Chapter 799: More Divine Power Trees! (2)

Translator: Dragon Boat Translation Editor: Dragon Boat Translation

In front of him, this group of oceanic lords, at the lowest tier, had absolutely no opportunity to showcase their power. They were utterly powerless, akin to pigs awaiting slaughter in a pen.

“Lord, have mercy!!”

“Please forgive our previous disrespect, whoever possesses the divine artifact shall have it. Since you have obtained it, we will no longer covet it!”

“Forgive me, Lord, I will serve you as my master in the future!”

In a matter of seconds, these oceanic lords swiftly transitioned from arrogance to pleading for mercy, displaying a remarkable level of adaptability and skill in changing their demeanor.

But Ji Chen had no intention of killing them either. It would be too wasteful to directly kill this considerable force.

Perhaps it could develop into a trump card, and one can never have too many of those.

Amidst the nervous gaze of the many oceanic lords, Ji Chen pondered for a moment, his expression indifferent.

Then, calmly and unhurriedly, he said, “I’ll give you a chance. In the future, if I need it, you must come and support me unconditionally.”

They hesitated for a moment, their expressions reluctant, but soon some lords immediately agreed.

“I am willing, as long as you give the order, I will definitely mobilize the army to support you!!”

Ji Chen smiled as if satisfied. “Very well, then you shall start the initiation of the contract.”

The lord was suddenly at a loss. He had just wanted to cope for a while and disappear when it was safe, but why did he have to sign a contract now?

But since the words had been spoken, refusing again might cause big problems. It was not a wise choice to provoke this human.

He could only nod with a mournful face.

Ji Chen didn’t play any tricks with this contract. It was simply what he said: they would only need to support him once when necessary.

This type of contract was not like the master-servant contract signed with Luo Yang and others. It was a verbal contract, and although it was only verbal, it was protected and maintained by the rules of the world.

Violation could result in stagnation in one’s power at best and a decline in strength at worst.

No one would violate such contracts that would bestow severe consequences regardless of their tiers.

The oceanic lord who was the first lucky one soon finished signing the verbal contract, and Ji Chen released him.

The oceanic lord, with a depressed expression, bowed to him and then left this sad place with his army without hesitation.

The divine artifact was not obtained, but someone had freeloaded a chance to mobilize their forces. What a loss!

Seeing Ji Chen keeping his promise, other lords also reluctantly signed contracts and left with a heart full of grievances.

More than fifty oceanic lords present, almost the strongest group in the Sea of Death, without exception, offered a chance to mobilize their forces.

This force was considerable, stronger than the reinforcements against Balzarna’s Dragon Island and Deep Sea Dragon Whale. Although the quantity might be insufficient, the quality was not low.

Just the Legendary tier alone accounted for more than half.

These oceanic lords, in the extremely harsh environment of the Sea of Death, where resources were extremely scarce, and where they had to survive amidst the pressure of intrigue and killing, had tempered an extremely tenacious strength.

According to the giant turtle, the reason for this was the severe resource depletion over the past ten millennia, resulting in extreme barrenness in the area. Ten thousand years ago, the sea lords in the Sea of Death were much stronger, with many in the legendary tiers and even epic tiers were as common as everyday occurrences.

It was a pity that they were all trapped in this narrow Sea of Death. Otherwise, the entire Mid-Ocean might have undergone a thorough reshuffle.

As the last sea lord left with a complex expression, Ji Chen had collected a total of fifty-five contracts from the sea lords, turning them into a powerful card.

This trip went smoothly. Ji Chen returned to the surface without hesitation, searching for more divine power trees.

After obtaining the Ocean God’s Shrine, the second goal was to find enough divine power trees.

The appearance of divine power trees seemed to have no pattern, and the underwater sea races rarely came to the surface. Most of the time, they live in the sea, so they don’t know which islands had a large number of divine power trees.

The divine power tree forest they encountered before was already the largest they found along the way. The others were just scattered with a few trees. So far, they had found less than a thousand trees, far from the ten thousand they needed.

After some thought, Ji Chen decided to return to Hometown Island. There were many terrestrial races there, and they should be familiar with the islands for resource collection.

The humans and elves on Hometown Island were quite surprised when they returned for the second time, especially considering their attempt to seize the Ocean God’s Shrine.

However, they still maintained a respectful demeanor outwardly.

Both the sea races and Ji Chen were entities they couldn’t afford to provoke, and they had to tread carefully.

When Ji Chen expressed his intention to return, they were also very surprised.

After all, divine power trees carried curses. Would they dare to approach them instead of avoiding them?

Wasn’t this the calmness of a strong individual?

“Lord, when we sailed through the Sea of Death to collect resources, we did find many islands with divine power trees, but most of them only had a dozen or so,” the human leader shook his head. “And in most cases, we avoided them, not daring to approach them. We also don’t know if there are more divine power trees on some larger islands.”

The elf leader nodded. “The growth of divine power trees has no pattern as if it were the will of the gods themselves… But we have encountered the largest forest of divine power trees, with about a thousand trees, and quite a few divine power crystals.”

Ji Chen didn’t hesitate and immediately said, “Tell me the exact location, and I’ll exchange resources for it.”

The elf leader’s face lit up. Was there such a good deal? He was already prepared to provide the information for free.

He quickly responded, “It’s on a small group of islands about one hundred and fifty to one hundred and sixty miles west of Hometown Island.”

Ji Chen nodded slightly, waved his hand, and suddenly a mountain-like pile of resources appeared on the ground, including the most urgently needed food, textiles, freshwater, as well as some rare resources and weapon equipment.

Among them were even some food seeds, which were the most desired items for them.

The elves couldn’t contain their excitement, openly displaying their joy. With so many supplies, their days ahead would be much better, especially with those seeds. Using natural elf spells, they could maximize the survival rate and continuously obtain seeds to form a virtuous cycle.

Seeing the elves receiving so many resources, the human leader couldn’t sit still either and quickly revealed the information he knew about the divine power trees.

“Lord, we once encountered an island with many divine power trees…”

Seeing the humans trying to compete for business, the elf leader also became anxious and revealed everything he knew without reservation, hoping to gain more resources.

Later on, not only humans and elves but even other races with relatively smaller populations on Hometown Island joined in.

Although the number of divine power trees in each location wasn’t large, apart from the thousands mentioned by the elves initially, most had only a dozen or so. However, there were also quite a few with around a hundred.

Many a little makes a mickle.

When the data was added up, it amounted to about four to five thousand trees, in addition to the approximately six thousand from before.

Ji Chen dispatched teams of a hundred people each to the coordinates provided by Hometown Island to transport the divine power trees.

Thus, the races on Hometown Island could see formidable troops helping with ropes, carrying mature and immature divine power trees, and transplanting them onto the back of the giant turtle.

The giant turtle’s face contorted as it watched the divine power trees being sent onto its back, feeling somewhat constipated.

Having been previously cursed, it now had so many cursed trees planted on its back. Although protected by the power of the ocean, it still felt uneasy.

With four thousand trees remaining until the goal of ten thousand was reached, Ji Chen pondered where to find this remaining portion.

Walking from amidst the humans and elves on Hometown Island were an elderly and a young dwarf.

Ji Chen glanced at them, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes.

That scruffy old dwarf turned out to be an epic-tier powerhouse?