Chapter 84: Hunting Wind Bandits (1)

After his tour through the Chaos Tower, Su Chen took Cloud Worker’s present of knowledge with him and left.

Su Chen didn’t know how Cloud Worker would handle the matter afterwards, but Cloud Worker was unlikely to make too much trouble for him.

The next morning, Su Chen felt as if the Chaos Tower’s defenses had been upgraded considerably. The Harpy soldiers seemed to be patrolling back and forth, as if they were searching for something.

Su Chen knew that what had transpired yesterday had come to light.

However, the Harpies believed that their target was another Harpy. They didn’t imagine for a second that it was another human.

This was not actually that surprising. After all, the person who had broken into the Chaos Tower in the first place was a Harpy.

Because Su Chen didn’t damage the Chaos Tower’s core at all, the Harpies also didn’t believe that it was a traitor who had allied themselves with an outside force. Otherwise, that Harpy wouldn’t have left the Chaos Tower intact.

The Harpies viewed this situation as a fellow Harpy sneaking in and robbing them.

The robber’s goal was naturally the Depth Crystals, and perhaps the Sparkling Sky Amethyst as well. However, the “resistance” of the Craftsmen had managed to ensure that that did not happen.

Cloud Worker and the other Craftsmen were punished a bit for this, but not too seriously. After all, the Craftsmen were technically guests, and they controlled the core strength of the Harpies. The Harpies had learned from before and treated the Craftsmen with a decent amount of courtesy. From the Craftsmen’s point of view, it was the Harpies’ defenses that were inadequate. The Craftsmen were only responsible for constructing things. They were already quite lucky to even have survived!

Su Chen only found out about this after the fact. All he saw at the time was the Harpies searching for a mysterious “River Sun” person, but it was obvious that their search would be fruitless.

The commerce group spent two days here before continuing on their journey to Sky City. They would probably get there in ten or so days.

That was not a concern for Su Chen.

He was still reveling in all of the new information that he had picked up.

The thirty-one Depth Crystals were put aside like trash. He didn’t even take another glance at them. Instead, he pored over Cloud Worker’s notes on what he had learned. They were like peerless treasures in Su Chen’s eyes, worth reading over and studying repeatedly.

There was a vast amount of knowledge that had gone into constructing the Chaos Tower. Spatial principles were used to connect the tower to the realm that stored the Boundless Origin Sea, meeting the Origin Energy needs of the Desolate Beast. Consciousness power was needed to control the beast, and lifeform alteration was needed to meld the Chaos Tower with the Desolate Beast. Evidently, a high level of mastery was necessary for each one of these aspects.

Most importantly, this knowledge came from the Harpies, so there were many concepts that Su Chen had never been exposed to before. Viewing things from the Harpy angle and attempting to discover and understand things from their point of view yielded many new perspectives, instantly broadening Su Chen’s field of view.

He floated through this sea of knowledge as his understanding of this world advanced at breakneck pace.

As his sea of knowledge expanded, Su Chen’s strength also began to increase.

This kind of increase was not related to actual power. Power could only come from cultivation and tempering, not understanding.

But understanding could allow a person to use power in a more accurate, effective way. Common power could be made uncommon, and uncommon power could be made legendary.

The spatial knowledge from the Chaos Tower was quite plentiful. Even though they weren’t able to see things as deeply as Su Chen could, they had their own process of discovery and discussion. When combined with what Su Chen had already grasped, it allowed him to view these principles from a totally new angle and vastly increased his knowledge and understanding of how space worked.

These observations naturally improved his use of Whitetower Teleportation.

Whereas it took quite a bit of effort to leap five thousand feet in the past, he could now reach distances of up to seven thousand feet.

Most importantly, with his ability to perceive location, he was even able to pass right through all barriers and directly appear in front of a target. The previous version of Whitetower Teleportation did not give him this ability.

This was no longer Whitetower Teleportation but spatial jumping.

Su Chen’s understanding of consciousness power didn’t increase much, mostly due to limitations imposed by his cultivation realm. Unless he reached the Spirit Burning Realm, it was very hard for his consciousness power to increase any further.

However, there was another aspect that Su Chen was able to learn quite a bit from.

That advance came from studying lifeform alteration.

Because of his research on the bloodline-less cultivation techniques, Su Chen’s primary research focus had always been on biological life.

It could be said that no one understood life quite as well as he did.

His study of alchemy was also included in this aspect.

Lifeform alteration shared some similarities with the bloodline-less cultivation techniques. They were all the result of exploring how to advance and upgrade life. However, one worked from the outside-in, while the other worked from the inside-out.

Lifeform alteration was a perfect example of an outside-in improvement. The organism’s strength would be greatly improved by making external changes to the lifeform.

Su Chen was always quite interested in this, but people who were qualified to discuss this matter with him were very rare.

Unexpectedly, the Harpies were able to provide him with lots of information regarding lifeform alteration.

The merging of outside-in and inside-out approaches resulted in a mysterious chemical reaction. Su Chen suddenly felt as if he was being swallowed by a wave of possibilities.

Su Chen spent most of his time on the Cloud-Piercing Shuttles researching these things.

