Taking Stock of the Spoils! Black-Gold Four-Ribbed Mace!

One white, two blue, and one purple.

The entries Hu Xin provided were even better in quality than Mu Yang had imagined.

Even that white entry had an effect he was seeing for the first time.

It was an entry that could increase the strength of one's soul.

Strengthening the soul was far rarer than strengthening the body.

Take Hu Wanshan, for instance. If his soul had not been too weak, he would never have been reduced to Hu Xin's puppet.

Aside from the white entry, Soul Strengthening, the other two blue entries were quite good as well.

There was no need to say much about Qi-Blood Abundance. Everyone who used it praised it.

Calamity Heart's effect was not bad either, but it was of little use to Mu Yang.

He had no need to play at infiltration.

What delighted Mu Yang most was the final purple entry—Heart-Sync Life-Substitute.

"By consuming permanently solidified equipment of the same rank as myself, I can gain an extra life, and it even comes with a recovery effect?"

After reading Heart-Sync Life-Substitute's effect, Mu Yang could not help drawing in a sharp breath.

It was not that he lacked composure. This entry's effect was simply too overbearing.

This meant that while others had only one life, he had a full four.

And that was only at Third Rank. If he rose higher, he would have even more lives.

No wonder Hu Xin had remained alive after her head was severed. She had relied on this ability.

With such an incredible ability, why play a mage? Wouldn't it be better to properly temper your body?

Hu Xin: You think I didn't want to?

After reading the entries' effects, Mu Yang walked over to Hu Xin's corpse and silently recited in his heart,

"Equip Fox Demon Corpse."

[ Ding! Fox Demon Corpse equipped! ]

[ Ding! Fox Demon Corpse equipped! ]

[ Rank: Fourth Rank ]

[ Equipment Effects: ① Heavy Mace (White): When using a weapon, if it is a heavy mace-type weapon, swinging force is slightly increased.

② Heaviness (Blue): When using a weapon, the weapon's weight is greatly increased. ]

[ Permanent Solidification Condition: Equip this item for one hundred days, or while it is equipped, kill any demon beast of Fourth Rank or above. ]

A vast surge of Blood Qi flooded into Mu Yang's body once more.

He could clearly feel that more than half of his muscles, tendons, and bones had already been connected. He was only a few final High-Grade Martial Arts away from Perfection.

He hoped the Hu Family's treasure vault would not disappoint him.

"Master!!"

Just as Mu Yang was preparing to leave the small courtyard, a startled cry rang out from the courtyard gate.

The one shouting was Hu Lu, who had heard the sounds of fighting in the courtyard and immediately called for the household servants and guards.

At that moment, quite a few burly men wielding sabers, spears, and staves stood behind him.

The leader among them was built like an ox and possessed Second Rank Perfection cultivation.

"Stop howling. Your master colluded with bandits and intended to murder this constable. I have already beaten him apart."

Expressionless, Mu Yang pointed toward Zhao Kui's body in the corner, torn into two halves by him.

The reason he had left half a corpse behind was to preserve it as evidence.

Nothing would happen even without evidence, but having it was always better.

"Now, either get lost to the yamen and turn yourselves in, or end up just like him."

Mu Yang's voice entered everyone's ears.

After seeing the bloody scene in the courtyard, as well as Mu Yang covered in blood with a ferocious gleam in his eyes, many servants and guards immediately grew frightened and retreated again and again.

For a few taels of silver each month, why risk their lives?

Hu Wanshan was dead, and Hu Xin, that poisonous woman, had killed off more than half of the Hu Family's direct line. If they did not run now, when would they?

Crash!!

With that thought, many servants began to beat a retreat and fled one after another.

Only Hu Lu and a few extremely loyal servants and guards remained where they were, weapons in hand.

He had not expected everyone else to flee while Hu Lu and the others still dared remain behind. They truly were loyal men!

Forget it. He would leave their corpses intact.

Thud!!

Just as Mu Yang was sighing, Hu Lu and the others, who had been holding weapons moments ago, immediately performed a sliding kneel.

"Lord Mu, please see clearly! We were also forced by Hu Wanshan and Hu Xin, that husband-and-wife pair, to work for the Hu Family. Now that the chief culprits are dead, we beg you to spare our lives!"

