Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-39

After Lu Ping escaped from death’s claws, he started cleaning up the battlefield. He began with the five Xuan Ling Sect disciples’ belongings. He collected their interspatial pouches and plundered six mystic instruments, two of which were mid-grade and the remaining four were low-grade.

Lu Ping looked with pity at the two mid-grade mystic instruments Senior Martial Brother Qiao had used. They were clearly of high-quality, but unfortunately, Senior Martial Brother Qiao had sacrificed them so he could activate the talisman treasure. Hence, they were destroyed by the sea snake.

Other than that, there were more than 1,300 spirit stones altogether. Among which, Senior Martial Brother Qiao alone contributed to more than 600 spirit stones. In addition to owning a talisman treasure, Lu Ping could say for sure that Senior Martial Brother Qiao was definitely an important talent, with a background that was even stronger than Lin Sheng’s Lin Clan.

Sure enough, when Lu Ping was counting the medicinal pellets, the other four disciples only had six bottles of Blood Essence Pellets combined while Senior Martial Brother Qiao alone had two bottles of Blood Solidifying Pellets and two bottles of Blood Essence Pellets.

However, what surprised and excited Lu Ping the most was something else entirely. He found two 500-year-old spirit herbs that were used to concoct Blood Condensing Pellets. This meant that Lu Ping had finally gathered eight Blood Condensing Pellet’s spirit herbs, enough to exchange for one Blood Condensing Pellet. This also increased Lu Ping’s hopes of advancing into the Blood Condensation Realm.

The wealth plundered from the five Xuan Ling Sect disciples were so abundant that it made Lu Ping forget his injuries and exhaustion. He turned his eyes to the carcass of the huge sea snake.

Lu Ping had first-hand experience with the defensive capability of the sea snake’s skin. He estimated that it was strong enough to forge into a mid-grade defensive mystic instrument. Although one of the two snake fang daggers had been destroyed, the one remaining was still a strong mystic instrument that could be used for sneak attacks and assassinations.

As for the snake tongue sword, even though it was the sea snake’s life-weapon and incredibly strong, it was only as good as an ordinary mid-grade mystic instrument after the sea snake’s death.

Lu Ping cut open the monster’s huge body with his flying sword and dug out a huge gallbladder. This was one of the essences of the sea snake, a must-have ingredient for several Blood Condensation Realm medicinal pellets. It was extremely precious.

After that, Lu Ping opened up the snake’s weak point and dug out its perfectly intact heart. This was the most precious part of the entire sea snake!

He carefully cut open the huge heart with the Flying Swallow Sword and four pearl-like blood beads rolled out. Lu Ping quickly captured them inside a bottle that he prepared beforehand. He still felt worried even after sealing the bottle, so he put the container inside his jade bottle mystic instrument in order to prevent any spiritual energy from leaking.

After storing the blood beads, Lu Ping exhaled deeply in relief. It was only at this moment his lingering fear from the battle resurfaced. He never expected the sea snake to be a monster at the Fourth Layer Blood Condensation Realm. If it hadn’t been severely wounded by the talisman treasure before the fight, he would’ve long been eaten by the sea snake already!

Oh right, the talisman treasure! Lu Ping thought and quickly searched around the sea snake’s body.

This was clearly Senior Martial Brother Qiao’s first time using the golden javelin talisman treasure. When Lu Ping found it, the talisman treasure was still glimmering brightly with a golden light. He was incredibly happy to sense the power of the spell inscribed in the talisman treasure and learned that it could still be used two more times. This was a trump card he could use against Blood Condensation Realm experts.

Talisman treasures were incredibly strong, but they also required time to activate. This was also why the sea snake didn’t use it during the battle with Lu Ping. Otherwise, if it had activated the talisman treasure…

Lu Ping thought about the consequences and shivered in terror!

After some thought, he kept the rest of the snake meat inside an interspatial pouch. After that, he made his way towards the cause of the battles—Cultivator Sheng Tao’s cave-dwelling.

Cultivator Sheng Tao was just a Blood Condensation Realm rogue cultivator. But because he was good at alchemy, he had some fame amongst the cultivators a hundred years ago. No one knew how Hu Lili found all this information about him from a pile of old papers and discovered the location of his cave-dwelling.

The layout of his cave-dwelling was simple but spacious. Because everyone had intentionally avoided attacking the area around the cave-dwelling, it wasn’t damaged from the fight.

