Chapter 5

A fact was team China had become very strong but there was still a gap between them and the peaks of the realm, team Devil and team Celestial. The strengths of the members were far from those at the top. In the Lord of the Rings, 70% of the credit belonged to Xuan. There was a rather high chance of being wiped if it weren’t for Xuan’s scheme.

“Therefore… we have to get even stronger. Like you, Heng. You wish to protect your girl. You wish to never run again. Never be a coward again. So you must become strong. And YinKong, you wish to seek the footsteps of that man and kill him. So you also must become strong. Xuan wants to find his feelings. Everyone wants to live. You all must become strong. And so do I. I have to become strong to face team Devil again. Keep growing until we do not fear any foes!”

These were words Zheng said before he entered the Lord of the Rings. Many things had not been concluded in the previous battle so this trip was necessary. Zheng also saved a lot of points and rewards from exchanges. He only discussed it with HongLu and didn’t tell Xuan. Then he exchanged a large quantity of medicines and some fancy ornaments. The ornaments were considered luxury items so they were inexpensive. He also exchanged a new spatial storage bag which stuffed his medicines and ornaments then he entered the Lord of the Rings. He exchanged a total of 90 days to conclude several things in the world.

Sauron died for real this time but the One Ring remained. Xuan’s speculation turned out to be true. The three Elven rings also remained. A part of the elves left Middle Earth due to the prophecy but the majority stayed. The age of the Elves ended in the original plot at this point. However, it was not the case in this altered timeline due to the existence of the Elven rings.

Zheng landed in Rivendell upon entering the world. The first people he met were Gandalf and Elrond. A long conversation followed between them. Zheng did not describe God’s realm in much details and the movie characters did not pursue this topic. They told him what happened to the various characters.

The only Hobbit who remained returned to his hometown. Aragorn knighted him for his contribution in the war and bestowed a piece of land to him. Aragorn naturally ascended the throne. Since Theoden died in the war, he was also helping the Queen of Rohan to manage the kingdom. Gimli and Legolas returned to their kingdoms. They became the heroes sang by the barbs and will be told in the histories of Middle Earth in the years to come.

The teams were the heroic mercenaries. Aragorn proposed to carve their portraits on the mountains outside Mordor as a remembrance.

“Sounds like remembering great persons that are dead… Don’t bother with it. It makes me feel something’s not quite right.” Zheng replied.

He was also moved. Knowing that these people who once fought together was the best news to him, even though they belong to different worlds, and there wouldn’t be another chance to fight together again.

Gandalf, being the White Wizard now, was extremely generous. He gave Zheng a hundred energy stones at once. Zheng estimated these were all equivalent to rank D and C energy stones. Gandalf then gave him a bag similar to their spatial bags. It had a smaller space, three cubic meters, but did not require any energy to use. So it was much more convenient.

Zheng parted with Gandalf and Elrond. He did not have to walk his way again as he did in the mission. He brought out the Sky Stick and headed to Lorien where Galadriel was at. The Sky Stick flew over the mountains and soon reached the golden forest. The elves were indeed here as Eldrond had said.

Zheng met with Galadriel. She did not attempt to look into his mind like before. She thanked him and told him to pass the words to Xuan, that the One Ring should leave Middle Earth forever, the Elven rings were more than enough. If it returned, it might bring back Sauron.

(I think… Xuan never considered giving the ring back to you. And the ring is on my hand.) Zheng smiled in agreement. He knew Xuan too well, intelligent and devilish. How could anyone expect to take from him what had reached his hands? The probability of that happening was zero.

Zheng brought out the medicines and ornaments which received cries of surprises from the elves. This world had magic but its technological level was low. Many diseases did not have the appropriate treatments. The medicines were as valuable as mithril. These medicines from God were of high quality and Zheng brought in a lot. He brought the ornaments as a gift rather than as a currency to trade. Elves love delicacy and beauty which the ornaments fit the bill. However, he underestimated the impact of the ornaments. The elves and even Galadriel praised them so much that she ordered the elves to bring Zheng 3000 energy stones. This shocked Zheng in return. The energy stones were lesser quality than the ones from Gandalf but they were still equivalent to rank D energy stones. So many energy stones would cover all their uses in the future. He had no abilities that required energy stones so they would be spent on rune word formations.

