The collected waste pills, the copied medicinal herbs, the corpses of those he had killed...
Every last one was a hot potato that could bring about a fatal disaster!
If only I had a storage pouch to properly put away these deadly things, how wonderful that would be! Shen Fan secretly mused.
By chance, his peripheral vision swept over the items he had looted from Baishitong. Among them, a palm-sized cloth pouch stood out in particular.
Though Shen Fan had never personally owned a storage pouch, he had often seen many Outer Sect Disciples carrying them. Li Qingshan, for instance, often wore one at his waist.
"Could this be the legendary storage pouch worth five hundred spirit stones?"
Filled with curiosity, Shen Fan picked it up and studied it carefully.
Yet when he tried to untie the cord at its opening, he found that no matter how hard he pulled, the pouch did not budge, as though it had been locked by invisible shackles.
"What exactly is going on?"
Shen Fan furrowed his brow, his heart full of doubt.
He subconsciously squeezed the little pouch and unexpectedly sensed several irregularly shaped objects inside, each about the size of a fingernail.
"Divine sense!"
A flash of inspiration struck Shen Fan's mind, and he began to ponder in secret.
In the cultivation world, storage pouches were common spatial magic treasures, but their requirements for use were not low. Usually, a cultivator needed at least the cultivation of the third level of the Qi Refining Stage.
This was because operating a storage pouch relied on divine sense, and the third level of the Qi Refining Stage was precisely the threshold at which divine sense could first be stably projected outward. Of course, that merely barely met the conditions for using one.
However, cultivating divine sense was a road filled with hardship for anyone.
During the Qi Refining Stage, divine sense had only just sprouted. It could merely perceive the flow of spiritual power within one's body and could not be projected outward at all. Even when using a storage pouch, one had to hold it in one's hand to barely control it.
Only upon reaching the Foundation Establishment Realm could divine sense break through the limitations of the flesh, extending several meters outward to sense the surroundings or simply manipulate magic treasures.
Only then could cultivators use storage pouches with ease, even operating them without direct contact.
Thinking of this, Shen Fan slowly closed his eyes and began to carefully sense his divine sense.
In an instant, a thought from his Spirit Abode became like a keen eye, reaching every corner of his body in a flash.
The circulation of his spiritual veins, the fullness of his dantian, the subtle changes in his acupoints—everything lay within his grasp.
This was Shen Fan's divine sense.
After sensing the existence of his divine sense, Shen Fan immediately grasped the storage pouch in his hand and controlled his divine sense to surge toward it like a tide.
Bang—!
The next moment, Shen Fan's divine sense seemed to slam into a transparent wall and was forcibly rebounded.
He sensed it carefully and seemed to detect an imprint of divine sense that did not belong to him.
"This is... that fellow Baishitong's divine sense imprint!"
Shen Fan instantly understood. Then he sneered. "The man is already dead, yet this divine sense still thinks it can stop me?"
Before his words had faded, Shen Fan condensed his divine sense into a spear and fiercely stabbed at that invisible wall.
Crack—!
A shattering sound that only divine sense could hear rang out deep within his soul.
Immediately afterward, a flash of white light flickered across the cloth pouch.
When Shen Fan withdrew his divine sense, the pouch could now be opened with a casual tug.
However, when Shen Fan turned the Universe Pouch upside down, intending to pour out its contents, he suddenly realized that using the Universe Pouch still required divine sense to search through it.
Shen Fan circulated his divine sense again, extending it inward like feelers. Only then did he discover that there was a whole new world inside.
A space one zhang across appeared clearly in his mind.
All sorts of things had been piled inside in a disorderly mess: pots, bowls, ladles, bedding, clothes, spirit stones, spiritual rice, demon cores, techniques... everything was there!
"Good heavens, Baishitong really knew how to hide his depths!"
Shen Fan could not help sighing.
To be fair, it was truly surprising that a Rogue Cultivator who drifted through the markets, specializing in swindling and cheating, possessed such a fortune.
Shen Fan immediately began taking stock. He found 208 Low-Grade Spirit Stones, around one hundred jin of spiritual rice, and roughly forty demon cores ranging from the first to sixth level of the first rank.
In addition, there was one low-grade Yellow-rank cultivation art, the Polar Ice-Fire Body Forging Art; one mid-grade Mortal-rank cultivation art, the Spirit Communication Beast Control Art; and one mid-grade first-rank technique, Dragon Grasp.
This Dragon Grasp was perhaps a technique cultivated by body cultivators.
That was Baishitong's entire fortune.
Shen Fan kept everything useful and tossed all the useless things into the incinerator in one sweep, burning them to ashes.
Afterward, he also placed the Nine Nether Corpse Refining Art that Old Man Duan had given him, along with the Azure Water Fire Ward, inside.
As for the remaining spiritual rice, Flame Serpent Art, and the like, he still hid them beneath the bedding.
After all, if the Heavenly Xuan Sect investigated and he had nothing at all, that would instead arouse suspicion. Leaving some things behind would make it easier to deal with an inspection.
"Right!"
Shen Fan's eyes suddenly lit up. "I wonder if those corpses can be put inside too?"
If they could, that would save him quite a bit of trouble!
The space within the Universe Pouch was static and could prevent food from spoiling. Although it could not store living creatures, those were already corpses, so there should not be any problem.
With that thought, Shen Fan immediately went to the storage room and tried to put the corpses inside.
However, he discovered that the space inside the Universe Pouch was too small to hold them at all.
"Damn it, if only it were a little bigger!"
Shen Fan sighed, but then a new hope flared in his heart. "Right, I wonder if this Universe Pouch can be upgraded?"
With that thought, Shen Fan immediately took everything out of it, then carefully placed the Universe Pouch into the Treasure Gathering Universe Bowl.
This Universe Pouch is intact. Could it possibly produce a whole pile of Universe Pouches tomorrow? Shen Fan secretly thought.
However, early the next morning, Shen Fan dismissed that notion.
Because the Universe Pouch he had placed inside had not been copied into more of them. Instead, its quality had been improved.
The originally low-grade Universe Pouch had transformed in a single leap into the highest-quality Supreme-Grade Universe Pouch, with an internal space spanning a full hundred zhang.
Shen Fan speculated about the Treasure Gathering Universe Bowl's function. It seems that as long as the item placed inside has not reached its limit, the Treasure Gathering Universe Bowl will automatically raise it to that limit. But if the item placed inside has already reached the highest quality, only then will it be copied in quantity!
After firmly committing this characteristic of his guess to memory, Shen Fan put everything back inside once more.
But just then, he slapped his forehead and suddenly understood. "How could I be so stupid! Will the things inside the Universe Pouch increase because the number of Universe Pouches increases? Or will strengthening the quality of the Universe Pouch also strengthen the quality of the things stored inside?"
Shen Fan secretly regretted it. Based on the rules he currently understood, the Treasure Gathering Universe Bowl would not continue strengthening or copying things that had already been strengthened or copied.
In other words, placing this upgraded Universe Pouch inside again today would produce no change at all!
If only I had another Universe Pouch, then I could test it! Shen Fan secretly thought.
But then another thought struck him. Still, I can keep testing tonight. Although the upgraded Universe Pouch cannot be upgraded or copied again, what about the things inside it?
With that thought, Shen Fan decided to give it a try tonight.
And today's task was to refine these two corpses into corpse puppets.
Before you continue