Holding the Storage Pouch in his hand, he injected a thread of True Yuan into it and immediately sensed a square space, roughly ten cubic feet in size.
The sensation was difficult to describe. It was as though an extra room had appeared inside his mind. So long as he wished it, he could freely place any object he touched into that space.
Inside the Storage Pouch lay a thick book nearly a foot thick. Beside it was a finger-length talisman—the Teleportation Talisman.
The talisman paper was covered in dense, extraordinarily intricate patterns. Some of those patterns glimmered with faint spiritual light, clearly in the process of being charged.
Su Shi'er glanced at it curiously, then directly gave up. The patterns on it were far too profound for him to understand.
He hung the Storage Pouch at his waist and, without changing expression, placed every small item on his person inside it.
Only the White Mist Sword on his back remained where it was.
After some thought, he took out several talismans and carefully hid them inside his sleeves.
Only after finishing all this did he continue waiting.
This time, he did not wait long.
As the sun rose, another lingering bell chime came from the center of the sect.
"Set off!"
At the front of the square, Lu Mingshi shouted.
With a wave of his hand, he tossed a miniature flying boat out from his robes.
The flying boat expanded with the wind, growing to five or six zhang long in the blink of an eye.
The flying boat hovered less than a meter above the square. Its hull was carved with dragons and painted with phoenixes, massive yet exquisite, an impressive sight to behold.
The moment the flying boat appeared, the entire square fell silent.
Pair after pair of eyes landed on the flying boat, all filled with shock.
Su Shi'er was no exception. This was not the first time he had seen the flying boat. When he had first entered the sect, the Tianhua Peak Master had used one to bring the newcomers back.
But only after truly becoming a Qi Refiner did he understand just how precious such a thing was.
Forging a flying boat was even more complicated than forging offensive or defensive magic artifacts. And a flying boat of this size was something only a sect could afford to refine.
One day, I'll definitely have a flying boat of my own!
Su Shi'er lowered his head, his thoughts churning beneath the surface.
As the flying boat descended, Lu Mingshi rose into the air on the wind with Han Yu and Xiao Yue, landing first at the bow.
"Everyone, come aboard. There is still some distance to the Teleportation Array that leads into the trial grounds. My flying boat can save us quite a bit of time," Lu Mingshi called down to the people in the square.
Once he finished speaking, everyone began using the Wind Calling Technique and leaping onto the flying boat one after another.
Then Lu Mingshi gathered his True Yuan and activated the flying boat.
The flying boat trembled slightly at first, then suddenly soared into the air, carrying nearly a hundred people westward.
At the same time their flying boat took off, each of the other six main peaks sent enormous flying artifacts streaking into the sky.
They moved far faster than the flying boat Su Shi'er and the others were on.
The flying boat flew for an entire half day before finally descending into a valley with everyone aboard.
The valley was surrounded by mountains on all sides, narrow at the top and broad at the bottom, its location extremely concealed. Before they even landed, Su Shi'er noticed countless servant disciples standing in the clearing at its center.
At a glance, it was a dense sea of heads—if there were not ten thousand people, there were at least four or five thousand.
Under the leadership of their respective Peak Masters, these disciples had been divided into five groups of varying sizes.
Among them, Tianhua Peak had the most people. There appeared to be more than a thousand of them, making them especially conspicuous.
The remaining peaks each had around five hundred people.
Of them all, Tianyin Peak drew the most attention. It was the only peak in the sect that accepted female disciples exclusively.
At the Tianyin Peak disciples' location stood several thousand fair-skinned, beautiful women, a dazzling gathering of warblers and swallows.
With so many beauties clustered together, it was like a hundred flowers competing in splendor, drawing the eyes of everyone present.
Among them was one woman who was particularly beautiful and captivating.
She appeared to be in her thirties, with Ice Muscle Jade Bone and skin whiter than snow. Her eyes resembled a clear pool of water, and with every glance, she exuded an air of elegant aloofness.
She wore an ice-blue Disciple Robe, with tassels draped over her shoulders. Her long black hair was arranged in a Flying Immortal bun, making her seem even more otherworldly, like a Fairy from the legendary Ice Palace.
