Emperor Yuankang’s sudden and nearly successful attempt to take the War Soul Blood Flag from Ye Zhen had thoroughly infuriated the two powerhouses, Guo Qijing and Chu Taiping.
As a result, they did not give Emperor Yuankang any face, openly ignoring the royal banquet and the victory luncheon that Emperor Yuankang had painstakingly prepared.
Upon entering the Royal City, under the pretext of ’racing against time’ to heal injuries sustained by the elders Zhongli Jing and Lik Shi, they led a group of Sect Elders and Members straight into the Refined House to receive treatment.
This healing process would require at least a full day, if not more.
Having thoroughly snubbed Emperor Yuankang, who had prepared for half a day, it served as a minor lesson.
With the two powerhouses, Guo Qijing and Chu Taiping, coming down hard, all the Sect Elders and Disciples strictly stayed within the Refined House, not having the slightest contact with anyone from the Royal Family.
Including Ye Zhen!
Even though Emperor Yuankang invited him several times, and even sent the familiar Eldest Prince Zhu Xuan to extend an invitation to Ye Zhen with the promise of rewards and titles for another meeting, all were tactfully declined by Ye Zhen.
No joke, with the Sect Leader teaching the Royal Family a lesson, Ye Zhen wouldn’t go out and fraternize with them, unless he had been hit in the head by a door.
Moreover, why would Ye Zhen give up an excellent opportunity to devise strategies to keep the War Soul Blood Flag?
Having decisively declined the invitation from the Royal Family, Ye Zhen locked himself in the Refined House, deeply contemplating the issue.
Ye Zhen’s effort was the most significant in capturing the War Soul Blood Flag, and it should be held by Ye Zhen, but this reason... won’t hold up.
Trading the various precautions and even secrets from the process of capturing the War Soul Blood Flag for the right to keep it, like the method to activate the Ninth Layer’s teleportation circle, that reason might barely be acceptable.
However, with just a word from Guo Qijing or Chu Taiping saying, "Your Cultivation is too low, and you cannot protect the War Soul Blood Flag. Having you hold it would only harm you!",
they could firmly deny Ye Zhen’s grounds for keeping it.
And what’s more, this argument was indisputable.
No matter what reason Ye Zhen could come up with to keep the War Soul Blood Flag, it would be countered by that argument.
In the face of this, all of Ye Zhen’s thoughts were futile.
With no other option, the Sword Origin Sect mobilized its forces in full to seize the War Soul Blood Flag, and even though Ye Zhen was eloquent, he could not convince others that he was capable of withstanding potential aggression from the Sword Origin Sect and preserving the War Soul Blood Flag.
Of course, even Ye Zhen himself didn’t believe that.
Hours passed, and Ye Zhen was close to pulling out his own hair in frustration.
All his reasons crumbled in the face of that single argument.
What should he do now?
Ye Zhen paced anxiously within the Refined House.
If the War Soul Blood Flag only amplified combat power by twenty percent, Ye Zhen might have been able to part with it, but now, with a forty percent increase, he absolutely could not let go of such a game-changing ability.
"Forty percent combat power, huh?"
This thought had flickered a thousand times in Ye Zhen’s mind.
Suddenly, as he was pacing, Ye Zhen’s steps came to an abrupt halt, and a bold idea surged through his mind.
Normally, the War Soul Blood Flag could only amplify combat power by twenty percent.
But in Ye Zhen’s hands, it could amplify it by forty percent. What if Ye Zhen said that once the War Soul Blood Flag changed hands, the forty percent increase would fall back to twenty percent?
Could this argument keep the War Soul Blood Flag with Ye Zhen?
No sooner had the idea arisen than it began to grow uncontrollably. Ye Zhen thought it through thoroughly, and suddenly realized there was an eighty percent chance of keeping the War Soul Blood Flag with this reasoning.
In the battle against Sword Origin Sect, all the Sect Elders, as well as the two towering figures, Guo Qijing and Chu Taiping, witnessed the underwhelming effect of the First Level War Soul Blood Flag’s twenty percent power boost.
Indeed, underwhelming!
In a large-scale military conflict, a twenty percent increase was terrifying.
