How Much For Your Soul?

Chapter 9

Before they left the ruins, Shen Yue had his maid had over the special supplies he asked her to gather. A few old blank pages and some demon beast blood. Taking out the Temporal Demon Spirit Book page he found, he proceeded to make an exact duplicate. Although they look the same, there was nowhere near the same amount of aura coming from the forgery.

As the group neared the Heavenly Marks Family, Shen Yue called for his mightiest guard, Lin Feng. He possessed the best natural talents out of the people Shen Yue had tested. With a rarely seen green soul realm and Snow Wind Tiger soul form, he had reached the 3rd star of legend rank the quickest. With all his previous assignments completed quickly and efficiently, Lin Feng was Shen Yue's first choice for this sensitive mission.

"Lin Feng I have a mission for you. The patriarch of the Heavenly Marks Family has an interspatial ring somewhere on his chest. Inside this ring is a small box with a page like this, wrapped in a red cloth. I need you to swap them without the patriarch knowing. Moreover, in their treasury is a soul puppet blueprint that looks like a bird, I want this also." Ordered Shen Yue, handing him the forgery.

Lin Feng bowed, replying with an 'as you wish master', Shen Yue really was ecstatic he found him during his first recruitment. Lin Feng's circumstances had been appalling, making him fanatically loyal when saved from his old life. With confidence that the second page would soon be in his hands, they continued at speed to the Nemesis Family's lands east of Glory City.

The area Shen Yue chose was the pass to the Infinite Forrest, sandwiched between towering mountains. If he established his Family domain here, it would cut off almost all access to the Infinite Forrest. Shen Yue would control the entire east once he eliminated the demon beasts. The only other way to access the Infinite Forrest would be a path south of Glory City. A route through a 5-star, black-gold Snow Wind Great Ape's territory and it's beast horde.

After passing the Huang Family's land, an aristocratic house, the Nemesis Family territory came into view. It was more a valley than a pass, being around twenty-five kilometres wide, with a mix of hills, trees and suitable farmland. The hills swept across the valley creating a natural barrier, separating the Huang Family's farms and the twenty kilometres of wildland between the Infinite Forest.

With nineteen legend experts, remodelling the land turned out to be easy. After integrating with their demons, building up the hills into a plateau for the Family mansion was just a matter of time. Redeeming rock from the nearby mountain range with interspatial rings, the planned twenty-metre high, four kilometres squared platform was completed with ease when Lin Feng arrived with fifty gold rank experts to help. The natural barrier of hills was condensed into the beginnings of a wall, ready to be reinforced when the architects arrived.

A month later and The Nemesis valley was entirely transformed. Gone was the rugged landscape dotted with hills and trees. In its place was a levelled area ready for agriculture, with lumber stacked near the site of the planned Nemesis Mansion. Shen Yue would be pleased when he saw it, as the day after Lin Feng arrived, he handed a set of rough plans to his men and left for his next destination.

Lin Feng had completed his mission with no difficulties and handed the page and blueprints to Shen Yue. Waiting for Nie Hai to fall asleep, it was child's play for a 3-star legend to infiltrate and change out the page when the only gold rank in the mansion was sleeping.

Taking Su Mei, Lin Feng and three other legend guards, they flew through the air above the Infinite Forrest trying to locate the Heavenly Fate Plateau. Early the next day they found it. With a circumference of about one hundred and sixty kilometres, its population was only a few thousand.

Shen Yue directed Su Mei to land on top of the plateau, where the steep mountain path connects to the ground because there was no way he was climbing it.

"I still don't see why we have to go through with this farce young master." Su Mei complained.

"Because it will give us justification to enslave a whole community and make me feel better. Just remember the script." Said Shen Yue, rolling his eyes, this was the third time she nagged him about his plan.

Dressed in ragged clothes and each carrying a pack of food, they walked into the settlement. Reaching the market, Su Mei started to call out deals that would entice even the most well-fed of the starving village. With her beauty and charming voice, word quickly got around that strangers were buying worthless Purple Smoke Rocks for meat!

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It wasn't long after the first transaction was completed that people came to make trouble. Funnily enough, it was the same guy that harassed Nie Li albeit a much younger version. Xiao Kuang looked around fifteen, still bald with no shirt but free of any scars he would have had in the future. With a posse of several well-built men, they pushed the crowd apart and stood in front of Se Mei menacingly.

"Oh, a foreigner." Xiao Kuang sneered, "Do you know where this is? If you want to trade here, you have to pay taxes!" He said, using the same excuse he did for Nie Li, he must have a prepared speech.

"Please, young master, we need these rocks to save our chief. He tried to forcibly break through to the black-gold rank but failed, the backlash injured him heavily." Called out Su Mei with her best weak and wretched bearing.

"Oh, you are quite the beauty, ok I will make you a deal. All this food for three bags of Purple Smoke Rocks and you will be mine from now on." Xiao Kuang said arrogantly, releasing a peak silver fighter aura.

"Shameless!" Shouted Lin Feng, restricting his aura to a 2-star silver rank and stepping in front of Su Mei. Xiao Kuang threw a powerful punch, hitting Lin Feng in the stomach and dropping him to the ground 'heavily' injured. It was quite the 'B' grade movie plot.

