Jason had been swinging his saber inside a hidden cave for three days.
"Whew, I still can't grasp that spark of inspiration." Jason stopped and walked out of the cave.
Veronica was sparring with the dual-sword skeleton under Jason's command.
Before Lumba advanced to the Saint level, the dual-sword skeleton had already reached the ninth rank and comprehended a Profound Mystery of Destruction.
Veronica had often sparred with the skeleton lately, hoping to take her first step in the Edicts of Destruction. As it happened, both she and the undead were at the ninth rank.
Even undead facing the threshold of the Saint level could only settle down and train. Devouring Soulfire no longer helped.
It could be said that, aside from magical beasts and divine beasts born at the Saint level, as well as certain beings that developed intelligence from Heaven and Earth Wonders, other living beings had no real shortcuts when facing the thresholds of the Saint and Deity levels.
The dual-sword skeleton followed the path of the Edicts of Destruction and had great talent-the greatest among all the skeletons under Jason's command.
One could even say that, in terms of talent for the Edicts of Destruction alone, none of the beings Jason had met so far could match the dual-sword skeleton.
Jason strongly suspected that, in life, the dual-sword skeleton had been an unlucky fellow whose only talent lay in Destruction. Unable to train in magic, and with humans having no Destruction-aspect Battle-qi, he had trained in Battle-qi incompatible with his own aspect and eventually died of old age full of resentment.
When Veronica saw Jason come out, she paused. "Any breakthrough?"
"No." Jason sent the dual-sword skeleton back to the Netherworld, then slumped against his wife with a pitiful look on his face. "It's been three days, and I just can't find that feeling again. Am I really stupid?"
"You are pretty stupid." Veronica patted Jason on the head.
Jason greatly envied Linley's talent in the original story: "Every life-or-death battle brought a breakthrough, and he could grasp every insight he gained." Those at the Saint level and above had unlimited lifespans, and affinity and spiritual force could only affect the speed at which they worked through the Profound Mysteries. Yet many experts remained stuck at bottlenecks for tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even tens of millions of years, precisely because they could not grasp those fleeting flashes of insight.
"Where's Linda?"
"She said she'd touched the threshold of the Saint level, so she found a hollow tree in the distance to train in." Veronica pointed in a direction.
Linda's talent wasn't very good. It had taken her more than a decade in Bloodshadow Valley to reach the peak of the ninth rank, and she had only just grasped the level of "force." Magical beasts did not have the stage of Wielding Something Heavy as Though It Were Light; once they comprehended "force," they could attempt to break through to the Saint level.
"Then let's wait for her. Hmm..." Jason thought for a moment. "Let's sort through the spoils from three days ago."
Jason had been in such a hurry to study the Profound Mysteries that he had gone straight into seclusion without sorting through what he had taken from the last battle. Only now did he remember.
"How about you use this Interspatial Ring? I'll use the one we just seized." Jason took off the Interspatial Ring from the Baruch Clan.
"No, this one's fine." Veronica refused without hesitation and promptly dripped blood onto the white ring they had seized.
There was so much inside the Interspatial Ring that it nearly filled the cave Jason had the undead dig out. As for the Saint-level expert's corpse, Jason checked to make sure there was nothing else on it, then found a place to bury it.
(In the original story, an Interspatial Ring could even hold the corpse of a Deity-level magical beast directly, so the space inside should be enormous. More details will be added later.)
"Looks like this is going to be a big job." The two began sorting through everything.
They had just found an identity plaque among the man's belongings, apparently something like a token of the Radiant Church. Jason could more or less confirm that the Saint-level expert he had killed was the one who had once fought a great battle with Linley over five Undying Warriors in the original story.
However, Jason felt nothing in particular about possibly changing the course of the original story.
Living on the Yulan Continent, it was almost inevitable that he would affect the original story. Given a few hundred years, even the smallest change could cause a major shift in history.
With that in mind, Jason divided his actions into two categories: those that "would inevitably change Linley's fate" and those that "might change Linley's fate."
For the former, Jason restrained his words and actions as much as possible. As long as his own core interests were not involved, he tried not to interfere.
When it came to the latter, Jason would not hold himself back.
After all, his strength was his own. If he lacked the absolute strength to stay alive until Linley grew up, then all his planning would be meaningless. Linley's growth was accompanied by great upheavals on the Yulan Continent. Naturally, it would be good if Jason could latch onto Linley's coattails, but if that really proved impossible, Jason would not let himself and the people he cared about fall into danger because of it.
Crack.
"This token's pretty tough. Maybe the material can be salvaged." Jason brought his saber down three times in succession, smashing the token bearing the name "Steller" to pieces.
Who knew whether the Radiant Church had a way to track him? To be safe, Jason destroyed everything suspicious.
After sorting through and putting away the last batch of things, Veronica, a ninth-rank expert, was actually slightly out of breath. "Was this Steller some kind of nouveau riche? Why did he stuff everything into his Interspatial Ring?"
Magicite cores, staffs and weapons, materials for crafting artifacts, magical beast specimens, magic scrolls, antique paintings and calligraphy, jewels and jade ornaments, luxurious clothing, collector's editions of books, tables, chairs and stools inlaid with gold, silver and jewels, chests of gold coins-
The good news was that Jason and his wife had struck it rich.
"Did you destroy everything that might have a tracking function?" Veronica asked.
"They should all have been rendered useless." More than a dozen objects that might have had such a function lay in front of Jason. He had even unleashed a Soul Shock to destroy any hidden soul links within them.
"Burn these too." Veronica tossed over a pile of luxurious clothes.
They had already removed the more valuable ornaments, and neither of them wanted to wear the clothes.
Jason promptly set them on fire.
Veronica took out several more weapons. "See if any of them are usable. If not, we'll take them to Rhine City to be melted down and reforged."
Steller had collected quite a few weapons, and Jason and Veronica happened to need them.
Veronica had yet to comprehend the Edicts of Destruction, so she had not commissioned another weapon suited to them. Jason likewise had not prepared suitable weapons for the three Edicts of Destruction, Life and Fate.
There were no divine artifacts, of course, and these weapons weren't all that good either.
It wasn't a question of quality. Rather, the weapons were more like "works of art," inlaid with gold, silver and gemstones, glittering and splendid to look at. Plain, practical ones were few and far between.
Jason truly couldn't understand why Steller, a Saint Warrior, had such a collection of weapons that were all show and no substance.
"This black heavy sword is nice." Veronica was lucky enough to find a weapon that suited her.
"The material in this spear is good. It's suited to the Destruction aspect, so let's melt it down and make a saber." Jason picked out a very imposing spear. "As for the rest, we'll take them back and put them in the clan treasury. Maybe we can trade them for something good."
Next came the "scrolls," which were extremely useful to both of them.
In their eyes, these were also the most precious treasures in the Interspatial Ring. After all, they could directly increase their combat strength and save their lives when necessary.
"These water- and lightning-aspect ones are all yours. I'll take the fire-aspect ones, and we'll keep the darkness-aspect ones for Linda." Veronica sorted through them. "There are a few light-aspect healing scrolls. We'll split those evenly. Take your pick of the rest."
Apart from three light-aspect scrolls inscribed with Saint-level magic, the dozen or so other scrolls all contained ninth-rank spells.
"Meow!!!" A shrill cat's cry rang out.
"Hm?" Jason looked over.
"It's Linda. She's broken through to the Saint level." Through her soul sense, Veronica felt Linda's soul suddenly grow stronger.