MARTIAL PEAK 5082

As for who Zha Gu wanted to monitor news in the Black Ink Nest for a long time, it was not something Yang Kai needed to pay attention to. He had dozens of Black Ink Clan subordinates, but they were not very strong and only a few of them were comparable to Sixth Order Open Heaven Stage masters.

Presumably, the person monitoring the news was one of these High Rank Black Ink Clan.

“Let’s go and look elsewhere,” Zha Gu called out before leading Yang Kai forward.

After a short while, they arrived at a deeper chamber. This chamber was obviously huge and occupied almost half of the space inside the Black Ink Nest. Around the chamber, the flesh walls were squirming, and in the middle of it was a pond-like object that was more than a dozen zhang in diameter and filled with a rich Ink Force.

Zha Gu came directly to the side of the pool and stared at it, solemnly saying, “Black Ink Pond can be said to be the source of life for my Black Ink Clan.”

Black Ink Pond!

Yang Kai’s brow rose slightly as he stared at the pool in a daze, but he didn’t see anything profound about it, nor did he understand what Zha Gu meant by the source of life.

However, he soon understood.

Zha Gu suddenly took out a large number of materials from his Space Ring and threw them into the Black Ink Pond without hesitation. These materials were of different grades, but even if a human cultivator took them, they could still be absorbed and refined to enhance their own foundation.

When the many materials were poured into the Black Ink Pond, it was as if hot oil had been poured into a pool of clear water, causing the originally silent Ink Force to boil.

Not only that, but the entire Black Ink Pond seemed to have transformed into the giant mouth of a ferocious beast. From the inside, a series of cracking sounds could be heard, as if invisible fangs were chewing on the materials that had been dropped.

The materials of various grades were quickly crushed and absorbed.

Immediately after, streams of energy began flowing out from the ground around the pool.

Yang Kai stared at the flowing energy in surprise and saw that it was pouring into the walls of the cavity. As the energy poured in, the already bumpy walls of flesh bulged like lumps.

An aura of life was rapidly growing from the lumps.

Yang Kai was stunned.

More and more lumps appeared, and in less than an hour, when Zha Gu had poured all of his supplies into the Black Ink Pond, hundreds of new lumps had appeared in the surrounding walls of the chamber, each of them containing a brand new life aura.

Yang Kai couldn’t help feeling his scalp go numb as he calmly asked, “Brother Zha Gu, these are…”

Zha Gu smiled slightly, “In a month or two, these will all be people in my territory!”

Sure enough! Although he had long known that the Black Ink Clan was born from the Black Ink Nest, knowing about it and seeing it with his own eyes was another matter.

So this was how the Black Ink Clan was born. The life auras in these lumps were clearly from the Black Ink Clan.

According to Zha Gu’s words, it would only take one or two months to nurture these Black Ink Clan. This speed was simply astonishing.

Zha Gu’s Black Ink Nest had yet to fully form, and he himself had said that he didn’t have enough resources on hand, he needed to use them for other purposes. In the future, when he had more resources, he would then catalyze the growth of the Black Ink Nest.

Even if it wasn’t fully formed, it could still give birth to hundreds of Black Ink Clan at once. According to Yang Kai’s estimations, if it was fully formed, as long as he had enough resources, he should be able to give birth to thousands of Black Ink Clan.

A month or two was equivalent to a thousand, a year was equivalent to seven or eight thousand, ten years was equivalent to seventy or eighty thousand, and a hundred years later was equivalent to a hundred thousand!

Of course, a Feudal Lord shouldn’t have so many resources to squander, but even so, this number was still terrifying.

It was no wonder that the Black Ink Clan had been able to squander their manpower endlessly. Each time a great war broke out, the Black Ink Clan would be forced to retreat and suffer countless casualties, but after tens or even hundreds of years of rest and recuperation, the Black Ink Clan would be able to make a comeback, their numbers not decreasing in the slightest.

The Black Ink Nest’s method of breeding the Black Ink Clan was the most fundamental reason.

Realizing this, Yang Kai’s mood couldn’t help becoming heavy as he asked solemnly, “Brother Zha Gu, what kind of strength do these newly born Black Ink Clan have?”

Zha Gu said, “The newly born Black Ink Clan is naturally very weak and can’t be of much use. If they want to grow to the level of a Low Rank Black Ink Clan, it will take at least a few dozen years, two or three hundred years, and very few of them will be able to reach the High Rank Black Ink Clan. After that, it will depend on their own luck.”

Yang Kai nodded slightly. From the looks of it, although this growth period was much faster than that of the Human Race, it wasn’t too difficult to accept. It would take several dozen years to reach the level of a Low Rank Black Ink Clan, which was equivalent to a Low Rank Open Heaven. Such strength wouldn’t be of much use on the battlefield, at most being used as cannon fodder by their Feudal Lord to exhaust the strength of the Human Race’s masters.

“A qualified Feudal Lord must at least recruit three thousand battleable Black Ink Clan when the Territory Lord goes out to battle. It’s still too early for me, I’m afraid I’ll have to wait hundreds or thousands of years.”

Three thousand battleable Black Ink Clan, and at least half of them had to be High Rank Black Ink Clan masters. Moreover, they needed High Rank Black Ink Clan masters comparable to Fifth Order or Sixth Order masters, or else they would only be sending battle merits to the Human Race.