"Trash, now the deal is only for one bag of rocks!" He laughed arrogantly along with his cronies.

"How dare you! Surely your chief will have you punished for robbing and attacking merchants! Everyone, please help us bring justice to these criminals!" Shouted Su Mei following Shen Yue's script nicely.

"Chief? Do you think my father would care for weak trash foreigners? Keep dreaming!" Xiao Kuang and his men laughed even louder. The crowd just looked at them with pity or schadenfreude.

"I've seen enough, cripple them, also break their arms and legs." Came a ruthless, childish voice. Lin Feng stood back up uninjured, and the rest of the group released suffocating auras. A second later, hair raising screams and sickening snapping noises echoed out, causing some in the crowd to vomit.

Shen Yue wasn't doing so well himself, looking a little green. It was one thing to give brutal orders but quite another to witness them being enforced. Lin Feng must have held a grudge because Xiao Kuang's bones were sticking out of his skin, compound fractures were messy.

Su Mei was looking quite aggrieved as well, she was staring daggers at Lin Feng for taking her prey and could only have her revenge after he was finished with him. Many men in the crowd cringed after her vicious kick, it seems that Su Mei didn't like the fact Xiao Kuang tried to trade her like an animal.

Taking a few deep breaths to steady himself as he surveyed the suddenly frightened crowd, he finished the script he wrote days ago.

"You people sicken me! We came here to test you, to see if you were worthy enough to join our city. Not even half an hour and you were ready to **** and pillage when we offered you a generous deal! It seems that you are not human, but animals, and so you will be treated like the beasts you are. Bring the chief here now, if he is not here in five minutes his son will be tortured until he gets here."

Shen Yue laid pretty good odds that they would be treated poorly and it was gratifying to be right. Still, the brutal violence he just witnessed will be hard to get used too. That eerie sound of bone breaking and the heart-piercing screams chilled his blood. The most violence he saw in his past life was a drunken fight or two with a bloody nose, this was ten levels above that!

The chief appeared minutes later and took in the site of his crippled son, crying on the ground. With rage, he tried to lash out but was restrained easily by two of Shen Yue's guards, they didn't even need to use their demon spirits.

"What is the meaning of this!" Shouted the aggrieved white-haired man.

"I would ask the same of you, savage! We came here to test if you were worthy of joining our city, but your people tried to **** my maid and steal our food. Since you are the chief I hold you responsible, cripple him." Said Shen Yue with his best bond villain impersonation.

"No, wait!" Unfortunately, Lin Feng did not wait and soon another agonising scream rent the air.

"Never let it be said that I, Shen Yue, didn't give you a choice, you have two hours to leave the plateau or serve my Nemesis Family. Of course, since you tried to take my possessions, I will take yours! You may only depart with the clothes on your back." He uttered another vicious command, astounding the gathered crowd once more! How brutal was this child!

After seeing the ease with which their strongest warrior was dispatched, no one was willing to step out to defy the little tyrant. One of the guards handed Shen Yue the chief's storage ring, but it held only a few scrolls and low-grade items.

When he had finished scanning the scrolls, some fighting techniques, a brave soul asked how they would serve his Family. Shen Yue listed out his plans for the plateau expecting them to be followed.

- All unmarried, beautiful women were recruited to be his maids.

- All warriors were to be branded and serve in his army.

- People with professional skills will be imprinted and work for him.

- Everyone without a trade will farm.

- All personal possessions now belonged to him.

- Will be fed for work.

These domineering words once again reminded the crowd how they should have stood out and helped this little Lord. But with the strength of his guards and the food they possess, maybe there will be enough food for the whole village for once! Starving to death was not a pleasant way to die.

Three weeks later and the plateau was a different place. The two hundred or so warriors and twenty maids were branded, given a new cultivation technique and ordered to train. Shen Yue had become quite proficient in creating cultivation techniques, but ten warriors wasted his efforts. They had to be publically executed when they tried to escape after getting their manuals.

The shanty town had been demolished, and new group housing was built with the lumber flown up inside storage rings. Although the lumber was green, the builders assured him they had techniques to fix this problem. Soul force for the win!

Massive farms were being marked out and tilled. A team of one thousand workers were digging up the fertile dirt below the plateau, while the legend ranked guards stood by watching for demon beasts. When all the spare storage rings were filled, one of the guards would transport the dirt to the top and empty it into the pegged out areas.

Interspatial rings really were convenient, he couldn't understand why they were so cheap. One of the pills the Divine Family were now selling was the same price as a medium quality ring! The hilarious part was that these were only scavenged from ruins, no one knew how to make them! As soon as he had enough money, he bought every available ring before the price could rise, they had too many uses and were too cheap not to buy.

With his future base set up, he left Lin Feng there to manage it in his absence. A day later, and he was surveying his Family lands, impressed at how perfectly it turned out. Everything was coming together exactly as he had planned it, those many years ago as a baby. Unable to move, the only thing that kept him sane was his future plans to become a god and being surrounded by beauties.

If only he could cultivate, the wait was destroying him! Shen Yue couldn't even 'touch' his supermodel maid to ease his depression, as it only added to the pain! His childish body refused to cooperate with his adult mind, dwarfing the misery he endured by not being able to cultivate. This was why reincarnating early was in the detriments column, he was sure of it!