A Huge Haul

After collecting all the blood essence vines, Yang Tianyou pushed open the door and entered the main hall.

A spirited ink-wash landscape painting met his eyes. Judging by the brushwork alone, he could tell that the painter had to be a master.

The painting was not a Law Artifact or any other kind of spiritual object, but Yang Tianyou was not disappointed. He put it away, intending to hang it in his study later.

Most of the things in the sitting room were ordinary mortal objects, but thanks to the protection of the formation, they had been preserved quite well.

Yang Tianyou picked out a few things that caught his eye and took them, leaving the rest untouched.

Behind the sitting room were a bedroom and a cultivation room. Yang Tianyou headed straight for the cultivation room.

When he pushed open the door, a gust of stale air hit him in the face, but his heart leaped with joy. This stale air had clearly been left behind by a cultivator who had passed away in meditation.

Sure enough, after the stale air dispersed, Yang Tianyou entered the cultivation room and found a skeleton on the meditation cushion in the very center. Though more than two hundred years had passed, the bones still had a faint crystalline sheen.

"Looks like a Foundation Establishment cultivator."

That was Yang Tianyou's judgment. If these were a Qi Refining cultivator's bones, they certainly would not have looked like this after two hundred years.

Because Foundation Establishment cultivators had to forge a spiritual body, their meridians, bones, and flesh gradually transformed bit by bit. Only when essence and Qi finally became one, leaving no leaks in the body, could they attain the Golden Core Realm.

Not a trace of flesh remained on the person before him. Clearly, he had not yet reached the Foundation Establishment Late Stage, but was only at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage. Even so, his assets were certain to be considerable.

Yang Tianyou first bowed, then picked up the Storage Bag lying in front of the Foundation Establishment cultivator.

He tipped it gently, and the contents of the Storage Bag streamed out one after another, piling up across the floor.

There were two second-tier Law Artifacts and four First-Tier Superior-Grade Law Artifacts, no Spirit Pills or talismans, and some spirit medicines and spiritual materials. There were quite a few Spirit Stones, though—more than six thousand in all.

Yang Tianyou frowned slightly. Although the haul was considerable, it was much less than he had expected.

But after a moment's thought, he understood why. He picked up the only remaining second-tier Law Artifact and examined it carefully, then nodded in understanding.

The Dragon Valley Sect had once been the sole hegemon of Dragon Valley County, with four Golden Core cultivators in its ranks. Its grand elder had been a formidable Middle Golden Core cultivator.

But because of the sect's overbearing ways, many Lineages in Dragon Valley County had been full of grievances against it. Later, when the Cold Tide approached, they seized the opportunity to join forces with two outside Golden Core powers, the Three Rivers Sect and the Feng Household. Working together from within and without, they had successfully overthrown the Dragon Valley Sect's rule.

The process had naturally been extremely bloody. The Dragon Valley Sect had fought back with all its might, but there had been too many traitors. In the end, the grand elder and two Golden Core cultivators had fallen in despair.

In the end, only the inheritance elder had escaped, taking Dragon Valley Hall with him. But from the look of things now, the inheritance elder had not been spared either.

He had most likely passed away in meditation from severe injuries. Otherwise, Dragon Valley Hall should have fallen into the hands of the Three Rivers Sect and the Feng Household.

The Foundation Establishment cultivator before him was probably a Dragon Valley Sect cultivator who had fought his way out alongside the inheritance elder. After fighting one desperate battle after another against their enemies, this was all he had left.

Otherwise, given the standing of a Dragon Valley Sect Foundation Establishment cultivator, he should not have been so destitute.

Having worked this out, Yang Tianyou felt much brighter. He bowed once more, then gathered up the objects scattered on the ground and stepped out of the cultivation room.

Rumble!

As Yang Tianyou walked out, the cultivation room gradually collapsed. There was nothing else he could do, but Yang Tianyou could at least help this Foundation Establishment cultivator rest in peace beneath the earth.

Having swept the little house clean, Yang Tianyou continued on to explore the next building.

