Yang Kai couldn't help but roll his eyes upon hearing this. He had no idea where this fellow got his sense of superiority from, actually wanting Yang Kai to serve as his household guard. They were both disciples of the Cave Heavens and Blessed Lands — compared to this man, Xu Zhen might as well have been from a different world entirely.
"Pay him no mind!" Yang Kai waved his hand dismissively. Chen Yue bowed respectfully and withdrew.
The news that Yang Kai had become Red Star's patron spread quickly, catching many people off guard.
Everyone had assumed that when this killing star returned, there would inevitably be a confrontation with Red Star. Who could have guessed it would end like this? No one knew what price Red Star had paid, but they had not only managed to quell Yang Kai's fury — they had even managed to harness his influence!
Word came that it was Zhao Baichuan, Red Star's Grand Boss, who had personally led several other bosses on a visit to Yang Kai's residence. After a lengthy conversation, Yang Kai had finally agreed to become Red Star's patron.
With the crisis resolved, the Red Star disciples were overjoyed. All this time they had been living on edge — if Yang Kai had truly decided to move against Red Star, there would have been no survivors. Every last one of them would have gone down.
Now Yang Kai had suddenly become their very own patron. Not only would there be no fighting, but they would also enjoy his protection. With this killing star stationed here, who would dare cause trouble?
Anyone foolish enough to try need only look at what had become of Sword Pavilion and Thunder Light as a cautionary tale.
In the blink of an eye, a few days passed, and another bombshell of a rumor began circulating through the Star City.
The Sword Pavilion's Star City lay in ruins, scarred by the traces of a massive battle, with not a single living soul remaining within.
When this news broke, the entire city was horrified. They were all stunned by Yang Kai's brutality. They had no idea what the Sword Pavilion's Star City had actually faced — they only saw the result, and they assumed Yang Kai was responsible.
Red Star, for its part, was only too happy to publicize the incident, blowing it out of proportion for all it was worth. Before long, Yang Kai's fearsome reputation spread far and wide. Within a radius of over a hundred thousand li, every major cultivator stronghold had heard the tales.
According to the rumors, this Yang Kai had three heads and six arms, stood eight chi and eight cun tall, had a bear's waist and a tiger's back, a hideously monstrous face, and a savage temperament — he would kill at the slightest provocation just to vent his anger.
Even so, Red Star's Star City didn't grow quieter. Quite the opposite — it became increasingly bustling. Every day, a great many cultivators arrived, drawn by his reputation, requesting to join Red Star.
Within the Grand Desolate World, having a powerful backer and a stable stronghold drastically improved one's chances of survival. Nearly every cultivator had witnessed the terror of the beast tides firsthand. Many cultivator strongholds had been obliterated by the endless waves of savage beasts that covered the mountains and plains.
Now that Sword Pavilion and Thunder Light had been wiped out, Red Star had vaulted to the position of the largest power in the region. Naturally, people flocked to it.
Entire small strongholds — groups of dozens or even hundreds — came streaming in, moving as whole units.
The Star City was once again packed to the rafters. In just a little over ten days, more than a hundred thousand people had gathered here. Red Star's numbers had more than doubled, and that was only because the bosses had strictly controlled the intake and screening process. Otherwise, no one could have guessed how many more might have shown up.
With more people came the need for expansion. The entire Star City was a hive of activity, with new buildings springing up everywhere. The city's borders pushed steadily outward, its area having already grown by fifty percent compared to the start — and the expansion was still ongoing.
More people meant more trade, and Red Star's revenue climbed accordingly. Nowadays, securing a rental for a shop in a prime location was harder than ever. The Grand Boss had gone into seclusion again, and Chen Tianfei, the one responsible for Red Star's day-to-day operations, couldn't stop smiling from ear to ear.
Some time later, within Yang Kai's residence, Yang Kai sat in his chair, using his spiritual sense to inspect the resources stored within the Small Sealed World.
After more than ten days of work, the contents of the tens of thousands of space rings had been sorted out by Guo Ziyan and the others.
Setting everything else aside, just the Open Heaven Pills they had collected numbered in the hundreds of millions. After all, these were tens of thousands of space rings — even if each one contained only a thousand pills, that still amounted to tens of millions. Most Emperors did not possess particularly great wealth, and there was nothing unusual about that. With limited strength, the chances of obtaining anything truly valuable were slim. On top of that, they needed to purchase cultivation supplies, so naturally, they couldn't save up many Open Heaven Pills.
The truly wealthy ones were the Low-Rank and Mid-Rank Open Heaven cultivators.
The Low-Rank Open Heaven cultivators were more modest — having one or two million in savings was considered respectable. But the Mid-Rank ones were a different story entirely — nearly all of them had fortunes amounting to tens of millions.
Even so, these hundreds of millions of Open Heaven Pills paled in comparison to the fortune of the Sword Pavilion Master. That fellow had possessed over a billion! What a terrifying number.
Thinking back to how he used to have to scurry around everywhere to pay back the Madam's ten million, Yang Kai felt a twinge of amusement. Now, ten million was nothing more than a drop in the bucket for him.
Yang Kai wasn't about to complain about having too much. A billion might sound like an enormous sum, but once the people of the Star Boundary arrived in this Three Thousand World, who knew whether it would even be enough.
Aside from the Open Heaven Pills, the rest consisted of various spirit pills and elixirs, secret arts and secret treasures, cultivation techniques and manuals. These were not of much use to him. Cultivating them would take time, and their power might not necessarily compare to Yang Kai's own innate abilities.
The real prizes were the cultivation materials.
From first-grade to sixth-grade materials, covering yin, yang, and the five elements — everything was accounted for.
The materials below third grade were too numerous to count. Fourth and fifth-grade materials were considerably rarer, and as for sixth-grade — Guo Ziyan and his team had found only three portions, all from Zhong Fan's space ring. Presumably, those had been his gains within the Grand Desolate World as well.
This was entirely loot from the dead, obtained without the slightest effort.