543: Chapter 543 The Accumulated Wealth of the Repair Hall

Lin Yu was slightly stunned, then immediately understood.

“Cultivating The Way of Cautious Survival means resources are king. Over these past few years, the Repair Hall hasn't just earned Spirit Stones; it has stockpiled a massive amount of resources. This is what you call having grain in hand and no panic in the heart.”

Su Ming withdrew his Divine Sense and opened his eyes.

Luo Feng was still fiddling with that Formation Plate. Seeing Su Ming come back to his senses, he leaned over curiously.

“Junior Brother Su, are the auxiliary Materials that old man wants very troublesome? Do you need me, your Senior Brother, to take a trip to the Deacon Hall for you? I still have a lot of the Formation Peak's quota that hasn't been used up.”

Su Ming glanced at him and didn't refuse, instead handing over the Jade Slip.

Luo Feng took the Jade Slip and scanned it with his Divine Sense.

“Hiss—” Luo Feng sucked in a breath of cold air. “That old man is committing robbery! A hundred-year-old Purple-Backed Hollyhock? Those misers at the Spiritual Plant Garden guard that stuff like their own eyeballs. And this Cold Pond Ice Crystal—you’d have to go to Ice Soul Peak and use contribution points to trade for it, right? There are twenty-three types here; how could we possibly gather them all in three days?”

“No need to go to Ice Soul Peak,” Su Ming said in a flat tone. “The Repair Hall has most of these things. If Senior Brother is free, why not accompany me to the warehouse in the backyard of the Repair Hall?”

Luo Feng raised an eyebrow.

“The Repair Hall? Can that place dedicated to fixing junk have such good things? Fine, I want to see just how much savings you’ve accumulated there over the years.”

The two of them decided on a route, quickened their pace, and half an hour later arrived at the Repair Hall, which was under the jurisdiction of the External Affairs Hall.

The Repair Hall at this time was no longer the disorganized scrap heap of years past.

In the spacious courtyard, over a dozen assembly lines were operating in an extremely orderly fashion. Low-level Menial Workers and Outer Sect Disciples each performed their duties—disassembly, cleaning, repairing Array Patterns, and spiritual power testing. Every process was executed strictly according to the standards Su Ming had set years ago.

Wang Defa was holding a thick ledger, patrolling back and forth between the assembly lines. He had grown a bit rounder compared to some time ago, and the manager's Daoist robe he wore was extremely clean. There was a hint of shrewdness in his eyes that came from holding great power.

Looking up, Wang Defa saw Su Ming entering the courtyard. He was stunned at first, but then a brilliant smile immediately broke out on his fat face.

He shoved the ledger directly to an apprentice next to him and trotted forward to greet them.

“Hall Master! You’re finally back!” Wang Defa bowed extremely low. “While you were in the Central State, everyone in the Repair Hall was looking forward to your return! Was everything successful?”

Su Ming did not engage in pleasantries with him. At this critical juncture, every breath of time was extremely precious.

He handed the Jade Slip directly to Wang Defa.

“Old Wang, this is a list of auxiliary Materials. Take me to the deep warehouses labeled ‘B’ and ‘D’ in the backyard. Help me find these items and see how many are usable.”

Wang Defa took the Jade Slip with both hands, his Divine Sense extremely quickly scanning the densely packed twenty-three lines of text.

The smile on his face vanished, and his brow furrowed slightly, but he didn't raise any questions in front of Su Ming.

“Rest assured, Hall Master. We have stock of most of the items on here in our warehouse. Follow me.”

Without another word, Wang Defa turned to lead the way, guiding Su Ming and Luo Feng through the busy assembly lines and straight toward the deepest part of the Repair Hall, to several old wooden warehouses locked behind multiple layers of Formations.

He pushed open the heavy wooden door of Warehouse D, which was reinforced with profound iron plating.

“Creak—”

A scent mixed with aged medicinal fragrance and the smell of metal wafted toward them.

