Taking Stock of the Loot

By the time Qin Fei returned to the courtyard, it was already late at night.

He first checked his home carefully to see whether anyone had been there.

Only after finding nothing amiss did he breathe a sigh of relief.

Even so, having just been attacked, he was still shaken and took some precautions.

Qin Fei patted the Storage Bag at his waist, and a tortoise shell suddenly appeared in his palm.

The Black Tortoise Breath-Concealing Array.

The array could conceal all traces of his presence and prevent others from probing the area. It could also be controlled to fend off enemies. Once set up, it would be enough to handle most situations.

Without delay, he placed the tortoise shell in the center of the courtyard.

Four shell plates fell away from it, then slowly sank downward and vanished before long.

Qin Fei beckoned, and the plates rose out of thin air before burying themselves in the four corners of the courtyard.

An invisible ripple rose from all around, enveloping the entire courtyard.

As the array's master, Qin Fei controlled every change within it and could clearly sense the slightest stir inside.

From the outside, however, the courtyard looked just as it always had, without the slightest change.

Only after doing all this could Qin Fei finally set his mind at ease.

With the Black Tortoise Breath-Concealing Array in place, he would presumably be much safer from now on.

Qin Fei entered the underground secret chamber and sat cross-legged on a meditation cushion.

A black Storage Bag now lay before him.

It had belonged to the woman who attacked him.

Despite being subjected to such concentrated bombardment, the Storage Bag was completely undamaged, with only a little dust on it. That alone showed how extraordinary it was.

Since its owner had already perished, little remained of the restriction on the Storage Bag, and he broke through it with ease.

Qin Fei sent his Divine Sense inside, and a vast space appeared in his sea of consciousness.

"Good grief, how is this a Storage Bag? It's nearly as big as a small apartment."

The Storage Bag's interior was enormous. The small forty- or fifty-square-meter apartments Qin Fei had rented in his previous life were no bigger than this.

He had been meaning to replace his Storage Bag for a long time, but money was tight, and a good one was usually extremely expensive.

Now one had landed right on his doorstep. It really was an unexpected windfall.

With this Storage Bag, buying puppet materials in the future would be much more convenient, and he would no longer be so cramped for space.

Quite a few things were stored inside, all neatly arranged, along with some of the woman's personal belongings.

Qin Fei had suffered enough from poverty that his gaze was drawn first to the Spirit Stones piled in a corner.

There were around forty or fifty Spirit Stones, glowing faintly like tempting little cakes that made Qin Fei's mouth water.

The resources his puppets had consumed earlier had made Qin Fei's heart ache. Now he had finally replenished some of them, with a little left over.

Compared with the many Spirit Stones he owed the merchant association, however, it seemed rather insignificant.

Soon, Qin Fei's eyes lit up again. Among the Spirit Stones, he had found one whose Spiritual Qi was clearly far greater than that of the others.

It was a little larger than the rest, somewhat irregular in shape, and greenish-blue throughout.

"A Mid-Grade Spirit Stone!"

In the world of cultivation, Spirit Stones were divided into many grades according to the concentration of Spiritual Qi they contained.

Ordinarily, the Spiritual Power in one Mid-Grade Spirit Stone was roughly equivalent to that in a hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

In actual transactions, however, very few cultivators were willing to exchange them at that rate.

That was because the Spiritual Qi contained in a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone was purer, and it could be used in more complex situations.

Some high-level arrays and puppets could only be powered by Mid-Grade Spirit Stones.

So if one were actually exchanged, it could fetch around 120 or 130 Low-Grade Spirit Stones.

"What a treasure. It really is a treasure."

Qin Fei turned the Mid-Grade Spirit Stone over in his hands, reluctant to put it down. This stone had relieved his most pressing need.

Mid-Grade Spirit Stones had many uses. If one were placed in a puppet, there would be no need to change its Spirit Stone so often.

But doing that would be a terrible waste of a precious resource.

