Three Burning Sky Talismans exploded in an instant unleashing an intense heat and a wave of fire. The attack was equal to three Xuanyuan’s attacking at the same time.
Since gold was weak to fire, Nu Long’s gold based armour would be weakened and unable to withstand the full power of the attack. Since the majority of his Qi was already consumed during his fight with the Yakshas and from attacking Xuanyuan, the attack would be lethal. Nu Long had used all of his strength-replenishing pills beforehand, leaving him no way out. His armour continued to drain his Qi until the last of his Qi was used, then the protective spell on the armour faded, allowing the wave of fire to engulf Nu Long.
Nu Long only screamed for a few seconds before his body was reduced to ashes. Only his instruments and ring escaped the intense heat unharmed, which Xuanyuan happily added to his wealth.
From their rings, Xuanyuan had extracted their inner tokens and transferred all their merit points over to himself. Eight merit dragons flew from the tokens and disappeared inside Xuanyuan’s token. That meant they had a combined total of eight hundred million merit points. Xuanyuan was thankful that Nu Long and Lie Sha had worked so hard to save so many merit points, it was a great gift to him. Afterwards Xuanyuan casually threw their tokens away.
“I need to find a safe place where I can cut open these stones. Haha, how great! I received so much with such little effort!” Xuanyuan grinned. He really felt good after robbing his enemies.
“Work harder, boy! I’ll take those instruments you’ve just collected. They should do. I am able to devour the power of upper rank earth instruments and above, so get me some of those!” Greed added.
“How come you’re always so greedy? You have already devoured so many of my jades and my crystals, you want to take away my instruments now too?” Inside his ring, the instruments of Lie Sha and Nu Long were already gone. Xuanyuan felt like his heart had been ripped from his chest.
“When I regain my powers, you will be dealing with Xian instruments. You understand nothing!” Greed said impatiently, “The spells I devour from those instruments can still be used to protect you so stop your whining.”
Xuanyuan smiled. It wasn’t a bad deal after all. Xuanyuan started to daydream, when would he be able to obtain a Xian instrument?
Xuanyuan avoided some demons and headed to a direction with less creatures. Finally, he arrived at an abandoned cave which was overflowing with glowing grass. There wasn’t a single trace of demon aura inside.
He immediately took out a human-head sized stone from his ring and cut through it with his dagger. He learned from the Book of Acquisition, stones needed to be cut like you’re peeling an apple. Slowly, he was surrounded by thin layers of stone. The stone in his hands was becoming smaller as he continued to peel layer after layer. The stone was already half the size it was previously.
“There can’t be nothing of value inside such a large fighting stone! I refuse to believe it.”
But the next second, a bright light shone from his hand and a powerful Qi burst through the final few layers of stone, shedding them like a snake skin.
There was a crystal inside which was slightly blemished. Xuanyuan could tell immediately that it was an upper class crystal. Slightly disappointed, Xuanyuan moaned, “Only fifty jin worth of upper class crystal?”
“You’ve forgotten the value of crystals! You think crystals grow like grass? You think it’s easy to stumble onto them? Do you remember how many merit points you spent to get those top class crystals? It’s pretty good already to have this much. The amount of crystal you’ve got there could be exchanged for fifty thousand jin of top class jades. You can easily finish your mission with this.” Greed scolded.
Xuanyuan nodded and put away the crystal. He then started to peel away at the other stones. As he became more experienced with peeling the stones, his speed gradually increased. The second stone he cut released a much brighter light than the other crystal. This crystal had no blemishes and a much stronger Qi, it was forty jin of pure top class crystal.
“Wonderful! I wonder if there are any unusual crystals inside these stones!” Xuanyuan laughed. He started cutting through a large stone that was at least two hundred jin. He was extremely hopeful for what he might find, “According to the Book of Acquisition, larger stones have a higher chance of unusual crystals growing inside.”
However, when the entire stone was reduced to thin sheets of stone, there was absolutely nothing inside.
“How’s this possible?” Xuanyuan rolled his eyes, annoyed that he had to slowly peel such a large stone, only to receive no reward.
“Stop complaining. Not every stone will contain jade or crystal. Otherwise, every large stone would be priceless and the merchants wouldn’t need to gamble when buying large stone. You don’t have a set of heavenly eyes, it’s normal for you to get unlucky with your choices. Sometimes, the most experienced gemmologist might still choose wrong and buy a worthless stone.” Greed explained.
Xuanyuan spent the next few days peeling his collection of large stones. He had collected fifty large fighting stones and ten of them were empty. Apart from the first fifty jin of crystals, he acquired two thousand and nine hundred jin of upper class crystals, and one thousand, eight hundred jin of top class crystals.
”Hahaha, even though I didn’t get any unusual crystals, this is still a really good harvest.” Xuanyuan was pleased. These stones were collected by the Yakshas, they handpicked the highest quality stones from the surrounding mines. Otherwise, the harvest would have been much less. Normally, you would only find a jin of crystals among five hundred jin of stones. Countless people would go crazy if they knew that Xuanyuan acquired so many crystals with such ease. Greed was also in a merry mood. Most of those crystals would be absorbed by Greed, after all.
“Good stuff! We should head back now, once we get back, we can use these top class crystals to create a disposition which will help me break through to the king realm. I’ll be a king fighter in no time. Then we’ll see who will dare to challenge me within the List of Merit!” Xuanyuan said as he stood up and left.
*************************************
At this moment, next to the portal for returning to the inner sect was two grandmaster fighters. They were not true disciples, but they were Elders of the Inner Sect. They had been sent by the Lie Family and the Nu Family.
Three days ago, Lie Sha and Nu Long’s life tokens shattered, which meant they had been killed. The main houses of both families were shocked to receive such news. They weren’t sure who killed them, but they were inner disciples which were on the List of Merits. They had a bright future and would have brought endless esteem to their families. The families wouldn’t let this go, so they sent two grandmaster fighters to investigate. These Elders would not be suspected if they killed a disciple inside the mine, more specifically Xuanyuan.
“Didn’t that Xuanyuan boy only have a hundred and eight dragons of strength? It’s impossible for Lie Sha and Nu Long to die by his hands. If I catch him, I’ll maim him and throw him into the mine to die!” A muscular man said furiously. He was not as powerful as Xingyun, but Xuanyuan was still much weaker in comparison.
“I’m also curious as to what happened. He produced the seven-coloured light during his test. He’ll eventually have to come through the portal, we can just deal with him then. He’ll wish he’s dead!” Lie Zan had a bloodthirsty look on his face. His family had two requests – the death of Lie Sha’s killer and the death of Xuanyuan.
Xuanyuan ran towards the portal, completely ignorant of the trap waiting for him.