Volume 34, Chapter 479.2: Heaven Dou City
Huo Yuhao proceeded deep into the city once he entered, and found a hotel in a relatively bustling area to stay.
He didn’t have any leads right now, so he could only find a place to stay.
How easy could it be to find Tang Ya and Ma Xiaotao inside the Heavenly Soul Empire, or the Sun Moon Empire? He wasn’t hoping that he could just find them here, but searching for information inside a large city like Heaven Dou City was a lot easier. He was almost certain that there were evil soul masters in Heaven Dou City. The Holy Ghost Church wouldn’t relinquish the opportunity to control such an enormous city, and even if they couldn’t control it entirely, they would keep the city within their grasp.
Huo Yuhao and the Ice Bear King had something to eat after finding a place to stay, but this meal stumped Huo Yuhao.
The reason was simple; the Ice Bear King’s appetite was far too terrifying! One could imagine – he had a frame like a mountain, so how much did he have to eat to be satiated?
Everyone would find it very suspicious if Huo Yuhao just allowed him to eat as much as he wanted inside the restaurant.
Fortunately, the Ice Bear King had stored a lot of energy inside his body, and he could still sustain himself for many days even without eating. This would give Huo Yuhao enough time to find a solution.
Huo Yuhao brought the Ice Bear King out of the hotel after eating dinner. Resolving this glutton’s food issues was top priority. At the same time, he wanted to observe what was happening right now inside Heaven Dou City.
There were all sorts of surveillance soul tools in the skies above Heaven Dou City. Huo Yuhao didn’t want his behavior to be too eye-catching, and he spread his Spiritual Detection around him as he walked the streets, trying to maintain his sensitivity as much as possible during the process. In the end, even if his spiritual power was discovered, they couldn’t lock down on his position unless his opponent was also a soul master with formidable spiritual power.
Huo Yuhao wasn’t that concerned about his safety. With the Ice Bear King beside him, almost nobody could capture him unless there were many powerful individuals from the Holy Ghost Church present.
Heaven Dou City was still busy and bustling late into the night. People thronged along the busy streets, and one could hardly tell that this was a city that had experienced the flames of war not too long ago.
The main streets of Heaven Dou City were being repaired, and some soul lamps were being installed. There was no doubt that the Sun Moon Empire was still following through with their plan of converting the city with their technology and soul tools.
The Heavenly Soul Empire’s citizens were undoubtedly full of hatred towards the Sun Moon Empire. However, as long as they got used to all that new technology, and the core of those soul tools’ technology was within the Sun Moon Empire’s grasp, then the Sun Moon Empire wouldn’t be afraid of the Heavenly Soul Empire’s aristocrats or citizens resenting them. Given enough time, the Heavenly Soul Empire would be slowly assimilated.
Huo Yuhao walked the streets as he sighed inside. The Sun Moon Empire’s strategy was just too ruthless. They were saying that they were serving the citizens, and nobody could say anything about it.
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It was much later into the night, when the lights along the streets began to dim, before Huo Yuhao took the Ice Bear King back to the hotel.
Huo Yuhao had spent almost four hours scouting around, and he had already discovered some information about what he wanted to know.
“I’m hungry, grandfather,” the Ice Bear King said to Huo Yuhao with an aggrieved look on his face.
Huo Yuhao laughed bitterly and said, “You’re not the only one who’s hungry. Those two fellows are hungry too.” He was naturally referring to Big Mao and Second Mao, who, after sleeping for a couple of hours, had awoken in the spectral demiplane. Huo Yuhao immediately communicated with them with his spiritual power after they woke up, and told them to play around inside the spectral demiplane for now. He instructed them not to go too far beyond the borders that he had established.
Occasionally leaving the borders for a few moments wouldn’t be a problem, but they were so lively, and Huo Yuhao would already be happy if they didn’t cause trouble with the undead.
But the biggest problem in the spectral demiplane was that there was nothing to eat. Those two fellows fooled around for a while, but soon expressed to Huo Yuhao that they were hungry.
Feeding three bears is truly a difficult task!
Huo Yuhao laughed bitterly on the inside. Fortunately, he had managed to find a way to resolve their appetites when he was out. At least, he could deal with today, and everything else would have to wait.
The night was even darker outside. Huo Yuhao extinguished the lights before he took the Ice Bear King out of the hotel once more. This time, Huo Yuhao concealed them both entirely through Imitation.
“Grandfather, this ability of yours is fantastic. It’s very suitable for surreptitious activity!” the Ice Bear King said excitedly.
Huo Yuhao was almost rendered speechless. “Do you know how to talk? What surreptitious!? Your grandfather is taking you to eat.” Huo Yuhao could only accept the title now, as he was used to the Ice Bear King calling him that.
Huo Yuhao confirmed the right direction once they left the hotel before speeding up.