Both parties were contend with the deal. Afterward, Zheng flew to Gondor and met with Aragorn again. He spent a thousand energy stones and the remaining medicines to hire farmers to excavate the fallen wizard tower.

Aragorn called five thousand farmers but the lack of technology in this world meant it would take seven to nine months to excavate the tower than sunk two hundred meters into the ground. When they excavated Hamuptra, there were technology and explosives while in Middle Earth everything had to be done by digging.

The energy stones alone were a big surprise for Zheng. He didn’t expect too much in just once trip. The most important mission was the time he obtained to refine his Qi.

Gimli came to Isengard to visit him after words spread. And then he trained in peace while Aragorn took care of all the matters. The days were rather relaxing to Zheng.

Qi refinement was a dangerous process since this was not God’s dimension. There was no heal if the Qi exploded and might even be fatal. Zheng had to enter the fourth stage and use infinitesimal control each time he refined Qi. And so it took him days to refine a little bit. Refined Qi also could not be stored in the mithril rings so he had to store them in his body. He placed it among his Qi. Refined Qi was unique in that it only absorbed other energies but never reacted. Sometimes, Zheng was curious at what would come from refining Blood Energy. He did not have the courage to attempt though. Qi was a gentle energy and it still exploded upon failure. Failure from refining Blood Energy might be the end of his life.

Time passed quickly and the end of the ninety days had come. Zheng left Isengard and returned to Rivendell, where he had to be to return to God’s dimension.

“Then… it’s time for the next movie, Transformers!”

Zheng’s departure and return happened in an instant to the rest of the team. He disappeared then reappeared in the blink of an eye. Only the details on his body changed, such as his clothes and expression.

“Haha. Super yields from this trip.” He laughed out loud as soon as he came back. The others remained in the same postures as when he left. Everyone was giving him weird looks.

“… There anything on my body?” Zheng stopped laughed and asked awkwardly.

“No, nothing major… It’s just weird. Imagine someone very seriously told you he’s going to train for some time at another place. You just saw him off at the airport and the next second he jumped off the plane laughing and yelling super yields from the trip.” HongLu pinched the hair in front of his forehead and laughed.

“It does sound weird.”

Everyone was pleasantly surprised when Zheng brought out the big bag of energy stones. They all knew Zheng traded a rune word formation that increased recovery rate from the other teams. So many energy stones would allow them to use the formation without any worry.

After the excitement, the team began their preparations for the next movie. They could also relax a bit in the remaining six days. Everyone had a lot of points left so they could choose what to do with the points, having a vacation in another world or spent time in their basements. Zheng did not have the mood for much recreation as he was the leader. He spent most of his time readjusting himself when he was not accompanying Lori. There was not much leisure time for him when there were the fourth stage, the refined Qi, the eight flags, and the dangerous Tiger’s Soul to deal with.

The other members were quite free aside from a few individuals. The ex-soldiers, ChengXiao, Kampa, and WangXia, did not require as much training due to using sci-fi weapons. Furthermore, they were excellent soldiers to begin with. They had a fixed schedule for training and then spent their time relaxing.

HongLu, TengYi, and Gando were normal people back in the real world. Despite having the talents, they did not have the knowledge to properly train themselves. So they did as much as they could to improve upon what they were good at.

Since the team could not gift anymore ranked rewards, they only helped TengYi raise his physical stats and injected him with dragon blood and the prototype T virus. He did not have get any abilities or special enhancements. So everyday, he grabbed a Gatling gun and target practice.

