Top-Grade Spirit Stones!

This was far beyond Qin Sang's expectations. He had thought the Ten Directions Yanluo Banner was Patriarch Kuiyin's life magic treasure, but it turned out not to be. There was no method for refining the Ten Directions Yanluo Banner in the *Ancient Yin Baleful Tome*. Qin Sang withdrew his spiritual sense from the jade slip. After a moment of contemplation, something occurred to him. Scanning the array of items before him, he picked out a transparent, diamond-like shard. Having read the *Ancient Yin Baleful Tome*, Qin Sang recognized that this shard had to belong to the Yin Thunder Bead—Daoist Jiupao's life magic treasure, which had been blasted to pieces when the Yuanzhao Sect Master blew himself up. "How miserable..." Qin Sang shook his head, feeling pity for Daoist Jiupao. A perfectly good Yin Thunder Bead had not only been shattered, but only a sliver the size of a fingernail remained, virtually ruined beyond repair. No wonder he had never managed to fix his life magic treasure; doing so was essentially no different from refining a new one from scratch. Qin Sang examined it briefly before tossing the fragment aside. He lacked the means to gather so many precious spiritual materials to repair the Yin Thunder Bead. Even if he could, he would not do so. It was exceedingly difficult to truly make someone else's life magic treasure one's own, and its might would always fall a notch short; one was better off refining a brand-new one. Furthermore, the Yin Thunder Bead was best used in conjunction with the *Ancient Yin Baleful Tome* to unleash its full power. In anyone else's hands, its potency would be diminished yet another degree. Setting aside the *Ancient Yin Baleful Tome*, Qin Sang patiently went through the jade slips one by one, but in the end, he still found no refining method for the Ten Directions Yanluo Banner. Qin Sang frowned inwardly. Patriarch Kuiyin must have passed down the secret technique, or Daoist Jiupao could never have repaired the banner. For all the years the Kuiyin Sect had stood, they had never been able to restore the full set of ten Ten Directions Yanluo Banners after Patriarch Kuiyin's death—likely because they could find no new source of Nine Nether Demonic Fire. "Huh?" Qin Sang's eyes suddenly caught sight of a pitch-black object that resembled dark iron. Heart stirring, he pulled it toward him with his magic and discovered, to his astonishment, that it was made of the exact same material as the pole of the Ten Directions Yanluo Banner! This block of dark iron was truly substantial. It formed a neat cylinder, half the height of a man and as thick around as an embrace. If used to craft banner poles, it could probably fashion over a dozen of them. In truth, describing it as dark iron was inaccurate. The material was neither quite iron nor quite stone, an exceedingly strange substance unlike anything Qin Sang had ever seen. Moreover, the dark iron cylinder was far too regular in shape. Rather than being formed naturally, it looked as though it had been artificially refined. Having scraped by in the cultivation world for so many years, he was no longer the ignorant, inexperienced cultivator of his early days, yet he had never heard of a material like this. Qin Sang tried circulating his true essence to melt the object, but he failed to leave even a scratch upon it. Yet when he brought out the Ten Directions Yanluo Banner and channeled the Nine Nether Demonic Fire to attempt refining it, he was astonished to discover that the demonic fire seemed terrified of the dark iron cylinder, shrinking back timidly. Witnessing this, Qin Sang was certain that the pole of the Ten Directions Yanluo Banner had been forged from a similar cylinder of dark iron! What about the banner cloth, then? Qin Sang immediately rummaged thoroughly through the belongings, but found nothing resembling it. "It seems I can only study this slowly when I have ample time later. Still, this dark iron cylinder is certainly no ordinary item. Once I figure out what material it is, perhaps I can refine a magic treasure with unique capabilities. Some of Daoist Jiupao's annotations on the Yin Xuan Pagoda in the *Ancient Yin Baleful Tome* seemed connected to this dark iron cylinder. Could he have planned to use it to forge the pagoda? Sadly, there are only a few brief lines, with no mention of how to melt the cylinder down..." Qin Sang thought to himself. He told himself to be more cautious when using the Ten Directions Yanluo Banner in the future; he could not afford to ruin this one as well. Daoist Jiupao's belongings were