Martial Peak

Martial Peak – Chapter 747, Pill Cloud

As the group walked forward, a few people rushed towards a couple of rows of collapsed houses. This sudden burst of movement obviously caught everyone’s attention and they all realized that there must be something in these houses as they could feel slight energy fluctuations coming from them.

Hai Wang Gu lifted his hand to indicate everyone to stop and wait.

Those that continued to move were all Hai Family’s cultivators. Naturally, this being the area they stake their claim to, none of the outside cultivators dared to act as they pleased.

If it turned out that there was something good here, allowing the Hai Family to eat the meat while collecting some soup afterwards wasn’t a problem, and if there was any danger, allowing the Hai Family to test the waters was also good; everyone here had such thoughts.

A short time later, the Hai Family’s cultivators quickly returned. The two who had gone to search the left row of houses both had downcast looks and were shaking their heads, apparently not having found anything.

The pair that had searched the right set of houses however had faces filled with smiles, the two of them quickly handing a small object over to Hai Wang Gu.

Everyone’s eyes lit up as they stared towards this object.

Hai Wang Gu accepted the object and carefully wiped the dust off of it before using his Divine Sense to investigate. A moment later, his brow loosened as he nodded, “Good, it’s an artifact, unfortunately it seems to have degraded to the point where it can only display a Mysterious Grade Low-Rank prestige! Truly unfortunate, if it were in good condition, it would probably at least be a Spirit Grade Top-Rank artifact!”

Listening to his words, everyone couldn’t help showing a look of regret.

What Hai Wang Gu said was the truth, everyone here had their eyes on the artifact and were probing it with their Divine Senses, so him lying would be pointless.

However, finding an artifact so soon after arriving could be considered a good start, raising everyone’s expectations even higher.

“This artifact will be taken care of by this old master for now. After we return to the surface, I will find an Artifact Refiner to repair it, perhaps some of its former strength can be restored, increasing its grade,” Hai Wang Gu said frankly before storing the artifact in his Universe Bag.

From the start, Hai Wang Gu had said that all treasures their group found would be kept by him and only after the exploration was over would they be distributed according to everyone’s individual contributions; since this artifact was found by his Hai Family cultivators, no one expected him to share it even after they got back.

Having already gained some small benefits, everyone became more passionate in their search.

In order to expand the scope of their search, Hai Wang Gu divided everyone up into three small teams, each of them led by a Hai Family Transcendent Realm master, and sent them off in three different directions.

Yang Kai was still following behind Hai Wang Gu. The small team he was part of now consisted of only twenty or so people and with the exception of Hai Wang Gu, only Yang Kai had reached the Transcendent Realm. Everyone else was an Immortal Ascension Boundary cultivator.

Amongst the many ruined houses on either side of the road they were traveling, people would occasionally find something of value. Most of these things were artifacts, but there were occasionally Secret Arts and Martial Skills as well. However, these Secret Arts and Martial Skills generally weren’t well preserved, and the moment they were touched, they crumbled into dust, depressing a great many.

There were also some pills, but because of the long passage of time, their medicinal efficacies had completely passed, leaving behind only some worthless dregs.

After half a day, Yang Kai’s group had only managed to harvest some damaged artifacts, causing most of them to feel somewhat unsatisfied as these gains were far from what they had been expecting.

Yang Kai stayed at the back of the group, neither showcasing nor hiding himself, only working as hard as an average Immortal Ascension Boundary Seventh Stage cultivator should, not attracting anyone’s attention.

Among the couple dozen artifacts that had been found, he had also made some contributions, but nothing of noticeable significance.

Silently though, Yang Kai felt somewhat doubtful. This Ancient Ruin should be the remains of a large Sect from long ago. Such a Sect should have a lot of internal barriers and restrictions guarding their more valuable locations, this point could easily be inferred from the barrier that was blocking the sea from flooding this place. But until now, their group had yet to encounter any such barriers, much less any kind of danger.

This instead made Yang Kai even more vigilant.

As they were walking, a man with a thin frame suddenly approached Yang Kai, causing the latter to frown as he glanced over curiously. Yang Kai immediately noticed that this thin man was grinning towards him silently.

“Do you need something?” Yang Kai asked.

“Boy, you seem like a smart one!” The man whispered, glancing over towards Hai Wang Gu who was leading the way, making sure that the latter wasn’t paying attention to them.

“Is that so?” Yang Kai suddenly felt things were becoming interesting. This guy was also a foreign cultivator who had joined Hai Wang Gu.’s group. He had a Peak Immortal Ascension cultivation and didn’t seem very old, only in his early thirties. His pair of small and narrow eyes resembled those of a poisonous snake, always revealing a somewhat sinister light.

Him suddenly calling out for no reason made Yang Kai somewhat curious, wondering what the former was plotting.

“Of course, I saw all of it!” The man replied lightly, “While you basically kept silent, your eyes were constantly flickering. It was quite a shrewd performance; you’re trying to hide your true strength in order to snag something big, aren’t you?”

“No, you’re thinking too much,” Yang Kai slowly shook his head.

“You don’t have to deny it, everyone is thinking this way anyways,” The thin man sneered, “That old guy keeps putting everything into his Universe Bag, who here can’t see what he’s trying to do? After all of this is over, he’ll probably give us nothing, or maybe he’ll give us some petty profits just to shut us up, this is his Seven Family Alliance’s site after all, we simply don’t have any say in the matter!”

