"What do you wish to know?" Huang Xiaolong asked all of a sudden.
Recoiling slightly in fright, Jiang Shaoyu stared at him in shock.
"You… Are you really Huang Xiaolong?" Jiang Shaoyu muttered. She was extremely flustered.
Pausing in his tracks, Huang Xiaolong spun around to look at her. Caught by surprise, Jiang Shaoyu crashed straight into his chest.
Yelping in a fluster, she retreated hastily.
Huang Xiaolong couldn't help but snicker amusedly when he saw her reaction. He shook his head and sighed, "Young Lady Shaoyu, do you really think that there's anyone crazy enough to impersonate me?"
Her face flushed red and a soft giggle escaped her lips. Indeed. The Creation Palace was going all out to search for Huang Xiaolong. Anyone who had half a brain would steer clear of Huang Xiaolong's identity.
"Didn't they say that you were only at the small completion stage of the God of Creation Realm?! You should only possess 2.3 billion units of grand cosmos energy!" Jiang Shaoyu finally voiced her doubts. "From the strength you revealed, you should have far surpassed 3 billion units of grand cosmos energy!"
Huang Xiaolong blinked slightly and frowned. "It's been nearly seven million years since I entered the Eternal Heaven Alliance… Why can't I make a breakthrough?"
Jiang Shaoyu shook her head and it was clear she wasn't convinced. "It's impossible! If you cultivated for seven hundred million years, it would be likely for your strength to experience such a huge leap forward. It's impossible to do it in seven million years!"
Huang Xiaolong chuckled but decided not to explain further.
After all, he wouldn't be able to convince her otherwise. No one would believe that he achieved a breakthrough in such a short amount of time!
The two of them continued to soar through the skies, but no more conversation was made.
Jiang Shaoyu's expression changed several times, but Huang Xiaolong had no idea what story she was spinning in her head this time.
"Why did you come to the Black Sea?" Huang Xiaolong broke the awkward silence after some time.
"I… I was looking for the Black Sea World! I heard that I'll be able to find some Dark Jade Metal Essence there…" Jiang Shaoyu explained after staring at him in silence for some time.
The material she was talking about was an ingredient used to refine low-grade creation artifacts.
"Dark Jade Metal Essence?" Huang Xiaolong raised an eyebrow in shock.
The amount of Dark Jade Metal Essence he had was frighteningly large. After all, he found a holy world contained in the Black Sea World filled with essence mines. One of them contained a lot of Dark Jade Metal Essence, and it stretched on for hundreds of thousands of miles. One could only imagine how much Huang Xiaolong managed to extract.
Since the Sun Moon Furnace and the Purple Lightning Peak were already mid-grade creation artifacts, he had no use for the Dark Jade Metal Essence at all. They were lying quietly in a corner of his furnace.
Seeing the look on Huang Xiaolong's face, Jiang Shaoyu asked cautiously, "Did you… Did you manage to obtain some?"
Huang Xiaolong laughed happily. "What a coincidence. I did indeed obtain a bunch of them back in the Black Sea World."
"Seriously?! That's great! How much of it do you have?! Can you sell me some?" The expression of shock on her face was quickly replaced with a smile when she heard what he said.
She was in dire need of some Dark Jade Metal Essence to improve her creation artifact. If she didn't need it so urgently, she wouldn't have entered the Black Sea! When she left for the Black Sea, her father was extremely against the idea! She could only hide her intention to travel to the Black Sea from her father and sneak out of the Solitary Alliance.
"How much do you need?" Huang Xiaolong sighed.
"One… One hundred catties!" Jiang Shaoyu looked at Huang Xiaolong from the corner of her eye to gauge his reaction before changing her tune. "No… Ninety catties is more than enough…"
"Of course, I can trade other treasures with you if you don't want dao coins!"
Huang Xiaolong smiled when he saw her hesitate. "Here I was wondering how much you needed…" Huang Xiaolong retrieved two hundred catties and handed them to her. "Here you go."
