Chapter 41: Treasures

As the medicine cultivators require to enter the Martial Realm were at the elementary level, they were usually paste or powder-like substances.

The quality of the medicine was determined by the ingredients they used!

Medicine used by cultivators trying to break into the Martial Realm were easily created. To put it bluntly, they could cook it in a pot as long as they wanted to!

The way to make the medicine they needed might be more complicated than the medicine crafted by ordinary mortals, but for students who studied in the Tongyou Institution for a year, it was a task they could accomplish.

Medicines that could allow cultivators at the Martial Realm to break through to the Martial Extremity Realm were classified as rank two medicine! Those were usually in a powder form, but that didn’t mean that it was easy to create! Shang Xia’s Powder of Purification was a good example. He had to get a proper chemist to create the medicine!

There was medicine that cultivators injected themselves with, and there was also liquid medicine, but Shang Xia had no idea who would take them.

After scouring through all six carriages and getting all the herbs required, the five got ready to prepare their own medicine.

Because of the effects brought out by the herbs during the cooking process, it would be extremely easy to fail if all five of them cooked their medicines beside each other. Of course, cooking the medicine one at a time wasn’t feasible either as they had limited time. The five of them left the valley and looked for their own area to prepare themselves to break through.

Jiao Haitang sighed when she saw them heading out in different directions. “If they go so far away, Senior Brother Shang won’t be able to save them all if anything happens. Moreover, this is only the cooking process. The five of them still have to break through. The distance between them will only increase when we reach that phase…”

Jiao Haitang had a way to advance, but she was part of the unfortunate trio who couldn’t find enough herbs in the carriages.

When the disciples were leaving to cook their medicine, Shang Xia looked through the inventory list in each carriage.

That was the only other list that contained the list of goods in each carriage other than the copy in Yuan Zilu and the warehouse manager’s hand.

Previously, he told them to take as much as they could as long as it didn’t affect their movements.

He might have convinced them that it was because he didn’t want to allow the cultivators of the Azure Spiritual World to benefit easily, but he was clearly not doing it for the sake of the institution. He wasn’t going to make a loss from this.

If he didn’t take the chance to raid the supplies with his ‘moral high ground’, was he supposed to go back to receive an empty praise from the institution for being honest?

He naturally heard Jiao Haitang’s concern when doing his own stuff. He reassured her, “Relax. There isn’t any danger in the area around us.”

Seeing as she was about to ask him more questions, Shang Xia quickly added, “I know everything that happens in a ten mile radius. If they run into any danger when advancing, I’ll know.”

Jiao Haitang was no fool. She recalled the silver flash of light that beheaded Qing Que, and her thoughts quickly turned to the Mutated Rain Swallow that Shang Xia left with before. A light flashed in her eyes, “Senior Brother Shang, is it because of the Mutated Rain Swallow?”

Shang Xia glanced at her casually. He knew that she was really smart, but he didn’t expect her to connect the dots so quickly. However, he didn’t plan to hide anything. Nodding, he replied, “That’s right.”

“That’s great! Congratulations, Senior Brother Shang!” She wasn’t purely trying to kiss up to Shang Xia. Instead, she felt that the protection of the Mutated Rain Swallow was extremely crucial to their safety.

Of course, she misunderstood Shang Xia’s confirmation for something else. She thought that he only controlled a single Mutated Rain Swallow when in actuality, he had the entire flock working for him!

If she knew, the expression on her face would be priceless!

“It’s a pity… There aren't any books or manuals regarding secret art for cultivators at the Martial Extremity Realm.” Shang Xia sighed before tossing the list to the back of the carriage.

Medicine, martial arts, secret manuals, and martial intent were the four most important things for cultivators. There wasn’t a need to speak about medicine as they were the key to advancement.

Martial arts increased the effects when using inner qi, and it allowed cultivators to control their energy better.

Secret arts allowed cultivators to refine heaven and earth qi.

