Stealing The Heavens
chapter-280

Inside a cave, a dying campfire was emitting a dimmed red light. Although the light was faint, it was more than enough for Wu Qi to see things clearly. In his eyes, the pitch-dark cave looked as bright as broad daylight. He spat and mixed his saliva with a crushed spirit pill, which had the effect of mending bones and regrow flesh, then put two broken arms back to Jiangcheng Zi's shoulders. He applied the medicinal paste and wrapped them up tightly with bandage like a mummy.

When he brought Jiangcheng Zi away just now, Wu Qi had taken away his broken arms as well. Right after he shoved Jiangcheng Zi and the broken arms into Spirit Breeding Ring, Han Xiao's attack had smitten him and nearly ripped him to shreds. Fortunately, Wu Qi was protected by a Soul Replacement Puppet, as the miraculous puppet had died for its master, and teleported Wu Qi's true form one thousand miles away.

If not for the Soul Replacement Puppet, Han Xiao would have already killed Wu Qi with one single strike. Upon thinking about the dreadful pressure when Han Xiao's attack came smashing at him, Wu Qi's legs immediately shivered. He was too reckless. It was merely out of his instinct that he felt he should rescue Jiangcheng Zi, but in the end, he nearly got himself killed. He decided that he would never do something similar in the future, and even if he were forced to do it again, he would have to get himself a few more Soul Replacement Puppets.

"That old fool Lu Buwei still has a few puppets with him. Heedless of the cost, I'll have to find a way to get them!" Wu Qi told himself. Previously, relying on the amazing escape arts he mastered, and the mighty and powerful treasures he had, he was confident he could stay safe even when facing with Nascent Divinity cultivators. But now, with the sudden arrival of a few Heaven Immortals, and after personally experiencing their formidable power, Wu Qi dared not be so careless again.

The serious warning in Scroll of Stealing flowed through Wu Qi's heart like a stream of water, branding deeply and clearly in his mind word by word. Absolute power was more than enough to offset any magical effects of all the divine and mystic techniques in Scroll of Stealing. Even if he had gathered innate energies of all five elements, mastered the escape arts of innate five elements, he still had to be extra careful, exercising the utmost caution when he acted. Countless almighty experts existed under the heaven, and before Wu Qi could possess a supreme overall strength himself, these almighty existences could kill him with just a simple thought in their mind.

After going through a near-death experience, Wu Qi had put the warning in Scroll of Stealing at the top of his head. He kept reminding himself again and again that he should never act recklessly and rashly again like how he did today.

After helping Jiangcheng Zi join up his arms, Wu Qi's fingers gently stroke over a storage bag tied on his waist belt and picked it up.

"What a poor guy!" His eyes shone with a rainbow glow as he exercised the Mystic Eyes of Universe and looked through Jiangcheng Zi's body. Vaguely, Wu Qi saw Jiangcheng Zi's innate Nascent Embryo, which stood five feet and seven inches tall inside his body. That meant Jiangcheng Zi had a genius level potential in cultivating the Dao. With an innate Nascent Embryo of that height, if he were able to transform it into Nascent Divinity, he would certainly possess the potential of becoming a Heaven Immortal in the future. However, the Nascent Embryo was full of tiny cracks, through which, a pale golden light was glinting and flashing.

Evidently, Jiangcheng Zi's Nascent Soul had completely fused with his innate Nascent Embryo, and it was a sign that he was previously having a cultivation base of peak-stage Nascent Soul realm. But, in order to flee for his life, Jiangcheng Zi burned his Nascent Soul and blood essence, which resulted in severe damage to his Nascent Soul, and caused his Nascent Embryo to be filled with tiny cracks. Looking at the fist-sized Nascent Soul that shimmered with a dying glow inside Jiangcheng Zi's body, Wu Qi could not help but shake his head. Without proper care, there was a high chance that Jiangcheng Zi would fall back to Gold Core realm.

How surprising! A once Earth Immortal with peak-stage Nascent Soul cultivation base only had a storage bag tied on his waist belt, and did not even own a single storage ring! Sure enough, it was not wrong to call him a poor guy!

Lightly squeezing the storage bag with his fingers, Wu Qi cast a restriction-breaking spell found in Scroll of Stealing, breaking through the not so powerful restrictive spell on the bag. Then, he sent his divine will into the bag, and what he found greatly disappointed him. As a matter of fact, this storage bag was better than the two storage bags Wu Qi stolen in the past, as it had a storage space of about seven to eight houses. But of course, there was absolutely no way it could be compared to a storage ring.

