16: Chapter 16 Opportunity

A great fortune?

Gu Shen sneered inwardly.

In the Cultivation World, what falls from the sky is usually not a pie, but a trap.

"It is late, and I have already retired for the night. If you are here to borrow Spirit Stones, save your breath." Gu Shen refused directly.

There was silence outside the door for a moment.

Old Man Zhang seemed anxious, his voice dropping even lower: "It is not to borrow money! Fellow Daoist Gu, I know you are a cautious person. But this matter... My Lifespan is coming to an end, and I am truly powerless. I see that you are honest and dutiful in your daily life, which is why I wanted to give this Opportunity to you."

"It is news about an 'Immortal Ascension Token'!"

Immortal Ascension Token!

Gu Shen's pupils constricted sharply.

In the Great Yu Cultivation World, the Immortal Ascension Token is a credential for entering the inner Sect of the five major Sects.

Even a piece of trash with five Spiritual Roots, as long as they hold this token, can directly join the Sect and obtain the qualification to be allocated a Foundation Establishment Pill!

How could this thing be in the hands of an old Loose Cultivator at Qi Refining Stage 2?

Gu Shen still did not open the door, only saying coldly: "Fellow Daoist Zhang is drunk. If such a thing were true, you would have already taken it to trade for a Foundation Establishment Pill; why come to me?"

"Because it is an Immortal Ascension Token from the 'Blood Fiend Sect'!"

Old Man Zhang said hurriedly, "I found it years ago in an ancient battlefield and have never dared to show it to anyone. Now... now I cannot go on, I have been afflicted with 'Cold Poison' and desperately need Spirit Stones to extend my life. I do not want much, just five Spirit Stones! And this token will be yours!"

Gu Shen fell silent.

The Blood Fiend Sect is a major Sect of the Demonic Path.

With the war between the Righteous Path and the Demonic Path imminent, holding an Immortal Ascension Token from a Demonic Path Sect in a Righteous Path market is a death warrant.

"Fellow Daoist, please return."

Gu Shen said indifferently, "I lack the fortune to accept such an Opportunity."

"You..."

Outside the door, Old Man Zhang seemed not to expect Gu Shen to be so impervious to reason, sighed, and his footsteps hobbled away.

Gu Shen stood behind the door, his Divine Sense locked onto Old Man Zhang until he returned to the room next door, only then did he withdraw his gaze.

"Fishing?"

"Or is it really true?"

Regardless of whether it is true or false, Gu Shen did not intend to touch it.

At this critical juncture, any Opportunity that exceeds one's ability is a path to death.

His goal now is very clear: lie low, utilize the resource disparity between the two worlds, and slowly stack his cultivation.

As long as he lives long enough, any Immortal Ascension Token or Foundation Establishment Pill will come eventually.

Gu Shen calmed his mood and turned his attention back to his Sea of Consciousness.

"Go to the ruins."

With a thought, gray light swirled.

The next moment, Gu Shen disappeared from the room.

...

Gray Mist World.

Gu Shen appeared again on the second floor of that abandoned shopping mall.

The surroundings were still dead silent, only the corpse of that Shadow Cat on the ground had vanished.

Gu Shen did not linger; wielding the gold-severing saber, he crept upstairs along the emergency exit.

He remembered that on the third floor, there were some strange "iron cages."

Arriving at the third-floor elevator entrance.

Several thick steel cables suspended a deformed elevator car, hanging in mid-air.

Gu Shen's eyes lit up.

The steel cables were not ordinary steel; in his eyes, this was a type of specially woven hundred-refined cable, exceptionally tough.

More importantly, the broken part at the top of the elevator car revealed heavy counterweight iron blocks.

"Black Iron!"

Gu Shen stepped forward and knocked with the hilt of his saber.

The sound was dull and solid.

Although these counterweight iron blocks had many Impurities, they had the advantage of being plentiful.

As long as he transported them back and refined them with the Great Furnace, they would be high-quality Black Iron ingots, excellent Materials for crafting shields or heavy weapons.

Just as he was preparing to dismantle them, a soft, dense crawling sound suddenly came from the ventilation duct above his head.

