Ten thousand li of drifting clouds rolled over azure mountains, while a solitary moon drifted midway across the blue sky.
The solitary moon had faded. Beneath the drifting clouds, three flying boats pushed themselves to their utmost limits, crossing the boundless green mountains.
It was as though someone were pursuing them from behind.
Inside the quiet room of the Heavenly Eagle Flying Boat.
Looking at the pile of storage bags before him, Luo Chen could not help but shake his head.
Duan Qiankun's, Wang Haichao's, Tu Shan's, and even Huo Hu's storage bags were all here with him.
"What a headache!"
Storage bags belonging to low-tier cultivators were no problem at all.
They had nothing more than mere spiritual power imprints, which could be unraveled with ease.
However, storage bags belonging to Foundation Establishment cultivators were exceptionally troublesome.
Most of them had been marked with divine sense by Foundation Establishment True Cultivators, and someone more cautious, like Duan Qiankun, would even place restrictions upon them.
Wearing away these divine sense imprints was by no means the work of a day or two.
Furthermore, only a Foundation Establishment True Cultivator who also possessed divine sense could slowly grind them down.
Luo Chen felt a touch of envy toward the deep heritage of the great sects.
Back then, Miao Wen had effortlessly dispelled the restriction on that jade box Mi Shuhua had given him.
If such methods were applied to storage bags, they would surely yield twice the result with half the effort!
"Yet I have no choice but to grind away at them with brute force."
Curling his lips, Luo Chen put all four storage bags away.
As for those belonging to Wang Haichao and Tu Shan, he intended to grind away at them slowly once things settled down.
The one belonging to Duan Qiankun had already been worn down for several years and was on the verge of opening, so breaking its restriction came first.
As for Huo Hu's storage bag, Wang Yuan had handed it to him.
There was no helping it.
Even though this item was Wang Yuan's spoils of war, Wang Yuan had not yet achieved Foundation Establishment. Without the ability to project divine sense outward, unraveling a divine sense restriction was exceedingly difficult for him.
Therefore, he had entrusted it to Luo Chen, asking him to help unravel it whenever he found some spare time.
Yes, Huo Hu's storage bag also had damn restrictions on it!
The Flame Alliance was a great sect specializing in artifact forging, and they excelled in arrays and restrictions.
Its disciples all knew a trick or two.
This one would have to be put aside for later as well.
With that, only one dusty gray storage bag remained on the table.
It belonged to the Qi Refinement cultivator who had feigned death while the battlefield was being swept, having even deceived Luo Chen at first.
At the time, Luo Chen had casually collected his storage bag.
Opening this one was simple.
Luo Chen mobilized a wisp of spiritual power and directly and brutally destroyed its lingering spiritual power imprint.
Without even needing to pour the contents out, a sweep of his divine sense revealed everything inside with total clarity.
A pile of low-grade materials, and several bottles of standard medicinal pills used for cultivation.
Mm, there were also Jade Marrow Pills, which Luo Chen was intimately familiar with, clearly having been crafted by his own hands.
There were no Dharma artifacts, however.
Generally, once low-tier cultivators obtained handy Dharma artifacts, they tended to dispose of their previous low-grade ones in exchange for other resources, keeping at most one or two as spares.
Just like Luo Chen, who had bestowed the Jasper Saber he no longer used upon Qu Lingjun.
The Fire-Tipped Spear he had often used in the past had also been rewarded to Su Xiaolin, who worked diligently and conscientiously in the Luotian Association.
As for puppets and peak-grade Dharma artifacts, they were distributed among the cultivators of each hall according to merit or faction needs.
He, Luo Chen, only took what he himself needed.
It was precisely thanks to such magnanimity that the Luotian Association, founded only several years ago, grew more and more cohesive with each passing day.
*Whoosh!*
A palm-sized turtle shell landed in his hand.
Luo Chen glanced at it and gave a gentle nod.
"Turtle Spirit Overlapping Armor."
"Quite an esoteric technique!"
"I can study it later on."
Though he did not know the name of that cultivator who had feigned death, that man had clearly relied on this technique to conceal himself from Luo Chen's probing.