The bag was fully filled with all sorts of odds and ends. Using his divine will Wu Qi went through everything, and he found a total of 137 lower-grade energy stones and 3 mid-grade energy stones. In addition to that, there were over forty pill bottles, which contained Energy-Replenishing Pills, Blood-Replenishing Pills, powders that were used to heal external wounds, and some other lower and mid-grade pills. There was only a total of five bottles of higher grade spirit pills such as Energy-Rejuvenating Pills, which contained 38 pills in total.

Apart from that, he also found various metallic ores, which looked like a pile of trash, and did not even qualify to be used as the pavement in Great Yan Dynasty's workshops. For example, purple-copper, purple-gold, silver essence, gold essence, and some other metals. Furthermore, all of them contained up to seventy percent impurities. Also, there were piles of herbs, with every single one of them carefully kept inside boxes made using freezing-jade and warm-jade. Their average age was roughly three to four hundred years old. The best spirit herb was a very low quality 'White Ginseng', which was slightly over five hundred years old.

It was a White Ginseng of roughly five hundred and fifty years age, and could be used to concoct 'Marrow Strengthening Pill', which had the effect of replenishing energy and improving one's cultivation base, a pill that could also provide little benefits to Nascent Soul cultivators. In dead earnest, the White Ginseng was enclosed within a small box made with upper-grade spirit jade, and the box even attached with three restrictive talismans, so as to prevent any leakage of the medicinal strength of the ginseng.

Wu Qi could not help but twitch his lips. A five hundred and fifty years old White Ginseng? For goodness sake! Wu Qi recalled that when he was in Wanying Dragon King's mansion, he once saw the shrimp soldiers and crab captains feeding the dragon beasts that used to pull chariots, and their food was White Ginsengs which was over three thousand years old! After they were fed with White Ginsengs of such age, their blood essences, bones and muscles would grow stronger, which then provided them with more energies, and eventually, produced better quality offspring.

"How poor is this guy! As poor as a beggar on the street!" Wu Qi cast a glance over at the unconscious Jiangcheng Zi, threw his head back, and breathed out a long sigh.

One could easily tell that Jiangcheng Zi was poor, really poor, while those Heaven Immortals were as poor as him as well. It was no wonder although Han Xiao was a formidable Heaven Immortal, he would still forget himself after finding just a tiny little energy stone vein. It seemed they were simply a group of poor people who had been pushed into a tight corner, and then suddenly stumbled into a place where rare and precious natural treasures could be found everywhere on the ground. That was what caused them to forget themselves totally.

"Look like something bad is going to happen soon! Those few fellows don't seem to be some decent people." Frowning, Wu Qi restored the restrictive spell on the storage bag, then tied it back on Jiangcheng Zi's waist belt. After that, he picked up a few leafs from the ground, rolled them into a tiny string, and lit it with the campfire, then brought the string fuming with pungent smoke to Jiangcheng Zi's nose.

After a sneeze, Jiangcheng Zi woke with a start. In a trance, he looked at the pitch-dark cave ceiling, shook his head, and said with a wry smile on his face, "I must be dreaming just now. Fancy that! I saw one hundred Long Bo men who have long become extinct in Minor Heavenly Circle Realm! Hahaha, I must be dreaming!! And they actually knocked me out?!"

Wu Qi cleared his throat and rose to his feet, cupped his fist and bowed at Jiangcheng Zi. "Wu Qi offers greetings, senior."

With much difficulty, Jiangcheng Zi brought his upper body straight up, then he gave his tightly wrapped arms a glance, and felt a refreshing sensation coming from the wounds. He could not refrain himself from praising joyously, "That's a good medicine, with very strong medicinal strength!" And he quickly turned to Wu Qi, nodding his head as he said, "Greeting, my fellow Daoist! I'm the person in charge of the Spirit-Gathering Palace in White Cloud Immortal Sect, Jiangcheng Zi!"

Looking at his blood-stained wounds on the shoulder, Jiangcheng Zi smiled wryly and said, "Was it you who saved me? I cannot thank you enough for the kindness! But, I can tell that you only have a cultivation base of early-stage Gold Core realm. So how were you able to flee from those few old thieves?"

Spreading his hands, Wu Qi told him frankly, "They nearly killed me with just one single strike. But luckily, I had found myself a Soul Replacement Puppet some time ago."

Jiangcheng Zi gasped, staring at Wu Qi with astonishment as he cried out, "Soul Replacement Puppet??! The puppet that can replace its master in a fatal situation? My fellow Daoist, you're indeed a man with great fortune! That is a very rare treasure, and I've never heard of it for ages in Minor Heavenly Circle Realm!"

After a moment of thought, Wu Qi sat down cross-legged in front of Jiangcheng Zi and began questioning with a deep voice, "Let's make the long story short, I'll ask whatever I wish to know. It seems to me that those six Heaven Immortals, Han Xiao, Zhen Mu Sovereign, White Ghost Immortal, Ghost Lady, Black Feather Sovereign, and Inferno Sovereign, are not people walking on the righteous path, are they?"

