226: Chapter 226 Taking Stock of the Gains

Eight hundred zhang underwater, inside the basalt Immortal Cave.

Gu Shen sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion before a bluestone table.

His gaze fell upon the small mountain piled up on the table, consisting of over sixty Storage Pouches from the Beast Taming Sect, with a lustrous white jade ring placed at the very top.

In the Cultivation World, killing to seize treasures is the norm, but taking stock of the spoils is a science that demands extreme patience.

The storage artifacts of Disciples from large Sects, especially those of core Disciples, often have Divine Sense Restrictions and tracking marks left by their seniors.

If one rashly uses Divine Sense to force them open, at best the storage artifact will self-destruct; at worst, one will be backlashed by the high-level Law contained within the mark.

Gu Shen was well-versed in this.

He extended his right hand, palm facing upward, holding it out into the void.

Deep within his Sea of Consciousness, the archaic and heavy [Heaven and Earth Furnace] emitted a roar that shook the Void Realm.

A pale white fire of Law surged from Gu Shen's palm, instantly transforming into a virtual fire light barrier about a zhang in radius above the bluestone table, enveloping all the storage artifacts within.

"Burn."

Gu Shen issued the decree.

The fire of Law possessed no scorching heat, yet it held a tyrannical power that pointed directly to the Origin of matter and the Karma of the Heavenly Dao.

As the flames intertwined, the surfaces of the sixty-plus Sect Storage Pouches glowed with faint blue halos of resistance, but within three breaths, they dissolved and disintegrated like melting ice.

Along with the evaporation of barely perceptible wisps of black Qi, the tracking signatures of the Beast Taming Sect attached to them were completely erased.

The most stubborn was Core Disciple Qin Wuyan's white jade ring.

A hideous, blood-colored beast head shadow emerged on the surface of the ring, faintly revealing the Spiritual Pressure belonging to a Core Formation Old Ancestor.

Under the calcination of the pale white virtual fire, this beast head shadow let out a silent roar, desperately guarding the spatial barrier within.

"A mere dead object, and you dare to stop me?"

Gu Shen centered his Qi in his Dantian, and dark green poison-evil True Yuan surged into the fire of Law.

The fire flared up, and the pale white flames instantly swallowed the blood-colored beast head completely.

After ten breaths, the beast head shadow dissipated into specks of red light.

The ring emitted a crisp hum, and the Restrictions and Divine Soul imprints on it were thoroughly burned into nothingness, becoming an ownerless object that anyone could inspect.

Gu Shen withdrew the virtual fire, a bright glint appearing in his eyes.

"Open."

He flicked his wide sleeve.

The sixty-plus Storage Pouches that had lost their Restrictions opened their mouths simultaneously.

"Clatter—"

Like the Nine Heavens Milky Way pouring down, or a torrential downpour.

Various lights instantly filled the spacious Immortal Cave.

The first to bear the brunt were the piles of Spirit Stones glowing with charming Spiritual Qi.

Although ordinary Sect Disciples are not wealthy, these sixty-plus individuals were all elites of the Beast Taming Sect's inner Sect.

Participating in a mission of a large Sect to suppress a Divine Beast, they naturally all had considerable savings.

One by one, neatly cut Spirit Stones containing pure Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi piled up into a small hill beside the bluestone table, their spiritual light reflecting off each other, illuminating the Immortal Cave as bright as day.

Gu Shen's Divine Sense swept over them, instantly obtaining the precise count.

"One thousand and eighteen Low-Grade Spirit Stones, seventy-four Medium Grade Spirit Stones."

Seventy-four Spirit Stones with Spiritual Qi so dense it had almost turned into mist!

They were not the Low-Grade Spirit Stones with many Impurities, but Medium Grade Spirit Stones that were crystal clear throughout, with Spiritual Qi flowing like liquid inside!

Gu Shen nodded slightly.

This gain alone was enough to equal the accumulation of an ordinary Foundation Establishment Early Stage Loose Cultivator over a dozen years.

The driving energy for the ten mass-produced mechanical iron guards in the Wasteland arsenal could now be considered extremely well-guaranteed.

Besides the Spirit Stones, dozens of standard Magical Artifacts of the Beast Taming Sect were scattered on the table, mostly of Medium Grade and High Grade.

There were also hundreds of bottles of healing and Qi-replenishing Medicinal Pills of various colors, as well as many low-level Yao Beast blood essences and century-old Spiritual Plants used for setting up Formations.

"These standard Magical Artifacts carry the Sect's mark and are of too low a grade to be of much use."

"However, these healing medicines and Spiritual Plants containing pill toxins can all be thrown into the Great Furnace for refinement, and they will surely produce quite a few flawless items."

Gu Shen sorted these miscellaneous supplies into categories and put them all into his own Storage Ring, which had a huge capacity.

Subsequently, his gaze locked onto the white jade ring.

The big haul was all here.

Gu Shen probed a wisp of Divine Sense into the mustard seed space of the white jade ring.

Even though he was always calm by nature, his heart could not help but stir when he saw the scene inside the ring.

Core Disciple Qin Wuyan was indeed a core Disciple favored by the Core Formation elders of the Sect; his wealth was simply staggering.

The ring's space was dozens of zhang square, and inside, delicate sandalwood shelves were placed, categorized by type.

