Chapter 70: Greater Yin Blood-Melting Demonic Art

"Now comes the second item."

Yu Xian patted his grayish storage pouch at his waist, and a golden-glowing precious sword fell into his hand.

The sword was about four feet long, with a pale golden blade covered in fine, scale-like patterns. When illuminated by the light, it shimmered with ripples—it was precisely the Golden Scale Sword belonging to the second young master of the Lin family.

The Golden Scale Sword possessed considerable spiritual sentience. Reintroduced to the world, it kept trembling in his hands, seemingly aware that Yu Xian was not its master.

Yet it was now a masterless sword. Facing a Foundation Establishment cultivator—even a weak one—it still had no power to resist.

With just a suppression of Yu Xian's mana, the Golden Scale Sword quickly calmed down.

"This thing's features are far too distinct. If I refine and use it in the future, I must ensure no second person sees it. Otherwise, once discovered by the Lin family's cultivators, I'll become the murderer whether I did it or not."

Yu Xian pondered for a moment, yet ultimately could not resist the temptation of a spiritual tool.

The boost a spiritual tool provided to a Foundation Establishment cultivator's combat strength was obvious. Once he refined this mid-grade spiritual tool, he could at least match the strength of an ordinary Foundation Establishment practitioner.

"The storage pouch of the Lin family's second young master."

Yu Xian quickly retrieved Lin Zhen's storage pouch, incidentally tossing his maimed corpse into the second pit to be burned.

Lin Zhen's storage pouch was even larger than the Jiang family elder's, approaching twenty cubic meters—simply a miniature warehouse.

The items inside were varied, including numerous gold, silver, and jade pieces. In particular, there was a mountain of gold that likely amounted to millions of taels.

Clearly, Lin Zhen had moonlighted as the leader of the Azure Dragon Society, remaining hidden among the common folk, and this time leading an advance all the way into the capital; he had undoubtedly amassed a fortune in secret.

Yet Yu Xian remained unmoved by either favor or disgrace.

If it were a mountain of spiritual stones, he would have screamed; but being a mountain of gold, he could only call it ordinary.

Millions of taels of gold still had to be processed into refined gold, amounting to only hundreds of thousands of catties, which meant tens of thousands of taels of spiritual sand, which meant...

Several thousand spiritual stones!!

Yu Xian covertly made the conversion, suddenly feeling his heartbeat accelerate violently.

"Several thousand... thousand spiritual stones!"

"Deep breaths! Deep breaths!"

Yu Xian nearly failed to catch his breath, taking a long while to calm down.

"How can there be so much?"

He quickly realized the reason.

The rebel army had fought from south to north, sweeping across the entire Yue State. One could say this mountain of gold represented the wealth Lin Zhen had looted from the common folk across the greater part of Yue State.

Divided equally among every prefecture and city, this gold was actually not much at all.

Yet concentrated on a single individual, it appeared terrifying.

"Birds die for food, humans die for wealth. If it were me, faced with such returns, it would be hard to guarantee I wouldn't be tempted."

"However, this is merely ordinary gold. To sell it for a good price, it must be processed, and processing costs are right there. Moreover, selling such a massive batch of goods will inevitably impact the local market and attract others' attention."

"A bulk commodity transaction worth a thousand spiritual stones is enough to provoke an investigation by Foundation Establishment cultivators."

"Therefore, for the sake of safety, I'd better sell it off a little at a time."

"Calculated this way, these several thousand spiritual stones are actually just a figure on paper. Wanting to cash them out will take a very long time."

Yu Xian's mind gradually cooled. Realizing such a massive mountain of gold could not be liquidated instantly, the returns were not as gargantuan as he had imagined.

For rogue cultivators, such bulk commodity transactions were inherently thankless tasks.

Yu Xian's gaze shifted to the other items in the storage pouch.

"A stack of spiritual talismans, roughly twenty or thirty of them, all low-tier talismans—primarily auxiliary ones like Light Body Talismans, Concealment Talismans, and Rejuvenation Talismans."

"These are Spirit-Nourishing Pills, only three of them. They should have been prepared by Lin Zhen for himself."

"No wonder I haven't seen many Lin family cultivators this time. Lacking Spirit-Nourishing Pills, their mana is hard to replenish, so they must have shifted to backstage work. In a massive battle of a million men, once a cultivator lacks mana, their usefulness is inferior even to a martial arts grandmaster."

"There are also only about two hundred spiritual stones, not a single mid-grade one."

"That makes sense. The Jiang family's Foundation Establishment elder ate alone with no family to support, but Lin Zhen still had to pay wages to the other Lin family cultivators."

"Judging by this remaining reserve of supplies, I'm afraid it won't be long before someone from the Lin family comes to deliver supplies. Otherwise, the Lin family could never have persisted for all these years."

"This is a first-tier cloud-patterned Dharma robe, imbued with three spiritual techniques: 'Dust-Clearing', 'Mind-Calming', and 'Cloud Shield'. If I alter its appearance—"

"Forget it, I'd rather not wear it. I'll sell it and buy myself a new one."

