Certain Victory

Jiang Ping'an did not truly want Xie Zhijing, of course. Xie Zhijing was merely a fourth-layer Spirit Aperture Realm menial disciple; whether she could even cultivate to the Qi Refining Realm in the future remained uncertain. Besides, even if Xie Zhijing did reach the Qi Refining Realm, he did not know where she lived.

After finishing the Spirit Wine, Jiang Ping'an paid his bill and left the tavern, heading to the Myriad Treasures Pavilion to select a Magic Tool.

Now that he had Spirit Stones on hand, he had to equip himself with a defensive Magic Tool. The more means he had to preserve his life, the better.

By coincidence, Jiang Ping'an soon found a top-grade defensive Magic Tool that caught his eye—the Mysterious Nether Heart-Bound Rings.

The Mysterious Nether Heart-Bound Rings were a pair of seemingly ancient, dark-black bracelets, worn respectively on the left and right wrists. Their material was neither metal nor wood; they felt as warm and smooth as jade, yet weighed as heavily as black iron. Fine, naturally formed patterns like concentric ripples covered their surfaces. When Yin-attributed true qi was infused into them, the ripples gave off a faint youlan glow, like ripples in a deep pool illuminated by moonlight.

The Mysterious Nether Heart-Bound Rings possessed three layers of defensive capabilities:

First layer: Rippling Realm. When an attack, whether physical or magical, approached, the bracelets automatically unfolded a faintly glowing barrier before the wearer, shaped like concentric ripples on water. Rather than taking the blow head-on, this barrier greatly absorbed the impact and deflected the attack's direction. Flying swords would slide aside, fireballs would have more than half their force extinguished, and the remaining power would be evenly dispersed across the wearer's body, turning a "fatal wound" into "bearable shock."

Second layer: Concentric Domain. If