How Much For Your Soul?

The Nether Realm had fallen quickly after the battle. Not only was there no one to really oppose them, but Ming Fei was also at the head of the army to order the surrender of the remaining cities. The Nether Realm had joined the Empire and would worship the God-Emperor.

It had been reasonably easy for Shen Yue to enslave the three Spiritual Gods. With them restrained and multiple Heavenly Fate experts and two Spiritual Gods to help, their defences crumbled and their souls were branded. After he had finished pacifying the Nether Realm, there would be another two Subsidiary Realms to claim for the Empire. If only the other Spiritual Gods had stayed and fought.

The knowledge he gained from the three gods was not as helpful as he thought it would be. Other than locations to most of the other Subsidiary Realms, the only memories of value was their information on the Draconic Ruins. It gave him the necessary information about the various sects and prominent locations. He had gained a fair bit from Nie Lie, but it was spotty at best, the man had really bumbled his way through his first life.

The only issue left for him to deal with now was Xiao Yu. She was raised by her foster father Ming Fei, but her birth father was from millions of years in the past. After being defeated by the Sage Emperor, he sealed his and his wife's cultivation inside Xiao Yu's blood with a Void Spiritual Array. He then used a secret technique to send her to the future where Ming Fei adopted her, teaching her his crappy half-finished cultivation technique.

But the problem Shen Yue was worried about, was that when Nie Li came close to the Void Spiritual Array on Xiao Yu's chest, his consciousness was drawn into it by Xiao Yu's father. This meant that he could not just enslave her, incase her father had the power to wipe him from existence. Not to mention that her cultivation in her blood will awaken when she sleeps with a man, giving the Sage Emperor the ability to locate her.

So Shen Yue would have to play nice for a change and befriend her. That, or leave her behind when the portal to the Draconic Ruins reopened. It would save him all the bullsh*t Nie Lie went through with her admirers and jealous enemies. This also included his wives and maids that he wanted to take. Should he leave them behind, send them to the Heavenly Note Sect or just accept that they will bring trouble and take them with him.

It was a question he would think on later, for now, he had to concentrate on stabilising his Empire so that nothing would destroy it when he left. The biggest obstacle he faced was the low population of humans. Even with his breeding program in place, it would be years before he could populate more than a few cities. The obvious answer to this would be to invade the Dreamcloud Realm and seed the world with its inhabitants.

But it is a vast and fertile land, perfectly shielded from the demon beasts by the Primal Family and their copy of the Amethyst Bamboo. It was a complete unknown for Shen Yue, and the power level and troop size of the hidden Realm could possibly overrun his budding Empire.

Much easier to just seed the main world with the different races he conquers from the smaller Subsidiary Realms. After all, there was seventy-two of them, and the majority were without Spiritual God overlords. Shen Yue would have to plan carefully with his leaders that would stay behind to expand his Empire, it wouldn't take him that long to gather enough power to find a method to return through the World Barrier, but there was always the chance something unexpected could happen.

With Nie Li and the slapper from Earth still kept in a coma, there would be no fuss when he delivered them to the sect he chose for them. Luckily, he managed to capture the ambassador for the Phaseless Sect. With a written order and some of the ambassador's underlings to deliver them, it will be a done deal before they can object. The only set back was that Shen Yue would not be able to make them swear an oath to his enslaved minion, but he was pretty sure God wouldn't let him anyway.

The Black Infernal Tower had been turned into a place for Shen Yue to train his elites, Duan Jian also benefited greatly from his time there. Everything of worth had been stored away, and any demon beasts sealed within were harvested for their spirits and valuable body parts. On the sixth floor, they encountered the ghost of Kong Yan. Unlike in canon, there was no weak person for him to take over and he was enslaved, mind raped and destroyed.

Shen Yue had planned to sign a contract with the Celestial Qilin, but it was too rebellious to be trusted to work alongside him. Not that he blamed the beast as he had been trapped inside the tower by humans for years. Still, there was little mercy for it as Shen Yue harvested its demon spirit and stored its body inside his ring.

The next few months were spent tying up any loose ends before his departure and training in the different Laws. The two Realms belonging to captured Spiritual Gods didn't even need an army to conquer. He just had the gods bring the leaders of their Realm for a diplomatic meeting with his Empire, it was the quickest invasion in history.