Stowing away this esoteric technique, Luo Chen paid no heed to the rest of the items.
All together, they amounted to merely a few hundred spirit stones.
Low-tier rogue cultivators were simply this poor.
Such net worth could not compare in the slightest to that of most cultivators in the Luotian Association.
After dealing with these storage bags, Luo Chen's gaze fell upon the spoils of war he had seized.
First was the magic treasure—the Profound Fire Sword!
It was an ordinary low-grade magic treasure, inscribed with only five array formations, most of which were related to the fire attribute.
He had not tested its exact might, so he was not entirely clear on it.
However, since it belonged to the fire attribute, Luo Chen could make use of it.
Although his primary cultivation method was the Yimu Medicine King Scripture, the offensive methods he excelled at most were actually of the fire attribute.
In his daily alchemy, he utilized pill fire; among his spells, he possessed the Fireball Art, Blazing Sun Art, and Landslide; and his weapon in the past had also been the Fire-Tipped Spear.
Even when breaking through to Foundation Establishment, the three portions of Emperor's Flowing Syrup he used had been refined from the flesh, blood, bones, and demon core of the blazing cloud roc, a tier-two fire-attribute demon beast.
"This treasure truly comes at an opportune time!"
"After establishing my foundation, I was originally planning to buy a magic treasure in Tianlan Immortal City. Having the Profound Fire Sword saves me the trouble."
This could be considered getting a pillow just when feeling sleepy.
Smiling, Luo Chen stored the Profound Fire Sword into his own storage bag.
This item's grade was somewhat high, requiring a lengthy period of sacrificial refinement and nurturing before it could be wielded freely.
Take Wang Haichao, for instance: he had possessed it for only a few days before hastily deploying it.
The consequence had been the total exhaustion of his spiritual power and the crippling of both his hands.
Faced with Luo Chen's final sword strike, he had possessed no strength to resist.
"I must not treat it as a routine method!"
After reminding himself, Luo Chen picked up a small seal.
Dark yellow in color, it felt remarkably heavy in the hand.
Even with the strength of Luo Chen's Great Perfection in body refinement, he still had to supplement it by channeling spiritual power just to hold it up.
A peak-grade Dharma artifact—the Heavy Turnover Seal.
Without testing it, based merely on how it felt in his hand and his impression from the previous battle, Luo Chen could already deduce this treasure's effect.
"It relies on the weight of a thousand jun to crush enemies through sheer heaviness!"
"What a pity. If its forging had not failed to make it a magic treasure, it might have possessed other powers."
"Now reduced to a peak-grade Dharma artifact, it is left with only this single effect of crushing enemies with weight."
"Still, it can be kept for my own use."
Luo Chen had always consciously coordinated his combat methods.
For defense, he had the Lanke Black Chess Piece, the Four Symbols Cauldron, and his high-grade Dharma robe. These three formed a triple layer of defense.
For offense, he relied primarily on the sword pill and the Azure Musk Flood Dragon Gathering Banner, complemented by various spells.
For movement, he depended on Carefree Wind Riding and his high-grade Cloud-Treading Boots.
While his methods might not seem numerous, they actually far surpassed those of many who had just entered Foundation Establishment.
When it came to Dharma artifacts and magic treasures, more was never necessarily better.
A Foundation Establishment True Cultivator's spiritual power far exceeded that of the Qi Refinement stage, yet it still had its limits.
Furthermore, controlling Dharma artifacts required the guidance of divine sense.
Ordinary Foundation Establishment True Cultivators did not possess particularly robust soul foundations, so their projected divine sense was naturally far from abundant.
As far as the Foundation Establishment battles Luo Chen had participated in were concerned:
Duan Qiankun's primary means had been the Heluo Sword, the pellet drum, the Marsh Country Gui Chart, and a few spells.
Wang Haichao had relied mainly on a peak-grade flying sword and a peak-grade defensive Dharma artifact, and during his dying counterattack, he had added nothing more than the Profound Fire Sword.
Tu Shan, that rogue cultivator who had reached Foundation Establishment, was in an even more miserable state.