There were many surveillance soul tools in the sky, but they were inside a city, not the wilderness. Even if oscillation detectors discovered there were two people moving around, nobody would be alerted. Huo Yuhao realized when he was investigating before this that the surveillance soul tools above the city were mostly for monitoring. There were oscillation detectors and thermal detectors, but they weren’t rotating around, and were probably used for responding to sudden events.
Huo Yuhao wrapped through and around streets and alleys as they arrived near the southern city gate. Huo Yuhao turned and entered a string of alleys, and an enormous structure quickly appeared in front of him.
It was a warehouse... a warehouse that stored food.
Granaries were imperative for any city, because they fed the city’s citizens and the army.
For a large city like Heaven Dou City, at least ten such granaries had to be kept full to sustain everyone’s daily necessities. At the same time, these granaries could also be used in the case of a siege.
Only granaries could satisfy the Ice Bear King, Big Mao, and Second Mao. Huo Yuhao didn’t bother with whether the food was tasty or not.
The granaries were guarded very tightly. People that intended to cause destruction would normally start by burning granaries, because that was the easiest way to start chaos.
The granaries were heavily guarded, but that was for normal people. These defenses didn’t count for much against powerful individuals like Huo Yuhao and the Ice Bear King.
They had the protection of Imitation as the bear and man strode openly into the granary’s periphery. They would run into oscillation detectors and thermal detectors if they went further inside.
On the continent, these two kinds of soul tools combined, in addition to spiritual detectors, were considered a foolproof surveillance combination.
Therefore, places with these surveillance soul tools installed were typically very confident in their defenses. Spiritual detectors were expensive and not very practical, so such places would normally not be equipped with any. Most places were equipped with the other two kinds of detectors.
Huo Yuhao relied on Spiritual Detection and stopped accurately outside the surveillance soul tools’ maximum range. Afterwards, he used his spiritual power and opened it like an enormous web over the entire granary.
There was no surveillance without any loopholes. That was especially true for a place like this granary. Granaries were very important to normal citizens and soldiers alike, but they weren’t as important to soul masters and soul engineers.
Therefore, there were oscillation detectors and thermal detectors around them, but they only covered a certain part of this granary.
Finding their way in would be easy once they found a gap. Huo Yuhao wrapped around the main door and stepped towards the side of the granary before he snuck in with the Ice Bear King. Little Bai was clearly very hesitant when they were about to squeeze through the window, because he was too fat, and really couldn’t fit.
Solving that problem was very simple. Huo Yuhao stored him temporarily in the spectral demiplane before he went through the window by himself.
Heaven Dou City’s granaries were truly quite large. Grains and wheat were piled like mountains inside, along with all kinds of preserved and dried meat that could be kept for a long time.
Grains were suitable for anyone, while the meat was more suitable for the army.
Huo Yuhao found a corner that wouldn’t attract any attention before he released the three bears.
Bears were carnivores, and they weren’t very interested in grains. However, the dried meat and fish immediately attracted their attention.
Little Bai was too large, so he maintained his human form. Big Mao and Second Mao didn’t notice him in the beginning, but those two Darkgolden Terrorclaw Bears quickly realized something wasn’t right when the three of them began to eat.
Little Bai’s mouth could immediately open and stretch to one square meter when he was eating, and a whole carcass disappeared with each mouthful. Was this something that humans could do?
Big Mao and Second Mao thought they ate very quickly, but the two of them combined were still quite some way away from how fast Little Bai was eating.
Darkgolden Terrorclaw Bears were very arrogant soul beasts. They were naturally unconvinced, and thus all three bears began to compete, stuffing themselves continuously.
Huo Yuhao was standing nearby, and his mouth twitched as the sides of livestock that were hanging in rows disappeared at an incredible speed.
Body mass and size were still directly related to appetite. Reality proved that Big Mao and Second Mao were working very hard, but they were still a far cry from Little Bai.
Big Mao and Second Mao had spent a long time eating all sorts of precious herbs and plants at the Icefire Yin Yang Well, and they were growing very quickly. However, the taste of herbs and plants was very unpalatable compared to meat. They unleashed their potential more than usual because of this rare opportunity to eat meat.
Fifteen minutes passed. They quickly ate their fill before they patted their round tummies and laid down on the floor, where they refused to move. On the other hand, the Ice Bear King was still there, as he took his eating seriously. One mouthful, and one hanging side of meat after another disappeared. Furthermore, judging by the way he looked, he didn’t even chew his food.
Little Bai was having the time of his life.
The Extreme North had always had a scarcity of food. No matter how peaceful the soul beasts there were, conflicts were still inevitable from time to time. Such conflicts usually happened because of the need to eat.
Someone at the Ice Bear King’s level naturally wouldn’t have to worry about eating. However, he was long since sick and tired of eating the same things every day.
This was his first time in the human world. The human world’s hustle and bustle had already moved him, and the dried meat and fish that humans made were extremely delicious. How could he hold back?