With their own God subduing them while Shen Yue branded their souls, the process was finished in a day. When the leaders returned, they simply repeated the process, and two Subsidiary Realms joined the Empire without any fuss. The Empire's rules and laws were transferred over with a bit of dissatisfaction, but when your God, leaders and strongest warriors pushed for it, there was little they could do.

Immortal Elixir Guild and the Heavenly Crafting Guild built branches in the three new Realms, making them famous. For some reason, the knowledge of alchemy and inscriptions was lost over the years, they had little understanding of the processes of the professions. Shen Yue found this weird, with the Spiritual God's long lives, how could they let their domains lose such valuable education?

It turns out that the gods themselves had little interest in alchemy and inscription patterns, preferring to spend their time cultivating. They would go into isolation for many years at a time, dedicating all their energy into understanding their Laws. It was a ridiculous situation that Shen Yue was quite happy to take advantage off.

He had many branches of the two guilds set up and practically controlled everything about the two professions. It was such a monopoly that Shen Yue thought he should start wearing a top hat with a black suit, red bowtie and carry a walking stick! He wasn't sure if the Monopoly Man wore a monocle or not, but it would fit the image of his dominance over the two industries.

While Shen Yue was unable to cultivate the different Law energy in the Realm of the Violet Jade Immortal, he was able to strengthen the power of his soul. It would take five minutes to advance to the Heavenly Fate Realm, but he wanted to ensure that he was not missing out on any advantages by promoting early. He was waiting until he reached the peak in all the Laws and his soul was so powerful he would make a regular fate soul look like a cheap imitation.

There would only be benefits in continuously improving his foundation. It would be devastating to fumble this opportunity now, only to regret later when the higher ranks were harder to obtain or lacking in strength. A year's effort now could possibly save him a hundred times that later.

There was a reason that the highest rank the sect elders achieved was only the Martial Ancestor, resources were rare, and their techniques and foundations were trash. The experts today were a far cry from the experts of old. Of course, the Sage-Emperor was partly to blame, he kept killing off everyone with potential.

Still, Shen Yue would not be rushing his cultivation. Unlike Nie Li, he did not create situations for himself that required quick power-ups and plot armour to handle. There was plenty of time to do things right, most people did not have plot armour to keep their foundations firm. If a person other than Nie Li used shortcuts that damaged their future cultivation, they would have to pay the price.

The Demon Spirit Devouring Technique allows a person to devour demon spirits to train their soul force at an accelerated rate. It is considered a sinister technique that defies the Heavenly Dao. Yet Nie Li used this secret technique that causes harm to one's future foundation with no consequences, his cultivation speed and strength was still better than anyone in the universe.

Even though Shen Yue cursed Nie Li's ability to defy this universe's rules with impunity, he had his own cheat powers that could rival this ability. With the Library of Heaven's Path, he could edit out the majority of the adverse effects of flawed techniques and gain most of the benefits. Still, it would be nice to have the universe revolve around him just because he picked up a random book and then died a worthless death to the Sage-Emperor because he tried to solo him and his deity ranked beasts.

Using his cheat powers received from his God Alastor, and stolen from the wench from Earth, allowed him to gain mastery over the Power of Laws of the Tiny World Domain. The thirty-six Laws of the Main World and each of the seventy-two Subsidiary Realm Laws were mastered without much effort. The main reason the locals took hundreds of years to accomplish this in just one Law, was because they misunderstood them.

According to the Spiritual God's memories, sensing the power of Law is a complicated process. It can take decades to empty yourself and let your heart become pure and clean like the Heavens and Earth, the Power of Law will then sense your sincere heart and accept you. It took Nie Li five minutes to discover that this was a load of shite.

The Power of Law is actually made of flowing inscription patterns, with each Law formed by their own mysterious inscriptions and work together to create the world's structure. With the help of his cheat library, it was easy to break down the inscription patterns and cultivate the extremely pure type of Soul Force that is used to refine a Law.

With his cultivation at the extreme peak of the Legend rank and mastery over the one hundred and eight Laws, he was ready to depart for the Draconic Ruins. Tonight was the send-off party for those that were going, it would be a wild night.