fully healed, but Zhao Fu was not going to make it fight. Rather, he wanted to use its keen sense of smell to find other beasts. At the same time, he changed its name to Little Grey. [TLN: Little Grey in Chinese would be ‘Xiao Hui’]

After bringing Little Grey with him, they encountered wild beasts much faster than before. This time, they found 3 Violet Flame Rabbits, one of which dropped an elemental orb, and Zhao Fu planned to give the elemental orb to Li Wen. Li Wen was one of the Great Qin Village’s rare A grade villagers and was also Li Youcai’s son, so Zhao Fu decided to start developing him.

In the next two days, they killed a few Wind Foxes, obtained a Wind Blade elemental orb, and tamed a few wild beasts. However, they did not find a single horse before returning.

The special equipment he had asked Wang Dawu to make had been completed, so Zhao Fu decided to continue exploring the bottom of the crack.

“I want to go too!” Liu Mei ran over and said as she looked at Zhao Fu.

Zhao Fu turned to look at he and said, “Your whip won’t be able to deal much damage to the Skeletons; just stay up here!”

“Don’t you have a Wind Blade elemental orb? Let me learn it and see how strong those Skeletons are!” Liu Mei said discourteously without any respect at all. Zhao Fu glared at her when he heard this.

Deep down, Liu Mei still feared Zhao Fu greatly, and she instantly became docile, awkwardly saluting him as she said sadly, “I’m sorry, Your Majesty.”

Only then did Zhao Fu give her the Wind Blade skill, causing Liu Mei to be quite surprised and overjoyed. She immediately used the azure orb of light, and following this, Zhao Fu brought Bai Qi, Li Wen, Old Logue, Liu Mei, 10 Goblin Warriors, the 10 strongest Infantrymen, and 10 Archers into the passage at the bottom of the large crack.