Zero, YinKong and Heng belonged to the group that desired to grow with every bit of effort. They were all determined and trained day and night until they were injured. After a heal from God, they would dive into training again. The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception and YinKong and Heng’s new abilities needed the time and energy to practice.

Lan and Xuan belonged to neither of the three groups of people mentioned. Psyche force was beyond the team’s understanding. No one knew how to improve it. Lan was therefore forced to relax. As for Xuan… everyone knew he was doing his strange things but no one knew what they were.

Time slowly flowed. “Three days left…”

YinKong gazed at the ruined basement. The previous attack destroyed the place. Similar to the basement was her body, which was filled with wounds. She dragged herself to the stairs leading up, leaving a trail of blood behind. On a careful inspection, one of her arm was torn open from the center.

YinKong seemed as though she had no sense of pain. Only when her arm occasionally hit the wall did she frowned a little. She spent a lot of effort climbing to the first floor of her room. She pushed the door open then stopped on the platform. “Complete heal.” A beam shone down on her.

(This ability… is many times more powerful than The Shining Air Wave. No one can dodge it easily, whether it is Zheng’s clone or him… There will be no problem with this ability!)

YinKong let out a sigh of relief after the heal completed. She was determined and strong willed but her body was still that of humans. How could she really not feel any pain? She merely hid all the pain and weakness deep in her heart. She would only express her soft side when no one else was around.

“Let’s go back. Another movie is coming the day after tomorrow. There’s still a quarter left to the novel Terror Infinity… I can rest for a day and finish the novel.” She muttered to herself then lowered her head and walked back to her room.

It seemed to be an unwritten rule that the day before entering a movie was a rest day in order to avoid being exhausted after they entered. So this was the last day of their training. Everyone put in as much effort as they could.

Heng was training equally hard. He might be weak and feared close range combat and blood but he had the perseverance during training. His fingers, palms, and even elbows became injured everyday. Fortunately, God’s heals were extremely potent so that he wasn’t destroying his body with the intensity from practicing the newly learned Lightning Shot and 3-arrow explosive shot.

Heng lay on the ground and breathed heavily. The silver bow lay near him. He obtained 300 energy stones to use as arrows since Zheng brought back so many energy stones. Each rank D energy stones could form a hundred energy arrows when he placed it on the bow, turning his bow into a laser machine gun. Heng also discovered he could combine this technique with Lightning Shot.

He tried to raise his arm, yet his right arm was broken. The bones were completely fractured. The arm was ruin if he did not have a heal from God. However, the wound he paid to test his new ability was totally worth!

Heng took a deep breath as he gazed over the craters on the ground that covered an area of 1 kilometer. The power of this ability exceeded his expectation. It would definitely become the deciding factor of battle. He firmly believed it. Now the question was how to get up. His other arm was dislocated too.

While Heng was troubling over how to get up, the other team members were fighting their own battles. WangXia stood inside the basement with his eyes closed. He was holding a faintly glowing globe. An indefinite length of time passed. When he opened his eyes, it felt as though he was grasping onto something. He threw the thing off and then an explosion occurred fifty meters away. The explosion blasted a boulder several meters big. WangXia slapped his hands on the ground. A lively being moved underground toward another boulder. Their collision resulted in an explosion even bigger than the first one, blasting the boulder to pieces.

“Two times. I don’t have enough Yao energy. Can only use them twice… I will try again after the energy recovered. The tracking bomb with wings doesn’t seem bad. I will test it next.” WangXia returned to standing there without moving.

Kampa was exercising in bed with a certain blonde woman. Zero was holding a little girl and reading a fairy tale book. ChengXiao… also exercising in bed with a girl. Xuan’s room echoed with the sounds of machineries and gears. He was pressing buttons with a crazed look. Zheng was fishing in the basement with Lori. Lan was cooking in her room while humming a song. HongLu and the mature woman were…

The tenth day arrived before long. Team China came to the platform and soon the beams descended along with God’s voice.

“Enter the beam within thirty seconds. Target locked: Transformers. Teleportation begins.”