Gu Shen moved his mind and extracted all the most valuable supplies.

"Clatter!"

A spiritual light, a hundred times more dazzling than before, erupted in the Immortal Cave.

"More than three hundred Medium Grade Spirit Stones..."

Gu Shen stared at this wealth radiating astonishing Spiritual Pressure, extreme satisfaction rising in his eyes.

In the Cultivation World, one Medium Grade Spirit Stone is enough to exchange for one hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, and it is often in short supply.

The operation of high-level Formations and the absorption of Spiritual Qi when breaking through a Realm all require Medium Grade or higher Spirit Stones to support.

Previously, in order to build those ten mass-produced iron guards, Gu Shen had used up his few ten Medium Grade Spirit Stones as the core power source.

Now, with the injection of this large batch of Medium Grade Spirit Stones, the assembly line of the Wasteland's Sixth Level arsenal could fully initiate a true industrial-scale military expansion.

Gu Shen swept his wide sleeve, carefully storing away this batch of strategic energy.

Following that, three azure-blue Formation Flags engraved with ancient stellar runes, as well as a Jade Slip inscribed with the "Nine Stars Spirit Binding Array · General Outline," landed steadily on the table.

This was exactly the Core Formation Flag of the great Formation that had trapped the young Kui Ox in the Desolate Valley earlier.

Gu Shen picked up the Jade Slip and pressed it to his forehead.

The computing power of the AI Crystal instantly copied and parsed the principles of the Formation within the Jade Slip.

"What a great Formation for trapping enemies."

"Although it requires many people working together to exert its ultimate power, if its Formation patterns are simplified and engraved on the surface of the Demon Bone Iron Guards, multiple iron guards forming a miniature Nine Stars Array would be enough to trap any Cultivator of the same Realm to death within the Formation."

Gu Shen properly stored the Formation Flags and the Jade Slip.

This kind of foundation in the Cultivation World's Formations was exactly the shortcoming that the current Wasteland technological system urgently needed to fill.

On the table, there remained three sandalwood boxes sealed with strict Talisman Restrictions.

Gu Shen condensed a wisp of Geng Metal Sword Qi at his fingertip and sliced through the Restrictions as fluidly as flowing water.

Inside the first wooden box lay three Ganoderma lucidums that looked as if they were carved from red jade, emitting a fragrant scent.

"Five-hundred-year-old Red Blood Ganoderma. An excellent Spirit Medicine for strengthening Qi and blood and for breaking through the Body Cultivator Realm."

Gu Shen nodded with satisfaction.

The second wooden box was opened, and a bone-chilling cold air rushed out.

Inside the box was a fist-sized metal Ore that glowed with a deep, dark blue luster.

"Deep Sea Dark Blue Iron! A top-tier main material for refining top-grade water-type Magical Artifacts; its hardness is enough to withstand the slash of a Foundation Establishment Late Stage Cultivator's Flying Sword."

Gu Shen recognized this item.

Although his nine Demon Bone Iron Guards had hard skeletons, they still needed reinforcement at some joint pivots, and this Ore came just at the right time.

As for the third wooden box.

Gu Shen opened it, and inside were not spiritual materials, but a stack of golden Jade Slips engraved with complex runes, with extremely ancient Qi circulating on them.

This was a high-level communication Jade Slip used by large Sects to communicate with each other.

With this, all the spoils had been counted.

Gu Shen stood up and looked around the titanium-carbon alloy Immortal Cave illuminated by night-luminescent pearls.

"Asset explosion."

The wealth plundered from this group of Beast Taming Sect elites had allowed him to completely overcome the predicament of low-level Loose Cultivators who had to calculate every penny and fight to the death for a few Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

He now held over a thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones, hundreds of Medium Grade Spirit Stones, and had a massive amount of Formation equipment and spiritual materials.

This kind of wealth was already enough to let him walk sideways in the medium-sized markets of the Great Yu Cultivation World, and he even possessed the qualifications to go to top-tier merchant alliances to "sit at the table and play."

"Large-scale deployment of mass-produced mechanical iron guards still requires more advanced concealment Formation pattern diagrams, as well as High-Grade Spirit Stones that can act as internal circulation shields to deceive the Heavenly Dao."

Gu Shen walked to the explosion-proof door, his gaze deep, as if looking through the door at the pitch-black deep water outside.

"This kind of strategic-level resource is absolutely impossible to possess in the hands of ordinary Cultivators."

"Only by going to the Mirage Water Market at the edge of the Yunmeng Great Swamp, which is controlled by the Wanxiang Merchant Alliance, can one find the opportunity for such a transaction."

He turned and walked towards the bluestone table, taking out the large batch of Beast Taming Sect healing medicines and Qi-replenishing pills he had just sorted, and piled them on the ground.

"Spirit Stones are good, but in the eyes of those truly high-level Cultivators, they are just numbers."

"If I want to open the door to the core layer of the Wanxiang Merchant Alliance, I still need a kind of ultimate hard currency that can cause dimensionality reduction strikes."

Gu Shen formed seals with his palms in front of his chest, and the [Nirvana Star Core] in his Dantian rotated steadily.

The virtual image of the archaic [Heaven and Earth Furnace] appeared in the Immortal Cave once again.

The pale white fire of Law burned fiercely, waiting for a work of creation that would turn decay into magic.