The light here was extremely dim. On both sides were giant wooden shelves reaching up to the ceiling, densely packed with countless wooden boxes, jade boxes, and cloth bags of all sizes. The old, yellowed labels appeared somewhat blurry in the gloom.

Some of these Materials were leftovers allocated by the Sect years ago, some were scrap parts disassembled from abandoned giant Formation Plates, and others were debt-repayment items brought back by Repair Hall Disciples while on external missions. Over a hundred years, they had layered up, piling as high as a mountain.

Wang Defa pulled a spiritual light lamp from his sleeve and held it high. The extremely weak fluorescence cast swaying shadows between the shelves.

Shadow flew up from Su Ming's shoulder and landed silently on the top of the highest wooden shelf, looking down over this corner from above.

“Hall Master, look at this batch of Cold Liquid. These were failed scraps from the Artifact Hall's refining last year. They contained cold Qi from Ice Soul Peak and were originally meant to be thrown away, but you said to keep them as coolant. I filtered them three times with spiritual water; the purity is definitely enough for the requirements on the list.”

As Wang Defa navigated between the shelves with extreme familiarity, he kept muttering while his hands nimbly moved dust-covered jade bottles down to the floor.

“And these Red Flame Sands. These are scraps discarded by Fire Tripod Peak last month. They complained about the uneven grain size, but they're perfect for us to use when carving Fire-type diversion arrays. I’ll have someone take them to the back of the warehouse to grind them into powder right away.”

Su Ming followed behind with the Jade Slip. He didn't speak, but focused intently on the Materials Wang Defa brought out. His Divine Sense scanned every item with extreme precision, confirming its spiritual fluctuations met Elder Qingyang's extremely harsh requirements, then he used spiritual power to check it off the list in the Jade Slip.

Luo Feng followed at the very back, his eyes widening as he watched Wang Defa pull out precious auxiliary Materials from the junk heaps like a magician.

“Not bad, Junior Brother Su. You’ve dug up a treasure bowl right under the Cloud Hidden Sect's nose. Who knew so many good things were hidden in this pile of junk?”

Su Ming ignored Luo Feng's amazement.

His gaze followed Wang Defa to the deepest part of the warehouse, which was also the dampest and coldest corner.

Wang Defa hung the spiritual light lamp on a metal hook on the wall, rolled up his sleeves, and with great effort moved several large discarded iron boxes. He then knelt on the ground and, with extreme care, pulled out a thick, dust-covered old wooden box from under the bottom shelf.

The corners of the wooden box were severely worn, and the original lacquer had peeled away, revealing the dark purple grain of Yin-wood inside.

Wang Defa used his sleeve to carefully wipe the dust off the surface of the wooden box, revealing a yellowed paper label stuck on top. Although the handwriting on the label had faded, each stroke was extremely neat, as if carved with a knife.

“Thousand-Year Jade Marrow, Stored by Elder Ma.”

Wang Defa stood up and handed the wooden box to Su Ming with both hands, lowering his voice.

“Hall Master, this was personally ordered to be stored at the bottom by Elder Ma before he went into secluded meditation years ago. He said it was something he happened upon during his early travels and could be used for killing Formations, so it has been kept here ever since.”

Su Ming reached out, took the wooden box, and slowly opened its copper clasp.

“Click.”

A piece of jade marrow, only the size of a thumb and entirely a warm, milky white color, lay quietly on the red velvet. The surface of the jade marrow was flawless, emitting an extremely weak yet continuous fluorescence.

Lin Yu let out a long sigh inside the ring.

“Old Man Ma's foresight and Heart-Nature were truly remarkable.” Lin Yu's voice carried a hint of emotion. “He left this thing behind, perhaps originally intending to leave a life-saving trump card for some junior of the Repair Hall one day. Through the cycle of Karma, this trump card has truly fallen into your hands today.”