Immortal Martial Emperor

Luo Buping slumped down in the empty treasury, his eyes filled with infinite resentment and malice. "Hong Yu, that damn Hong Yu. I will make him pay. I will make him wish he were dead."

"Second Uncle, should we send people to hunt him down?" Third Young Master Luo asked tentatively.

SMACK!

Luo Buping slapped Third Young Master Luo to the ground and roared, "Are you an idiot? Even our ten-thousand-strong City Guard Corps was no match for him. Who could you possibly send to deal with him?"

"Then... then what do we do?"

Third Young Master Luo clutched his head, his voice aggrieved.

A cold light glinted in Luo Buping’s eyes. "Write a letter immediately and have it delivered to the Cyan Nether Sword Sect with the utmost speed. I’ll have Big Brother handle this. Hong Yu, you dared to offend my Luo Family, dared to plunder centuries of our accumulated treasures. I will make you pay the price."

「...」

On the back of the Golden Holy Dragon.

Hong Yu sat cross-legged, a faint golden light emanating from his body and enveloping Yun Mengyao.

A peculiar expression appeared in Yun Mengyao’s eyes as she gazed at the young man shielding her from the wind. Her gaze flickered, making it impossible to know what she was thinking.

Hong Yu’s consciousness was completely immersed within the Profound Celestial Tower!

Before him, Little One stood with the Big Smoking Pipe in one hand, his eyes flashing with excitement.

On Little Beast Huhu’s forehead, its three tufts of golden fur pulsed with a golden light. The exit to its Divine Mysterious Space materialized above its head. SWISH! SWISH! SWISH! One treasure after another shot out from the Divine Mysterious Space, landing on the wide platform within the tower.

"Holy crap, these dozens of chests are all Spirit Medicines? And Spirit Pills?"

"And in these three or four chests... are they filled with Mortal Level Techniques and Martial Skills?"

"These are all Primordial Weapons?"

"And these are all ancient treasures!"

Little One, his eyes gleaming like a money-grubber’s, darted among the many treasures like a nimble elf, touching this and examining that. Hong Yu even caught the little guy secretly stashing a few things away. He couldn’t help but cough dryly in frustration. "Hey, hey, hey! Could you try to have some morals?"

"Ah, haha! This young master was just trying to appraise whether they were real or fake!"

Little One laughed awkwardly and pulled out several strings of agate he had stuffed down his pants.

Hong Yu rolled his eyes helplessly.

Suddenly, he noticed Huhu’s eyes darting around as if it was trying to hide something.

Hong Yu paused. "Huhu, what are you hiding?"

"Huhu?"

The Little Beast acted as if its tail had been stepped on. It frantically shook its little head, its fluffy fur trembling.

Hong Yu rubbed his nose. "Huhu, you’re a good kid. Don’t let Little One lead you astray. Take the item out first. Later, if we see it’s suitable for you, we’ll give it to you!"

"Huhu..."

The Little Beast hung its head and opened its Divine Mysterious Space again. A huge, jade Treasure Chest fell before them.

The Treasure Chest was actually carved from a single, massive piece of Jade.

Lifelike patterns carried an aura of age and simplicity, and a faint cyan halo flowed across its surface, as if proclaiming its precious and ancient nature.

The Treasure Chest alone was worth as much as three Mortal-Level Martial Skills.

Little One’s eyes widened. "Well, I’ll be. So you’re the most scheming and greedy one here?"

HUHU-WUWU!

Huhu covered its eyes with its two paws, looking embarrassed and shy.

Hong Yu patted his forehead, feeling a major headache coming on. "You two scammers, one is more unreliable than the next." He had already made a decision. In the future, when it came time to divide the spoils... *ahem*, no, to distribute the treasures, he would have to watch them strictly and seriously, without letting his guard down for a single moment.

"Little One, take stock of all these treasures!" Hong Yu said.

Little One deftly dived into the huge pile of treasures.

