Chapter 107: Taking Stock of the Spoils

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Gu Changqing took off his knuckle dagger and cursed, “This spirit armor is ruined again!” His spirit armors seemed to break down far too quickly, always getting damaged because of the knuckle dagger. Fortunately, he still had a Level 3 knuckle dagger waiting for him. If that one broke as well, he would have to commission a custom-made magical knuckle dagger.

Now, a blood hole was directly exposed in the center of his fist; one could even see the marrow in his knuckles, glowing with a jade-like luster, faint spiritual light drifting out. Gu Changqing sprinkled some healing medicine onto his hand and waited until Weng Ping’s bones were completely corroded before beckoning with his hand. The blood river flew straight back into his palm, and an extremely dense spiritual energy surged into his body.

After absorbing others previously, Gu Changqing’s spiritual energy had already reached a bottleneck. But with Weng Ping’s blood and spiritual energy flowing in now, the bottleneck was broken in an instant and continued to rise. Only when the hunger inside his body completely vanished did the spiritual energy’s growth slow down.

“Qi Refinement, Level Seven! This is all thanks to my continuous effort and talent!” Gu Changqing clenched his fingers in the air, causing a loud snap. As his strength increased, his blood energy also grew more turbulent and powerful.

Picking up Weng Ping’s spear and empty pouch, Gu Changqing cursed again—the spearhead was half shattered. Glancing inside the pouch, his anger rose further: it was nearly empty, having been swept clean just a few days ago, containing only some medicines and a scroll of the “Hundred Victories Spear Technique.”

He also put away the long silk ribbon of the red-clad girl and found a quiet spot to examine the items. He had collected half of those people’s empty pouches and magical tools; the rest were still shrouded in mist and would disperse after an hour.

Checking every pouch, he poured out over eight hundred spirit stones in total—far from satisfactory. Barely passable.

But these cultivators were truly poor. Apart from one magical tool each, they carried only some medicines, a small amount of spirit stones, and some food and wine. Even their talismans were few.

Then again, it made sense—if they were wealthy, they would have gone straight into the top nine peaks instead of lingering on Spirit Vulture Peak.

The more Gu Changqing thought about it, the more resentful he became. These people had spent many of his talismans previously, or his gains would have been greater this time.

After waiting an hour for the mist to clear, Gu Changqing returned to the mountain, gathered the remaining items left behind by those people, then vanished from the spot and headed straight for the mountain gate.

As for the mission… he planned to find some cultivators to do it for him.

After all, the mission rewarded sect contributions, and borrowing secret manuals from the library required sect contributions.

Gu Changqing returned to his cave dwelling. Li Youling was surprised at how quickly he had come back and immediately asked, “Young master, shall I prepare some food for you?”

“Later. First, let me organize this!” Gu Changqing threw a dozen or so empty pouches on the ground, startling Li Youling.

She hadn’t expected him to bring back so many empty pouches after being out all day.

No need to think twice—she knew exactly how these things were obtained.

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“Young master, are you alright? After all, this is Lotus Ridge, not like outside,” Li Youling said cautiously, helping Gu Changqing sort the empty pouches.

“If you can think of it, do you think I can’t?” Gu Changqing scoffed, then laughed heartily.

“These people are all ferocious and ruthless, even attacking their own sect members—truly reckless. Not even I dare to be so bold. But they were unlucky! I’ve effectively cleansed the sect of its scum!”

Hearing this, Li Youling understood what had happened: these people had attacked their own sect, but encountered the young master and were all killed by him.

Thinking this way, she immediately relaxed.

She quickly sorted through the contents of the pouches, finding over 1,100 spirit stones. Combined with what Gu Changqing had before, the total was about 2,000 spirit stones.

Fifteen cultivators above Qi Refinement Level 5 had only managed to gather two thousand spirit stones—still less wealthy than Gu Changqing.

They hadn’t left behind many protective talismans, but there were some Windwalking Talismans, Metal Sword Qi Talismans, Demon-Smiting Thunder Talismans, Concealment Talismans, and Poison Removal Talismans.

Among them, two Demon-Smiting Thunder Talismans and one Metal Sword Qi Talisman were advanced talismans capable of unleashing a Qi Refinement Level 9 strike.

Yet, Gu Changqing’s figure was nowhere to be found in the mist, so these life-saving talismans were never used before death.

The remaining thirty or so were all mid-level talismans, hardly worth mentioning.

