Chương 35: Prelude To Capital City's Attack.

Two days and two nights have passed since Ren Qingquan stayed in the royal library. That means it's already morning on the third day since Ren Qingquan arrived at the royal library. Except for eating and bathing at the nearby inn he rented, Ren Qingquan spent all his time at the royal library. Based on my estimate, I should be able to finish scanning all selected books around the afternoon of the fourth day since Ren Qingquan arrived at the library.

While I am scanning books and stalking others as usual, I saw that Ren Xuan has actually stopped flying. Right now, he's at a mountain where several mine entrances can be seen. At those entrances, a few busy miners are entering and leaving the mine. Watching him stealthily move toward one of the mine entrances without any miners, I became curious and focused my attention on him. After entering the mine, Ren Xuan placed his ears on the nearby stone wall while using some sort of technique to enhance his hearing.

He also pulled a bronze plate thingy filled with fancy engraving while calculating something with his fingers. I think I've seen that bronze plate thingy before on Earth. It should be called a geomantic compass or a feng shui compass. I don't know if it has the same name here, though. Once he finished calculating, Ren Xuan walked deeper into the mine tunnel while occasionally sticking his ear to the ground or wall and pulling the geomantic compass.

After a few minutes, he seemed satisfied with the location and stopped walking. Instead, he picked several items from his inner vest. He combined those items inside a hollow bamboo before placing a few pills inside the tube and closing it with a lid that has some sort of fuse. He stuck that bamboo at a protruding stone wall and ignited the fuse. Once the fuse caught fire, Ren Xuan immediately ran back to the entrance while using a martial arts technique that increased his speed.

Not long after Ren Xuan ran, the ground began to rumble as dust spewed out from most of the mine entrances. Seeing it, Ren Xuan nodded with satisfaction and flew to another place with his bird.

It took me a few moments to come to my senses. Did Ren Xuan just create a bomb? Furthermore, the explosion seems to have caused the mine tunnel to collapse! Just how powerful is the explosive force of that small bamboo tube? At the same time, I can also guess what weird thing he has been doing. It seems he's been looking for the place that'll cause the most damage when a bomb explodes. Then I recalled that there are still miners inside the mine. Ren Xuan has actually killed many innocent people indirectly!

I shuddered at his cold-bloodedness. All this time, Ren Qingquan has only been killing monsters to level up. Even then, he took a few days to get used to the death of living creatures by collecting points from the fish market. Compared to Ren Xuan, Ren Qingquan is still an innocent baby. As expected of a regressor. He might look young, but inside, he is probably an old fox that could kill others without batting an eye.

Once I calmed down after the slaughter Ren Xuan committed, I became curious about what he was planning by destroying the mine. Didn't he have a mission from his master to keep the Ren Family busy? Because of my curiosity, even after Ren Qingquan woke up, I still kept most of my attention to Ren Xuan while only mechanically scanning and copying the book in the library. For a few hours, Ren Xuan kept on destroying several mines before immediately fleeing using his bird.

When evening arrived, he had caused dozens of mines to collapse, killing god knows how many miners inside. After Ren Xuan finished collapsing another mine, I saw him mutter while fleeing toward the bird he had left.

"I guess I should stop here. By this time, the Ren Family should've responded and sent experts to their remaining mines. Collapsing this many mines should be enough to make them busy for a long time and fulfil my mission." Eh? So, those mines are the Ren Family's? After hearing Ren Xuan mutter to himself, the first thing that came to my mind was confusion. Then came a massive shock. The Ren Family actually owned several mines! No wonder they're filthy rich! I thought their main income came from the fish market.

But it seems the fish market is only a small part of their source of income. While I am still shocked at how wealthy the Ren Family might be, Ren Xuan has arrived at the place where he left the bird he borrowed from the Martial Spirit Sect.

"I suppose it's time for me to join the main event." Ren Xuan hopped into his bird and flew into the distance. What main event? I subconsciously asked myself before realising Ren Xuan should've been talking about the rebellion. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Is the rebellion going to start soon? Should I warn Ren Qingquan about it? Then, I looked at the expansive royal library that I haven't finished scanning.

Perhaps waiting a bit longer should be alright. Not scanning the remaining books is such a waste. With that in mind, I continued scanning the library while occasionally watching Ren Xuan, Ren Shiluo, and other Martial Emperors for news. When night fell, I had scanned more than eighty percent of the books I had selected. At this time, Ren Qingquan is sleeping on a desk while Xiao Cai is reading a romance novel like before. As for me, I am scanning some books while spying on others.

Just like before, Ren Xuan is still flying toward a specific direction. Because he has been destroying the Ren Family's mines, which should be located around the Burning Sky City, I can approximately compare his direction through the sun's location and found he's moving toward the Capital City. I also briefly checked the other Martial Emperors and paused at the [Scan] placed on the female Martial Emperor I found at the east market. Right now, she has stopped training.