Even Su Shi'er, with his indifferent temperament, could not help looking at her several more times. And as he looked, he noticed that something was not quite right.
At first glance, she seemed like an ordinary disciple. Yet the other female disciples around her were clearly keeping a deliberate distance from her, their expressions and movements carrying a measure of restraint and reverence.
There's something wrong with her!
Su Shi'er instinctively used the Heavenly Eye Technique to look at her. Before his eyes, spiritual energy surged throughout the entire valley, and every person possessed more or less spiritual power.
However, the spiritual energy around the servant disciples was mostly scattered and sparse, a result of their cultivation being too low.
But the spiritual power around that peerlessly beautiful woman was solid and restrained, clearly extraordinary. Almost at the very instant Su Shi'er examined her, the spiritual power around her suddenly dispersed, making her seem no different from the others.
Hmm?
Su Shi'er froze slightly. The next moment, the woman suddenly turned to look at him.
Their gazes met in midair. Her eyes were icy and indifferent, brimming with warning.
Su Shi'er's heart trembled, and he hastily withdrew his gaze and looked elsewhere.
A moment later, he turned to look toward where the Tianhua Peak disciples stood.
Meng Tianyi, whom he had killed half a year ago, had been a Tianhua Peak disciple.
During those first few days, he had felt uneasy every day, worried that someone from Tianhua Peak would trace the matter back to him.
But as the days slowly passed, he discovered that no one had paid it any attention at all.
Now, seeing that there were so many servant disciples here, he finally realized it. To the sect, servant disciples were plentiful. Whether there was one more or one less simply did not matter.
"They say the Great Dao is heartless, and it truly is so. People do not care whether ants live or die. Perhaps, in the eyes of those powerful cultivators, people like us are merely ants as well."
Su Shi'er was struck by the thought and sighed inwardly.
At that moment, before the flying boat even touched down, a voice came from Tianhua Peak's direction.
"Martial Brother, what is going on with your Luofu Peak? You hardly have any people, yet you arrive so late every single time." Fu Boren, the Tianhua Peak Master, grinned and called out to Lu Mingshi from the crowd.
"Hmph! You old bastard, what the hell do you know? Important figures always make their entrance last. Haven't you noticed that the Sect Leader from Tianshu Peak hasn't arrived yet?" Lu Mingshi glared, his beard bristling as he fired back without the slightest courtesy.
"The Sect Leader has not arrived because Tianshu Peak truly has strength. But what does your Luofu Peak have? No people when you need people, no strength when you need strength. Martial Brother, one should have at least a little shame!"
"Have some shame? Old bastard, if I remember correctly, you still haven't given me that Purple Lightning Stone you lost to me in a bet three years ago, have you?! I truly wonder how a petty man who breaks his word like you has the nerve to talk to me about shame!" Lu Mingshi snorted coldly.
Fu Boren coughed twice and hurriedly said, "Ahem, ahem. I had another use for that Purple Lightning Stone. I'll find another one for you later."
"Pah! What other use? Don't think I don't know you used that Purple Lightning Stone to forge a low-grade Spirit Artifact." Lu Mingshi rolled his eyes, controlling the flying boat as it slowly descended while speaking with clear dissatisfaction.
Fu Boren was visibly unable to keep his face straight. The corner of his mouth twitched, and he was clearly blushing.
This was a black mark in his history!
Fortunately, his skin was naturally rather red, so no one could tell.
His eyes rolled, sweeping over the flying boat behind Lu Mingshi. Then he smiled and said, "That's right. I did indeed use that Purple Lightning Stone to forge a Purple Lightning Sword."
As he spoke, Fu Boren raised his hand and took out a violet-blue longsword. Spiritual energy curled around the sword, with faint lightning flashing across it. The moment it appeared, it released an astonishing pressure.
A low-grade Spirit Artifact?
For a moment, nearly everyone in the valley could not help turning their eyes toward it.
Even the Peak Masters of the other peaks, who had shown little interest until now, looked over in surprise.
Spiritual Artifacts were treasures whose power far exceeded that of magic artifacts. They contained a trace of spirituality and could only be activated by cultivators at the Foundation Establishment stage or above.
Even Foundation Establishment cultivators mostly used magic artifacts. Those who possessed Spiritual Artifacts were not many.
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