Firmament Sword

The Monkey also shut his mouth, watching the golden toad hop with great difficulty, step by step, to the stone door. Then, with a PLOP, it actually jumped into the pond in front of the door.

”...”

Xu Luo and the Monkey were both speechless.

Then, a golden light shot out from the pond toward the stone door.

The remaining Arrays on the stone door disintegrated in an instant, and the door slowly swung open.

”Hm?” Xu Luo was a bit surprised. He extended his Divine Thought to cover the pond and found the Golden Toad sinking motionlessly to the bottom, as if dead.

But in reality, a sliver of life remained.

The Monkey noticed this too. He looked at Xu Luo, the corner of his mouth twitching. ”What’s going on?”

Xu Luo thought for a moment before saying, ”Perhaps… this is the last sliver of hope it left for itself!”

”You’re saying… this Divine Thought isn’t so simple? That it’s a chance for that big toad to be reborn?” the Monkey muttered with a frown. ”But if that’s the case, will it still be itself?”

Both Xu Luo and the Monkey could see that this Golden Toad had completely lost all memories of the Infinite Saint Emperor. All its malevolent thoughts had been burned away by the Karmic Fire. Even if it could grow strong again, it was hard to say if it would truly be the Infinite Saint Emperor.

”Golden Toads are a very unique type of creature in the Divine Domain. They possess a miraculous bloodline, and their cultivation speed far surpasses that of ordinary beings,” the Monkey said, looking at Xu Luo. ”This fellow… I’m afraid it might have left some tricks up its sleeve. For example, there might be something inside this treasure vault that could reawaken its memories!”

Xu Luo nodded as well. The Monkey had a point. He hadn’t expected the Infinite Saint Emperor to be so meticulous, leaving behind such a contingency with just a single Divine Thought.

It’s true that one should pull up weeds by the roots, but to kill a Golden Toad that had been purged of all malevolence, leaving only its pure essence… that would likely incur a great deal of karmic debt.

Even if this world belonged to Xu Luo alone, doing so would still go against the harmony of nature.

”Forget it. It’s in my world, after all. No matter how powerful it becomes, how far can it really go?” As Xu Luo spoke, he pointed a finger at the pond. The pond immediately separated from the mountain and slowly began to rise.

Then, Xu Luo pointed into the distance, and the pond vanished into thin air.

”You sent it away?” the Monkey asked.

Xu Luo nodded. ”Since we’re worried there might be something in the treasure vault that could reawaken its memories, we might as well make sure it never sees the vault again for the rest of its life!”

The Monkey clapped his hands and laughed heartily. ”That’s the best solution!”

With that, the Monkey rushed eagerly toward the vault, laughing. ”Chaos Heaven Armor… I’m coming for you!”

Earlier, the Monkey and Xu Luo had already scanned the vault with their Divine Thought and confirmed there were no other traps inside.

It made sense. For an existence on the level of the Infinite Saint Emperor, placing so many restrictions and tricks on the vault’s entrance was already the limit. To set up all sorts of traps and ambushes inside his own treasury would be an insult to himself.

Xu Luo followed close behind, entering the Saint Emperor’s Treasure Vault. Only after stepping inside did he realize it was a whole new world.

”Holy cow… this big toad was really something else. It actually hollowed out the entire mountain!” the Monkey exclaimed in admiration.

The space inside was enormous and as bright as day!

The Monkey wasn’t exaggerating. The Infinite Saint Emperor had indeed hollowed out the entire interior of the mountain and refined it into a treasure vault.

As they walked inside, they felt incredibly small.

”HISS…”

As the Monkey was walking, he suddenly took a sharp breath, pointing at a small, glittering mountain over there. ”Top-level Immortal Spirit Stones… there are so many! This guy… he was loaded!”

Immortal Spirit Stones were many grades higher than regular Spirit Stones, a treasure unique to the Divine Domain. They contained vast amounts of Spiritual Qi, pure beyond imagination, and were highly suitable for absorption and use by powerhouses at the Saint Realm and above.

Therefore, in the Divine Domain, Immortal Spirit Stones were considered hard currency. Whether human or beast, all living beings recognized them as a universal medium of exchange.

But as for Top-level Immortal Spirit Stones, almost no one would use them as currency, because their value was simply too great!

A single Top-level Immortal Spirit Stone could allow a Saint Realm powerhouse to fully recover their strength in a very short time!

Their value was immeasurable to any Cultivator.

Even the Monkey only had a few hundred ordinary Immortal Spirit Stones on him, which he used for various transactions while traveling in the Human World.

And with that, the Monkey already considered himself quite wealthy, as most Cultivators didn’t even have a few hundred Immortal Spirit Stones to their name!

But at this moment, the Monkey suddenly felt like a complete pauper compared to the Infinite Saint Emperor, the big toad he’d looked down on!

”Fifty-fifty!” Xu Luo said with a laugh.

”Do you have any idea what this stuff is worth?” the Monkey suddenly turned back and asked Xu Luo seriously.

Xu Luo shook his head and smiled. ”Not really, but I can feel the terrifying energy they’re giving off. Every single one… must be worth a fortune.”

