An Alchemist's Path to Eternity

”Come in, come in!”

Sima Huiniang, Gu Caiyi, Duan Feng, and Min Longyu stepped into the cave residence with puzzled expressions. They had no idea why Luo Chen had summoned all four of them at once. It was rather unusual; even if something important happened, he usually only called one or two of them.

The instant they stepped into the cave residence, the sight before them left them utterly stunned. Endless items filled the room, heaped up like mountains—bright in color, varied in form, and dazzling to the eye. The spirit energy was chaotic yet abundant, and the scents that drifted through it ranged from fragrant to foul. Large chests were stacked in the corners.

Gu Caiyi blurted, ”Dear, did you rob some sect’s treasury?”

The sheer volume of resources had crowded the spacious cave residence to the point that they could barely walk. Even Bai Meiling could only hover in the air with nowhere to land.

Duan Feng, sharp-eyed as ever, noticed the markings on the chests. ”Are these from the Flame Alliance?”

Luo Chen nodded slightly. ”Yes. This is what I got from Qin Tairan.”

The group exchanged glances. After the Flame Alliance suffered calamity, only three Adepts remained. Among them, Qin Tairan had held the highest cultivation and status in the sect. Most had assumed that the Flame Alliance’s accumulated wealth of several centuries had most likely been taken by him.

When his remnant Golden Core fled back then, quite a few had chased after it. But in the chaos of the struggle, even this Golden Core was destroyed, let alone whatever items Qin Tairan had. No one had any idea that his possessions had ultimately fallen into Luo Chen’s hands.

”I can’t finish sorting this alone. It takes far too much time, so I called all of you over. Come! Count everything one by one and compile a proper ledger. Let’s enrich the Luo Tian Sect’s stores. If something useful to me appears, make sure to tell me. Anything you don’t recognize should be separated. Do not let pearls gather dust.”

Luo Chen swept his hand over the densely packed materials as he issued his instructions. The four swallowed hard and immediately began sorting.

”One chest of third-tier Soft Lightning Sand, about three thousand jin.”

”Three pieces of Wu Earth Essence.[1] All of them are of fine quality. If merged into earth element enchanted treasures, they can greatly enhance durability.”

”Five boxes of Ginkgo Pearls, between the second and third tier. They can be used in alchemy or artifact creation.”

”A stack of Sunburst Talismans, three Divine Fire Talismans... Huh? Which Adept of the Flame Alliance was a talisman maker?”

”One hundred bottles of Foundation Establishment pills, one pill per bottle. All are low grade. Their ages vary, but they are all produced by the Medicine King Sect. Must have been collected over time. Safe to say we won’t be lacking Foundation Establishment Pills anytime soon.”

”One unidentified medicinal herb, dried and preserved. Brother Chen, could you please take a look?”

Sima Huiniang lifted the herb with a thread of spirit power and set it before Luo Chen. Though they were now official Dao companions, she still liked calling him Brother Chen, while Gu Caiyi preferred calling him ”dear.” As for the rest of the Luo Tian Sect, most had long since switched to respectfully addressing him as Supreme Elder.

Luo Chen accepted the dried herb and identified it with a glance. It was a fourth-tier fire-element herb that was fully dehydrated, the sole main ingredient for a certain third-tier fire-element pill.

Luo Chen stored it carefully and continued watching them sort through the resources. Before they arrived, he had already made a rough count. All spirit stones had been set aside for himself. The total came to eight million spirit stones. The amount did not seem much at first glance, but... every single piece was mid-grade at the very least.

It instantly resolved his financial troubles. Just like that, Luo Chen had once again become someone wealthy beyond measure. As for low-grade spirit stones, he hardly saw any. They had likely been divided among the other higher-ups.

But spirit stones were only one part of the inheritance, and not even the most valuable. The best part of this inheritance was the variety of resources. They consisted mainly of minerals and such, as well as a large quantity of pills. Among the latter, there were over a hundred bottles of the third-tier cultivation pills Luo Chen needed—Three Origin Pills produced by Medicine King Sect. This immediately relieved the urgent pressure on his cultivation. After all, Green Pill Valley no longer supplied him with Dragon Transformation Pills, since he was not there anymore. For the past half year, his cultivation progress had been nearly nonexistent.

As he watched them continue sorting, Luo Chen was already calculating how to use these resources. First, he needed to satisfy his own requirements. Next was to provide the Luo Tian Sect’s Initiates. Finally, whatever remained would become the sect’s foundational reserves, ensuring that Luo Tian Sect could continue growing sustainably.

There was no denying the many ways a cultivator could benefit from belonging to a powerful force. They ranged from gathering resources and earning spirit stones to obtaining intelligence so that a bout of seclusion would not mean complete disconnection from the world. They also included access to vast manpower that could be mobilized at will.

Luo Chen had enjoyed all of these advantages over the years. It was precisely because of this that, after reaching the Golden Core Realm, the very next priority had been to establish a proper sect and acquire an appropriate territory for it.

While he planned silently in his heart, shouts of surprise kept sounding inside the cave residence.

”Heavens, there are seven enchanted treasure embryos here, and none of them are poor quality. They’re all clearly made with care and they’re solid material for a life-bound treasure!”

Luo Chen looked toward the voice. Duan Feng had taken several bundled items from inside a cluster of furnaces. He could not help asking, ”What kind of enchanted treasure embryos are these?”

Duan Feng’s artifact creation skills had grown more refined over the years. With many of the Flame Alliance’s artifact creation manuals in his hands, his experience would now broaden even more. After examining them one by one, he quickly explained his findings to Luo Chen.

