The Elven Cultivator

At the edge of the training grounds.

Kalefin and the rest of the delegation stared at each other, their faces filled with shock and disbelief.

As onlookers, they had seen it clearly.

In that last strike, Anton had obviously held back.

Otherwise, with the speed of that pure white Sword Qi, Daniels wouldn't have even had time to react before being killed instantly.

But this realization only sent greater shockwaves through them, increasing their astonishment rather than diminishing it.

Daniels was a 'Shining Star'!

Even in the Jade Royal Court, which was teeming with geniuses, Daniels ranked among the top of the younger generation.

Yet he had been defeated in a single exchange.

Anyone who wasn't blind could see that their strengths were on completely different levels.

'Just who is this young Elf named Anton?'

Kalefin subconsciously glanced at the Great Elder, only to find him calm, a faint smile even playing on his lips, as if he had expected this outcome all along.

In the center of the training grounds, Anton's expression was nonchalant, as if he had just done something trivial.

He gave Daniels a slight nod. "Thank you for the match," he said calmly.

With that, he nodded to the three elders and promptly turned to leave.

He was in a hurry to get back and continue his comprehension of the near-divine technique.

Daniels stood rooted to the spot, staring blankly at the departing figure.

He suddenly understood why the onlookers had been looking at him with pity.

'They probably knew all along that I was no match for Anton.'

'My self-satisfied expression, so sure of victory... in their eyes, I must have looked no different from a circus clown.'

At this thought, Daniels's face flushed crimson. He felt as if the gazes of the Elves around him were filled with ridicule and contempt, and even the air seemed thick with mockery.

Even in the Jade Royal Court, he had never suffered such a crushing defeat.

Kalefin watched Anton's figure disappear at the end of the arboreal corridor before finally coming to his senses.

He took a deep breath, suppressing the storm in his heart, and turned to the Great Elder.

"Elder Leonard, your Clan is truly full of talented individuals."

The Great Elder smiled faintly, his tone serene. "Lord Kalefin, you flatter us. Our Clan can't compare to the constant stream of geniuses from the Royal Court. Anton is just a special case."

"If I may be so bold, at what age did Anton advance to the Golden Tier?" Kalefin couldn't help but ask.

The Great Elder didn't hide it, smiling as he replied, "Before he was eighty."

Kalefin's heart trembled.

'A Golden Tier before the age of eighty!'

With that kind of aptitude, he would be guaranteed a place in the Saint Star sequence in the Jade Royal Court.

He might even be more outstanding than most Saint Stars.

'How could a remote clan like the Silver Moon Race possibly cultivate a genius of this caliber?'

Kalefin was filled with a mix of emotions. After a long moment, he finally managed to say, "Your Clan is truly... full of hidden masters."

The Great Elder just smiled and didn't respond.

He naturally saw through Kalefin's true purpose for suggesting the spar.

Putting Anton forward was precisely to awe the Jade Royal Court, to increase the Silver Moon Race's standing, and to ensure the other party wouldn't be so high and mighty in their future cooperation.

Kalefin collected his thoughts and shook his head with a wry smile.

'He had proposed the spar to intimidate the Silver Moon Race, but instead, his side had been the one to get a huge shock. A classic case of the biter getting bit.'

The only upside was that perhaps it had taught the ever-arrogant Daniels that there was always someone stronger, lest he continue to look down on Clan Elves from outside the Royal Court.

Kalefin glanced at Daniels, who was still standing there looking as if his soul had left his body, and sighed inwardly.

"A bet is a bet. Starting this year, your Clan may trade for five ounces of Moonlight Spiritual Liquid from the Royal Court annually."

"Thank you," the Great Elder said with a smile.

...

The matter with the Royal Court's delegation was just a minor interlude; Anton quickly put it out of his mind.

He remained immersed in his cultivation and in comprehending the Dark Heavy Water.

Beyond that, he was engrossed in studying the Heart Demon Guide.

Occasionally, he would take time out to hunt members of the Dragon Race or make a trip to the Dark Nether Realm.

Marcus's death had enraged Kresol Dragon City, which subsequently took a series of swift and decisive actions.

First, they dispatched a consul to personally oversee Bishui Port and preside over the capture and annihilation of the Fallen Dragon Association.

Faced with a consul from Dragon City, the Fallen Dragon Association, which had been acting out frequently since Marcus's death, had no choice but to lay low again.

They even withdrew most of their personnel from Bishui Port, relocating them to other towns.

Second, Kresol Dragon City adjusted the distribution of its garrisoned forces along the Dragon's Fang defensive line.

In addition to rebuilding the destroyed military outposts, they also increased the number of troops stationed at each one.

Furthermore, four consuls were assigned to oversee the eastern, western, southern, and northern sectors of the Dragon's Fang line, able to support each other from a distance.

If any outpost on any front was attacked, a consul could rush to the scene.

For Kresol Dragon City, this was an unprecedented move.

In the past, the consuls of Dragon City were lofty figures who always remained in Dragon City to strategize from the rear.

But now, the Fallen Dragon Association—or rather, a single person—had forced them to dispatch multiple consuls to oversee various locations.

It was enough to make many people's jaws drop.

Along with this, Canglan's fame grew even further.

At the same time, the bounty Kresol Dragon City had placed on Canglan skyrocketed to an unprecedented two hundred thousand Gold Coins.

Unfortunately, it was destined to be a sum that was only there for show.

