Chapter 98: Temple of Heaven Mountain

Lu Sheng joined the group leisurely browsing the stalls. Along the way, he watched the cards displayed at each booth: cultivation resources, materials, special cards, card blueprints, weapon schematics, hidden weapons, traps... The variety was dazzling, and when he came across card blueprints, Lu Sheng thought of Wang Xian. After all, Wang Xian was a card maker under his command; nurturing his abilities would only benefit Lu Sheng. Whenever he saw card blueprints—mostly for traps or function-type cards—he bought them. None were of a high grade, which was just right for Wang Xian.

The cards Wang Xian crafted would also be sold at the settlement, allowing people there to purchase and use them, thereby strengthening the community. After making a round, there was only one thing that truly caught Lu Sheng's attention: a card with a special ability.

[Monster Fusion Card]
Quality: Green
Rank: Second Tier
Function: Allows two monster cards of up to green quality to fuse, creating a new monster. The more compatible their attributes, the lower the chance of failure.

This was quite interesting. Lu Sheng bought it to set aside until the Bloodthirsty Mosquito matured and advanced in rank. Then he would see which two monster cards to use it on.

After the stroll, Lu Sheng found a spot in the camp and set up his tent. Today’s escape had cost him dearly—he’d lost five goblins and five frogmen. Even with the suicide technique, it required a moment’s reaction time; if they were instantly killed, there was not even time for self-destruction.

He swapped to his main body, bringing back the cards he’d acquired, as well as those he had bought. Summoning Green Strength to watch over his clone, his consciousness returned to his original form. With the cards in hand, he planned to deliver them to Wang Xian.

But before he could head out, someone knocked on his door.

Knock, knock, knock!

Creak—

Lu Sheng opened the door to find Wang Xian standing outside, dressed in red with a veil over her face.

“What brings you here today?” Lu Sheng was curious; usually, it was Nuan Nuan who came by.

“What, am I not allowed?” Wang Xian retorted, then said, “Thank you for the cultivation resources. I’ve successfully advanced to the third tier. Here are the tenfold fertility cards you requested.”

She extended her fair arm, balancing a stack of tenfold fertility cards on her palm.

Lu Sheng accepted them calmly, stopping Wang Xian as she turned to leave. “Wait... Here are some card blueprints I’ve collected. Take them.”

A card maker’s progress came from practice; once they mastered crafting a certain card, they needed new blueprints to keep improving and create higher-level cards.

Wang Xian accepted them, thanking him sincerely. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to make so many tenfold fertility cards right now. Ten per day is enough. I have plenty on hand, so there’s no need to use up all the materials at once.” Lu Sheng now had more than enough of those cards and didn’t need Wang Xian to keep making them in bulk.

Wang Xian agreed and left.

Another day passed.

Unfortunately, the rapid development device couldn’t be used; otherwise, he could have harvested a batch of Bloodthirsty Mosquitoes tonight.

The next morning, Lu Sheng rose early. In this world, sleeping in was unheard of—there was no nightlife, so who had the luxury of oversleeping?

He mounted his White Cloud Horse and left the wilderness camp, heading for Tiantan Mountain.

An hour later, Lu Sheng arrived at Tiantan Mountain. The summit was flat, with a raised circular center—like an altar—which was how it got its name.

At the foot of the mountain, a crowd had gathered. Lu Sheng counted at least three hundred people, and that was just at the base.

But this was not surprising. Tiantan Mountain was always bustling, even without the White-Flame Blue-Scaled Bird.

The entire mountain was special: every day, numerous dungeons would descend here, resulting in a concentration of monsters, which attracted many wilderness hunters. Moreover, the altar at the summit was said to have the power to advance a monster’s quality.

The process, however, required placing a monster on the altar to duel with others of the same rank. Through continued victories, and by absorbing the blood essence of countless foes, the monster could eventually increase in quality. But there was a catch: once placed, a monster could not be retrieved or descend until it had evolved. The altar demanded an endless stream of opponents, and only when the final victor had gathered enough energy would its quality be raised.

The altar cared nothing for who the interim victors were; it only stored the accumulated advancement energy for the last survivor. It was very much like raising venomous insects in a jar: monsters of the same rank fought to the death, and only when enough energy was collected would the last survivor ascend in quality.

There were also restrictions.

The altar allowed only green-quality monsters, meaning that the highest one could achieve was blue quality. The difficulty was immense. Once, a top faction from outside this wilderness experimented: to raise a first-tier green monster to blue required ten thousand; for second-tier, about five thousand; for third-tier, about two thousand.

After reaching this point, even the top factions shook their heads and left, losing interest in Tiantan Mountain. The cost was too high, and the reward too small—hardly worth the effort.

Capturing green-quality monsters alone required green blank cards of the same rank—a significant expense. Ten thousand first-tier green blank cards, plus the monsters themselves, and to use a blank card to capture a monster, the captor had to soak the entire card in their own blood.

Then, the ten thousand monsters had to battle it out, one at a time—a process that could take over a day, even with careful management.

With such a convoluted process, mass-producing blue-quality monsters was impossible. Using higher-tier monsters was even worse; the cost in manpower and resources was enough to buy a blue-quality monster outright.

The top factions only experimented up to the third tier before abandoning the effort.

So, although this altar sounded like a treasure, it was really nothing special.

Nowadays, it was only the sons of powerful families whose life cards were of poor quality and couldn’t advance to the sixth tier who would consider coming here to upgrade them—if they had no other choice.

For all these reasons, the altar had become an arena: hunting parties would capture low-tier monsters and pit them against each other for entertainment.

Don’t imagine you could store up energy through repeated beast fights. If the duel was interrupted and both monsters on the altar died, the accumulated energy would dissipate.

When Lu Sheng learned all this, he was very excited, wondering if he could move the altar elsewhere. But after calming down, he realized that if even the top factions couldn’t move it, he certainly couldn’t—not yet. Perhaps, once his strength grew, he might try.

For others, capturing monsters was difficult, but for him, breeding them was not. Don’t say others could breed as well—they couldn’t directly turn monsters into cards as he could.

That was Lu Sheng’s current advantage.