His offense relied on the Heavy Turnover Seal, and his defense on a single high-grade Flying Sky Iron Shield.
As for Li Yixian, Nangong Jin, and the others, they also mostly relied on flying swords that consumed little spiritual power to face enemies in ordinary circumstances.
By comparison, Luo Chen relied on his profound soul foundation and vast reserves of spiritual power.
Being able to cycle through and control multiple Dharma artifacts was truly extraordinary.
Not to mention, he also possessed the Soul Refining Banner housing Xiao Hei as a lethal weapon.
"Once the Profound Fire Sword is properly nurtured, it can serve as a trump card."
"This Heavy Turnover Seal can serve as a decisive finishing blow among my routine methods."
"It is just a pity about Wang Haichao's strange defensive Dharma artifact, which was destroyed by my Azure Musk Flood Dragon Gathering Banner combined with the Great Perfection Mountain-Cleaving Stele-Shattering Palm."
After completing his inventory, Luo Chen kept what suited him best.
As for the damaged Flying Sky Iron Shield and Wang Haichao's peak-grade flying sword, he had no intention of keeping them.
Later, when rewarding merits, he would distribute them downward.
That would bolster the strength of the Luotian Association's cultivators!
These items might be worth several thousands or around ten thousand spirit stones.
To ordinary people, that was certainly an enormous sum of wealth.
Yet to Luo Chen, a tier-two alchemist, it was hardly worth mentioning.
Setting aside how many spirit stones would be found once those storage bags were opened, and setting aside the tens of thousands of spirit stones on the Luotian Association's books that he could use at will, his own personal savings alone amounted to forty or fifty thousand spirit stones.
Moreover, his storage bag still held a batch of high-grade Jade Marrow Pills worth fifty thousand spirit stones that had yet to be sold.
"For the time being, I shouldn't be short on money."
"The only things I lack are a quiet place to cultivate... and time."
Exhaling a long breath of turbid air, Luo Chen put everything away, then stirred his divine sense slightly to send out a voice transmission.
***
After a fierce battle, the number of Luotian Association cultivators, which had once expanded to over three hundred, had plunged back down to a little over a hundred.
For the Heavenly Eagle Flying Boat, which could accommodate over a thousand people, this number was far too small.
Even after taking in a portion of the Li family's mortals later on, most of them were packed onto the deck and into several large cabins.
Consequently, the Heavenly Eagle Flying Boat still appeared somewhat empty.
Many small rooms were left vacant.
Near the stern of the boat, a small room was kept separate from the other cabins.
The rooms in between were entirely unoccupied.
Regarding this bizarre arrangement, the Li family's mortals grumbled inwardly, wondering why they were not permitted to stay in slightly more spacious quarters.
The mid-stage and late-stage cultivators of the Luotian Association were also puzzled.
Yet to higher-ups of the Luotian Association like Sima Huiniang and Duan Feng, the reason was crystal clear.
In fact, this arrangement had been personally decided by Sima Huiniang.
The reason was simple.
Inside that room lived a single person.
Min Longyu!
He was an exceedingly sensitive figure, so much so that even Sima Huiniang had to handle him with utmost caution.
As for how to deal with him, that would depend entirely on the guild master.
Inside the room, Min Longyu sat cross-legged upon the bed, circulating his cultivation technique to consolidate his cultivation base.
He had been at the ninth layer of Qi Refinement for many years.
After arriving at Dahe Market, aside from making a move on a handful of occasions, he had been quietly cultivating in seclusion the entire time.
Three years ago, after listening to Luo Chen's Dao exposition, he had gained occasional insights.
Coupled with his persistent cultivation, he had finally reached the Great Perfection of Qi Refinement a year later.
Now, two years had passed.
His realm was thoroughly stabilized, and the cloud of spiritual power within his body was abundantly full, as though it could condense into liquid at any moment to grant him Foundation Establishment.
Yet he had been unable to take this final step for a long time.
Or rather, he did not dare to force his way across.
In the cultivation world, those who broke through without the aid of a Foundation Establishment Pill did exist!
However, throughout history, they had always been individuals blessed with Heavenly Spiritual Roots or special constitutions.
