This time, your preparations had been quite thorough. Precious herbs above Earth Grade were all rare treasures. You took out several hundred Treasure Boxes, most made from Mysterious Grade materials, with some even made from Earth Grade materials. These Treasure Boxes could keep the medicinal efficacy of the Precious Herbs from dissipating too severely.
Yet you had still underestimated the gains you would make in the ruins. The grade of the treasure boxes you had brought was ultimately too low. Take the Five-Zhu Sacred Medicine, for instance—even if you stored it in an Earth Grade treasure box, some of its medicinal efficacy would inevitably be lost.
But you could not be blamed for this. There were simply too few Heaven Grade Treasure Boxes. Though you had done your utmost to collect them, auction houses rarely sold such items. Most of the many Treasure Boxes you could produce were accumulated by the Sky Domain Sect.
After placing the Precious Herbs into the Treasure Boxes, you immediately and carefully stored them in your Storage Treasure. You then searched around outside the house once more. After confirming that nothing had been missed, you entered the house.
The house was not tall, only three stories high, but its exterior was exceedingly exquisite. It was clear that whoever had lived here possessed no low status and a noble identity.
Once inside, you could also sense from the furnishings that this place was far superior to the room you had searched earlier. But you did not marvel for long before immediately beginning your search.
In the first room, you found a Mid-grade Heaven Grade garment. It was clearly a woman's clothing. From a cursory glance, you could tell that this female garment did not focus on defense; its true strength lay in its functions. But you did not have time to test its effects. After storing it in your Storage Treasure, you continued searching for the next treasure.
In the process, you turned up two Necklaces, one bracelet, and one hairpin. All four pieces of jewelry were Heaven Grade treasures. Aside from the bracelet, which was a defensive artifact, the rest were functional treasures.
The first room alone had already yielded a full harvest, filling you with anticipation for what lay ahead.
After confirming that there was nothing else in the room, you immediately headed for the second room. Yet the moment you opened its door, a wave of scorching heat rushed into your face. Only then did you discover that the room had a special Small Formation sealing off the heat. Before opening the door, you had not even realized that the room's temperature was so high.
The high temperature was because this room was an Alchemy Room. You looked inside, and your eyes instantly lit up. It was a Heaven Grade Heaven and Earth Spiritual Fire. Then a wave of distress hit you. Damn it, I hadn't prepared any treasure capable of containing Heaven and Earth Spiritual Fire. Did that not mean this exceedingly rare Spiritual Fire could not be taken away? You found that hard to accept. This had truly caught you off guard.
Once you realized that you could not take it, you immediately adjusted your mindset and looked at the second most conspicuous item in the room: an Alchemy Furnace. This Alchemy Furnace was three or four times larger than the Mid-grade Earth Grade Alchemy Furnace in the teleportation room, and its grade had reached Low-grade Heaven Grade.
Upon discovering that even such a rare Alchemy Furnace was Heaven Grade, a torrent of praise rose in your heart. It seemed the owner of this room was not merely wealthy. Aside from Precious Herbs, nothing you had found here was below Heaven Grade. It was simply outrageous.
You were not overly surprised that there was an Alchemy Furnace here. After seeing the Medicine Field in the outer sect, you had already suspected that the owner might have been an alchemist. Before long, you stored the Cauldron in your Storage Treasure and walked to the Pill Shelf nearby. There were six full rows of pills, and because the bottles containing them were made of such high-grade materials, the pills had all remained perfectly preserved.
You had no time to check what pills they were and immediately stored them in your Storage Treasure, intending to examine them after returning.
Other than the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Fire, the Alchemy Furnace, and the pills, the only things left in the entire Alchemy Room were some Heaven and Earth Spiritual Water. Some pills required Heaven and Earth Spiritual Water as an aid in their refinement.
Upon seeing the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Water, you took out the High-grade Earth Grade Sun Moon Pot. In the blink of an eye, all the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Water was collected into the pot. Once you sensed that there were no other treasures in the room, you quickly left and headed toward the final room of the house.
After entering the final room, you saw more than a dozen bookshelves. You guessed that this was the house owner's study. In the upper-left corner of the study, you also saw a desk, with four Wooden Chairs beneath it. With a light sweep of your hand, you stored all the books from the dozen-plus bookshelves into your Storage Treasure Artifact. Then you looked at the somewhat distinctive desk. A book lay half-open upon it. You glanced at its title, which read Alchemy Notes, while the lower-right corner bore the words, "Written by Zhang Xiaoran." You knew that these Alchemy Notes should have been the work of an alchemy master named Zhang Xiaoran.
After putting away Alchemy Notes, you looked at the final box on the desk and curiously opened it for a glance. That single glance made you unable to look away. You then vigorously rubbed your eyes to make sure you had not seen wrong.
In the end, you confirmed that you had indeed not been mistaken. Inside the box was a crystal-clear piece of Jade Stone, yet this Jade Stone differed from ordinary Jade Stone.
What was precious was not the Jade Stone itself, but what it contained. The jade pendant was called the River Qi Stone. Just as its name implied, a strand of River Qi could be extracted from this Jade Stone. The purpose of this Heaven and Earth Qi was to assist cultivators at the Infant God Realm's great perfection in breaking through to the Half-Saint Realm.
The Infant God Realm was the final realm of the Three Spirits Realm. Upon reaching Infant God Realm perfection, one needed to unite Essence, Qi, and Spirit into one before ultimately merging them into the physical body. But unifying Essence, Qi, and Spirit was far from easy. One needed to draw upon Heaven and Earth Qi to assist in the fusion. For ordinary Infant God Realm cultivators, drawing upon Heaven and Earth Qi was exceedingly difficult. A single misstep meant death and the dissipation of one's Dao.
On average, only one out of every three Infant God Realm cultivators could draw forth Heaven and Earth Qi and ultimately break through to the Half-Saint Realm. Most who failed to draw it forth died on the spot. Only a small number with extraordinarily deep foundations could survive and attempt the fusion again later.
But if Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi assisted them, the difficulty for Martial Artists to draw upon Heaven and Earth Qi would be greatly reduced. Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi, like Heaven and Earth Qi, was a product of this world. With Heaven and Earth Primordial Qi assisting them, it was as though this world itself were helping them seek out Heaven and Earth Qi. Naturally, finding Heaven and Earth Qi would become much easier.
The River Qi contained within the River Qi Stone you had obtained was one type of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi. It likewise could help Infant God Realm experts draw upon Heaven and Earth Qi. Though River Qi was merely the most ordinary kind among Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi, it could still increase the chance of breakthrough by one-third—equivalent to doubling the chance of success.
Because this kind of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi was exceedingly difficult to gather, even the great sacred lands could never get enough of it. There was therefore no possibility of it circulating outside. Ordinary People generally had no Great Saint Level elders to aid them, and trying to break through to the Half-Saint Realm through their own abilities would become extraordinarily difficult.