Today, Su Chen was still performing his research when Patelocke suddenly charged in.

“Patelocke, you usually don’t charge in like this,” Su Chen said without even raising his head.

He was manipulating a strange substance.

It looked a bit like a chunk of well-marbled meat, but this chunk of meat actually had a face.

A contorted, strange, freakish face.

It was even smiling at Su Chen.

Su Chen ignored this smile and began to cut into the face.

The face began to yell angrily, “Don’t cut me! Don’t cut me!”

Patelocke acted as if he hadn’t noticed a thing. “Something’s happened.”

Su Chen slashed with the knife, cutting off the meat face’s nose. The meat face began to twist and thrash even more wildly.

“Speak,” Su Chen said indifferently.

“The Hunting Wind Bandits have arrived.”

Su Chen’s hand paused in midair.

The Hunting Wind Bandits were a group of famous bandits that roamed Harpy territory.

They were also Harpies, but they were a branch of powerful Harpies who had separated from the main groups. They traveled through Harpy territory, hunting for targets to rob. Because they came and went like the wind, they were known as the Hunting Wind Bandits.

Groups like the Hunting Wind Bandits were hard to find amongst the otherwise unified Harpies. They were like a blemish on the face of an otherwise handsome man - obvious and eye-catching. For this reason, people wondered whether the Hunting Wind Bandits were actually a group of specially trained Harpies used to carry out orders that could not be made openly.

For instance, using them to deal with a merchant group, to carry out an assassination, or to crudely rob someone…… There were always people who were willing to do such dirty deeds.

The Hunting Wind Bandits were no exception. Otherwise, it was hard to explain why this group still existed.

Actually, there were similar groups amongst the humans and Astrals as well. The humans primarily used the Sand Elementals and would also occasionally raise up some other powerful forces to do their dirty work. The Astrals relied on the Androgynes and their underground compatriots for the same purposes. Actually, you didn’t even need to look hard to find these groups. The only Intelligent Races that didn’t raise scapegoats were the Oceanids and the Ravagers. The Ravagers believed that they were the strongest and didn’t need the assistance of such groups of people. The Oceanids, on the other hand, were barely struggling to survive. Their greatest threats were the fierce beasts roaming the ocean waters, so they had no need for scapegoats either.

In any case, the Hunting Wind Bandits always moved with intention throughout Harpy territory, but not always under the direction of the Harpy race’s leaders. They were still relatively independent and had their own ways of looking at and thinking about things.

When Su Chen heard that it was the Hunting Wind Bandits knocking at their door, he was slightly taken aback. “The Hunting Wind Bandits are trying to seize our boat? Seize the broodmother? Are they crazy?”

The broodmother was the top priority for the Harpies. If the Hunting Wind Bandits had any sense, they should have been extremely afraid of even touching their boat.

Patelocke shook his head. “I don’t really know what’s happening either. The Harpies should be protecting our envoy in order to make sure that nothing happens to us, but it seems like there’s something going on here that we don’t know about.”

“Let’s go and take a look.” Su Chen threw the small blade onto the ground and stepped outside.

The Cloud-Piercing Shuttles had already stopped.

A large horde of Harpies was floating in front of the two Cloud-Piercing Shuttles.

They wore an all-black combat outfit, which was different from the typically silver outfit that Harpy soldiers wore. Most of them were also wielding spears made from Amethyst Wood.

Most Harpies fought at a distance, relying on archery and Arcana Techniques. However, these Hunting Wind Harpies obviously walked down a different path. Most of them carried close-range weapons, which indicated their preferred manner of fighting.

One of the reasons for this was because their targets were usually other Harpies, not foreigners. By relying on their ability to fly and their speed, they could quickly close in on their targets, which was much more effective than launching an attack from afar. In addition, because they were bandits, they needed to get close to their targets if they wanted to reap any spoils from battle.

At this moment, Purple Forest Stream and Scattered Moon Mist were negotiating with the bandits, but it was evident that their negotiations were totally useless. A large battle was about to break out.

A fierce bandit with fiery-red hair said, “I have already given you enough time. Since you won’t agree, then I can only come and take it for myself!”

Scattered Moon Mist yelled angrily, “Red Raven, you don’t know who you are offending!”

The bandit named Red Raven chortled, “I don’t need to know who I am offending! Bandits fear nothing!”

As he spoke, he raised the spear in his hand, and countless Hunting Wind Bandits yelled as they charged forwards.

When he saw this, Su Chen chuckled slightly. “This is quite a rare sight……”

“A rare sight?” Patelocke didn’t understand.

“In my memory, the Harpies were always a graceful, courteous race that prized aesthetics and beauty. I never expected them to have…… such a ‘rabid dog’ demeanor,” Su Chen said, pausing in thought for a moment before calling them “rabid dogs.”

It was true. The Harpies in front of them were vicious and barbaric, totally lacking in the elegant demeanor that most Harpies boasted in. They were no different from the other races’ bandits that they scorned so.

Upon hearing Su Chen’s words, Patelocke replied quite perceptively, “Cultures may be different, but the one thing we all have in common is barbarism.”

Su Chen’s eyebrows began to jump. “I like the way you think, Patelocke.”