Chapter 44: Consuming Rare Treasures as Daily Meals

After finishing his meal, Lin Heng followed Xiao Rang into a secluded underground treasury.

Stored here were all the rare treasures and martial arts manuals plundered from Heavenly Star Valley, Frost City, and the mountain gates of various demonic and heretical sects.

Lin Heng inspected them one by one, discovering that these rare treasures—whether they were fruits, leaves, or spiritual nectars—all possessed remarkable efficacy.

Some increased vital blood, some nurtured the spirit, and others enhanced physical constitution.

Although the effect of each individual rare treasure was minimal for a Grand Master, their sheer volume made up for it, numbering over a hundred types. If one could refine them all, they would produce a quite noticeable supplementary effect.

"Master, can I take all of these rare treasures? As for the extra thirty percent share, I can compensate the sect with silver at market value."

Lin Heng asked Xiao Rang with a smile.

Seventy percent of these rare treasures belonged to him by right, while the remaining thirty percent belonged to the sect.

Calculated at an average market value of five hundred thousand silver taels per portion of rare treasures, Lin Heng only needed to pay sixteen million silver taels, which was a mere drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of billions of silver taels he currently possessed.

"Naturally, you may."

Xiao Rang was not surprised by Lin Heng's greed. After all, his disciple was someone devoted entirely to cultivation, and naturally would not let slip any opportunity to grow stronger.

Besides, these rare treasures had not been consumed immediately precisely because they were kept for Lin Heng.

Ensuring that Lin Heng's combat power grew stronger and stronger was inherently beneficial to the Cloud Sword Palace.

Furthermore, Lin Heng was not taking them for free and was willing to compensate with silver, which made it easy for Xiao Rang to account for it to the other elders.

"Heng'er, the sect has been swamped with affairs lately, and as your master, I have no time to sort through these manuals acquired from various sects and factions, so I shall leave them for you to handle."

"You may retain the essential parts to be placed into the Scripture Pavilion, and destroy the useless and harmful parts."

Having settled the matter of the rare treasures, Xiao Rang pointed to the manuals piled up like small mountains within the treasury and spoke.

"Very well."

Lin Heng nodded in agreement.

He had already intended to thoroughly read these martial arts manuals to broaden his horizons and accumulate a foundation for breaking through to the Celestial-Human realm, so filtering them was merely a convenient task.

The conversation concluded here, and Xiao Rang departed to handle the numerous post-war affairs.

First was the reconstruction of the Cloud Sword Palace's mountain gate.

Second was the complete uprooting of the remnants of Heavenly Star Valley and Frost City everywhere, followed by the establishment of a ruling system centered absolutely around the Cloud Sword Palace, expanding its influence across the entire Lan Prefecture.

None of these tasks were easy; even with Xiao Rang being a Grand Master, he needed to spend a great deal of time on them.

Meanwhile, within this underground treasury, Lin Heng began to consume and refine the numerous rare treasures.

Fruit by fruit, blade of grass by blade of grass, Lin Heng ingested them alongside sweet spiritual nectar. Relying on a robust set of teeth and formidable digestive capacity, Lin Heng quickly finished swallowing a total of 104 rare treasures.

The tastes of these rare treasures were all excellent, and being able to eat his fill in such a manner was undoubtedly a treat.

Potent medicinal efficacy coursed through Lin Heng's body, and rich Heaven and Earth primordial Qi converged toward him, baptizing his essence, qi, and spirit.

Lin Heng sat cross-legged in meditation, quietly sensing the changes in his body.

He could clearly feel his body growing stronger under the nourishment of the pure Heaven and Earth primordial Qi; his meridians and acupoints became tougher and broader, his spiritual power increased to a certain extent, and the internal breath circulating throughout his entire body became more condensed.

With the medicinal power of so many rare treasures叠加 (accumulating)—though the effect of each individual one was small—it still allowed Lin Heng to achieve a breakthrough.

When everything settled, Lin Heng's cultivation, which had just reached the tenth level of the Grand Master realm, ascended by another tier, reaching the eleventh level of the Grand Master realm.

Moreover, his foundation was solid, completely devoid of any floating aura caused by advancing too rapidly in cultivation.

In addition, Lin Heng's affinity for the Heaven and Earth primordial Qi was further enhanced, and his speed in guiding and drawing in the Heaven and Earth primordial Qi increased by about two percent compared to before.

This bonus seemed small, but given Lin Heng's already extremely high cultivation baseline, a two-percent increase was already extremely rare.

Had he possessed such an improvement when he first entered the Grand Master realm, it would have been enough for him to defeat opponents a tier above him.

Lin Heng was satisfied with this harvest; the rare treasures worth fifty-two million taels were well worth eating!

Having completed the refinement of the rare treasures, Lin Heng began to read the martial arts manuals piled like mountains in the underground treasury.

These inheritances, originating from the other two martial arts sacred lands and various demonic and heretical factions, brought Lin Heng a refreshing experience.

This was an entirely new line of martial arts thinking, allowing Lin Heng to witness a completely different scenery on the path of martial arts, and to see the perspectives on cultivation held by many martial artists of great wisdom, giving him a sense of pleasant surprise.

Spending three months, relying on his formidable comprehension ability of photographic memory and instant mastery, Lin Heng thoroughly read all 87,237 manuals in this underground treasury.

This gave Lin Heng a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the human body and artistic conceptions.

Subsequently, Lin Heng began to sit in meditation, organizing his recently acquired knowledge in his mind.

He extracted the essence from them, incorporated it into his own martial arts framework, and optimized his existing martial arts.

This process lasted for a long time. When everything finally concluded, the bitter depths of winter had arrived once again.

The martial arts newly revised by Lin Heng showed further improvements in the efficiency of refining qi and forging the body, allowing Lin Heng to accumulate essence, qi, and spirit faster, elevate his cultivation realm more rapidly, and boost his overall cultivation speed by more than twofold.

In terms of combat, Lin Heng also carried out optimizations. The brand-new version of the "Boundless Ocean Divine Art" was even more formidable than before, further elevating Lin Heng's combat power.

By this point, Lin Heng was fully confident in how to categorize these martial arts manuals obtained from various sects and factions.

One-third of the manuals with distinctive characteristics were retained by Lin Heng and placed into the underground Scripture Pavilion of the Cloud Sword Palace. From then on, whether Cloud Sword Palace martial artists practiced these manuals directly or used them as reference materials on their cultivation path, it would be an excellent choice.

The remaining two thirds—manuals whose cultivation carried various irreversible side effects, doing more harm than good, as well as portions duplicating the Cloud Sword Palace's existing library—were destroyed by Lin Heng.

Though Lin Heng, having read the essences of a hundred schools of martial arts, possessed the ability to discern their pros and cons, other people lacked his comprehension and could easily stray onto a wrong path because of them.

If they wished to comprehend the essence within this portion of manuals destroyed by Lin Heng, they could directly find the answers from Lin Heng's martial arts heritage in the future, eliminating the need to filter them out themselves once again.