In the cultivation room, Lu Ping found Cultivator Sheng Tao’s body sitting in the center of the room. There was a small stone table in front of the body and on the table were two jade scrolls and an exquisite interspatial pouch the size of a palm.

Lu Ping had only seen an exquisite interspatial pouch like this on Master Immortal Liu. The space inside these pouches were a few times larger than that of Lu Ping’s current interspatial pouch, the space inside would be almost as big as a room.

In the interspatial pouch, there were dozens of jade boxes and Lu Ping opened them one by one. Each jade box contained one or more spirit herbs of the same type and they all totaled up to more than two hundred spirit herbs.

Among the spirit herbs, Lu Ping could only recognize half of them.

Most of the spirit herbs were used to concoct Blood Refining Realm medicinal pellets. There were also five spirit herbs of three different types used to concoct Blood Condensing Pellets. On top of that, there were a dozen more spirit herbs used to concoct other Blood Condensation Realm medicinal pellets.

In the interspatial pouch, there were also 50 mid-grade spirit stones and more than a hundred low-grade spirit stones. Even though Lu Ping was prepared to find great wealth, he still couldn’t contain his excitement. There were more than 5,000 low-grade spirit stones!

After that, Lu Ping couldn’t bother inspecting the remaining low and mid-grade mystic instruments anymore.

Of the two jade scrolls, the first one was called [Sheng Tao's Book of Alchemy]. It recorded all of Alchemist Sheng Tao’s experience and knowledge in alchemy. At the end of the book were recipes for more than a dozen Blood Refining Realm medicinal pellets and five Blood Condensation Realm medicinal pellets.

In addition, there was even a recipe for a Core Forging Realm medicinal pellet known as the Golden Marrow Pellet. Sheng Tao learned the recipe by chance but didn’t have the capability to concoct it.

The other jade scroll was called [Sheng Tao's Travelogue]. It recorded everything Sheng Tao had experienced in his life, especially recording information about the spirit herbs such as the environment and condition they should grow in, ways to cultivate and harvest the herbs, and much more. The knowledge in the jade scrolls was eye-opening to Lu Ping.

With the help of these jade scrolls, Lu Ping was able to recognize a dozen more spirit herbs that were used to concoct Blood Condensing Pellets.

Lu Ping looked at Cultivator Sheng Tao’s body and bowed respectfully at it. “Today, this junior is fortunate enough to inherit the senior’s legacy. I will do my best in learning the senior’s inheritance. And if I have limited talent myself, I promise that I will select a better talent to pass down Senior’s knowledge, so your legacy will not end.”

After saying this, he burned Cultivator Sheng Tao’s body into ashes and kept them in a jade bottle to spread over the ocean later on. Long life and inheritance, these were the two things that cultivators valued the most. Since Lu Ping had obtained Sheng Tao’s inheritance, he naturally had to take care of Sheng Tao’s body. Otherwise, his mind wouldn’t be at peace.

Lu Ping went to the alchemy room next door. Wooden cabinets lined the walls and on the cabinets were jade bottles containing medicinal pellets. The bottles were all covered in dust.

Lu Ping cleared the cabinet and collected more than forty jade bottles. There were more than a dozen types of medicinal pellets, most of which were of Blood Refining Realm quality. But they were more than a hundred years old; most of these pellets had already lost their efficacy.

Only seven of the jade bottles turned out to be useable because they were sealed by the Blood Condensation Realm’s Spirit Sealing Charms. Hence, their spiritual energy remained locked inside.

Out of the seven jade bottles, three were Blood Vigor Pellets that Lu Ping needed urgently and four others were of Blood Condensation Realm quality. Unfortunately, there weren’t any Blood Condensing Pellets that Lu Ping wished for the most.

In the middle of the alchemy room was a cauldron that was almost as tall as a human. It was just a mid-grade mystic instrument but because it was a cauldron, it was often worth more than two or even three high-grade mystic instruments in the market.

This was because the cauldrons were much more difficult to forge. Not only did it require smiths and alchemists to work together, there were strict requirements on the material used. This made every cauldron incredibly precious. A low-grade cauldron was equal in value to a high-grade mystic instrument.

It was rumored that Xuan Ling Sect’s best cauldron was just a top-grade mystic instrument. The higher-ups had tried numerous times to raise it into the ranks of a mystic treasure but none of their attempts succeeded. Even so, using this cauldron required approval from the Grand Ancestors in the sect.