It was a metal hall, but the metal used to build it was all ordinary iron. Although a large enough quantity could be refined into spiritual iron such as iron essence, Yang Tianyou clearly was not going to tear it down. He did not have a Storage Bag nearly big enough.

Walking into the metal hall, Yang Tianyou discovered that it was a supply warehouse, packed full with twelve chests of Flamefire Iron.

Flamefire Iron was a first-tier low-grade fire-attribute spiritual iron. On the market, one jin of Flamefire Iron sold for around four Spirit Stones.

Each of the twelve chests before him contained about three hundred jin of Flamefire Iron, all processed into finished blocks that could be used directly to refine Law Artifacts.

That was 3,600 jin of Flamefire Iron in total. At four Spirit Stones per jin, it came to 14,400 Spirit Stones.

I've struck it rich!

That was the only thought in Yang Tianyou's mind.

He hurriedly put away the twelve chests of Flamefire Iron, then moved in a flash, rushing out of the metal building toward another one right beside it.

He opened the building's main doors and found the same layout. This was clearly another supply warehouse, but unlike the previous one, it contained all kinds of low-tier Spirit Pills.

At that moment, pill bottles stood densely packed on the neatly arranged shelves.

Qi-Nourishing Pills, Grain Avoidance Pills, Body-Nourishing Pills, Muscle-Shaping Pills...

More than a dozen kinds of pills, ranging from first-tier low-grade to mid-grade, stood packed together.

But Yang Tianyou had a bad feeling. He opened a bottle of Grain Avoidance Pills.

Whoosh!

A cloud of rotten gray fumes drifted out. The pills inside had already turned into useless pills, making him frown deeply.

Yang Tianyou took down another bottle of pills and opened it. It was the same.

A long while later, Yang Tianyou's expression was ugly as he looked at the densely packed pill bottles before him.

Of the dozen-plus kinds of pills, not one had survived to the present.

This was actually normal. Pills were unlike other things: cultivators refined them from the essence extracted from spirit medicines. To put it plainly, they were man-made products.

They were like meals cooked by mortals: leave them for a few days, and they could no longer be eaten.

Although pills had a much longer shelf life, it was not long enough to last more than two hundred years. Besides, these were only low-tier pills, so the methods used to preserve them surely would not have been very advanced.

With things as they were, Yang Tianyou gave it no more thought and continued to the next metal building.

Sure enough, it was another warehouse. This one held a large quantity of low-tier talismans, including heaps of Fireball Talismans and Water Arrow Talismans.

But like pills, talismans were difficult to preserve, so they had naturally suffered the same fate. Almost all had lost their effects. Only a few dozen were barely usable, and even their spiritual light was dim, with less than a tenth of their power remaining.

After the previous blow, Yang Tianyou's heart had grown much stronger. He rallied his spirits and continued to the next warehouse.

This warehouse held low-tier spirit medicines. Low-tier spirit medicines such as ginseng and fleeceflower root had been preserved quite well, while some other flower-and-grass spirit medicines had either withered or lost much of their spirituality, along with a great deal of their medicinal potency.

Compared with the previous two warehouses, however, this spirit medicine warehouse was much better. Yang Tianyou estimated that the remaining spirit medicines should still sell for around five thousand Spirit Stones—a considerable haul.

Buoyed by this haul, Yang Tianyou ran toward the last two metal halls.

As expected, there were pills, formations, artifacts, and talismans, plus spiritual metal and spirit medicines: six warehouses for six kinds of resources.

The last two halls held low-tier Law Artifacts and formation-setting tools.

The former included first-tier low-grade and mid-grade flying swords, flying knives, spears, shields, and the like.

Only a small portion of these Law Artifacts had been completely destroyed. Although the rest had dim spiritual light, they could still be used after some resources were invested in maintaining and refurbishing them.

As for the formation materials, they had been preserved quite well. The formation flags and formation plates were almost all usable, and in terms of value, they were probably the best of the six warehouses.

In the end, Yang Tianyou tallied up the low-tier supplies in the six halls and found that they were worth more than 46,000 Spirit Stones in total. That was nearly as many Spirit Stones as the Yang Household had stored in its treasury—a huge haul.