There were three flying swords, each with a different attribute. There was also a tower, a cauldron-type enchanted treasure, as well as one halberd and one fly-whisk. These embryos far exceeded the two enchanted treasure embryos the Duan family had once painstakingly crafted. They were genuine high-quality pieces, and each one was worthy of becoming an Adept’s life-bound treasure.

Once Duan Feng finished introducing them, a hint of regret appeared on Luo Chen’s face. The embryos were excellent, but none of them suited him. They were indeed inferior to the Primordial Unity Cauldron, but even so, an ordinary Adept would go mad with joy upon obtaining them.

Luo Chen sighed and instructed Duan Feng to store them properly. They would later be handed to Sima Wenjie for safekeeping. When a member of the Luo Tian Sect finally advanced to the Golden Core Realm, they would not need to worry about acquiring a life-bound enchanted treasure.

While Duan Feng had uncovered good items here, the others had also made significant discoveries elsewhere. Min Longyu, for instance, now held a bamboo scroll in his right hand and a feng shui compass in his left. He was filled with joy.

”The Incense Burning Spirit Seizing Grand Formation! It’s a variant of the Heavenly Spirit Seizing Formation. If I can fully master it and lay it under Danxia Peak, we might be able to raise our sect’s spirit land to the second tier.”

The strongest formation of the Valley of Ghosts and Divinities had been the Heavenly Spirit Seizing Formation. Among third-tier formations, it stood at the very pinnacle in both grade and power. It possessed endless variations and transformations.

Wang Yuan had obtained it and derived the Blood Fiend Seizing Formation from it. Green Pill Valley had also acquired it and used it as a reference to develop the Five Peaks Enclosing Valley geomantic layout. The Flame Alliance had shared in the inheritance of Valley of Ghosts and Divinities back then, which allowed them to develop the Incense Burning Spirit Seizing Grand Formation and even forcefully raise the Withering-Flourishing Fire to the fourth tier.

While Min Longyu was filled with delight, Gu Caiyi giggled beside him. She was in charge of sorting the cultivation manuals. At that moment, she held up a thick tome that seemed entirely cast from metal, and each turn of the pages indeed sounded like metal scraping against metal.

”Elder Min, seeing you this excited makes me afraid to hand this book to you.”

Min Longyu froze, unable to understand.

”I am afraid that once you see this book, you might actually faint from excitement.”

As Gu Caiyi spoke, she turned the cover toward Min Longyu.

The Compendium of Formations.

The title looked ordinary, but anything the Flame Alliance gave enough importance to keep in their hidden vault could not be ordinary. Min Longyu pressed down the surge of joy in his chest and accepted the book with great care. After only a short while flipping through its contents, he could not stop his face from lighting up again. He even called out to Duan Feng.

”Little Duan, come take a look. This even explains how to inscribe formations onto enchanted artifacts and...”

Duan Feng’s eyes brightened, and he instinctively stepped forward.

”Ahem.” With a soft cough, Luo Chen interrupted their glee. ”Priorities, gentlemen. Finish counting first, then talk about everything else.”

Min Longyu and Duan Feng exchanged a glance and gave embarrassed smiles. Seeing this, Sima Huiniang shook her head with a smile. Just as she opened a gourd, a breeze swept across her face and carried her backward three steps. In the next instant, a watery blue curtain of light unfolded and wrapped around her.

”Be careful,” said Luo Chen.

A startled look crossed Sima Huiniang’s face as her gaze fixed on the gourd. ”What is this?”

With great caution, Luo Chen took the gourd from her and sealed the mouth with his mana. After pausing in thought for a moment, he reached a conclusion. ”It seems like this is the Withering-Flourishing True Fiend.”

Sima Huiniang froze for a moment, and then her expression shifted. ”Is this the thing Zheng Xian and the others used back then to break our mountain-guarding formation?”

Luo Chen nodded heavily. ”Exactly. This fiend qi comes from a place steeped in Withering-Flourishing Fire for countless years. It is insidious and vicious, far more corrosive and invasive than ordinary earth-fire fiend qi. Among third-tier fiend qi, it’s about as notorious as the Flame Yang True Fiend.”

Luo Chen spoke with solemn weight, and every word was true. If an ordinary enchanted treasure was tainted by even a trace of Withering-Flourishing True Fiend, its spirituality would suffer heavily. If tainted further, the corrosive force could even sever the connection between the treasure and its master. It was utterly venomous!

Sima Huiniang looked at the gourd with lingering fear. Had Luo Chen not shielded her earlier, she might have already been harmed. Yet seeing how carefully Luo Chen treated it, she quickly realized something.

”This is fire fiend qi, isn’t it? Brother Chen, could you perhaps...”

Luo Chen’s lips curved slightly, and he nodded to her. Most cultivators could not make use of this fiend qi at all, but he was different. He possessed the primordial true fire refined from the Withering-Flourishing Fire, which allowed him to use this fiend qi without harm. His Blazing Fire Miasma was depleted now, but if he refined even just this single gourd into it, he would immediately gain another trump card. It would become a decisive killing weapon even in battles with Adepts!

”Brother Chen, that’s great!”

”Congratulations, dear!”

Luo Chen smiled and nodded. ”Alright, let’s go on. I want to see what other treasures Qin Tairan left behind for us.”

1. Wu (戊) is the fifth Heavenly Stem and corresponds to yang and the earth element. ☜