Chapter 131: Chapter 131: Magical Treasure

「A valley nearly a thousand miles west of the Immortal City.」

Yan Liming controlled a small, green sword, swiftly slaying the three Low-Tier Pig Demons that lived here.

Afterward, he walked up to the Pig Demon corpses and unleashed the Blood Spirit Hundred Transformations Scripture, draining the three Pig Demons until they were nothing but withered husks. A look of satisfaction appeared on his face.

Having done all this, he returned to the cave, sat cross-legged, and began to cultivate in silence.

Yan Hengchuan, immobilized by a Restriction cast by him, had been tossed to the side, completely unable to move.

After a long while, Yan Liming finished refining the Pig Demons’ blood essence. He then opened his eyes, a flash of red light vanishing from them in an instant.

He looked at Yan Hengchuan lying on the ground, a playful glint in his eyes. "Brat, have you thought it over?"

Yan Hengchuan kept his eyes closed, ignoring him.

Yan Liming stood up and said in a strange tone, "I am a Core Formation Master. Taking you, a mere Loose Cultivator, as a servant—do you think you’re being wronged?"

"You... you’ve killed so many people, you’re a Demon Cultivator! Besides, how can a Cultivator acknowledge another as their master?" Yan Hengchuan’s words were halting, but he finally managed to speak his mind.

Called a Demon Cultivator, Yan Liming didn’t get angry at all. Instead, a smile spread across his face.

He said nonchalantly, "Demon Dao, Righteous Dao—it’s all bullshit. In my view, there are only two types of Cultivators in this world. One is the True Cultivator, who forges ahead bravely on the path to immortality and soars through the high heavens. The other is the ’inferior cultivator,’ who spends their whole life scrambling at the bottom, only to remain at the low-tiers of the Qi Refining Stage even in old age."

After speaking, he looked at Yan Hengchuan and suddenly asked a question: "What’s your aptitude?"

Yan Hengchuan was still pondering his words. Hearing the question, he answered subconsciously, "I have a five-Spiritual Root aptitude. So what?"

"Heh heh... a five-Spiritual Root aptitude." Yan Liming continued his questioning, "What do your parents do?"

Yan Hengchuan was taken aback by the question. "Uh... I... I..."

"I what? What do they do?" Yan Liming pressed.

Yan Hengchuan came to his senses. "Why should I tell you?"

Yan Liming smiled and nodded as if he’d had an epiphany. "It seems your parents are mortals. You are an inferior cultivator."

"What nonsense are you spouting?" Humiliated for no reason, Yan Hengchuan was furious. "I’ve never heard of Cultivators being divided into ’True Cultivators’ and ’inferior cultivators’!"

Yan Liming didn’t respond to him, but continued, "You have the typical inferior cultivator’s mindset, inferior cultivator’s aptitude, and inferior cultivator’s background. In short, you’re an inferior cultivator!"

Hearing this, Yan Hengchuan’s face flushed red with anger, but he didn’t know how to refute it. He simply closed his eyes and ignored him.

"What, unconvinced?" Yan Liming’s voice continued to ring in his ear. "Are you confident you can successfully reach Foundation Establishment with a five-Spiritual Root aptitude?"

"So what if I can’t reach Foundation Establishment? Does that mean Qi Refining Stage Cultivators aren’t Cultivators?" Yan Hengchuan couldn’t help but retort.

Yan Liming nodded. "Of course, Qi Refining Stage Cultivators are still Cultivators. Inferior cultivators, that is."

Seeing how Yan Liming called him an ’inferior cultivator’ with every other breath, Yan Hengchuan was so incensed he could only shut his eyes, hoping what he couldn’t see wouldn’t bother him.

But Yan Liming had no intention of letting him go. "I almost forgot you have five Spiritual Roots. Forget Foundation Establishment, it’s unlikely you’ll even break through to the Late-stage Qi Refining. So you’re not just an inferior cultivator, you’re the most inferior of the inferior."

"You..." Yan Hengchuan was young and hot-blooded; he had never suffered such humiliation.

If he weren’t immobilized by the Restriction, he would have jumped up and fought Yan Liming to the death right then and there.

"I also have a five-Spiritual Root aptitude. I was also an inferior cultivator." Yan Liming’s tone suddenly shifted as he spoke with a sigh. "But I was able to cultivate to the Core Formation Stage and become a True Cultivator. Do you know why?"

Yan Hengchuan’s eyes flew open, and he stared at Yan Liming in disbelief. "A five-Spiritual Root Cultivator reaching the Core Formation Stage?"

"Brat, I can see from your eyes you don’t believe me." Yan Liming walked up to Yan Hengchuan and tapped a finger between his brows. "The reason I was able to reach Foundation Establishment and Core Formation was because of this Cultivation Technique. Of course, strictly speaking, this technique would be considered a Demon Dao technique by your standards."

"I am merely giving you a choice. Whether you practice it or not is up to you!"

As the mysterious Cultivation Technique slowly appeared in his sea of consciousness, Yan Hengchuan desperately tried to stop himself from examining it. But Yan Liming’s words had made him incredibly curious. ’What kind of Cultivation Technique could allow a Cultivator with five Spiritual Roots to reach the Core Formation Stage?’

...

「Under the hazy moonlight.」

A dark silhouette streaked across the sky. Atop this silhouette, Li Ping sat cross-legged, taking stock of his gains and losses from this trip outside the city.

In truth, during the previous battle, he had hoped to capture one of them alive. He wanted to ask about the whereabouts of the Demon Cultivator who had used Possession, so that he could rescue Yan Hengchuan or avenge him.

Unfortunately, to his frustration, the frail-looking youth named Liu Wusheng had insisted on a mutually destructive attack and ended up being blown to dust.

