Chapter 1638 1631: Wealthiest In A Month
The arrival of visitors from beyond was met with a genuine and generous reception. Cao Cuifen and Luo Ning's names circulated frequently among the various regions they visited. This was especially so after Luo Ning would offer high-quality products in great quantities. While Cao Cuifen had an obedient servant at the Mystic Overlord level, a genuine Ascended Saint. While her strength was rather ordinary, her foundations shaky to the eyes of the keen and sharp, they could tell she was still a force to be reckoned with.
While Sages existed, their numbers were disappointingly low despite the galactic population; Cultivation was difficult, and the number of Sages in total barely exceeded ten, and eight of them had a strange, undefined yet ambiguous relationship. Even the number of Mystic Overlords didn't exceed thirty, and that was scattered across the entirety of the galaxy. To have one as a servant drew extraordinary attention, and Cao Cuifen was met with much curiosity and inspection.
It didn't take long for others to learn that she was the cherished woman of the Neo-Dawn Alchemic Saint, a Worldly Saint Alchemist with an extensive lineage that they discovered through various means, mostly relying on Heavenly Seers. It was the same method used by Sage Springfield. Unbeknownst to many, Wei Wuyin, the Neo-Dawn Alchemic Saint, was acting as a background character with astonishing beauties by his side.
In many social situations or trading discussions, Wei Wuyin was assumed to be another servant of Cao Cuifen or Luo Ning's assistant learning the ropes of sales. While extraordinary in looks and demeanor, his cultivation as a peak Astral Core Realm cultivator lowered his importance in the eyes of many top-tier figures they met.
Seeing Wei Wuyin's low-key attitude, Qing Qiumu was amused and asked why he was acting this way. Yue Songli was also curious. Wei Wuyin initially said he was afraid of attracting attention, and they both laughed simultaneously from their hearts. To them, that remark was the greatest joke and the most obvious lie.
Wei Wuyin could only bitterly smile in response. It wasn't false, simply they misunderstood his words. He wasn't afraid of attention, he was afraid of 'attracting' attention. That single addition of a word changed the entire context of his sentence!
Why?
Because his next series of actions isn't something a typical Sage could pull off!
Fortunately, this was still good too. Just traveling across the galaxy by Luo Ning or Cao Cuifen's side was good. They went to roughly twenty of the thirty-four regions within a month's worth of time. During that time, Wei Wuyin had gained...a lot.
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The regions of the No-Name Galaxy often had different designations that were consistent across various societies, a typical characteristic of this galaxy that would often leave Shui Fengbao frustrated and cursing. There were kingdoms, empires, and countries, and of these regions, some were ruled by democratic processes or a monarchy. These monarchies functioned by blood lineage, divine designation, elections of a limited council of powerful cultivators, or simply the strongest cultivator was the ruler. The variety was a little excessive.
Because of this, there were states, and countries, sometimes divided by prefectures or simply cities. Anyone who tried to delve into these different structures of civilizations would find themselves dizzy.
There was an empire ruled by virtue of blood lineage and thriving off past glories and loyalties of powerful cultivators and their familial lineages, only upheld by traditions and proper order.
This empire had a vault; the vault contained the massive amount of kept resources that had excessively accumulated over thousands upon thousands of years. Simply put, they simply had too much to use, but the commonly used materials that aligned with their path of cultivation were the most costly and scarce.
Among lower-ranked cultivators, it is largely believed that upon cultivating an Internal World, Secret Realms and storage by vault were obsolete. After all, why not simply keep the resources with the strongest individual? This thought process seldom works in actual practice. While personal wealth could be contained within, could a truly powerful cultivator be bothered by the minor needs of servants, disciples, etc., and constantly be on call to absorb another batch of resources?
It simply wasn't realistic. And on the front of trust, few would ever agree to such an absurd thing of allowing the general wealth and resources to be held by a single person or set of people. The chaotic nature of the cultivation world often dissuade people from trusting others with their potential livelihoods or acting as banks for their organization.
Therefore, the vast majority of forces and organizations would invest heavily in a series of vaults that contained their treasures that were both readily available to withdraw from, defended by extremely powerful formations and arrays, and could contain an excessive amount of volatile resources.
This was the way...
...across the No-Name Galaxy!
Even within the Ancient Sealed Region, this was the way! Wu Yu had once been 'offered' the generous contents of an External Vault by those parasitic clans of the Elementus Domain, and the Everlore Association had their Everlore Vault in their secret realm.
How could Wei Wuyin not be inspired by such a grand pair of memories? No matter how fortified a vault was, with the miraculous tag team of his shadow and himself, there was no location the duo couldn't enter.
Wei Wuyin comfortably waltzed into this vault that would have prevented even a Sage from easily breaching the contents.
"They had nine vaults. What a wealthy force," Wei Wuyin remarked as he looked at the extremely organized world of treasures. The guards had already been drawn into an illusion.
To them, they were going about their day without any signs of a disturbance. In reality, Wei Wuyin had already slipped through their defenses unnoticed. The Mystic Overlord that led this organization wasn't nearby. Obviously, they had long since relied on the protective abilities of the vault itself and various established formations and arrays to ensure the safety of their treasures.
What a pity.
"What a pity there were only nine of these vaults," Wei Wuyin grinned. He saw a pile of refined and well-cut Mystic World Stones of obscenely high quality. The No-Name Galaxy often cut their stones into rectangular brick-like bars or smooth spheres, depending on the region.
They were absurdly numerous. Wei Wuyin took his sweet time counting them out.
