Desolate Era (Book 19 - Book 21)

“Eh?” Ning saw that at the end of this spatial corridor, there was a blurry barrier of flowing light.

“This is the protective formation which Master left behind,” the giant yellow bear said, pointing at the barrier. “Long ago, Master said that only the new Manorlord would be able to open it.”

“Oh?” As Ning walked forward, he sent his coresense forward to investigate it. Although he wasn’t exactly an elite formations expert, he still knew a good amount regarding the art of formations.

“Open up.” After analyzing it for a moment, Ning suddenly reached out with his palm. The divine Starseizing Tattoo appeared within it, and he slapped his palm down against the barrier. Light flowed atop the barrier as a rune that was extremely similar to the Starseizing Tattoo appeared atop it.

Ning’s palm transformed to become three hundred meters in size as he slammed it down upon the barrier…but the only result was that the shockwave forced him back three steps.

“It didn’t open?” The giant yellow bear was puzzled.

“Not right now.” Ning stared at the light barrier, then shook his head. “Let’s go back for now.”

“Why can’t you open it? Master said that the new Manorlord would be able to open it,” the giant yellow bear said frantically.

Ning laughed. “I discovered just now that this barrier comes from the exact type of energy as the Starseizing Tattoo. The only thing that can open it is the Starseizing Tattoo, but when I tried just now, I discovered that because my own tattoo isn’t complete enough or strong enough. I imagine that only after reaching the Fifth Cycle can one open this barrier. But of course, there’s another method; to rely on overwhelming power to force it open! Although my master Daoist Threelives was quite formidable, countless eons have passed since he set up the formation. If I rammed against the formation he left behind ten or so times, I’d probably be able to break through it, but if I did that…the treasures which Master left behind might be teleported away through some other mechanism.”

“Right. You can’t brute force it.” The giant yellow bar nodded hurriedly.

This was no joke. It was entirely possible that there was a secondary mechanism within that would teleport the treasures away into the Void of space or into some extremely dangerous regions once the formation was broken through by brute force. How hard would it be to locate the treasures once they were lost?

In fact, counter-attack formations might appear as well.

“Let’s go.” Ning turned and left. “I need to first train my [Starseizing Hand] to the Fifth Cycle.”

Ning first went to the main hall of the Starseizing Manor to meet with Redsnow, Primelight, and the rest. They were all eager to find out what relics Daoist Threelives had left behind…but alas, Ning had been unable to actually break through the formation for now. The seven of them had no choice but to return to the Starseizer world for now.

Within the Treasures Hall.

“All of the treasures of the Treasures Hall are here.” The giant yellow bear pointed towards the ceiling as he handed Ning a book. “This book has a record of all the Immortal-ranked and Pure Yang treasures.”

Ning nodded and accepted the book.

“There’s actually a total of twenty-eight Pure Yang treasures.” Ning couldn’t help but sigh in amazement. “And that’s in addition to the Sole-Ki Nine Elements Pearls and the Ananda World-Swords. All of the Pure Yang treasures that Master left behind are fine specimens.”

Amongst the best Pure Yang treasures, there were a few that were especially powerful. All of them were set treasures, and the very best ones had their own specialties; it was hard to say which was the definitive best.

The ‘Eight Fires Qiankun World’, for example, had been forged by Elder God Zhurong, who had already fallen during the war that ended the Primordial Era. It had been forged with incomparably precious treasures into the form of eight lotus petals. When the eight lotus petals completely bloomed, they could unleash eight powerful streaks of truefire! It must be understood that the entire Three Realms only contained nine types of truefire, but this Eight Fires Qiankun World included eight of them!

In addition, Elder God Zhurong had fused some marvelous formations into this treasure of his. Once all eight types of truefire were merged together into one, they would possess utterly earth-shattering destructive power.

Pure Yang True Immortals would most likely only be able to flee in the face of this power. Only Empyrean Gods with powerful divine bodies would dare to fight it head-on. Most importantly of all…this was an large-scale area attack that was the size of a world. It could absolutely destroy everything within its range! Thus, the Eight Fires Qiankun World, despite ‘merely’ being a single top-grade Pure Yang treasure, was worth more than a hundred ‘ordinary’ top-grade Pure Yang treasures!

There was also the ‘Grand Bloodshadow Formation of the Heavens’. It was composed of a total of ninety-nine top-grade Pure Yang treasures, and once they joined together to form ninety-nine bloodshadow clones, they would have similarly astonishingly might.

“Alas, there are no sword-formations, which is what I need.” Ning shook his head. Although there were flying swords amongst the treasures, Ning need a total of more than seven hundred Pure Yang flying swords. The vault which Daoist Threelives had left behind simply didn’t include that many items.

The finest sets of top-grade Pure Yang treasures which Daoist Threelives had stored in his vault were some of the finest treasures of the Three Realms, capable of allowing any Empyrean God or True Immortal to instantly become far more powerful. Unfortunately…Ji Ning was no ordinary Empyrean God or True Immortal. He had reached the fourth stage of heartforce already. Once he mastered the Fifth Cycle of the [Starseizing Hand] and the Ninth Cycle of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art], he was already a supreme figure amongst his peers. The amount of benefit these treasures would bring him was very limited.

He was simply too powerful already. He didn’t need too much outside support.

Or, to put it a different way…

The outside support he needed had to be of a tremendously powerful level.

Ning would naturally be willing to risk his very life to acquire a Chaos treasure, but those were far too precious and rare. Not even most Daofathers or True Gods were in possession of one! One of the reasons why Daoist Threelives had been so powerful was precisely because once his [Starseizing Hand] reached the Sixth Cycle, his hands had become as powerful as Chaos treasures!

Chaos treasures…only the primordial chaos could give birth to treasures of such astonishing, heaven-shaking power.

……

Ning left the Starseizing Manor to visit his master, Subhuti.

Within Subhuti’s Daoist monastery.

“Master,” Ning called out respectfully.

“What is it?” Subhuti looked towards Ning.

“Your disciple wishes to train in the Fifth Cycle of the [Starseizing Hand], but needs some materials to do so. These materials are very hard to gather. Your disciple is willing to exchange treasures for them with you, Master,” Ji Ning said. The Xia Emperor had once wanted to come up with enough treasures for Ning to train to the Fifth Cycle of the [Starseizing Hand], but…not even most True Gods or Daofathers were in possession of those treasures. Most likely, they would have to seek out friends and gather the items from many places.

But of course, Ji Ning naturally had sufficient treasures to engage in the necessary trading.