Chapter 2017 — Holy Sword Clan(5)

"Hey."

The Holy Sword Maiden suddenly called out, snapping Li Bowen out of his daze.

When he turned to look at her, she held a sword-shaped badge in front of her, seemingly offering it to him.

This badge looked similar to the one in Yuan’s possession, but it was golden in color and had more refined details.

Li Bowen’s eyes widened at the sight of this badge, but before he could say anything, the Holy Sword Maiden spoke, "The mortal left before I could give this to him. If he returns, give it to him for me. I promised to verify his qualifications, after all."

The sword badge was akin to a referral, but it came from none other than the Holy Sword Maiden, which guaranteed Yuan’s admission to the Holy Sword Temple.

"Yes..." Li Bowen accepted the badge with stiff movements. Even someone of his stature had never touched this object before.

"Wait. Did you say he’d left?" Li Bowen suddenly asked.

"Yes, he left after destroying the wall. He probably thought he’d get in trouble or something. I don’t know why, but I have a feeling that he’s afraid of me."

"I see..." Li Bowen remarked in a flat voice. He couldn’t tell her that it was most likely due to what he told Yuan a month ago.

"Anyway, I’ll be leaving now. If you ever find more about that mortal, let me know. We need him in the Holy Sword Clan," said the Holy Sword Maiden.

"But he’s already with the Celestial Overlords," Li Bowen reminded her.

"So what? As far as I am aware, the Celestial Overlords don’t restrict their members to a single faction. And since there are no grievances between our faction, there’s no reason he cannot join us as well."

Most factions out there allow their members to join multiple factions to keep their numbers up, so it wasn’t uncommon for someone to belong to multiple factions.

Li Bowen could only silently nod his head. He recalled Yuan being at the lowest rank for the Celestial Overlords, so there was a good chance they could recruit him into the Holy Sword Clan.

Some time later, the Holy Sword Maiden left the Holy Sword Clan. The Holy Sword King and the others were puzzled by her abrupt departure, but they still left with her.

"Fuck, what am I supposed to do with this badge? If he doesn’t return..." Li Bowen muttered as he stared at the golden badge resting on his palm.

However, he suddenly sensed a presence appear behind him like a ghost.

When he turned around and saw Yuan standing behind him, Li Bowen nearly had a heart attack.

"Son of a bi—!"

"Sorry for startling you."

"You! I thought you had left!"

"No, I only hid my presence since I didn’t want to deal with the Holy Sword Maiden after what happened. I’m glad she left so quickly," said Yuan.

Li Bowen rubbed his eyes and released a stressful sigh.

"I told you to stay away from them, but you went ahead and caused such a scene."

Yuan shrugged, "Don’t make it sound like it was my fault that she dragged me out of my room and forced me to do her bidding. If I had refused, it would have definitely offended her."

"I am not blaming you..." Li Bowen said, admitting that it wasn’t his fault.

"In fact, I am quite thankful for what you did. Like you said, things could’ve turned out much worse, but it didn’t. Hell, the Holy Sword Maiden even approved of you."

Li Bowen extended his hand toward Yuan, showing the golden badge, and continued, "She has granted you permission to enter the Holy Sword Temple."

"Thank you." Yuan accepted the badge.

Then, he asked, "About the wall... how much will the repairs cost? I’ll pay for it."

"It’ll cost a few hundred million spirit stones, but you don’t need to worry about it. It’s pretty worn out, and we’ve been wanting to replace it, but we got lazy."

"If you say so..."

"Anyway, when do you want to head to the Holy Sword Temple?"

"Can we go there now?"

"Unfortunately, it’ll take some time to prepare the transport, so the earliest you can go is three months."

"Then I’ll leave as soon as possible."

"I understand. Oh, one more thing. How would you like to join the Holy Sword Temple? This isn’t just my request, but also the Holy Sword Maiden’s."

"But I am already part of the Celestial Overlords."

"The Celestial Overlords doesn’t prevent its members from joining other factions. In fact, several of our members are also members of the Celestial Overlords. There’s no downside to having more backers, either."

Li Bowen’s words made sense to Yuan. It was common for people to join multiple factions to expand their influence. After all, having the support of several powerful backers was always advantageous.

However, Yuan didn’t want to just join any faction.

"Can you give me some time to think about it? I would like to learn more about the Holy Sword Clan before I decide," he said.

Li Bowen’s face immediately lit up with excitement.

"Of course! Though there’s not much to see here since we’re just a small branch location, I’ll try my best to answer any questions that you may have."

Some time later, Li Bowen left to get the transportation ready. In the meantime, Yuan wandered their territory. However, just as Li Bowen had warned, there wasn’t much to see, much less learn there.

However, he did find a library that contained the history of the Holy Sword Clan, and with nothing else better to do, he started reading it.

"Hm?"

After reading several scrolls, Yuan learned some peculiar information about the Holy Sword Temple.

According to the Holy Sword Clan, they weren’t the first owners of the Holy Sword Temple, and they’d merely acquired it from its creator, the Exalted Blacksmith. However, Yuan couldn’t recall creating it. Of course, he still lacked some of Tian Qiyuan’s memories, mostly of his time after becoming the God of Creation.