Chapter 391: Hunting Competition

Chapter 391 – The Hunting Competition
Cheng Shangling saw that she didn’t balk, and the smile on his face deepened.

“Right now there are still a few months before the Hunting Competition, you don’t have to be in a hurry to give me an answer. I will first tell you the rules.”

As the other party spoke to this point, Xu Chuniang naturally had no reason to refuse, so she patiently listened to his account.

Several hundred years ago, there was originally no such event as the Hunting and Killing Competition.

However, for as short as thirty to forty years, or as long as seventy to eighty years, every once in a while, the five islands of the Southern Line would still encounter the difficulties of the beast tide.

Although the frequency of the five southern line islands encountering beast tides was not as frequent as the medium and large islands.

But every time a beast tide hits, it is an extremely severe crisis for the five southern line islands.

In the past, there were a total of nine small islands in the southern line, four of which had already been annihilated in the beast tide, sinking into the sea forever.

In order to cut down the strength of these sea demon beasts, the surviving five islands of the southern line, led by Coral Island, organized the five island cultivators to hold a hunting competition.

Collecting the strength of the five islands’ cultivators, every ten years, they will go deep into the sea to kill the sea demon beasts.

More to kill the number of demonic beasts to score ranking, issued a generous reward.

This initiative greatly reduced the pressure of the beast tide, since the launch of the Hunting Competition, in the past five or six hundred years, the five islands of Nansha have only experienced three beast tides.

Moreover, these three beast tides were easier to resist than before.

This also led to the Zhan Clan, led by Coral Island, attaching more and more importance to the Hunting and Killing Competition.

Cheng Shangling said, a bitter smile appearing at the corner of his mouth.

“The ranking of this Hunting Competition is related to the allocation of sea areas among us cultivation families. If you rank high, you will have the right to prioritize the sea areas.

Seas like those near Coral Island that are rich in resources, it’s simply not our Cheng Family’s turn.”

Xu Chuniang was pondering, on this Nansha Island, the Cheng Family could still be among the three great families.

But Nansha Island is not prominent in the five islands, looking at the entire southern line of the five islands, large and small cultivation family, more than a dozen, there are a few not weak scattered cultivation forces, the Cheng family has also become rare.

Therefore wanting to compete for a good ranking in this hunting competition is not an easy task.

Ten foundation cultivators as a group, the Cheng family can only send out two teams to participate in the hunting competition, is already half lost.

Cheng Shangling saw the hesitation on the other party’s face and eased his tone.

“Little friend don’t worry, I naturally won’t force anyone. As long as you agree to participate in the competition, regardless of the ranking, the third floor of my Cheng Family’s Book Pavilion will be permanently open to you from now on.”

Cheng Shangling’s move was also something that could not be helped.

Apart from the old and weak, all of the Cheng Family’s Foundation Establishment Cultivators plus the guest ministers could barely make up two teams.

However, these cultivators were mostly early and mid Foundation Establishment cultivators, and only two of them were Foundation Establishment Perfection cultivators like Xu Chuniang.

This was also the reason why he valued the other party extraordinarily.

Xu Chuniang agreed, there was no reason for her not to agree to such generous conditions.

“Hahaha, I knew that Little Friend Xu, would definitely agree to do me this favor.”

Cheng Shangling laughed heartily, “Is this Spirit Tea something you’re used to eating? I still have some here, so I’ll give it to little friend.”

With that, he took out a packet of spirit tea and handed it over without any excuses.

Xu Chuniang couldn’t resist, so she had to take it, “Then I can go to the third floor of the Book Pavilion from today?”

Cheng Shangling nodded with a smile, and immediately took out his token and greeted the person guarding the Book Depository.

Both parties were quite satisfied with this result, Xu Chuniang put away the spirit tea, bid Cheng Shangling farewell and left the hall.

After she left, a handsome-looking youth stepped into the hall at an unknown time, and he looked towards his own grandfather with a somewhat worried expression on his face. “Grandfather, you’ve made such an exception and allowed an outsider to enter the third floor of the Book Pavilion, if she refuses to contribute in the Hunting Competition, what should we do?”

Cheng Shangling smiled as he took a sip of the long-cooled spirit tea, “I’m just taking a gamble.”

“Gambling?”

The youth froze, not expecting to hear such a reply.

“Rules are dead, people are alive. Qingjia ah, my Cheng family was once prosperous for a time in these Southern Line Nine Islands.

But now that my Cheng Family is deteriorating, if we still adhere to those old rules and don’t make changes, I’m afraid that in the future, the five islands of the Southern Line won’t be able to accommodate my Cheng Family.”

Cheng Shangling’s smile on his face had been withdrawn at some point, and his tone was heavy.

Cheng Qingjia was silent, suddenly understanding the reason why her grandfather did so.

“It’s grandchildren who are incompetent.”

Cheng Shangling shook his head, his eyes deep.

“Three feet of ice is not cold in a single day, the Cheng family has been passed down for too long, and has also been at ease for too long. If it wasn’t for Su Rong’s girl’s matter coming to me, I wouldn’t have known that there was infighting of such a nasty nature in the clan …… In short, a change has to be made.”

Cheng Qingjia was speechless, feeling the heavy burden on her body.

Outsiders looked at the Cheng family as honorable, but in reality the situation was not easy.

In the previous Hunting Competitions, the Cheng Family had achieved a bad ranking, and the sea resources they received were also the worst.

I only hoped that this time, grandpa would be able to make the right bet.

Xu Chuniang didn’t know about this conversation that happened after she left. After she returned to the Book Collection Pavilion, she went straight to the third floor, and it was really unobstructed.

After roughly scanning through the collection of books on the third floor, she sighed in her heart, compared to the collection of books on the two floors below, the ones here clearly contained more gold.

She found the bookshelf specializing in strange stories of the cultivation world and flipped through them one by one.

As such, half a month passed, Xu Chuniang finished going through the bone books on this entire shelf, and did not find a single word about the Dead Sea and the five northwestern sects.

On the contrary, there was a book that mentioned the black and white giant wheel that would eat people, somewhat resembling the eyes of the Evil Eye Beast.

Xu Chuniang put down the bone book in her hands with some regret and turned to the bookshelf that recorded formations.

The Cheng family’s collection of books was rich, and there were just as many bone books about formations, and there were even dozens of bone books that were related to teleportation formations.

Xu Chuniang’s heart stirred as she took one of them and flipped through it.

However, after reading this bone book from the beginning to the end, she realized that although the contents recorded inside were related to the transmission array, most of them were teaching people how to maintain the daily operation of the transmission array.

She put the bone book in her hand back to its original position, and then took the next one to look at it, but she saw that it was all about the repair method of the transmission array.

Xu Chuniang took a few more and realized that the contents were more or less the same.

They either talked about the precautions to be taken when using the teleportation array, or introduced the effects of various types of spirit stones on the teleportation array.

In short, none of the bone books mentioned the operating principles and key materials of the teleportation array.

Xu Chuniang frowned slightly, was it that the Cheng Family didn’t have any books on the subject, or that they had hidden such books away?

She preferred the first possibility.

This third floor of the Book Pavilion was originally only open to Cheng Family cultivators above the Foundation Establishment Stage, these people were the backbone of the Cheng Family, and there was no reason for the Cheng Family to hide the bone books away.

If this was indeed the case, then who had set up the teleportation array that the Cheng Family now possessed?
(End of chapter)