"Twenty-two thousand and thirty-six high-quality Mystic World Stones. Impressive, impressive." With a practiced, wide flourish of his right arm, his Saint Ring sucked all of it in, filling his six hundred and sixtieth Saint Ring to the brim. He didn't hold back and took everything else as well. It didn't matter if it was astral-grade or qi-grade. If those graded treasures were here, chances are they were of unique rarities and possessed extraordinary value.
Unlike them, he had no issue keeping his things on a single person. After all, unlike them, he had devised very early on ways to transmit items between his uniquely refined Saint Rings like the Spatial Rings and Storages of the Everlore Starfield. While obsolete, the concept allowed him to always send whatever he wanted between rings and if he was ever caught or killed, his murderers would never obtain anything. This went the same for anyone else in possession of his Saint Rings.
That said, the best function had to be the reduced travel to deliver resources. After having Ma Zheng, Wu Yu, Su Mei, and Tuo Bihan deliver items on his behalf on multiple occasions, he had to create an easier method for the sake of convenience and time.
"I still can't believe there was an Edict Seed of Water, Master!" Bai Xiu was still chirping on that item. About a week ago, Wei Wuyin had found compacted meteorites within the vault of a force led by a World Emperor. It wasn't much, but he wasn't one to let crumbs remain. As an Exploitative Blessed, how could he? During that trip of acquisition, within those meteorites, was an Edict Seed of the Water attribute.
They didn't even know about this rare treasure of the heavens that even Young Master Shang would drool over. According to Young Master Shang, his sister was a water-attributed cultivator, so he decided to keep this as a gift for later. If others knew of Wei Wuyin's activities of not giving just one, or two, but THREE Edict Seeds to women, they would go raving mad with envy and hate. Moreover, they would hate the women and not Wei Wuyin!
'I wonder if this would have belonged to some blessed in the future too...' Wei Wuyin's thoughts couldn't help but bring him to San Yongli, the Temporal Reincarnator, who could steal Blessed fortunes. He had taken two Edict Seeds, both of which were likely designed machinations of the Heavenly Daos. Unfortunately, Wei Wuyin could only know that the Edict Seed of Ice was for sure a designed fortune but not this one.
Wei Wuyin gave the emptied vault a look before his eyes erupted with a misty light. An illusion was projected. The entire scene changed as if the contents had never been taken. This was a minor obstruction to cause a delay, but not enough to prevent others from finding out that they had been robbed...eventually.
As for the victims shouting to the world that they were robbed, that was unlikely for now. He planned to leave in a few days anyhow.
"Should we go to visit Sage-level forces?" Wei Wuyin mused. He was planning to ascend today and had been working non-stop with his shadow to seize anything and everything they came across. They didn't spare a grain of rice or a drop of water. The only places left untouched were those top-tier organizations, empires, nations, and whatnot that had Sages.
"Are you sure you won't get caught?" The Heavenly War Spirit asked. Wei Wuyin's actions were quite vicious, and he was stealing a lot without any mercy. It took her a while to muster up the courage to ask this question. After all, she believed Wei Wuyin wholeheartedly, and his strength was insane.
"Caught? This isn't something you can simply hide. My actions will be known eventually. There's no doubt about that," Wei Wuyin said as he stretched out his limbs. The Heavenly War Spirit was fiercely taken aback by Wei Wuyin's admission. She was rendered speechless! Smiling widely, Wei Wuyin continued:
"This is only a test run. But I will say this: would you go after someone who could bypass your strongest defenses and take everything you've accumulated for countless years without you noticing? Would you go after someone who could do the same to stronger forces? In my opinion, most will simply take the heavy loss in silence. Others will try to find the culprit out of curiosity and anger. I don't fear them though, even if they find me."
"Not to mention, I've already distorted time and space on a fundamental level where only a greater authority could unravel my identity, including falsely leaving behind some patsies for those who are looking at surface-level evidence."
"Patsies?" Bai Xiu's voice was filled with curiosity.
Wei Wuyin laughed. During each of his visits, he left behind Teng Jiangwen's original aura. Moreover, he encapsulated his body, soul, and illusions with that aura. It was subtle, barely noticeable if you weren't paying attention.
"I learned a long time ago that divining someone's location and situation that was refined by the Nexus War Flag was nigh-impossible without having a resonance with the Law of War itself or the power to forcefully challenge it. This happened with both Xu You and Xun Yicao; it was difficult to tell if they were alive or dead or their current locations. Why? Because they aren't dead or alive and they have no location. After all, they are no longer Xu You or Xun Yicao." Wei Wuyin said as he distorted time and space.
"So they'll look for Teng Jiangwen but be unable to find him..." The Heavenly War Spirit finally realized Wei Wuyin's plan.
"Like I said, this is only a test run." Wei Wuyin said as he made the final touches and was about to leave.
"Wait. You said patsies! That's plural!" Bai Xiu immediately noticed as she often contemplated Wei Wuyin's every word to not miss any hidden meanings.
"Right, haha! Well, you see. I added a..." Wei Wuyin explained in a hushed voice at the end.
"Ah!" Bai Xiu exclaimed with disbelief.
"Oh!" And then a second exclamation of realization and amazement!
Wei Wuyin chuckled heartily. He was in a good mood. With this all-free shopping spree, it wouldn't be an understatement to say that Wei Wuyin was the wealthiest person in the entire galaxy!
"I'll ascend first and then I'll pay a visit to those Sages," Wei Wuyin's body merged with the void, vanishing without a trace. It was time to ascend.
At that time, his False God Avatars accompanying Yue Songli, Cao Cuifen, and Qing Qiumu simultaneously informed them of his upcoming ascension. Their reactions were colorful!
"YOU HAVEN'T ASCENDED YET?!?!" Yue Songli and Qing Qiumu both thought Wei Wuyin was an Ascended being already!