Is It Yours Just Because You Took It?

Zhou Yao skillfully opened his front door. Yellow Wind Little Sage had already been waiting in the living room for quite some time.

Beside Yellow Wind Little Sage lay the two treasures he had brought back: the Square-Inch Artifact Refinement Art and the Golden Toad's Mouth.

Zhou Yao first opened the wooden box containing the Golden Toad's Mouth, revealing the resplendent Mythic Material within.

After learning from Liu Wenjun that a Scavenger needed to accommodate five Mythic Traits to advance in rank, Zhou Yao had already begun considering whether Yellow Wind Little Sage's incarnation could continue fusing with Mythic Materials.

Now that he had obtained the Golden Toad's Mouth, it was perfect for an experiment.

As his gaze fell upon Yellow Wind Little Sage, the attribute panel unfolded of its own accord.

[Incarnation: Yellow Wind Little Sage

Rank: Scavenger

Fate: Great Sage, Great Thief (Insight Progress 0.28%)

Talent: Inner Threefold Samadhi (False God Ember)

Spell: Flying Sand and Rolling Stones]

As the panel appeared, another string of text suddenly surfaced over the Golden Toad's Mouth in Zhou Yao's hand.

[Consume 200 Mythic Factors to use the Golden Toad's Mouth as material and add a new talent?]

Zhou Yao's eyes lit up.

"It really works!"

Though the requirement of 200 Mythic Factors was no small amount, it was still a path toward advancement.

With nowhere near enough Mythic Factors, Zhou Yao temporarily abandoned the idea of advancing. The text quietly faded away as well.

He picked up the scroll recording the Square-Inch Artifact Refinement Art. The moment Zhou Yao tried to open it, another string of text began to appear.

[Consume 50 Mythic Factors to load the Square-Inch Artifact Refinement Art?]

"Even artifact-refining methods can be loaded?"

Delight appeared on Zhou Yao's face. He increasingly felt how extraordinary this incarnation was.

He glanced at his own panel. It showed a pitiful five Mythic Factors, but Zhou Yao did not mind.

He held out his right hand before Yellow Wind Little Sage. Yellow Wind Little Sage opened his mouth wide and pulled out chunk after chunk of Soul Shard.

These Soul Shards were Yellow Wind Little Sage's gains from the previous night. They had originally been meant to trade for the Square-Inch Artifact Refinement Art.

But who would have thought that there would be an unexpected windfall at the Fortune Shop? Since the Soul Shards had gone unused, refining them into Mythic Factors could not have been better.

Zhou Yao picked up a Soul Shard the size of a fingernail. As the interface before him flickered, the Soul Shard visibly dissolved into drifting particles of light.

[Mythic Factor +11]

"Not bad. A single Soul Shard has this many points. Building up enough Mythic Factors for Yellow Wind Little Sage to unlock a second talent doesn't seem so difficult after all."

After that, Zhou Yao refined all five remaining Soul Shards in one go.

[Mythic Factor +13]

[Mythic Factor +16]

The six Soul Shards brought Zhou Yao's accumulated Mythic Factors all the way to eighty-three.

Without hesitation, Zhou Yao chose to load the Square-Inch Artifact Refinement Art for Yellow Wind Little Sage, allowing the incarnation to use the Ghost Soldier's Steel Trident as soon as possible.

The Mythic Factors transformed into inscription after inscription and merged into Yellow Wind Little Sage's body.

By the time all that was done, it was already past eight in the evening.

As Zhou Yao cooked instant noodles in the kitchen, he casually opened the window. An inconspicuous distorted shimmer leaped out through it.

Half an hour later, Yellow Wind Little Sage returned to the Yin Mountain Realm.

However, he did not immediately step out from the enormous rift. Instead, concealed by the shifting light and shadow, he cautiously poked his head out to look around.

The moment he had entered the Yin Mountain Realm yesterday, he had run into a Yaksha Demon. That experience was still fresh in Yellow Wind Little Sage's mind.

Although Yellow Wind Little Sage was not afraid of Yaksha Demons with the Inner Threefold Meditation Talent, and could even swipe their weapons while he was at it, there was still some risk involved. It was far more worthwhile to challenge Yin Ghosts above his level.

Only after confirming that there were no other ghosts nearby did Yellow Wind Little Sage dart out of the enormous rift like a wisp of smoke.

After getting his bearings, Yellow Wind Little Sage headed toward the ground fissure from yesterday.