"Cultivation manuals..."

Filled with anticipation, Yu Xian examined the remaining manual jade slips one by one.

Ultimately, he could only describe them as mediocre.

Most of the manuals here were low-tier, though they were fine specimens among low-tier manuals—clearly intended by Lin Zhen as rewards for other Lin family cultivators.

The sole mid-tier manual, titled *Black Water True Art*, could only be cultivated up to the early stage of Foundation Establishment. Clearly, it was a castrated version; the complete text remained in the hands of the Lin family.

"These damn bastards only know how to monopolize. Low-tier manuals fly everywhere, while mid- and high-tier manuals are impossible to find unless you act like a dog to them!"

Yu Xian cursed bitterly.

Clearly, the cultivation manual Lin Zhen practiced himself had long been committed to his sea of consciousness; it was impossible for him to carry it around. Such fundamental supreme arts, once exposed, easily revealed one's weaknesses to others.

Thus, unless a cultivator wished to leave behind a heritage, the manual they practiced stayed solely in their mind rather than on jade slips.

"To summarize, apart from the mountain of gold, there are several spiritual talismans, three Spirit-Nourishing Pills, some spiritual stones, one Dharma robe, several low-tier manuals, and a castrated mid-tier manual."

"Loss and gain are both my destiny; today's harvest is already substantial enough."

Composing his mind, Yu Xian dug the third pit.

Yet as he looked upon the jade-like skeleton of the Jiang family's patriarch, he fell into deep thought.

Compared to the Jiang family elder whose blood and Qi had been completely sucked dry, the Jiang family patriarch possessed the skeleton of a quasi-third-tier body refiner who had endured heavenly tribulation unscathed—a formidable physique that even the Golden Scale Sword could not hack apart.

"Ahem, Patriarch Jiang, with your illustrious reputation throughout your life, you surely wouldn't wish to be buried in obscurity amid barren mountain wilderness."

"If your remains can be of use to me, once I break through to the Golden Core realm, by extension, it will be equivalent to you breaking through to Golden Core as well."

"Well, since you aren't objecting, I'll take your silence as consent."

Seeing the Jiang family patriarch's tacit agreement, Yu Xian nimbly fished out the patriarch, who had already entered the pit.

He planned that whenever he obtained a corpse-refinement secret art or puppet technique, he would let Patriarch Jiang live a second life.

Faced with sufficient benefits, Yu Xian's fragile bottom line was easily pierced.

Next, Yu Xian opened his palm.

This time, it was a storage pouch with gold patterns and black borders, originally hung on the person of the Yue State Emperor, which his sharp eyes had successfully retrieved.

The internal space of the storage pouch was vast, also exceeding twenty cubic meters.

Inside were various monster beast materials that surprisingly still retained their vitality—evidently, the Jiang family patriarch's storage pouch possessed remarkable preservation properties.

Then came medicinal herbs preserved in jade boxes, every single one brimming with spiritual energy and vibrant in appearance, looking exceptionally valuable.

However, Yu Xian did not recognize a single one.

That would have to wait until he returned to the Immortal Cultivation World and bought an encyclopedia of spiritual herbs.

As for why he hadn't bought one before—naturally because he lacked money; knowledge was expensive.

Not a single spiritual stone was to be found.

This had actually been mentioned in the Jiang family elder's diary: the Jiang family patriarch had suffered severe injuries, so he constructed a blood pool to suppress them, requiring a vast amount of spiritual stones.

He had once wanted to help provide some spiritual stones, but was refused by Patriarch Jiang.

There was also a bookshelf holding a map and a blood-red jade slip.

"What map is this? So many monster beast names—is this the Myriad Monster Mountain Range?"

Yu Xian glanced at the map, which bore only a few location names resembling "Heavenly Wolf Mountain" and "Black Dragon Ravine," followed by a crooked, winding line.

Its destination lay deep within the Myriad Monster Mountain Range.

Yu Xian decisively put it away.

The Myriad Monster Mountain Range was a legendary place suppressed by a Monster Emperor; Golden Core True Persons weren't guaranteed to fare well entering it. He wasn't suicidal enough to go treasure-hunting there.

"The final hope."

Yu Xian took a deep breath, his divine sense probing into the blood-red jade slip. Immediately, a pool of crimson blood teeming with monstrous Qi projected into his sea of consciousness, tinting his entire field of vision red.

Following that, a line of large characters materialized—*Great Yin Blood-Transforming Demonic Art*!

*Great Yin Blood-Transforming Demonic Art*, a high-tier demonic art; swallowing blood to transform essence, coagulating myriad blood into elixir. It was a secret manual transmitted within the Great Yin Demonic Domain and the Great Yin Demonic Sect, capable of cultivating practitioners up to the peak of Golden Core.

Once this demonic art reached completion, one could transition to the supreme demonic art, *Great Yin Blood Sea Demonic Art*, turning one's body into a sea of blood to become immortal and indestructible!