Besides that, there were some spirit herbs and ores sealed in jade and wooden boxes, which might be valuable, though exact prices were unknown.

The biggest haul was the seventeen remaining magical tools of these people—various kinds. Apart from Weng Ping’s spear being destroyed, one inner armor was severely damaged by the Blood Prison, its spiritual light nearly worn away.

As for the others, most suffered varying degrees of damage, stained with the Blood Prison’s residue and scarred, their spiritual light somewhat dimmed. These could be repaired.

Gu Changqing found a pair of Silver Thread Cloud-Stepping Boots and a palm-sized green gourd among them, both of which piqued his interest.

He packed up the rest to sell someday.

He had Li Youling clean the Silver Thread Cloud-Stepping Boots while he examined the green gourd.

It was a Fire-Swallowing Gourd that could be controlled by infusing spiritual energy. It could swallow flames and also release them.

Currently, it held only a few faint flames—clearly used before and not yet replenished.

Gu Changqing was quite pleased with it. The power of such a gourd depended entirely on the strength of the fire it swallowed.

The stronger the fire, the more powerful the gourd’s attack; but if too strong, the gourd itself might not endure it.

After a moment, Li Youling returned with the boots, which were mainly black but outlined with silver threads forming patterns of azure clouds, looking quite exquisite.

Gu Changqing put on the Silver Thread Cloud-Stepping Boots, infused them with spiritual energy, and felt his body become significantly lighter.

These boots could increase speed by about twenty percent, qualifying as mid-level spirit equipment.

Besides these, there were over thirty manuals on cultivation methods, spells, and martial techniques.

Most were worthless or of unknown origin. Gu Changqing casually flipped through and found one called “Purple Qi Nurturing Truth Method,” which was quite good.

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Though Gu Changqing hadn’t practiced many styles, he had handled enough to discern quality.

He casually tossed the “Purple Qi Nurturing Truth Method” to Li Youling, suggesting she cultivate it after resetting her meridians and blood.

Of course, plans rarely remain unchanged. Gu Changqing’s cultivation methods were frequently updated—from Xu Daoist’s “Record of Qi Submission” to this one, several generations had passed, and Li Youling hadn’t yet completed her meridian reset.

The “Purple Qi Nurturing Truth Method” had an accompanying method for meridian reset, and the materials probably wouldn’t be expensive. Tomorrow he would check the Treasure Pavilion to see if he could buy them.

As for martial techniques and spells, Gu Changqing was mostly uninterested but still skimmed through them, especially the old man’s “Hundred Victories Spear Technique.” It felt somewhat similar to his own “Eight Desolations Fist,” both relying on continuously stacking victories to build momentum, though the spear technique’s improvement was far less significant.

In terms of intricacy, he felt it wasn’t as refined as the “Imperial Ultimate Fist” he had obtained from the Qingjiang battlefield.

Not only the “Hundred Victories Spear Technique,” but the other martial arts and cultivation methods were also less sophisticated than the “Imperial Ultimate Fist,” which surprised him.

He hadn’t expected that the world where everyone turned into monsters had martial arts even stronger than here.

But it was hard to say, since those people weren’t particularly outstanding anyway.

There might be even more exquisite martial arts and cultivation methods in the sect library, let alone other sects.

Finally, he sorted the medicines: nineteen bottles of Spirit-Nurturing Pills, used to aid cultivation. They were better than the Qi-Nurturing Pills given by Gao Wenxin, though Gu Changqing did not rely on such external aids, using them only to quickly replenish spiritual energy.

…

The next day, after breakfast, Gu Changqing called to Li Youling, “Let’s go take a walk around Lotus Terrace Mountain!”

“Ah! Young master, wait a moment. I’ll change clothes first! Otherwise, with these clothes, it would embarrass your reputation,” Li Youling exclaimed excitedly.

Since arriving at the cave dwelling, she hadn’t gone out much.

Though her training in the cave was sufficient, staying enclosed for so long grew tiresome.

She quickly returned to another room, changed into a white ruqun (traditional skirt and blouse), and applied some rouge and powder.

Her appearance was already flower-like, with starry eyes and a delicate nose, lively eyebrows and eyes. The makeup removed some of her youthful innocence, making her look even more enchanting.

Gu Changqing was quite satisfied. After all, he couldn’t go around kicking every dog he saw on the road; he wasn’t a bad person.

They say a beautiful woman brings trouble. If she could stir up some trouble, that would be great!

He immediately decided to take her out more often.

(The End of this Chapter)