Since the Ghost Soldier's Steel Trident was simply impossible to carry away, Yellow Wind Little Sage had deliberately hidden it in a concealed fissure, intending to refine and take it away after obtaining the Square-Inch Artifact Refinement Art today.

Yet after traveling only a few dozen kilometers, Yellow Wind Little Sage suddenly halted.

"Why is it so quiet today?"

Yellow Wind Little Sage scratched his head and warily looked around.

Though the Yin Mountain Realm was barren, it was not a quiet place. Ghostly figures wandered everywhere, underground fissures erupted without warning, and ghost soldiers like Yaksha Demons patrolled the land.

But he had been in the Yin Mountain Realm for so long today without seeing a single Yin Ghost. Instinctively, Yellow Wind Little Sage felt that something was wrong.

Sensing a trace of abnormality, Yellow Wind Little Sage slowed down. He carefully observed his surroundings as he advanced, afraid of stumbling into some trap.

Just as Yellow Wind Little Sage was about to reach the place where he had hidden the Ghost Soldier's Steel Trident, a tremendous explosion suddenly rang out. Multicolored firelight lit up the dim world by several shades.

Right afterward, on a distant Blackstone Mountain, massive boulders shattered as surging Yin energy collided with flames.

The instant Yellow Wind Little Sage saw the direction from which the explosion had come, his face changed dramatically.

"Oh no! My treasure!"

At the unknown center of the explosion, the Yaksha Demon who had dealt with Yellow Wind Little Sage yesterday was leading more than ten Yin Ghosts in a confrontation with a group of people.

Opposite him stood three Mythic Walkers in black combat uniforms, wielding rune-inscribed firearms. They surrounded a ground fissure, and deep within it was a steel trident flashing with cold light.

The leader of the Mythic Walkers was a middle-aged man carrying a massive Gatling gun in his arms. Runes gleamed across it, making it look immensely imposing. He shouted at the Yaksha Demon across from him.

"Yaksha Demon, this isn't your ghost domain. By the rules, whoever finds a resource owns it."

The Yaksha Demon's face twisted viciously as he cursed.

"Bullshit! I spent a hundred years painstakingly tempering and forging that artifact. Some rat thief stole it yesterday, and I tracked it all the way here!"

A uniformed young man in the Mythic Walker squad sneered mockingly.

"Your artifact? Call it, then. Will it answer you?"

To his surprise, the Yaksha Demon spread the five fingers of his right hand and bellowed, "Treasure, come back!"

The Ghost Soldier's Steel Trident let out a trembling hum. Shattering the rocks of the fissure, it flew toward the Yaksha Demon.

The young man's expression abruptly changed. He hastily grabbed the Ghost Soldier's Steel Trident and lowered his voice. "Captain, this artifact is so spiritual. It definitely possesses a Mythic Trait."

"If we take it back, we won't have to worry about rune equipment money for the whole year!"

At such close range, how could the Yaksha Demon possibly fail to hear him? His nose practically twisted with rage.

With a wave of his hand, more than ten Yin Ghosts fanned out. The Yaksha Demon glared furiously at the three men and threatened them.

"Three Scavenger Second Ranks, plus some scrap rune weapons, and you think you can steal my treasure?"

"Either leave my treasure behind, or all of you stay here!"

The atmosphere was taut as a drawn bowstring, as though a fierce battle could erupt at any moment.

Just then, a faint breeze drifted over.

The Yaksha Demon frowned slightly, as if he had noticed something. In the next instant, howling gales swept up sand and dust that filled the sky.

"Not good!" The Yaksha Demon's expression changed drastically. He no longer cared about fighting for his weapon and hurriedly flashed beneath a wind-sheltered boulder.

Then, like the roar of a primordial beast, the sand and dust engulfed the entire battlefield at terrifying speed. Every grain of sand and every shattered stone became a dreadful weapon, sweeping clean everything above the ground.

"Activate the rune shield!"

The captain of the Mythic Walker squad shouted. A flash of runic light swept through the air, and a massive shield of light stood firm amid the wind and sand.

Before the Mythic Walker squad could breathe a sigh of relief, a golden-yellow figure burst out of the dust. Even more violent wind and sand tore the rune shield apart.

The young man at the rear of the squad only felt a little claw stomp viciously onto his face. The impact knocked the Ghost Soldier's Steel Trident from his grasp, sending it tumbling into the wind and sand.

Only then did a voice drifting farther and farther away reach their ears.

"Is it yours just because you took it?"