But in a high-level duel, as in today’s battle between the Soul Sea Realm experts of the two nations, a mere twenty percent increase could at best achieve a draw or secure victory, but it was insufficient to kill the enemy. Quite underwhelming.
But forty percent was a different matter.
Today, following the advancement of the War Soul Blood Flag, in its forty percent combat power increase, it not only turned the tides of a losing battle, but it also left the Sword Origin Sect with five corpses.
Under these circumstances, if it were said that upon changing hands the quality of the War Soul Blood Flag would drop to Level 1, reducing the combat power boost to twenty percent, it’s a scenario that no one would want to see.
This was the difference between an underwhelming asset and a lethal weapon!
As for doubts, there would certainly be some!
However, it was the first time Black Water Kingdom had acquired a War Soul Blood Flag in the hundred-plus years since the Battlefield of Demon Souls had been discovered, and research on the Blood Flag was virtually nonexistent.
Even with suspicions, who would dare to take that risk?
Would they risk turning a lethal weapon into something underwhelming?
Even if some were willing to take the risk, the bigwigs of the Two Great Sects surely wouldn’t let them.
The risk was too great; once the combat power increase fell back to twenty percent, it could never be restored.
Of course, Ye Zhen would absolutely not tell them about the massive quantity of Demon Soul Blood Crystals in his possession.
"Eighty percent chance of success, with this argument," thought Ye Zhen.
Eighty percent was high enough.
Although Ye Zhen very much wished to find a way to absolutely ensure the retention of the War Soul Blood Flag, he could not think of one. This risky method was already the best he could come up with.
Ye Zhen thought hard about it for over two hours, considering all possible contingencies, before finally relaxing completely.
He had settled on a strategy; everything now depended on tomorrow.
Of course, whether Guo Qijing and Chu Taiping, these two titans, will give face to the Royal Family tomorrow is another matter.
With nothing else to do while staying in the Silent Chamber, Ye Zhen took out the War Soul Blood Flag.
Recalling the tense situation when upgrading the War Soul Blood Flag during battle, Ye Zhen suddenly had an idea.
The Southern Barbarian Tribe had verified through numerous attempts that it’s possible to upgrade the War Soul Blood Flag to Second Rank, mainly because of their shortage of Demon Soul Blood Crystals.
But the quantity of Demon Soul Blood Crystals isn’t a problem for Ye Zhen. He suddenly wanted to know, what’s the limit for upgrading the War Soul Blood Flag?
How high can the War Soul Blood Flag be upgraded?
Third Level?
Fourth Level?
Fifth Level?
Or even Sixth Level?
In reality, the experiences of the Southern Barbarian Tribe in upgrading the War Soul Blood Flag were slightly erroneous. Ye Zhen’s findings were that to upgrade from First Level to Second Rank, a total of ninety thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals are needed.
Not the roughly one hundred thousand that the Southern Barbarians had claimed.
Perhaps there were mistakes in the oral transmission.
In the next instant, with a thought of his Divine Sense, the War Soul Blood Flag suddenly enlarged, quickly filling up the entire Silent Chamber.
Two storage bracelets flew up, and the Demon Soul Blood Crystals stored within poured out like seawater, rapidly filling the entire War Soul Blood Flag.
Almost simultaneously, as the Blood Light surged greatly, the War Soul Blood Flag started flickering as it absorbed and refined the massive amount of Demon Soul Blood Crystals.
A hundred thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals were refined.
One hundred and fifty thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals!
Whoosh!
When about one hundred and eighty thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals had been refined, the Blood Light of the War Soul Blood Flag suddenly converged, and at the same time, the color of the entire Blood Flag deepened a few shades. Another torrent of blood surged into Ye Zhen’s mind.
This blood torrent was much weaker compared to the one Ye Zhen received in the Commander Hall of the Demon Soul Hall when he first got the War Soul Blood Flag. The flow of information contained within was also very scant.
It only had a few simple upgrades for the War Soul Blood Flag. The combat power enhancement increased from forty percent to sixty percent, and the area affected by the enhancement also doubled.