One had to add that the main use of the medicine was to transform the inner qi in a cultivator’s body. With the transformation, a cultivator would be able to gain an insight of the transformation process and start doing it themselves.

Like Shang Xia when he advanced into the Martial Extremity Realm, the inner qi in his body started to transform into Yin Yang Essence Qi in the Origin Tide. With such a huge amount of heaven and earth qi produced in the Origin Tide, Shang Xia managed to greatly increase his reserves of inner qi in his dantian, leaving cultivators at the same level far behind.

Due to the large amount of inner qi he had, the transformation process took a lot longer than expected. He had a lot of inner qi that hadn’t transformed, and if they clashed with the transformed Yin Yang Essence Qi, he might experience cultivation deviation.

Even with the Yin Yang Diagram in his dantian to maintain a careful balance, the effects were far from actually practicing a secret art for cultivators at the Martial Extremity Realm.

What a pity… Secret arts for cultivators had always been a precious resource. There was no way he would be able to find one so easily. As such, Shang Xia was already prepared to fail when he looked through the carriage.

Even though he failed to find it, he managed to find three other items that piqued his interest.

One of them was a medicine kept in a clay bottle.

The clay bottle was made from volcanic ember, and it had the ability to restrain the qi from fire attributed medicine. It could prevent the medicine from losing its effect.

There was a rank two medicine contained in it, and Shang Xia recognized it as the Scarlet Crystal Powder.

It was medicine cultivators at the Martial Extremity Realm would use. Moreover, it was exceptionally useful for those who cultivated fire arts.

Shang Xia pouted silently. He didn’t know how his Yin Yang Essence Qi would react if he refined it. When he finally opened the bottle and felt the fire qi resonating with his Yin Yang Essence Qi, Shang Xia realized that it would definitely help his cultivation.

That begged another question. Shang Xia wondered if his dantian was actually filled with Yin Yang Essence Qi or other types of qi?

Thinking back to the Origin Tide where there were both extreme fire and ice qi surrounding the lake, the answer to his question became slightly unclear.

The most important thing he had to do was to locate a suitable secret art. Once he controlled his inner qi, he would be able to uncover the secret behind it.

He turned to look at another item, a pen.

It was a pen made from the spike of a Thorny Wolf, and it was named the Thorny Brush.

The Thorny Wolf was a ferocious creature, and its spikes could pierce through essence steel. Those thorns were especially useful to make rune brushes.

As Shang Xia was slightly accomplished in creating talismans, he could be considered a rank one Talisman Master.

He might only be able to create a single type of talisman, the Lightning Wood Charm, but he learned the fundamentals to be graded as one.

He could easily expand his knowledge to create other types of talismans.

“With the Thorny Brush, I’ll be able to create talismans until I become a rank two Talisman Master.” Shang Xia muttered as he kept the brush. According to him, the brush was comparable to a low-grade weapon!

The third item was a box of jade pendants.

Different from protective talismans, the jade pendants in the box were purely pendants that hadn’t been inscribed with a protection rune.

If not for the fact that he found the pendants and brush in different carriages, he would suspect that they belonged to the same person!

Ordinarily, the supplies would be split into different categories. They would either be part of the general supplies used to restock the Tongyou Peak, or they would be special equipment meant for someone.

Those that were for general use were less troublesome to deal with. The other might pose a slight problem.

Like the boards Shang Xia used to create his Lightning Wood Charms, the treasures meant for special use were of a completely different grade! Like the box of jade pendants, they were much more valuable compared to ordinary talisman papers. Runes inscribed on it would be able to display a much stronger effect!

Shang Xia noticed that there were thirty six pendants in total, and each one of them was the size of a small rectangular tablet slightly smaller than two inches in length.

Their value could be compared to the boards from the Lightning Tree Shang Xia used in the past.

“It’s a waste to create rank one talismans with these…” Shang Xia said as a weird light flashed in his eyes. “Since I have already entered the Martial Extremity Realm, I should try creating some rank two talismans…”