According to the growth cycle of the Black Ink Clan, if Zha Gu wanted to meet this requirement, he would indeed need to wait hundreds or thousands of years, otherwise, the Black Ink Clan under his command would not be able to grow.

Yang Kai silently calculated for a moment. A Feudal Lord with a fief could recruit three thousand Black Ink Clan during a war, and the Black Abyss Territory Lord had over a thousand Feudal Lord under his command, but less than ten percent of them had fiefs. In other words, just Black Abyss’s subordinates alone could gather thirty to forty thousand Black Ink Clan, and this was only one Territory Lord.

Which Royal Lord didn’t have dozens of Territory Lords under his command? Once the Royal Lord summoned an army, the Black Ink Clan in one of the war zones would easily be able to mobilize millions of troops and invade the human race mountain passes.

On the other hand, the Human Race’s various mountain passes had endured countless years of hard work under the harsh contrast of their forces.

In terms of manpower, they were at an absolute disadvantage. The Palace Artifact was the most important artifact that the Human Race relied on, and it was also the Human Race’s unique advantage. If this advantage was broken by the Black Ink Clan, the Human Race’s mountain pass would probably be broken.

Yang Kai suddenly felt a heavy weight on his shoulders.

After experiencing the wonders of the Black Ink Nest’s will and seeing the mysteries of the Black Ink Pond, Yang Kai had thoroughly understood its secrets.

Afterwards, under Zha Gu’s lead, they walked through the rest of the Black Nest.

After half a day, the two of them left the Black Ink Nest.

Zha Gu’s mood was obviously still somewhat excited. After all, his dream of many years had finally come true, so he was naturally overjoyed. This was also the reason why he had brought Yang Kai to visit the Black Ink Nest. He was happy and eager to share with others, and Yang Kai was the only one available.

“Ah, that’s right, Brother Yang will be refining artifacts over there in the future!” Zha Gu didn’t forget about his business. After all, the reason he was able to obtain this piece of land was greatly related to Yang Kai’s Artifact Refining.

Saying so, he pointed in a certain direction.

Yang Kai looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a giant star in the void.

“That was originally a Great Sun Star. Although it has long since been extinguished, it should still contain the Great Sun’s Fire, which should be of great help to Brother Yang’s Artifact Refining,” Zha Gu explained.

The reason why he had chosen to hatch the Black Nest in this Universe World was mainly because it was not far from the Great Sun Star, making it convenient for him to travel.

“Great Sun Star!” Yang Kai raised his brow. The so-called Great Sun Star was undoubtedly the Sun, which naturally gave birth to the Great Sun Fire.

“That’s right,” Zha Gu nodded, “I don’t know much about Artifact Refining, Brother Yang can go to the Great Sun Star to find a suitable place for Artifact Refining, I won’t accompany you there. The Black Nest in this fief has just hatched and needs to be taken care of.”

“It’s fine, I’ll go myself,” Yang Kai nodded.

“Take this, it’s an artifact refining material provided by a guest. It contains his request, so just do as he says. After I settle down here, I’ll go visit you,” Zha Gu said as he handed a Space Ring to Yang Kai.

Yang Kai took it and used his Divine Sense to examine it. He found that there were indeed materials for artifact refining inside, but there was quite a lot of them. It seemed that there was more than just one thing to refine. There was also a jade slip inside, which should be the customer’s request.

After bidding farewell to Zha Gu, Yang Kai flew straight towards the Great Sun Star.

In less than two hours, they arrived at the Great Sun Star.

When Yang Kai first entered the 3000 Worlds, he had encountered a dying Great Sun Star, and the Golden Crow True Fire he had used to condense in his Dao Seal had also been obtained from the Great Sun Star. Because of this, he had become entangled with the Proprietress, Lan Youruo, and in the blink of an eye, so many years had passed.

Back then, he had encountered a Great Sun Star that was on the verge of death, but now, the one in front of him had died a long time ago.

Although the sun had died, its surface was still emitting a lingering heat. The entire world was filled with the scene of magma surging and solidifying, and there were even many places that were emitting an unpleasant smell.

The environment was undoubtedly extremely harsh and ordinary people would find it difficult to survive in such a place, but Yang Kai was already a Seventh Order, so such an environment was still bearable.

In fact, with the power of his Golden Crow True Fire, there was no need for him to rely on external forces when refining artifacts. It was just that borrowing external forces would yield twice the result with half the effort, so many Artifact Refiners liked to borrow external forces when refining artifacts, and so did Alchemists.

After flying around the sun for a while, Yang Kai soon found a suitable location. It was like the mouth of a volcano, leading straight into the depths of the earth. Yang Kai flew straight in and soon found himself blocked by the solidified magma.

Summoning his Azure Dragon Spear, Yang Kai pushed his strength to the limit, breaking through the roadblock and diving deeper.

The further down he went, the more Yang Kai felt a terrifying heat wave sweep over him. Not long after, he fell into the burning magma.

From this, it could be seen that although this sun had been dead for an unknown period of time, the power within it had not completely dissipated.

This is also convenient for him to refine artifacts.

Passing through the blockade of the magma, Yang Kai went all the way to the Earth Core before forcefully opening a space with his own strength.

This was already the deepest part of the Great Sun Star and was the most convenient place to use it. Yang Kai looked around and was quite satisfied.

TO BE CONTINUED...