For someone like him, opportunities to charge into Foundation Establishment were extremely limited; how could he dare squander them lightly?
His age was right before him. If he failed and spent several years nursing his injuries, he might well miss the optimal window for Foundation Establishment before turning sixty.
Therefore, even though he felt he had prepared more thoroughly than the vast majority of those at the Great Perfection of Qi Refinement, he still did not dare charge directly into Foundation Establishment.
His cultivation at present was merely a matter of habit.
After a round of cultivation, he made no significant progress.
Opening his eyes, Min Longyu let out a troubled sigh as he recalled those exasperating past matters.
Now, he could be considered severed from his past.
However, what lay ahead...
"Alas, the past is too painful to look back upon, and the future holds fortunes unknown."
"Ah well, whatever will be, will be. I can only hope my trust was not misplaced!"
Taking out an array formation book, Min Longyu immersed himself in reading it.
Perhaps in this cultivation world, only the vast and profound Dao of Arrays could allow him to forget all his troubles!
"The Five-Wheel Rotating Stone Great Array is, after all, a tier-two array. Though I succeeded in setting it up, I still cannot be called a tier-two array master."
"Relying on the countless stone pillars of Gaoling Plain to lay down the array was ultimately taking a shortcut."
"Still, I gained new insights. This array is primarily grounded in the Earth Dao; if at that time I had..."
Just as he was absorbed in his thoughts, a voice transmission suddenly reached his ears.
His whole body jolted. He closed the book.
Rising to his feet, he straightened his Dharma robe and tall hat, then cast a Cleansing Art upon himself.
Taking a deep breath, he stepped out of the room.
He walked at an unhurried pace along the corridor, occasionally encountering cultivators from the Luotian Association.
Faced with those strange gazes mixed with disdain and contempt, he acted as though he saw nothing.
All of this was purely for the Great Dao!
Finally, under the watch of dozens of strange looks, he arrived before the room located at the very center of the flying boat.
Lowering his hands, he bent into a bow.
"Junior Min Longyu has come to pay respects to Senior Danchenzi!"
After speaking, his demeanor remained exceedingly reverent.
Only when a voice from inside said "Enter" did he push open the door and walk in.
The moment he crossed the threshold, a chill ran down his entire body.
A pair of dark, profound eyes, as though perched high above the nine heavens, saw through him completely from the inside out.
Even his soul trembled uncontrollably.
He felt an overwhelming urge to prostrate himself in veneration before the figure seated above.
Clenching his teeth, he barely managed to lift his head and squeeze out a smile.
"Oh?"
Luo Chen let out an imperceptible murmur of surprise.
For this meeting, he had made a small preparation.
To say nothing else, relying on his Great Perfection Spirit Eye Art and adept-level Soul Deterrence Art was enough to cow a Qi Refinement cultivator, leaving them panicked and afraid to speak falsehoods.
Those with slightly weaker courage might have even collapsed limp onto the floor.
Who would have thought that this Min Longyu could actually withstand his soul deterrence?
Even if he appeared to be straining very hard.
*This young man possesses a remarkably profound soul foundation, likely only slightly inferior to mine back when I was at the Great Perfection of Qi Refinement.*
After sighing inwardly with admiration, Luo Chen withdrew his Foundation Establishment pressure.
"Phew..."
It felt like the rare clarity of a bright sky after a tempest had passed.
Min Longyu felt that suffocating sensation vanish.
He could finally breathe.
Luo Chen's presence was truly formidable, surpassing even Wang Haichao and Zhou Qing.
He had to treat this with utmost prudence; he could not afford the slightest carelessness!
Swallowing hard, he respectfully shut the door, then stood below Luo Chen.
Silence was the keynote of the room.
The one above did not speak, and the one below dared not utter a word.
Finally, a calm, leisurely voice drifted down.
"Where do you come from, and where are you going?"
Min Longyu took a deep breath. "I come from Tianlan, and I am bound for the Great Dao."
Luo Chen mulled over those words, the corners of his mouth curling upward slightly.
The other man's purpose clearly lay in the latter half of the sentence.
