Inside the Geranium Imperial City…
Inside the Geranium Imperial City
Elara had no idea how much chaos and turmoil her three notices had stirred up within the Blood Garment Tower and among the related continental powers.
But she knew that the Blood Garment Tower wouldn't be able to come out and stir trouble so openly anymore for a while.
In the days that followed, the Hundred Nations Banquet in Geranium Kingdom grew increasingly lively.
Besides the Rare Treasure Banquet, the other gatherings and, most importantly, the national dueling competition of the Hundred Nations Banquet began one after another as scheduled.
Although only third-tier countries from the continent participated in the competition, they were all powerful third-tier nations backed by second-tier or higher forces.
This made the duels an excellent chance to understand the strength and background of many nations.
Especially the three affiliated states under Jingshi Kingdom—Periwinkle, Salvia, and Narcissus Kingdoms—also participated in the duels.
Naturally, Elara and the others had to observe everything more carefully.
Once the national dueling competition began, Elara would go with Prince Yu, Gareth, and Prince Leland each day to watch the matches.
She carefully noted the strength of each country and the background of the powers supporting them.
After the matches, she would either return to the inn to discuss plans for attacking Jingshi Kingdom and other countries with the three of them or lock herself in her room to focus on cultivating the "Divine Spirit Mystic Art" with Uno.
Since even the fifteenth-ranked member of the Heaven group from the Blood Garment Tower had been so difficult to kill, then those ranked first, second, or third who stayed beside the Jingshi Emperor were clearly not opponents she could face yet.
Even though her goal wasn't to kill them, but rather to force the Jingshi Emperor into a near-death state so he would have to use the Divine Realm.
She couldn't avoid a confrontation with the top three at that moment.
To ensure she could retreat safely when solving the Divine Realm issue in Jingshi Kingdom, Elara thought it through all night.
She spent 350 national fortune points and asked the System to give her a half-month "Double-Speed Learning" buff.
Her remaining national fortune points dropped to 824.
However, this body of hers had already been nourished by Oswyn using various spiritual and divine medicines, allowing her to progress rapidly in cultivation.
Now with the "Double-Speed Learning" buff from the System added on, her inner power increased at a speed visible to the naked eye with each day of training.
So during this time, aside from cultivation, watching the duels, and daily strategic discussions with Prince Yu, Gareth, and Prince Leland, Elara would also write letters every few days.
She sent them back to Plumera via Black Hawk to remotely manage the country's preparations.
Mr. Gong, who stayed by her side, still left early each morning and returned very late at night, carrying his little notebook.
Every time he returned, his notebook would be filled from cover to cover, sometimes even several books' worth.
Whenever he came across rare and valuable goods from other nations, he would buy some for everyone to try out before slowly researching them himself.
Aside from that, as the national dueling matches between countries became more intense, the title "Faceless Duo" of Elara and Uno gradually lost its spotlight among foreign guests.
This happened after the peak moment of everyone jointly targeting the Blood Garment Tower.
The foreign guests began to shift their focus to the daily national dueling competition.
Because Prince Leland had already told them that this year's National Tournament would definitely become more intense due to the rarity of the champion's reward, which the second-class and higher forces were eager to get their hands on and quickly use to locate the map underground.
As he said, from the start of the tournament, the daily matches were indeed unusually fierce.
The second-class and higher forces all wanted to end the tournament quickly, win the championship, and obtain the exact information about the hidden treasure.
So, in these increasingly intense daily battles, every nation brought out real skills, allowing Elara to gather a wave of highly authentic information.
The visiting guests from each country also discussed things more and more intensely every day.
However, even though everyone's attention gradually shifted to the National Tournament, many people still woke up each day to check the bulletin board, hoping the "Twin Shadows" would release another shocking secret that would stir the continent's powers into even more chaos.
But unfortunately, Elara, busy with various matters every day, did not meet their expectation for juicy gossip.
By the third day of the National Tournament, Elara received a secret letter from Lucian.
To be precise, it was a reply.
Since she had decided to explore the hidden location marked on the treasure map before leaving, Elara naturally needed to gather enough information to ensure her safety.
As the crown prince of a second-class kingdom, Prince Leland could obtain a lot of secret intel, but Lucian, as the head of the top-ranked Tiangong Pavilion, surely knew even more.
Lucian was already considered to be her ally, so Elara wrote him a secret letter, asking him to tell her everything he knew about the hidden treasure.
Lucian replied quickly, and the information he had was indeed far more than what Prince Leland had.
"The champion's reward really is a map. Miss Bai is also interested in what's inside the hidden place? The contents are indeed far more than just two unknown-grade divine vein blessings. It's actually a 'Divine Residence,' a place where the being who left behind the divine vein blessings once lived. The location is in the dense forest of the middle reaches of the Changhong Ancient River, in the northeast part of Geranium Kingdom, near the borders of second-class Yushan Kingdom and third-class Tianhui Kingdom, about six hundred li away from the Geranium royal capital."
Lucian's very first paragraph stunned Elara.
So many nations and forces had come to participate in the Banquet of the Hundred Nations, even someone like Prince Leland, a second-class prince, personally attended—all for the location marked on the champion's treasure map.
And Lucian actually told her this secret information that everyone was after directly in a letter.
He even feared she wouldn't know the location of those two kingdoms and the middle section of the Changhong Ancient River, so he also included a detailed map with exact markings of the hidden treasure site.
Elara was momentarily stunned for two seconds, then immediately had the System mark the treasure location on the System's map.
Lucian truly lived up to being the head of a top-tier power like Tiangong Pavilion.
Such fiercely contested secret information among the nations was nothing but easy to retrieve for them.