Huhu was still squatting to the side, drawing circles on the ground. It was clear that after Hong Yu discovered its little scheme, it had deeply recognized its mistake.

With Little One’s abilities, it actually only needed to scan the items with its Spiritual Power to finish counting in a few breaths.

But Little One was a money-grubber through and through.

The moment it saw treasure, it couldn’t help but dive right in, personally counting every single Treasure Chest. It took the better part of a day to finish the inventory.

Lying on a Treasure Chest while puffing out clouds of smoke, Little One said with a satisfied look, "Awesome! This is just too awesome!"

"How did the count go?" Hong Yu asked.

Little One sprang up and landed in front of Hong Yu. "All counted! The antique treasures are worth about fifty billion Gold Coins. Besides that, there are seventy-three Secret Manuals Above Mortal Level, five hundred Tier One Spirit Pills, two hundred Tier Two Spirit Pills, and fifteen Tier Three Spirit Pills. Also, there are four hundred Spirit Medicines ranging from Tier One to Tier Three."

"Oh, and this Treasure Chest seems to require a special key, otherwise it won’t open. This young master has no idea what’s inside. Damn it all, there’s even a Sealing Rune on this chest. If I try to force it open, whatever’s inside will be destroyed. Otherwise, this young master would have pried it open already," Little One said, annoyed.

Hong Yu was stunned. "Just the antique treasures alone are worth fifty billion Gold Coins? The Luo Family is stronger than my Hong Family by more than just a little bit."

Little One hesitated for a moment. "Hong Yu, we agreed before that this young master gets thirty percent, Huhu gets twenty, and you get fifty. But now, this young master has a better suggestion. Want to hear it?"

"What suggestion?" Hong Yu asked, puzzled.

Little One chuckled slyly. "This young master will take fifty percent of these treasures, you take thirty, and Huhu gets twenty." Seeing that Hong Yu was on the verge of exploding, Little One quickly added, "Don’t be so quick to refuse, hear me out first! Think about it. You’ve already broken through to the Earth Soul Realm, but you’re still just a Quasi-Spiritual Craftsman, right?"

Hong Yu nodded.

According to his original plan, he was supposed to advance to the rank of Tier One Spiritual Craftsman after breaking through to the Earth Soul Realm.

But after reaching the Earth Soul Realm, Hong Yu found that while he could easily refine Tier One Pills, he could only manage to create Tier One low-level pills. When he tried to refine any higher-level pills, he felt completely helpless, with no idea where to even start.

At the time, the inner sect promotion tournament was about to begin, so Hong Yu hadn’t paid it too much mind.

Now that Little One had brought it up, he remembered.

Hong Yu pursed his lips and said disdainfully, "You can’t possibly think that helping me break through to Tier One Spiritual Craftsman is worth that much of the treasure, do you?"

Above a Quasi-Spiritual Craftsman was a Tier One Low-Level Spiritual Craftsman.

A rank of that level truly didn’t hold much appeal for Hong Yu at his current strength.

Little One shook its head. "Of course not! With this young master’s help, I can guarantee you’ll reach the level of a Tier One Advanced Spiritual Craftsman in a short period of time."

"Oh?"

Hong Yu’s eyes lit up.

If he could reach the realm of a Tier One Advanced Spirit Craftsman, he could refine Tier Two Pills by leveraging the miraculous wonders of the Divine Medicine Scripture.

And Tier Two Pills would be quite useful for him at his current level.

Hong Yu nodded. "Alright, I’ll trust you one more time!"

"Of course! This young master is honest with young and old, loyal and trustworthy, absolutely reliable!" Little One grinned, revealing a sly smile that showed its scheme had succeeded.

Afterward, under Hong Yu’s supervision, the spoils were divided among him and the two scammers, Little One and Huhu.

Huhu’s twenty percent, without a doubt, was all edible.

The heaven-defying Little Beast hugged a huge pile of food, giggling foolishly to the side as drool flowed down in a waterfall...