Jiang Shaoyu stared at him in a daze before finally looking at the dazzling Dark Jade Metal Essence in her hands. Excitement filled her heart as she slowly turned to ask Huang Xiaolong, "... Do you have more?"
Naturally, the more she could use to refine her weapon, the better!
The smile on Huang Xiaolong's face didn't fade as he asked mischievously, "How much do you need?"
With her face flushing with embarrassment, she couldn't find it in herself to ask for more. After all, Huang Xiaolong gave her two hundred catties even though she only asked for a hundred earlier.
Eventually, the need to refine her treasure allowed her to overcome her embarrassment. "Around five hundred catties more?"
Huang Xiaolong didn't blink as he tossed over a thousand catties.
The mine he extracted was hundreds of thousands of miles long. The amount he gave her couldn't even make a dent in his inventory. To Huang Xiaolong, they were nothing more than useless rocks.
Of course, they were priceless treasures to Jiang Shaoyu! She thanked Huang Xiaolong profusely after keeping the Dark Jade Metal Essence.
"So… Do you want dao coins or would you like other treasures?" Jiang Shaoyu asked.
Huang Xiaolong shook his hand to dismiss her concerns. "Forget it. These are merely scrap metal in my eyes. I have a lot more where that came from. You can have them."
"You're giving it to me?" Jiang Shaoyu was utterly bewildered.
The Dark Jade Metal Essence was extremely rare. One couldn't buy it with money, and Huang Xiaolong casually took out 1.2 thousand catties for her.
"Give it back if you don't want it." Huang Xiaolong joked.
"Since you're so generous, I'll keep them all! Humph! I'll be a fool to reject them!" Jiang Shaoyu kept the rest of the metal essence into her spatial artifact after poking her tongue out at Huang Xiaolong.
However, Huang Xiaolong turned serious all of a sudden. "Someone's here."
Jiang Shaoyu frowned, but Huang Xiaolong dragged her into a crack in space before she could react. "Let's hide for now."
As soon as the words left his lips, he hid their auras.
Not too long after, three figures tore through the skies.
They were experts from the Creation Palace, and Jiang Shaoyu recognized all of them! They were at the large completion stage of the God of Creation Realm!
"We lost contact with Duan Jun in the Black Sea… Should we report this to the second palace master?" Someone asked.
After all, Duan Jun's identity was a cut above the rest. He was the direct disciple of Kai Dong!
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"Let's look for him before making any rash decisions. If we fail to locate him, it won't be too late to make the report." Someone else said.
After they spoke, they disappeared into the Black Sea.
Seeing that they had left, Jiang Shaoyu heaved a sigh of relief.
"We should leave this place." Huang Xiaolong no longer messed about as he brought her away from the Black Sea.
Jiang Shaoyu wasn't used to Huang Xiaolong's grip when he pulled her along and she tried to struggle free. However, she gave up making Huang Xiaolong release her when she realized how quickly they were traveling.
After half an hour, Huang Xiaolong released Jiang Shaoyu when he was certain that they were safe.
Along the way, they ran into several batches of experts from the Creation Palace. However, Huang Xiaolong managed to conceal their presence from the search parties.
After twenty days, they finally escaped from the Creation Palace's encirclement. More than a month later, Huang Xiaolong and Jiang Shaoyu went their separate ways when they approached the Solitary Alliance's territory.
Jiang Shaoyu looked at Huang Xiaolong's leaving figure as complicated emotions filled her heart. She only returned to the Solitary Alliance a long time after Huang Xiaolong disappeared.
Huang Xiaolong continued on his way back to the Eternal Heaven Alliance and it took several months for him to finally return. When he did, Wang Meiqi, Ao Shenghao, and Ao Guang celebrated his return. It was especially so for Wang Meiqi as relief and joy filled her heart.
"Your Highness, the members of the Creation Palace came more than ten times during the time you were absent. They were threatening the alliance leaders to hand you over." Ao Shenghai reported.
"What did Chen Yizhen and Lin Tong say?" Huang Xiaolong asked.