Jiangcheng Zi pursed his lips, smiled wryly, and said, "Well, not only they are not people walking on the righteous path, they actually..."

Sighing and shaking his head, Jiangcheng Zi began to introduce the background of all six Heaven Immortals. Both Han Xiao Immortal and Zhen Mu Sovereign were well-known itinerant Heaven Immortals in Liyuan Galaxy with a notorious reputation, and they were Immortals who walked on the evil path. They were known for behaving in a tyrannous manner and committing all sorts of crimes, with the track record of slaughtering an entire city full of cultivators just for the sake of robbing a tiny, insignificant energy stone vein or some random spirit herb.

White Ghost Immortal and Ghost Lady were two Ancestral Masters of Iron-Ghost Soul-Seizing Sect from the Myriad Ghosts Planet in Liyuan Galaxy, and they were also Heaven Immortals who walked on the evil path with a notorious reputation. They were violent in action, savage and unreasonable. On top of that, they were known for seeking revenge even for the smallest grievance. When someone offended them, they would find ways to seek the revenge, even after several tens of thousands of years. Also, they were husband and wife, who were a couple since the moment they began cultivating the Dao. Working as a team, they were two Heaven Immortals who anybody rarely dared to offend in Liyuan Galaxy.

As for Black Feather Sovereign and Inferno Sovereign, they were the Ancestral Masters who founded another major immortal sect in Liyuan Galaxy - the Spirit Flame Sect. Both of them were Heaven Immortals of Thirty-Sixth Tier. Spirit Flame Sect specialized in fire element cultivation techniques, and they were the experts in crafting all kinds of spirit weapons and magical treasures, among which, the most famous weapon produced by them was called the 'Earth fire Thunderball'. It was a weapon with the power to crumble mountains and turn ridges to shreds, a kind of Yin thunder magical treasure. This pair of Heaven Immortals who came from the same sect had a very strange custom, as they could not tolerate someone holding some precious treasure. Whenever they took notice of some natural treasure, they would find all sorts of ways just to get a hold of it, even if that would lead to the killing somebody, or even slaughtering an entire city.

Throughout the entire Liyuan Galaxy, there were thirteen immortal sects who walked on the righteous path, while seven walked on the evil path, and several hundred big or small cultivator clans and cities. Among them, these six Heaven Immortals were the malicious existences who gave everyone in Liyuan Galaxy a headache, and made them tremble with fear upon hearing their names. Only two powers had the ability to counter them: White Cloud Immortal Sect and Tranquil Vimalā Sect [1], whose overall strength easily suppressed them, as these two immortal sects were each led by three Ancestral Masters of Heaven Immortal Realm.

White Cloud Immortal Sect was an expert in the Dao of pill concoction. Among all the spirit pills and magical medicines found in Liyuan Galaxy, over seventy percent were supplied by White Cloud Immortal Sect. Thus, They were rather popular among the people. Tranquil Vimalā Sect had a unique cultivation technique. They were skillful in a divine ability called Tranquil Soul-Cleansing Sutra, which had an effect that specifically restricted any evil cultivation technique. Hence, they possessed a very strong deterring force for all the evil Immortals.

Working hand-in-hand, these two major immortal sects sat firmly in the seat of honor among all immortal sects of the righteous path in Liyuan Galaxy. On the other end, Iron-Ghost Soul-Seizing Sect and Spirit Flame Sect were the symbols to all the immortal sects of the evil path, while Han Xiao Immortal and Zhen Mu Sovereign were the representatives to the vicious powers among all the itinerant cultivators in Liyuan Galaxy.

After listening to Jiangcheng Zi's introduction, Wu Qi slapped the ground with his hand and cried out with a deep voice, "If that is the case, this planet..."

Looking at Wu Qi with sincerity, Jiangcheng Zi smiled helplessly and said, "It seems this planet has yet to be damaged or exploited by any cultivators, so its value is beyond estimation. Now, as those six fellows have cast their covetous eyes at it, I am afraid... the cultivators here will have to either submit to them, become their disciples and slaves, or have the bad luck to be destroyed completely."

After a moment of thought, Wu Qi pulled out a few large alloy plates from Black Dragon Spirit Ring, and soon fixed them into a small teleportation formation.

He went ahead and mounted a few energy stones in the formation, then pulling Jiangcheng Zi up as he stepped into the teleportation formation.

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[1] Tranquil Vimalā Sect - According to Oxford Reference, in Sanskrit vimalā has the meaning of 'immaculate' or 'stainless'. (Source: http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/acref/9780190681159.001.0001/acref-9780190681159-e-4828)