Rustle, rustle, rustle...

The sound was very light, but it was exceptionally grating in the silent ruins.

Gu Shen looked up sharply.

He saw half a head poking out from the pitch-black ventilation duct.

It was a "person" only the size of an infant, with blue-purple skin all over its body, crawling on all fours, possessing sharp claws, and two eyes without whites, entirely pitch black.

"Corpse Infant?"

Gu Shen felt a chill in his heart.

Although this creature was small, its resentment was extremely heavy, and it usually lived in groups!

Sure enough.

The next moment, seven or eight identical monsters crawled out from the ventilation duct in a dense swarm, emitting a sharp wailing sound like piercing demonic noise, causing Gu Shen's Sea of Consciousness to sting slightly.

"Mental attack?"

Gu Shen's expression changed.

These monsters actually understood rudimentary Divine Sense attacks!

"Retreat!"

Gu Shen had no intention of lingering in battle.

Facing such group-dwelling monsters with mental attacks, even with his cultivation at Qi Refining Stage 4, he could easily capsize.

The shadow shoes at his feet flashed with black light, and his whole body retreated violently.

Waa—!

Several Corpse Infants screamed and pounced down, their speed as fast as ghosts.

Gu Shen snorted coldly and raised his left hand.

The poison evil bead was held in his palm; he crushed it fiercely and then scattered it backwards.

Poof!

A cloud of dark blue poison mist exploded in the air instantly.

That was a potent poison extracted from the Magical Artifact of a Qi Refining Stage 4 rogue cultivator; it would cause decay upon contact.

The two Corpse Infants rushing at the front collided head-on into the poison mist, immediately letting out shrill screams, their blue-purple skin beginning to fester and emit bursts of black smoke as they fell from mid-air.

Taking advantage of this opening, Gu Shen had already retreated back to the second floor.

"This ruin, the higher you go, the more dangerous it becomes."

Gu Shen made this judgment in his heart.

He did not return directly, but turned and rushed into a "jewelry shop" on the first floor.

There were some smashed counters there.

Since he could not go upstairs, he would first clean out the first floor.

He did not want to return empty-handed.

Under a pile of broken glass and rotten wood, Gu Shen dug out a broken silver hairpin and several rings embedded with gemstones.

"Mortal gold and silver are worthless."

Gu Shen shook his head and was about to throw them away.

Suddenly, his gaze rested on one of the rings.

The ring was not crafted from gold or silver, but from a grayish-white metal, embedded with a transparent stone the size of a grain of rice.

[Detected trace spatial fluctuations.] [Can be refined.]

The prompt from the Great Furnace made Gu Shen shudder.

Spatial fluctuations?

This ornament crafted by Mortals actually contained spatial Materials?

It was that stone!

"Diamond?"

This word flashed through Gu Shen's mind—although he did not know what it was, from the indigenous perspective, this was a type of extremely hard void stone fragment containing spatial power!

"So this kind of stone is a void stone!"

Gu Shen was overjoyed.

void stone, that is the core Material for making a Storage Pouch!

Even a piece the size of a grain of rice is worth a fortune in the Cultivation World.

"I've hit the jackpot."

Gu Shen grabbed the diamond ring and frantically rummaged through the ruins, sweeping all the jewelry embedded with this "transparent stone" into his arms.

Five in total.

"Where is this a ruin? This is clearly a treasure vault!"

Gu Shen gripped those rings tightly, his heart beating like thunder.

With these, he would not need to buy a Storage Pouch at all.

He could make one himself!

Bitter Water Alley, in the dilapidated house.

With a flash of gray light, Gu Shen's figure appeared out of thin air.

He could not care about calming the rolling spiritual energy in his body; the first thing he did was press his back against the wall and quickly scan the Restriction on the doors and windows with his Divine Sense.

After confirming there was nothing abnormal, he let out a long breath of stale air.

The group of "Corpse Infants" encountered on the third floor of the ruins just now was truly dangerous.

Had it not been for him decisively crushing the only poison evil bead he had to cover his retreat, he would likely have perished inside, facing those group-dwelling evil spirits that carried their own Divine Sense attacks.