Instead, she held a messenger bird with a small paper on its leg. Occasionally, she would scratch her head with a troubled look. Because she occasionally pulled the bird close to herself, the [Scan] I placed on her could reach the bird's leg, where the message is located. In the tube with an intricate mechanism attached to the bird's leg, there's a neatly rolled piece of paper. Because of the paper's small size, the message is actually extremely short.

It only says 'Gather before midnight at the Vice Sect Master's location.' Although it didn't mention a specific location, with the mention of Vice Sect Master, I couldn't help but think about the Martial Spirit Sect. It appears that the female Martial Emperor is a member of the Martial Spirit Sect. It also means the Martial Spirit Sect has assigned the Martial Emperor to the Capital City and plans to gather there tonight.

Since there might be crucial intelligence regarding the rebellion, I have decided to concentrate my attention on her. As I watched her fiddling with the messenger bird, a man arrived at her courtyard. The female Martial Emperor looked at the person who had just arrived. With a cold, expressionless face, she handed the messenger bird to the man.

"Open the message. I forgot how to open the sect's messenger bird without breaking the item inside." The man in front of her looked dumbfounded, but he still picked up the messenger bird. After fiddling with the tube on the bird's leg, the man successfully pulled out a small piece of paper and gave it to the female Martial Emperor. She read the paper and looked at the moon. Then she turned towards the man standing next to her and handed him the paper.

While the man read it, the female Martial Emperor said, "Bring me there. I forgot the location." The man rolled his eyes, "Peak Master, I think you seriously need to consider changing your Martial Arts Method. Don't you think the side effects of the Forgetful Fragrance Method are too extreme? Your memory has actually become this bad." The Martial Emperor looked coldly, "Just lead the way as you're supposed to. We've talked about it before. I trained in this method because I have things I wanted to forget."

The man sighed, but still led the female Martial Emperor to move toward the west. On the other hand, I am a bit dumbfounded after hearing their conversation. The female Martial Emperor seems to have some sad backstory. But I am not that interested in it. Instead, the fact that there's actually a martial art method that could cause dementia piqued my curiosity. I've copied that method and marked it. It may be useful later.

The female Martial Emperor followed the man into a huge courtyard with a pond in the inner garden. In a corner of the garden, there's a gazebo about a dozen metres wide, with a pagoda-like roof. When the female Martial Empress saw a few figures inside the gazebo, she ran there with the man who had been leading her. In the gazebo, there were three women and five men of varying ages. The youngest looked like a woman in her early twenties, while the oldest was an old man already half a step into the coffin.

One of them is someone I've seen before. He's a Martial Emperor that I've anchored with [Scan] while Ren Qingquan checked the South Market. I suspect that every one of them is a Martial Emperor associated with the Martial Spirit Sect. When the female Martial Emperor arrived, everyone simply nodded at each other before falling silent. As time went on, another new figure arrived, followed by a frowning middle-aged man holding several scrolls under his arm, who entered together with a teenage boy with white hair.

When the middle aged man and the boy appeared, everyone saluted them, "Greetings, sect master and vice sect master!" The white haired boy waved his hand casually.

"There's no need to waste time with useless chatter, so I'll immediately get to the point." The white haired boy spoke. After the white haired boy spoke, the middle aged man explained, "I've received a report from the weapon peak's master, the medicine peak master, and the beast taming peak master. They said they had successfully caused trouble for the Yuan, Ren, and Lin families, respectively. That means, for a few days, the three great families wouldn't be able to send reinforcement to the capital."

"We have also caused extra chaos for the Ren family, who are suspected of having caught news of our rebellion. That way, the force they have gathered will be spent on fixing the trouble in their territory." Some of the Martial Emperors nod at the middle-aged man's explanation.

"Here is the plan for your respective force." The middle-aged man gave the scrolls in his hand to the Martial Emperors. Everyone read the scrolls they're given. I also peek at a few scrolls with curiosity. They contain various plans, such as activating spies within the city guards to block the city, assassinating several Martial Emperors in the city, causing chaos among the great families in the capital that have Martial Emperors, and other missions and information.

Additionally, there is a general plan to conquer the palace and dethrone the current emperor. For instance, they have controlled the Second Prince using both soft and hard means, and plan to install him as a puppet emperor after killing the current emperor and crown prince. At the gazebo. After a few minutes, everyone raised their head. When the white-haired boy saw that everyone had finished reading, he spread his arms wide.

"The time for our Martial Spirit Sect to regain control of the world has come close. Let's start our great cause immediately! We've delayed things for too long because of the Ren Family's suspicious move." After speaking with a high spirit, the boy added, "Don't let anything leave the city. I've deployed our Sect's spirit tool, the Heavenly Parasol, to hide the heavenly secret in the capital. As long as no one leaves, we'll be able to delay any response from people outside the capital."

"Yes, Sect Master!" Everyone, including the female Martial Emperor, left the gazebo to finish their respective missions. When I saw it, I cursed aloud. Damn it! They're planning to start the rebellion right now!