Little One the money-grubber was very shrewd, specifically picking out the most valuable treasures. If Hong Yu hadn’t argued his case forcefully, it probably would have snatched all the good stuff.

As for the jade Treasure Chest...

Little One said resentfully, "Damn it all! Without the key, there’s no way to open this thing, so there’s no telling what’s inside. It pains this young master just looking at it. Hong Yu, I’ll let you have it!"

Hong Yu: "..."

’He can’t open it without a key, so it’s useless to him, and he just gives it to me? And with such a generous, pained expression as if he’s making a great sacrifice... just how hypocritical can you be?’

Little One, whose skin was as thick as a city wall, happily counted its treasures on the side, holding its Big Smoking Pipe.

Hong Yu was rather helpless.

He glanced at his thirty percent share of the treasure. It mostly consisted of Martial Skills, Secret Cultivation Technique Manuals, and a few Primordial Weapons, plus of course treasures worth twenty billion Gold Coins. With a wave of his hand, he stored them in his Storage Ring. Hong Yu looked at Little One. "Little One, can you teach me how to break through to Tier One Advanced Spiritual Craftsman now?"

Little One took a puff from its Big Smoking Pipe and blew out a cloud of white smoke, which instantly condensed into a tome that appeared before Hong Yu.

This was none other than the Divine Medicine Scripture.

"The path you walk is different from that of an ordinary Spiritual Craftsman. Spiritual Craftsmen use the flames cultivated from their own bodies as the core for refining pills. But you’re different. You use your consciousness as the core."

Little One said this while continuing to tidy up the treasures on the ground.

"In other words, your skill as a Spiritual Craftsman is directly related to the strength of your Spiritual Power. The reason you could only refine Tier One low-level Spirit Pills before was because your Spiritual Power was insufficient. Now, your Spiritual Power is comparable to someone in the Celestial Soul Realm. Forget about Tier One High-Level, you can even refine Tier Two Basic-Level Spirit Pills!"

Hearing this, the corner of Hong Yu’s eye twitched. "Holy shit, are you telling me that I was already a Tier One Advanced Spiritual Craftsman the moment my Spiritual Power broke through to a level comparable to a Celestial Soul Realm expert?"

"Aha, we-well, theoretically, yes!" Little One laughed sheepishly.

Hong Yu’s face twitched violently. "You son of a bitch, you scammed me?"

"Now, now, don’t say that. Didn’t I just give you the second part of the Divine Medicine Scripture, the Alchemy Chapter!"

Little One shrank its neck back. "You’d better memorize this second Chapter of the Divine Medicine Scripture properly. I’m off to rest!"

In a flash, Little One disappeared.

Hong Yu was furious but helpless. Using his power of Memory Retention, he memorized the entire contents of the second Chapter until he could recite it backward and forward.

The first Chapter introduced the properties of various Spirit Medicines, while the second Chapter detailed the techniques for refining pills, covering all-encompassing knowledge.

Hong Yu pondered for a moment, then began to practice Alchemy.

「Time passed quickly...」

Worried that Yun Mengyao couldn’t withstand high-speed flight, Hong Yu’s group wasn’t traveling very fast. In the blink of an eye, five days had passed. During these five days, Hong Yu had been completely immersed in cultivating and frantically practicing Alchemy. He went from succeeding three times out of ten to now being able to maintain a one hundred percent success rate when refining any pill below Tier Two.

At this moment, he was attempting to refine a Tier Two Pill.

However, what Hong Yu didn’t know was that on this very day, an extremely urgent secret letter from Celestial Net City had been delivered to the Cyan Nether Sword Sect.

BOOM!

The pavilion where Elder Luo resided collapsed entirely. Amidst the billowing dust and smoke, Elder Luo’s face was savage, his eyes blood-red. He clenched his fists so tightly they made CRACK-CRACK sounds, and the resulting sonic booms were enough to make one’s scalp tingle. A mumble, brewing with infinite rage and venom, was forced from between his clenched teeth...

"Hong Yu, I will tear you to a million pieces."