No matter how arrogant or foolhardy, no Adventurer or Mercenary would be stupid enough to go after a monster who could kill a consul-in-training and leave Dragon City helpless.

As for the Dark Nether Realm, the Mind Flayer city-state still hadn't discovered the existence of the rift.

The warning Array set up at the rift's exit showed no signs of being triggered.

However, Anton did not let his guard down.

Whenever he re-entered the Dark Nether Realm, he would first send his Five Camp Divine Soldiers out of the rift to scout the surroundings for ambushes before stepping out himself.

It was no wonder he was so cautious; after all, this was their territory.

Besides, the Mind Flayers' cunning was infamous in the Dark Nether Realm.

Only the Dark Elves could compete with them in that regard.

Anton still avoided the Mind Flayer city-state, merely clearing out Stone-blind Barbarian Race patrol squads in the surrounding area and occasionally raiding mining veins.

His guerrilla tactics drove the Mind Flayer city-state to distraction, leaving them furious.

On one occasion, they had even dispatched five Golden Peak High Tier Mind Flayers to hunt him down at once.

Unfortunately, faced with his Sword Escape, they returned empty-handed every time, quickly shaken off by Anton after a brief chase.

Perhaps realizing they were helpless against Anton, the Mind Flayer elder brain soon changed its strategy. It stopped paying him any mind, decisively abandoned most of its mining veins, and consolidated its forces, leaving only a few important veins, including the Mithril mine, under heavy guard.

Each mining vein was overseen by a Golden Peak High Tier Mind Flayer.

Now, it was Anton's turn to be stumped.

No matter which vein he attacked, unless he could quickly eliminate the overseeing High Tier Mind Flayer, he would be tied down, and the Mind Flayer city-state would soon send reinforcements.

As for the veins the Mind Flayers had abandoned, he had no way to mine them for the time being either.

Otherwise, the tables would be turned in an instant.

For a while, he couldn't think of any good solution.

And so, the two sides reached a stalemate.

From this, however, Anton was able to roughly gauge the strength of the Mind Flayer city-state.

They most likely didn't have a Mind Flayer elder.

Otherwise, one would have shown up to hunt Anton down long ago.

As for their Golden Peak combatants, excluding the one who had died by his sword, he estimated there were no more than ten.

Frankly, that was already a very strong lineup.

In terms of top-tier combat power alone, if the Mind Flayer city-state were placed on the Eldron Plain, it would be strong enough to crush any power other than Kresol Dragon City.

The extremely harsh living conditions of the Dark Nether Realm meant that fighting and competition were a constant reality.

The dark Law of the jungle had given birth to countless apex predators in this vast subterranean world.

Therefore, although the number of sentient beings in the Dark Nether Realm was far less than on the surface world, the number of top-tier combatants was by no means inferior.

When adventuring in the Dark Nether Realm, one could run into a powerful Golden Tier, or even Legendary Tier, existence at any moment.

If Anton didn't have Sword Escape and a thorough familiarity with the Dark Nether Realm, he wouldn't dare to run around recklessly either.

All in all, due to the changes from both Dragon City and the Mind Flayer city-state, Anton had to temporarily halt his hunting and exploration, turning more of his energy toward cultivation, comprehending Cultivation Techniques, and researching the Heart Demon Guide.

...

「Spring passed into autumn, flowers bloomed and fell.」

Outside the treehouse window, the Honeybell Tree had unknowingly added several more rings to its trunk.

Chenxi Calendar, year 9340, late autumn.

Anton successfully broke through to the Fifth-Layer Foundation Establishment, his Cultivation Level advancing another step.

The True Essence in his Qi Sea reached fifty percent capacity, and the range of his Divine Sense expanded further.

His control over his sword light also became more adept; he could faintly touch the threshold of splitting it into eight.

He estimated that after a little more time, his Light Splitting and Reunification technique would break through to the next stage.

At that point, his combat power would take another leap forward.

In addition, his comprehension of Dark Heavy Water had also progressed considerably.

Although he still hadn't managed to condense the first drop of Dark Heavy Water, Anton had faintly grasped the crux of this near-divine technique.

What made him even happier was that he had finally succeeded in refining the Heart Demon Guide.

The treehouse, in the Alchemy Room.

The soft light of the Light Source Stone illuminated the entire room, and a faint medicinal fragrance permeated the air.

Anton sat cross-legged before a long table, gazing at a Pill in his palm.

The Pill Body was no bigger than a longan, its entirety a deep, inky black. A faint luster flowed across its surface, like a solidified night sky.

What was even stranger was the faint mist churning slowly within the Pill, sometimes coalescing into a blurry silhouette, other times dissolving into nothingness, like a miniature patch of chaos.

Anton took just a slight whiff of the medicinal aroma, and his mind was instantly flooded with distracting thoughts, his concentration wavering for a moment.

He quickly held his breath and focused his mind, circulating his True Essence to regain his clarity.

"The Heart Demon Guide is truly something else. Its effects are so potent."

The Heart Demon Guide was the most difficult Pill Anton had ever refined.

From researching substitute materials to successfully refining the first one, the entire process had taken him a full eight years.

He had used up two-thirds of the Mind Flayer brains he had on hand.

Fortunately, the results were gratifying.

Looking at the deep, dark Pill in his palm, a flicker of eagerness flashed in Anton's eyes.

'With the Heart Demon Guide, I can finally begin to temper my Dao heart.'

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