"We know where the Hu Family's treasure vault is, and we are willing to lead the way for you!!"

Mu Yang: ...

He decided to take back what he had just thought.

It was not really that Hu Lu and the others were disloyal. Too many people had died in the Hu Family during the year Hu Xin had been there.

Among them were quite a few loyal and powerful people.

Yet under Hu Xin's willfulness and Hu Wanshan's tacit approval, they had all become piles of gleaming white bones.

Every servant of the Hu Family lived in terror, struggling beneath immense pressure every day. Now that Hu Xin and Hu Wanshan were dead, they instead felt liberated.

Thus, led by insiders such as Hu Lu, Mu Yang quickly arrived at the Hu Family's treasure vault.

What left him speechless was that the Hu Family's treasure vault was nowhere near as rich as the Wang Family's.

It was one thing that there were no precious medicines; even the remaining gold and silver were scarce.

"When that poisonous woman Hu Xin arrived, all the precious medicines were used by Old... Hu Wanshan to make soup for her. The gold and silver were also used to purchase precious medicines," Hu Lu explained.

An ordinary lineage would certainly not pour all its resources into a single person.

But clearly, Hu Xin had not intended to make a long-term investment. She had only wanted to drain the pond to catch the fish.

"Forget it. What is gone is gone. Have someone go to the yamen and find Lord Zhou. Tell him to bring people here to seize the Hu Family estate," Mu Yang said with a wave of his hand.

He did not care much whether there were precious medicines or not.

After all, Qingxi County was merely a county town. There were no particularly high-grade precious medicines here.

What he truly wanted were martial arts manuals.

Fortunately, perhaps because Hu Xin had no use for them, they had been preserved very well.

Aside from some martial arts he had already learned, there were five High-Grade Martial Arts he was seeing for the first time, even more than he had gained from the Wang Family's treasure vault.

Among them was the Swine-Elephant Technique Hu Wanshan had cultivated.

To be fair, the Swine-Elephant Technique truly was an exceptional martial art. Under Elephant Ignition's explosive burst, its force reached thirty thousand jin.

Had it been any ordinary Blood-Marrow Realm martial artist, they would have long since been smashed into a mist of blood.

Unfortunately, this technique's side effects were far too severe.

It required one to grow fat and raise lard, caused one's rank to drop afterward, and could even damage the foundation of one's bones.

It was fine for cultivating deathsworn, but he would pass on cultivating it himself.

Perhaps it could be used as nourishment for Heart-Sync Life-Substitute.

Thinking this, Mu Yang tucked the five High-Grade Martial Arts manuals into his robes.

Then he looked toward the innermost corner of the Hu Family's treasure vault.

Unlike the rows of shelves outside, there was only a single display case made from solid ironwood here.

Inside the display case lay an exceedingly rare weapon of matte black— a mace.

It was roughly four chi and three cun long, slightly shorter than the Feather-Command Broadblade.

Its overall form resembled a short staff, yet it carried the grim killing aura of a weapon. It had a guard and grip like those of a saber or sword, but lacked any sharp blade.

The mace's body was straight and upright, without a sword ridge or curved blade. Its entire body had been forged into four regular ribs, their faces flat and thick. The rib tips were not thin and sharp like those of bladed weapons, but solid edges similar to spearheads.

Mu Yang stepped forward, picked it up, and weighed it in his hand.

It was quite heavy—five thousand jin in all.

No wonder it had been left gathering dust in the farthest corner. In the entire Hu Family, aside from Hu Wanshan after he erupted, probably no one could use this thing in battle.

After all, even a Blood-Marrow Realm Perfection martial artist possessed only ten thousand jin of strength in a single arm. It was difficult to wield such a heavy short weapon in combat.

Yet for Mu Yang, this was instead quite suitable.

"Ah, so it is a Fourth Rank weapon. No wonder it has such weight."

Mu Yang glanced at the Black-Gold Four-Ribbed Mace's information.

A Fourth Rank weapon was of an even higher grade than his shattered Feather-Command Broadblade.

It would probably be enough for him to use for quite some time.