"Sixty percent! This level of enhancement will definitely drive those elders crazy! If I say that the War Soul Blood Flag loses its level when it changes hands, even if they have doubts, they wouldn’t dare to take the risk," Ye Zhen mused.
He felt that once the enhancement to combat power provided by the War Soul Blood Flag reached sixty percent, the success rate of his response method should be able to reach ninety percent.
Better to end things once and for all.
Ye Zhen still had plenty of Demon Soul Blood Crystals in hand. Since keeping them served no purpose, he decided to invest them all to see the extent to which the War Soul Blood Flag could be upgraded in his hands.
Several storage rings flew out again, and the Demon Soul Blood Crystals poured out like small hills, causing the Blood Light to flicker once more.
It took ninety percent of Demon Soul Blood Crystals to go from Level 1 to 2, and one hundred and eighty thousand to advance from Second Rank to Third Level. Ye Zhen reckoned that it might take two hundred and seventy thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals to upgrade from Third Level to Fourth.
So, Ye Zhen decided to dump two hundred and seventy thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals at once.
Don’t doubt where Ye Zhen got so many Demon Soul Blood Crystals from.
In the Battlefield of Demon Souls, a Demon Soul Legion exceeding one hundred thousand soldiers, under Ye Zhen’s deliberate guidance, conquered on all fronts at an astonishing speed.
A Demon Soul Legion with fewer than ten thousand soldiers could be wiped out in 15 minutes.
Don’t use conventional war to guess the battles between Demon Soul Legions.
With a range of over five kilometers, the Blood Killing Crossbow, and the Demon Energy Blood Cannon with a range of more than fifty li, the Demon Energy Blood Cannon would appear after the Demon Soul Legion exceeded one hundred thousand soldiers.
A simultaneous volley from fifty Demon Energy Blood Cannons could decimate a Demon Soul Army of ten thousand soldiers without them knowing what hit them.
Consider how many Demon Soul Blood Crystals Ye Zhen could collect?
Moreover, collecting the Blood Crystal of a ten thousand-strong Demon Soul Army actually equals forty thousand regular Demon Soul Blood Crystals. Because one Commander Blood Crystal from a ten thousand-strong Corps Commander is equivalent to ten thousand regular Demon Soul Blood Crystals.
In the end, Ye Zhen didn’t even bother collecting regular Demon Soul Blood Crystals and just picked up those of Ten-man Generals, Hundred-man Generals, Thousand-man Generals, and even Marshal Blood Crystals from commanders of ten thousand or more.
The total amount of Demon Soul Blood Crystals Ye Zhen had, he never counted himself, but it was close to a million.
Two hours later, the radiance of the War Soul Blood Flag flashed and the color of the Blood Light deepened once more. Another blood torrent rushed into Ye Zhen’s mind.
The War Soul Blood Flag had reached Level 4, capable of boosting combat power by eighty percent!
Eighty percent was definitely a terrifying increase in power.
Nearly doubling one’s strength, under the enhancement of the War Soul Blood Flag, a one-on-one battle would almost become like facing two opponents.
And Ye Zhen’s guess was correct—the upgrade from Third Level to Fourth required two hundred and seventy thousand Demon Soul Blood Crystals.
Then, if the War Soul Blood Flag could still be upgraded, the number of Demon Soul Blood Crystals needed to progress from Level 4 to 5 should be three hundred and sixty thousand.
Ye Zhen didn’t know the limit to the War Soul Blood Flag’s upgrade, but now, what he needed to do was to relentlessly upgrade it.
The Demon Soul Blood Crystals from Ye Zhen’s hands once again engulfed the War Soul Blood Flag.
One hundred and eighty thousand!
Two hundred and fifty thousand!
Two hundred and eighty thousand!
Three hundred thousand!
As the Demon Soul Blood Crystals piled on the War Soul Blood Flag were consumed, and Ye Zhen was about to invest more Demon Soul Blood Crystals, his expression suddenly became rigid, and he was stunned!(To be continued. If you like this work, welcome to Qidian (qidian.com) to cast your recommendation votes and monthly votes. Your support is my greatest motivation. Mobile users, please visit m.qidian.com to read.)

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