As for Miaorou, she had died earlier in the great battle under the Li Fire Ring.

In the end, Li Ping never found out the identity of the person who used Possession. He only knew the man was Miaorou’s Daoist partner and Liu Wusheng’s master.

He could only wait until he returned to the Immortal City to investigate the man’s identity using this information.

There was another matter that was weighing on his mind.

After Liu Wusheng’s death, a streak of blood-red light had abruptly shot out from where he died. Before Li Ping could react, the light had rushed into his body and disappeared.

Afterward, no matter how many times Li Ping checked, he couldn’t find the slightest trace of it. It was as if the streak of blood-red light had been a mere illusion.

His expression flickered with uncertainty.

Li Ping could only sigh in the end. He set aside the matter of the strange, blood-red light and began to take inventory of his spoils.

First were his own losses.

In the recent battle, in order to deal with Liu Wusheng, a Late-stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator, he had used every trick up his sleeve.

He had even decisively used the Talisman Treasure he had only recently acquired.

At this thought, the Li Fire Ring Talisman Treasure appeared in Li Ping’s hand.

Although this Spirit Talisman was still intact, the flaming ring drawn on the Li Fire Ring Talisman Treasure was now noticeably dimmer than before.

Clearly, its sealed power had been greatly depleted in that battle.

Li Ping shook his head. ’The remaining power should be enough for one more use!’

The Li Fire Ring Talisman Treasure, bought for two thousand Spirit Stones, had lost at least thirteen hundred Spirit Stones’ worth of value in the recent battle. The loss was staggering.

However, the spoils obtained from Miaorou and Liu Wusheng were not enough to cover his losses.

One of them had been obliterated by the Li Fire Ring Talisman Treasure, and the other had been blown to dust by his own Magic. Both of their Storage Bags had burst open during the battle, and most of the items inside were destroyed. Li Ping only managed to pick up a few Tier Two Dharma Artifacts.

Thinking about how the items in their Storage Bags were destroyed, Li Ping couldn’t help but feel frustrated.

Facing two Foundation Establishment Cultivators, one of whom was at the Late-stage Foundation Establishment, he had been very tense at the time. He was only focused on killing them as quickly as possible, giving no thought to preserving their Storage Bags.

Fortunately, this trip wasn’t a complete loss. After dealing with Liu Wusheng, he had returned directly to the village and successfully found the body of the person who had used Possession, along with his Storage Bag.

He had Liu Wusheng to thank for narrowing down the search area, which allowed him to find the body so easily.

To his surprise, the man had hidden his own corpse thirty feet beneath the village’s ancestral hall.

The ancestral hall was a place for venerating ancestors; under normal circumstances, no one would dare to disturb the ground there. By hiding the corpse there, the man had maximized his chances of it not being discovered.

...

SWISH!

With a flip of his hand, a glittering, soybean-sized golden bead and a palm-sized, blood-red Storage Bag appeared in his left and right hands, respectively.

After finding the body of the man who used Possession, he had incinerated it with a Fireball Technique. This soybean-sized golden bead was what he had found among the ashes.

’What exactly is this thing?’ Li Ping pinched the golden bead between two fingers, holding it up to his face to observe it carefully. ’It looks a bit like a Demon Core, but also a bit like a Dharma Artifact.’

Suddenly, as if he’d thought of something, he set the golden bead aside and opened the Storage Bag to inspect its contents.

The items in the Storage Bag were a jumbled mess. After returning the worthless things to the bag, Li Ping’s gaze fell on the several items laid out before him.

First was a pile of multicolored Spirit Stones. The pile consisted mainly of Middle-tier Spirit Stones, with a small amount of High-tier and Low-Tier Spirit Stones as well.

Li Ping made a rough estimate. The pile of Spirit Stones alone was worth tens of thousands.

Such a vast quantity of Spirit Stones made Li Ping even more certain of his guess about the golden bead.

Besides the Spirit Stones, the remaining items were a small black sword, a blood-red Jade Scroll, a single Pill stored in a Jade Bottle, seven or eight Upper-Grade and Top-Grade Dharma Artifacts, and several thousand-year-old Spirit Medicines.

Li Ping’s gaze first fell on the small black sword. He reached out, brought it before him, and examined it closely.

The small black sword was a deep, inky black all over. Its body was long and slender, shaped like a willow leaf, and its edge shimmered with a faint, dark purple halo.

Upon closer inspection, one would find that the surface of the blade was not perfectly smooth but was covered in extremely fine, water-like ripples. As the angle of the light changed, these patterns would reveal different layers of light and shadow, as if water were flowing within the sword itself.

Li Ping tried to infuse his Magical Power into the small sword, attempting to activate it, but he found that his Magical Power vanished into it like a clay ox into the sea. The small sword didn’t budge an inch!

’A Magical Treasure! This is definitely a Magical Treasure!’ Recalling the descriptions in the many secret tomes he had read in the Meng family’s Secret Skill Pavilion, Li Ping instantly identified the small black sword.

This was a Lifebound Magical Treasure, which only a Core Formation Cultivator could wield!

The mysterious Demon Cultivator who had possessed He Yunyi was actually a Core Formation Master!

After toying with the small sword for a long time, a look of regret appeared in Li Ping’s eyes, and he put it away in his Storage Bag.

Magical Treasures can only be wielded by Core Formation Masters. Moreover, as a Lifebound Magical Treasure, even if another Core Formation Cultivator obtained this black sword, they could at most unleash seventy percent of its power—far less than what its original owner could.

Although he coveted the power of the Magical Treasure, with his Early-stage Foundation Establishment Magical Power, he couldn’t even begin to activate it.

Therefore, for the time being, he could only let it gather dust in his Storage Bag.

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