The seized Storage Bags contained everything imaginable: spirit stones, spiritual herbs, spiritual fruits, magical artifacts, spirit rice, spiritual materials, talismans, cultivation texts, and more.
They had gained over eight thousand spirit stones.
The spiritual herbs they had gained included 350 lower-grade first-tier herbs, ninety middle-grade first-tier herbs, and sixteen upper-grade first-tier herbs. The most precious was a two-hundred-year-old purple sun ginseng, equivalent to a second-tier lower-grade spiritual herb, taken from one of the slain evil cultivator leaders.
Purple sun ginseng was graded according to its age: under a hundred years old, it was a first-tier spiritual herb; over a hundred but under three hundred, second-tier; over three hundred but under a thousand, third-tier; over a thousand but under three thousand, fourth-tier; and over three thousand but under ten thousand, fifth-tier. None over ten thousand years old had ever been discovered in this world.
This purple sun ginseng was one of the principal ingredients used to refine a Foundation Establishment Pill. If a cultivator at the great perfection of Qi Refinement consumed it raw, they would have a twenty-percent chance of successfully reaching Foundation Establishment. Who knew why that evil cultivator had still dared to go out robbing people after obtaining such a precious spiritual herb! In the end, the Liu Household had reaped the benefit.
They had gained 320 lower-grade first-tier spiritual fruits, ninety-eight middle-grade first-tier spiritual fruits, and nineteen upper-grade first-tier spiritual fruits.
They had gained thirty-nine lower-grade first-tier magical artifacts, twelve middle-grade first-tier magical artifacts, five upper-grade first-tier magical artifacts, and one supreme-grade first-tier magical artifact.
They had gained 3,500 jin of lower-grade first-tier spirit rice, 560 jin of middle-grade first-tier spirit rice, and 160 jin of upper-grade first-tier spirit rice, along with fifteen jin of second-tier lower-grade spirit rice.
They had gained one thousand jin of lower-grade first-tier red cloud iron, six hundred jin of middle-grade first-tier purple cloud copper, and one hundred jin of upper-grade first-tier purple crystal iron.
There were few talismans, however. Most had probably been used up in the battle just now.
They had gained over fifty cultivation books of various kinds and nine cultivation jade slips.
Sorting and tallying these gains revealed that the evil cultivators had robbed the caravans of several Qi Refinement lineages. They simply had not expected to come to grief at the hands of the Liu Household's cultivators, leaving the Liu Household to reap the benefit of these spiritual items worth tens of thousands of spirit stones.
In fact, the evil cultivators had originally planned to withdraw after robbing the Liu Household. They had never expected the Liu Household to be so difficult to deal with!
But the Liu Household's cultivators had also paid a heavy price, even without counting the expenditure of spirit stones and talismans or the damage to magical artifacts. Worst of all, two lineage cultivators had died, six had been injured, and the Lesser Four Symbols Primordial Unity Formation had been damaged.
Every Qi Refinement cultivator had taken painstaking effort for the lineage to nurture, yet this year alone, the lineage had lost seven of them. If this continued, the number of cultivators the lineage raised each year would fail to keep pace with the number dying. In the long run, the lineage would be in peril.
After finishing the sorting and tallying, the Liu Household's cultivators took a brief rest before setting off at once.
The next five days on the road were relatively peaceful. They encountered only a few first-tier demonic beasts, which the Liu Household's cultivators slaughtered along the way.
Traveling over three hundred li of mountain roads each day left all the Liu Household's cultivators somewhat exhausted in both body and mind!
After more than ten days of trekking, the Liu Household's cultivators finally reached Yunping City, the seat of Yunping County in Eastern Splendor Province, within the Great Tang Dynasty's Central Southern Circuit.
Yunping City spanned a hundred li, with walls towering twenty zhang high, an imposing sight. Yet it was only a small, remote city in the Great Tang Dynasty.
The Great Tang Dynasty had been established with the Azure Cloud Sect's support as a tool for governing the mortal world within the territory the sect controlled.
The emperors of the Great Tang Dynasty had always been mortal descendants of Li Jing, the Azure Cloud Sect's founding patriarch, a Nascent Soul late stage cultivator.
Officials at every level of the Great Tang Dynasty were recommended by cultivation lineages affiliated with the Azure Cloud Sect.
It was worth noting that the Azure Cloud Sect forbade other sects from emerging within its territory. Any discovered were immediately destroyed; only cultivation lineages and rogue cultivators were permitted to exist.
This was because Li Jing, the Azure Cloud Sect's founding patriarch, believed that cultivation sects developed far faster than cultivation lineages. Unlike lineages, sects were not constrained by the rate at which their members had children. They could easily recruit talented seedlings, then grow strong enough to break free of the Azure Cloud Sect's control and ultimately take its place.
There had been far too many bitter lessons of subordinate cultivation sects turning around to devour their overlords. In fact, the Azure Cloud Sect itself had risen in precisely this way.
The Azure Cloud Sect also imposed many restrictions on the development of rogue cultivators and cultivation lineages. For instance, testing children's spiritual roots had to be organized by the Azure Cloud Sect, and any child with dual spiritual roots or better aptitude had to be sent into the sect. Rogue cultivators and lineage cultivators who reached the Golden Core stage had to become guest elders of the Azure Cloud Sect, and so on.