shockingly meager. Aside from this dark iron cylinder, there was not a single treasure capable of surprising Qin Sang; of all the wealth he had made off with back then, only that pile of jade slips remained. Evidently, gathering healing elixirs and founding the Demon Flame Sect had completely drained his reserves. Inside the iron thumb ring, there were still numerous and varied healing pills. Qin Sang sorted and stowed them away, then turned up two talisman treasures. Qin Sang did not think much of talisman treasures anymore; both of the magic treasures in his hands and the Ten Directions Yanluo Array far outstripped talisman treasures in power, but he still put them away carefully. Then, opening his mustard seed bag, he transferred his belongings into the iron thumb ring. Finally, a pile of spirit stones remained on the ground. As Qin Sang swept his spiritual sense over them, his expression suddenly shifted. A look of sheer astonishment washed over his face. With a wave of his hand, he summoned four spirit stones from the pile: one dark yellow, one wood-azure, and two crimson! All four spirit stones bore spirit-sealing restrictions. Qin Sang eagerly picked out one of the crimson spirit stones and carefully opened a hairline crack in the restriction. Instantly, an astonishingly pure surge of spiritual energy washed over him. Qin Sang drew a deep breath, an expression of intoxication on his face, and could not help marveling, "So this is a top-grade spirit stone!" In all his years in the cultivation world, this was the first time Qin Sang had seen a top-grade spirit stone with his own eyes. According to the standard rules of the cultivation world, a top-grade spirit stone could be exchanged for a hundred middle-grade spirit stones, but to actually expect someone to trade one for a hundred middle-grade stones was nothing short of a pipe dream! Supreme-grade spirit stones were the stuff of legends, rare treasures even in the ancient cultivation world. In the modern cultivation world of the Lesser Cold Domain, any spirit stone mine containing top-grade spirit stones had long since been excavated to exhaustion. It was said that spiritual energy of such purity was easy to detect, and without restrictions sealing it in, it simply could not stay hidden underground. Were it not for newly discovered secret realms appearing occasionally in the Ancient Immortal Battlefield, yielding a few top-grade spirit stones if one were lucky, top-grade spirit stones would be even rarer today. Even these were nowhere near enough to go around; they were almost entirely carved up by the major sects, seldom circulating in the outside world. This was because many powerful spirit formations and restrictions, especially the ancient formations uncovered within those secret realms, required top-grade spirit stones to function. Without top-grade or supreme-grade spirit stones, even the most formidable spirit formations and restrictions could only be shelved and left unused. Furthermore, when fighting an opponent, drawing upon a top-grade spirit stone enabled far swifter recovery, perhaps even granting enough of an edge to turn the tables and kill the foe. "I knew that old ghost Jiupao couldn't have been that destitute after absconding with the Kuiyin Sect's treasures!" Beaming with excitement, Qin Sang fondled the four top-grade spirit stones, reluctant to put them down. The Kuiyin Sect had been founded only several centuries ago, and Patriarch Kuiyin's legacy had not yet been fully exhausted, so possessing top-grade spirit stones was hardly surprising. "No wonder that old ghost could put up such a fierce fight in the end despite his broken magic treasure and severe wounds, nearly destroying the Flying Yaksha. Turns out he had top-grade spirit stones! That final explosion was likely powered by them as well. Still..." Qin Sang muttered to himself in slight puzzlement, "That old ghost was carrying four top-grade spirit stones, so why didn't he use them to purchase healing pills? Was he afraid of exposing his identity and treasures?" Qin Sang shook his head, unable to fathom Daoist Jiupao's reasoning. Or perhaps there had originally been more than four, and Jiupao had already spent some on pills. After toying with them for a while, Qin Sang put them away carefully. Cultivating with the aid of top-grade spirit stones would certainly be faster, but it would be far too wasteful. For now, he could think of no use for these top-grade spirit stones other than replenishing his reserves quickly during battle, but treasures of this caliber were always the more, the better.