”A fortune? This is more than a fortune! This is priceless!” The Monkey pointed excitedly at the pile of Top-level Immortal Spirit Stones. ”With a pile this big, if you took just a few of these outside, you’d see a whole crowd of King-level Powerhouses fight to the death over them! It could even cause a river of blood!”

”It can’t be that bad…” Xu Luo had seen people in the Lower Realm go on killing sprees over treasures, but to have a river of blood flow over just a few Top-level Immortal Spirit Stones… This was the Divine Domain!

The Divine Domain, where the quality of all kinds of Heavenly and Earthly Treasures far surpassed that of the Lower Realm!

”Sigh… ignorance really is bliss.” The Monkey sighed at Xu Luo, then did a somersault onto the top of the Immortal Spirit Stone Mountain. He plopped down with a look of pure bliss. ”Never thought I’d see the day I’d be sitting on a mountain of Top-level Immortal Spirit Stones! HAHAHAHA, this is awesome! Absolutely awesome!”

After wiggling his butt around a few times, the Monkey looked at Xu Luo and said, ”I can’t take these Top-level Immortal Spirit Stones.”

Xu Luo replied, ”If they’re so precious, why not? We’ll just split them fifty-fifty!”

”My good brother, you’re adorably naive. But you’ve moved me. I’ve known many humans in the past. Most of them call you brother to your face and stab you in the back.” The Monkey’s face filled with anger as he continued, ”The worst was this one time I overheard a human I thought was a good friend talking to his own friend. He actually said… ’That stupid monkey has nothing but brute strength. He’s simple-minded and trusts people too easily. If I were strong enough, I’d really love to smash his head open and taste the brain of the Golden Monkey Race to see what it’s like!’ I had the urge to kill him right then and there, but in the end, I just walked away quietly and never saw that person again.”

Xu Luo shook his head, speechless. There was no shortage of people like that anywhere. If you were too naive, you’d get deceived, and after deceiving you, they’d curse you out as an idiot behind your back…

”Without you, I couldn’t have gotten into this vault at all. Even if I could beat those eight Quasi-Kings to death, once that big toad’s Divine Thought appeared in the Divine Domain, I’d have nowhere to run. I’m no match for its Divine Thought.”

The Monkey looked at Xu Luo with a sincere expression. ”So, aside from the Chaos Heaven Armor, which is a treasure of my Golden Monkey Race that I’ll be taking, I don’t want anything else in this vault!”

”No way. We agreed, fifty-fifty. Brother Hui, you have your principles, and I have mine!” Xu Luo said, looking at the Monkey seriously. ”Just like you said, without you, I couldn’t have gotten this treasure vault either. I wouldn’t have even known it existed. So… if you consider me, Xu Luo, a brother, then stop refusing. This dilly-dallying isn’t like you!”

”Dammit! I’ve only ever heard of people fighting and killing each other over profit, never met someone like you!” The Monkey leaped down from the Immortal Spirit Stone Mountain and let out a long cry. ”Since you’re so straightforward, brother, I won’t be pretentious either!”

With a wave of his hand, a third of the Immortal Spirit Stone Mountain vanished. Seeing Xu Luo about to say something more, the Monkey waved his own hand dismissively. ”Alright, that’s enough! For me, this is already a fortune I’d wake up from a dream laughing about. Any more… and it’ll affect my Taoist Heart!”

”...” Xu Luo looked speechlessly at the Monkey, feeling more and more that it was truly his good fortune to have arrived in the Vast Mountains when he first entered the Divine Domain.

If he had stepped directly into human territory, how could he have possibly made such a true friend?

Soon, the Monkey started shouting again. ”Aiyaya, brother, I regret it! I shouldn’t have acted so noble! Boo-hoo… this is a million-year-old Spirit Medicine! Dammit, a single stalk can create a King-level Powerhouse without even needing to be refined into a pill… Heavens, this big toad… where in the world did it collect all this stuff? This is… Chaos Xuanwu Iron…”

”A super top-grade material for forging weapons! My Big Iron Rod only has a tiny little bit of it mixed in…”

Across the entire, massive treasure vault, not a single item in sight was of Mortal Grade.

All sorts of divine materials were piled up into mountains, and many treasures were even covered in dust…

Xu Luo and the Monkey were like two country bumpkins, gaping at one treasure after another until, in the end, they even started to feel a bit numb.

Reaching the end of the vault, Xu Luo’s eyes narrowed slightly. At the far end stood a massive desk, pitch-black in color as if carved from black jade, yet it emanated the faint fragrance of wood.

On the wall behind the desk, an Everlasting Lamp was lit. Its flickering flame actually radiated a divine glow!

On the desk beneath the Everlasting Lamp, Top-level Immortal Spirit Stones were neatly stacked in a square half a zhang wide!

These Immortal Spirit Stones looked as if they had been cut, all perfectly uniform in size and shape.

Most importantly, the object enshrined upon these Immortal Spirit Stones sent monstrous waves crashing through Xu Luo’s heart!