With the topic opened, the conversation that followed became much smoother.
Luo Chen directly asked the question he wanted to know most.
"Why did you betray the Great River Gang to help my Luotian Association instead?"
Min Longyu replied, "I was never a member of the Great River Gang, so there is no betrayal to speak of. And the one I helped was not the Luotian Association, but you!"
Without waiting for Luo Chen to call it sophistry, he recounted everything truthfully.
"I am not someone without roots. I hail from the Min family, a fallen cultivation clan in Tianlan Immortal City. By the time the clan reached my generation, aside from numerous mortals, only I remained as a Qi Refinement cultivator."
"Feeling powerless to revitalize the clan, yet unwilling to abandon the Great Dao and longevity, I relied on old ties to follow Elder Zhou Qing of the Lianyun Merchant Alliance."
"Due to business matters, Elder Zhou brought me to Dahe Market. To repay him, I once contributed my strength on the Dao Discussion Platform."
Listening to these words, Luo Chen nodded.
Min Longyu's debut had been his duel against Han Dang of the Mountain Shattering Gang on the Dao Discussion Platform.
As the highest-realm cultivator among the low-tier ranks of the Mountain Shattering Gang at the time, the "Heart-Devouring Tiger" Han Dang had reached the Great Perfection of Qi Refinement.
Yet Min Longyu had used a strange array formation to mercilessly slaughter him.
Even though several years had passed, that scene remained vivid in Luo Chen's memory.
"Later, when the two Nascent Soul upper sects fell out, the Lianyun Merchant Alliance became embroiled in the conflict. Elder Zhou urgently needed to return to Tianlan Immortal City. Before departing, he consulted my wishes, and I chose to stay in Dahe Market."
This was very normal.
Rather than struggling bitterly in the fiercely competitive Tianlan Immortal City, a Qi Refinement rogue cultivator was better off fighting for a future in Dahe Market, where resources were abundant.
Luo Chen asked out of curiosity, "Why did you attach yourself to Wang Haichao?"
"Because he promised to secure a Foundation Establishment Pill for me!"
At the mention of this matter, Min Longyu still felt indignant.
"Rather than calling it attaching myself to him, it was more of a partnership. I provided him with array assistance, and he sought a Foundation Establishment Pill for me."
"Yet that man did nothing but make empty promises. Multiple opportunities presented themselves, but he never fought for them with all his might on my behalf."
Luo Chen was puzzled.
"Yet I recall during the battle at Gaoling Plain, he stated publicly that if you slaughtered the Luotian Association cultivators with all your might, he promised Huo Hu would reward you with a Foundation Establishment Pill?"
Min Longyu let out a wretched laugh.
"That was merely another empty promise!"
"Huo Hu does indeed have channels to obtain Foundation Establishment Pills within the Flame Alliance."
"However, at present, he holds no status and has earned no merits in the Flame Alliance. To exchange for a Foundation Establishment Pill, it would take at least ten years."
"Yet I am already fifty-six years old. I'm afraid I cannot wait for such a reward."
Luo Chen nodded.
For a cultivator establishing their foundation, the optimal age was before sixty.
After sixty, qi and blood began to decline, and the soul gradually lost its vibrant, upward momentum.
Attempting Foundation Establishment at that point yielded slim chances of success.
Even if one succeeded by luck, the remaining lifespan would hardly suffice to support advancement toward higher realms.
Following his wretched laugh, bitterness washed over Min Longyu.
"Besides, his Huo family is not a top-tier cultivation clan; they have no shortage of cultivators in their own clan who need Foundation Establishment Pills."
"If that day truly came, with Huo Hu's petty and ungrateful nature, it certainly wouldn't be my turn!"
The promise had been made by Wang Haichao.
What did it have to do with Huo Hu?
Neither of them was a fool; everyone understood the logic perfectly well.
Min Longyu was even less of a fool, and he would never let himself be duped again.
"So, you chose to throw your lot in with me?"
Luo Chen looked at him with a faint smile.
"Then how could you be sure that once the deed was done, I wouldn't turn cold and heartless, killing you to vent my anger?"
Chapter 218