Chapter 156: Chapter 123 Possession! Tao Foundation Clone
After resolving the matters with the teachers and students of the Martial Arts Hall, Zhao Yu led his team forward.
Soon someone brought him a message, and he immediately ordered the team to change their route. They would not head towards the West City Gate anymore but towards Kaiping District.
The Governance Hall building was in Kaiping District, and the main force of the City Guard Army had already rushed over there.
Zhao Yu’s target this time was not to assassinate Gu Zhenhui or to bloodbath the Governance Hall.
Killing a bunch of officials offered him no benefits whatsoever; it would instead severely provoke the court.
His real target was the City Guard Army!
This was also the basis of his cooperation with the Tiger Saber Gang. Right from the start, they had no intention of using the Calming Sect to directly assassinate Gu Zhenhui and his line of officials. That would leave traces far too conspicuous; even with the Calming Sect taking the blame, the Tiger Saber Gang would find it hard to escape involvement.
Hence, both parties had the same objective: the City Guard Army.
Without the City Guard Army, Gu Zhenhui would lose his deterrence in Xing City. As for Zhao Yu, what he wanted were the military officers within the City Guard Army!
Initially, when the Calming Sect and the Tiger Saber Gang jointly designed the plot against the four official martial masters of the Zhi Ge Court, the Tiger Saber Gang’s goal was to eliminate Lu Sheng, allowing Huang Weiguang to step down in order to opportunistically place their own people and take complete control of the Inspection Bureau. Beyond that, the planned victims like Wang Ping were official martial masters who had not sided with Yan Yichen, and removing them in advance facilitated the smooth progression of today’s plan.
It was indeed killing several birds with one stone.
What the Calming Sect or, in other words, Zhao Yu wanted were those four official martial masters themselves.
Zhao Yu indeed intended to train as a Devilish Martial Master, so he needed the bodies of strong individuals. However, becoming a Devilish Martial Master was only one aspect; his primary objective was to enhance his own strength.
He shared the same belief as Yu Hu: in this world, only one’s own strength is the most reliable!
Zhao Yu wasn’t practicing Martial Arts but Magic.
Martial Arts and Magic were two different paths, but they essentially both involved the use of Implants. To practice Magic, one must first implant the corresponding Implant into their brain. The first two stages of practicing Magic, like Martial Arts, encompass the Embryo Cultivation Stage and the Body Breaking Stage.
Magicians in the Body Breaking Stage could employ instruments and special materials to cast Magic. Ascending one step further, Mages in the Divine Transformation Stage could mutate their spiritual power, allowing them to cast Magic directly without the aid of external objects.
Beforehand, Zhao Yu was a peak Divine Transformation Stage Mage, and he took huge risks to procure the bodies of the four official martial masters to help him break through to the next realm—the Possession Stage!
For Martial Artists, the Tao Foundation Stage involves incorporating more Implants internally to cultivate the Martial Arts Foundation. In contrast, for Magic, the Possession Stage involves controlling more Implants externally to create Lifebound Magic Items, marking a fundamental difference between the two.
By chance, Zhao Yu had obtained a top-grade third-class Implant known as “Corpse Cluster,” which was a Magic-type Implant with a Mutant Attribute—the Dark Attribute.
However, a top-grade third-class Implant was too powerful to be used for initial training, so Zhao Yu could only wait until he reached the peak of the Divine Transformation Stage and then use “Corpse Cluster” to break through to the Possession Stage.
The extraordinary ability of “Corpse Cluster” came with two aspects: one was the control of corpses, and the other was the strengthening of corpses.
Therefore, to break through to the Possession Stage with “Corpse Cluster,” the most crucial requirement was to have the corpse of a strong individual, which had to have died within 24 hours and be well-preserved.
During that battle, it just happened that Wang Ping committed suicide, and his Cultivation was the highest among the four, being at the peak of the Qi Change Stage. Thus, Zhao Yu used “Corpse Cluster” on Wang Ping’s body.
For Martial Artists to fully develop the Martial Arts Foundation, the challenge was immense; the key issue being that the human body had its limits. Most people simply couldn’t bear so many Implants, and there could be conflicts between different Implants which, if even slightly mishandled, could cause severe damage to the body.
The “Corpse Cluster” Implant, on the other hand, took a different approach. Since there are limits to being human, why not cease to be one?
Directly turning a person into a corpse and then using the corpse to cultivate the Martial Arts Foundation—wouldn’t that solve the problem?
After all, if a person is already dead, there’s no fear of being killed again through cultivation.
Although Zhao Yu did not practice Martial Arts, he could use the corpses controlled by “Corpse Cluster” to create his Martial Arts Avatars, which also function as his Possession Stage Magic Artifacts.
Once he cultivated “Corpse Cluster” within Wang Ping’s body to maturity and merged it with the latter’s Red Qilin Implant, he officially stepped into the Possession Stage and became a Great Mage!
Before his death, Wang Ping had reached the peak of the Innate Qi Stage. Upon integrating the “Corpse Cluster” Implant, influenced by it, his body’s strength greatly increased. And with the Chi Lin Power blending with a new Innate Qi, he further strengthened, officially reaching the Tao Foundation Stage in terms of combat power.
Thus, the ‘Magic Artifact’ of Zhao Yu, the Possession Stage Great Mage, is a Tao Foundation Avatar!
Leveraging this powerful avatar, Zhao Yu was able to easily subdue the bandits in the Qiuping Mountain Range and gained the confidence to re-enter Xing City.
After about ten minutes, the team entered Kaiping District.
At this moment, there was not a single person on the streets. The upper-class dwellers of Kaiping District had long since received the news and gone into hiding.
Looking at the cobblestone-paved streets and one exquisite building after another, the bandits in the team began to breathe more heavily, itching to move.
Kaiping District was the wealthiest area in the entirety of Xing City. Just breaking into a noble’s home for plunder was enough to sustain these bandits for a year!
“Do not wander off, keep moving forward!”
Sensing the restiveness in the crowd, Zhao Yu immediately released another Magic.