As a lord, I was forced to farm

Chapter 960 Cloud Tomb Secret Realm
Wei Fengsheng and others spoke eloquently, making the audience feel as if they were there, especially when they talked about the crisis, everyone couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat.

But when they talked about capturing the Illusory Lake Secret Realm and saw the exasperated expressions on Da Ce's face, everyone clapped and cheered.

"Lord Bai Mei is indeed worthy of being His Highness the Prince's contracted beast partner. The might of the divine dragon is something that the shrimp soldiers and crab generals of the Great Strategy cannot withstand."

"Commander Wei is truly a divine general!"

After arriving at the Illusion Lake aboard the Wind Spirit Ship, the lake water suddenly began to churn, causing everyone to panic.

Wei Fengsheng quickly said, "This is the water monster that the Illusion Lake has conjured up."

As soon as he finished speaking, eight enormous water pythons attacked. Hu Lian and the others stood in front of Jiang Ran and Lin Sha, who were not particularly skilled in martial arts, with their swords drawn.

A flash of sword light appeared, and the giant water python was split in two from the middle of its head. The condensed water seemed to lose its energy support and scattered with a splash. A two-finger-thick illusory stone appeared in the air and was grasped by Hu Lian.

Soon, Hu Lian dealt with the eight water pythons, and the lake returned to calm.

"Truly, the younger generation surpasses the older; young Hu Lian's martial arts have improved considerably," Wei Fengsheng praised.

When they were in the Illusion Lake Secret Realm, they saw that His Highness the Prince had only sent Hu Lian, who looked incredibly young. At the time, he was very worried, but soon, Hu Lian's bravery impressed everyone.

To be objective, if he were to face Hu Lian, he wouldn't be confident of defeating this boy who was more than ten years younger than him.

"Commander Wei is too kind," Hu Lian said with a shy smile, then respectfully presented the eight illusory stones to Jiang Ran.

“The quality is different.” Jiang Ran carefully examined the eight illusory stones and discovered some differences after comparison.

“Yes,” Hu Lian said. “It seems that the higher the quality of the illusory stone, the stronger the water monster that it conjures.”

“In that case, mining the Illusion Stone is also a difficult problem,” Wu Yun said.

One of the accompanying officials said, "That's true. Even the weakest water monster here has the cultivation of the first level of the Qi Opening Realm. In addition, it is in the lake. To defeat such a water monster, it would probably take three or four strong ordinary people to work together."

"However, the water monster's weakness is also very obvious. As long as you attack its head, which is where the illusory stone is located, there is a very high probability that the water will dissipate and expose the illusory stone!"

Lin Sha said, "Your Highness, it seems that it might actually be beneficial for our Great Su if the provincial capitals of Da Ce don't redeem those ordinary soldiers. There are 200,000 of them. Not only can we send them to the Xiangling Secret Realm to plant trees, but we can also send these prisoners of war to mine the Illusion Stone!"

For Da Su, these prisoners were all invaders of Da Su, and not treating them as slaves that could be bought and sold at will was, in a sense, a merciful act.

Jiang Ran did not reject the proposal, as the issue of how to treat prisoners of war was destined to be a very controversial topic.

"Let's not talk about these annoying things for now."

After leaving the Illusory Lake Secret Realm, Jiang Ran led the officials to other secret realms.

Within the secret realm of Wind and Thunder Cliff, Hu Lian leaped into the cliff face, carrying a rock with him. The rock was incredibly smooth, and apart from the gentle wind and thunder power swirling around it, it was not much different from an ordinary pebble.

Bai Mei liked collecting these strange and unusual things, and she even got a cliff rock to put in her nest.

The Sandy Realm, the Demon Forest Realm, the Misty Ancient Town Realm...

Finally, the group arrived at the town-level secret realm they had obtained from Da Zang—the Cloud Tomb Secret Realm. Upon arriving, everyone couldn't help but curse.

"No wonder Da Zang was willing to exchange a town-level Jade Map Secret Realm for it; it turns out this place is a cemetery!"

The dark and gloomy Cloud Tomb Secret Realm was completely empty, with only a stretch of yellow sand and sixteen ancient tombs of various sizes.

What's even more infuriating is that these ancient tombs were completely destroyed, a scene of brutal calamity.

The blue bricks blocking the tomb passage appeared to have been violently blasted open by spiritual power or cleaved open by sharp weapons.

Inside the tomb, the scene was appalling. The stone coffin lid was overturned and lay heavily to one side. The tomb was empty; all the burial treasures had been looted by the people of Da Zang. Only a few broken corpses remained, perhaps considered unlucky, and carelessly discarded in various places.

Seeing this, Lin Sha frowned slightly, his usually gentle tone replaced by anger and disgust towards the barbarians. "The Jade Map Secret Realm is incredibly mysterious. Why it appears and is scattered around the world remains a mystery. Many scholars speculate that it may be related to ancient times. These tombs have immense research value, yet they have been so desecrated by these barbarians!"

"The inscription on this tombstone... seems to be ancient script."

On the broken stone tombstone, some mysterious characters were carved.

Tracing back to the deep river of antiquity is an eternal question deeply rooted in the human soul.

Including Jiang Ran, the officials who entered the Cloud Tomb Secret Realm all crowded around the stone tablet to take a look.

"These tombstones seem to be the core of this secret realm." Qiu Baishui suddenly drew his sword and swung it down heavily amidst the horrified shouts of the crowd.

"What a waste, Lord Qiu! What are you doing!"

However, to everyone's surprise, the seemingly broken stone tablet was completely unharmed by the full-force attack of the eighth level of the Spirit Gathering Realm. Instead, Qiu Baishui was thrown away by a mysterious force.

"Sure enough, the reason this tombstone is still here is not because Da Zang didn't want to take it, but because it is the core of the secret realm, and they can't take it away."

Qiu Baishui got up from the ground, brushed the yellow sand off his robes, and, amidst the reproachful gazes of the crowd, revealed a nonchalant smile. "Gentlemen, what are you afraid of? I only acted because I was confident in my guess. Besides, His Highness the Prince is here. If His Highness hadn't given his approval, how could I have dared to act?"

Hearing this, everyone turned their attention to His Highness the Prince.

Jiang Ran glanced at Qiu Baishui.

He wondered when she had given in; it was clearly his own idea to try it out.

However, Jiang Ran was aware that Qiu Baishui could not damage the tombstone.

'Hi-Hyun, do you recognize the inscription on the monument?'

Jiang Ran transmitted her voice to Fei Xuan in the spiritual sky.

"Let me see." Fei Xuan emerged from the spiritual realm, and a pinkish-blue butterfly appeared on Jiang Ran's shoulder. "This seems to be ancient script, but I don't recognize it."

'I'm sorry, I couldn't help Master...' Fei Xuan said with some guilt, her voice becoming low.

"What are you feeling guilty about? I was just asking casually." Jiang Ran smiled and touched Fei Xuan's antennae with her hand, causing the latter to curl up shyly.