Holding a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone while breaking through a bottleneck would greatly improve the chances of success. That was the right way to use it.

Qin Fei decided to keep it for his own use for now. If he couldn't pay back the merchant association, he would use it to settle the debt.

He put the Spirit Stones away, then turned his attention to the other items.

During their fight, the woman had been under suppressing fire the whole time and had barely made a move.

As a result, almost none of the defensive Law Artifacts in her Storage Bag remained.

Qin Fei found that a great pity.

He still vividly remembered that little ice-blue shield. Not only could it defend, it could even freeze the fire dragon released by the Flame Martial Envoy. It was truly incredible.

Unfortunately, the little shield had been so badly damaged by the bombardment that it was unusable.

By rights, under those circumstances, quite a few offensive Law Artifacts should have remained.

After all, the woman hadn't even had a chance to attack.

Yet in the end, there was only a pale-blue flying sword lying all alone on the ground.

"Could it be that she didn't have enough defensive Law Artifacts, so she made up the difference with offensive ones?"

Qin Fei had no way of knowing.

In any case, they had all been blasted to pieces, and he could only accept reality.

But the fact that the woman had never used the pale-blue flying sword to defend herself, even to the moment of her death, did pique Qin Fei's interest.

He grabbed the pale-blue flying sword with one hand, and a chill entered his body, shooting straight to the crown of his head.

Caught off guard, Qin Fei shuddered all over and nearly dropped the sword.

But he soon discovered that the chill did him no harm. Instead, it cleared his head and left his heart as still as water.

Two small characters were engraved on the blade in an unfamiliar seal script:

"Still Water."

Qin Fei didn't know much about Spirit Artifacts and had no idea what grade the sword was, but he imagined it couldn't be bad.

Qin Fei was delighted to have obtained such a spirit sword.

Over the years, he had devoted all his effort to puppets and cultivation.

He had mostly relied on his puppets when fighting others, so he had no Spirit Artifacts worth showing.

Before obtaining the Still Water Sword, he had still been using a low-grade spirit sword that cost a few dozen Spirit Essences at the market.

Fortunately, he had rarely fought other cultivators over the years, so his weapon hadn't put him at much of a disadvantage.

After putting away the Still Water Sword, Qin Fei examined the other items.

A few ordinary first-tier talismans, several bottles of healing pills, some miscellaneous books and odds and ends...

It was worth mentioning that he found a large pile of white evil-ghost masks among the odds and ends, each stamped with "seventy-seven."

Other than that, there should have been nothing else of value.

Qin Fei wasn't disappointed. His haul this time had already far exceeded his expectations.

The Storage Bag with such a large interior alone was enough to benefit him for a long time.

There was even less need to mention the Mid-Grade Spirit Stone and the Still Water Sword.

But just as he was about to put the Storage Bag away, something in the pile of odds and ends suddenly lit up.

Qin Fei gave a soft "huh" and drew the glowing object into his hand. It was a jade pendant made of some material he couldn't identify.

On the front of the pendant were engraved the words "Yama," while on the back were written "Underworld Bureau · Seventy-Seven."

He had noticed the pendant during his earlier inspection.

But it had no Spiritual Power and nothing special about it. He had assumed it was some kind of identity token and casually tossed it into the pile of odds and ends.

He hadn't expected the pendant to begin glowing faintly now.

Qin Fei held the pendant, unsure what to do for a moment.

After considering it for a while, he sent a strand of Divine Sense into it.

Suddenly, a deep voice came from the pendant:

"Routine inspection. Seventy-Seven, was the mission completed successfully?"

Qin Fei said nothing, merely staring quietly at the pendant. The other side fell silent for a time as well.

Just as he thought the person had left, the deep voice sounded again:

"Mission failed. A mandatory mission will be assigned within one year."

"If you refuse or fail repeatedly, Impermanence will come in person to reclaim the Yama Pendant."

The light faded, and the pendant fell silent.