“They eat meat, I drink soup!” Yang Kai smiled, “I’m content with just that.”

“You don’t look like someone so easily satisfied!” The thin man spat disdainfully, lowering his voice even further, “How about it? Any interest in teaming up with me?”

“Teaming up, what for?”

The thin man stared at Yang Kai like he was staring at an idiot before saying, “There’s no danger in this place, we just need to find a way to sneak off and search for treasure on our own, why should we bother staying with them?”

“Oh? Not a bad idea!” Yang Kai’s expression became bright, a look of interest appearing on his face.

“Isn’t it?” The thin man saw the look on Yang Kai’s face and quickly struck while the iron was hot, “If we really find anything good, we can split it between the two of us, fifty-fifty, I’m a person who believes in being fair!”

“Although your suggestion is tempting, I’d still rather follow the group, there’s safety in numbers after all,” Yang Kai seemed to hesitate, slowly shaking his head.

The thin man hurriedly comforted his worries though and continued his sales pitch.

However, Yang Kai wasn’t buying, so the other side couldn’t help but swear, “You dumbass, if you keep following them blindly you’ll suffer a big loss sooner or later!”

Yang Kai was too lazy to care about him though.

At first glance it was obvious this guy wasn’t anything good, him trying so hard to rope Yang Kai in was clearly because the latter didn’t have enough confidence to go it alone and wanted to find someone to help explore the way for him. When they really encountered any danger, it would be easier to deal with if there were two of them.

But once they obtained something of value, with his Peak Immortal Ascension Boundary strength, dealing with the young and weak Yang Kai should be easy.

Or at least the thin man thought so!

[Since when did I become such an easy mark to prey upon?] Yang Kai coldly snorted in his heart.

“There’s a few houses in front, some of you go check them out!” Hai Wang Gu suddenly stopped and pointed towards a cluster of houses.

Everyone nodded, and the team quickly dispatched a couple of people to search the houses.

Yang Kai also went this time, walking towards one of the houses on the right.

There were a total of five people in Yang Kai’s group and while three of them stayed outside and rummaged around, Yang Kai stealthily used his Divine Sense to confirm there was nothing of worth outside before walking into one of the houses. But before he could enter the house, a shadow quickly appeared next to him and the thin man who had just spoken to Yang Kai entered one step ahead of him.

Yang Kai simply shook his head, didn’t pay him any mind, and casually walked into the house.

Most of the items inside had already been reduced to dust but in a corner of one of the rooms there were a few jade bottles scattered on the ground.

By the time Yang Kai arrived, the thin man was already picking his way through the jade bottles, a look of helplessness on his face as he opened them at random.

This type of jade bottle was incredibly common and was usually used to hold pills; however, since arriving in the Ancient Ruins, due to the long passage of time, nothing but useless dregs had been found in such bottles.

However, all of a sudden, the thin man’s expression changed greatly as a look of excitement flashed across his eyes.

“Find something good?” Yang Kai asked curiously.

The thin man suddenly remembered that there was someone else inside with him and nodded towards Yang Kai, “See for yourself!”

As he spoke, he handed over the jade bottle.

Yang Kai took it and looked inside, but upon seeing the pill at the bottom of the jade bottle, he too couldn’t help feeling shocked.

This pill was very different from an ordinary pill, there was a thick layer of mist gently billowing across its surface, like a dense cloud. This cloud was composed of pure World Energy and formed a kind of translucent protective film that enveloped the entire pill.

Although Yang Kai didn’t know how many years had passed since this pill had been refined, he instantly knew that its medicinal efficacies had not only not been lost, but had instead become significantly more intense.

The aroma that wafted from this pill was incredibly rich and fresh.

After only sniffing it slightly, Yang Kai knew it was a Saint Grade pill!

However, the pill’s grade was only a secondary concern, what was truly shocking was the cloud-like layer surrounding it!

“Pill Cloud?!” Yang Kai exclaimed.

Yang Kai could already be considered an excellent Alchemist and when he refined pills, a good number of them would form meridian like patterns on their surface, commonly known as Pill Veins.

Once Pill Veins appeared on any pill, its value would be multiplied several times over, and no matter how many years it was saved for, as long as it was preserved in reasonable conditions, its efficacy would never fade!

Every outstanding Alchemist pursued the refinement of Pill Veins, trying their best to allow Pill Veins to appear. Unfortunately, there was no effective way to ensure that every pill one refined would give birth to Pill Veins.

In the end, the appearance of Pill Veins involved a lot of luck.

Above Pill Veins was the legendary Pill Cloud!

Pill Veins would frequently appear when Yang Kai performed Alchemy, but until now he had never once produced a pill with a Pill Cloud.

Today was actually the first time he had ever seen a pill with a Pill Cloud!

According to legend, when a pill gave birth to a Pill Cloud, not only were the effects of the pill strengthened several times over and its medicinal efficacies would never weaken, the Pill Cloud would automatically gather the surrounding World Energy to nourish the pill.

It could be said that the longer a pill with a Pill Cloud was stored, the greater is efficacy would become, and the higher its value will be!