Within the secret chamber of the attic, Rin Tianhai sat on the stone bed.
He resembled an old monk in deep meditation, as faint specks of spiritual light slowly converged above his head.
After being forced to kill the man in the red robe, he hurried back to Lubeck Town. His internal injuries were severe, and he had no time to replenish his depleted spiritual power or heal the damage to his meridians.
Summoning his divine sense to inspect his condition, he realized just how close he had been to death.
The external wounds were not a major concern; though the skin was torn and the flesh split open, these could gradually heal on their own, and some had already begun to scab.
But his internal injuries were far worse than he had imagined. Several meridians were on the verge of snapping. Had he continued to fight, he would have either died or been crippled. Even if he survived, his path of cultivation would have become unbearably difficult.
Unknowingly, Rin Tianhai sat unmoving in the secret chamber for more than a months.
By then, his meridians had stabilized, his body had slowly recovered to its peak, and his cultivation had slightly improved. Before this brush with death, he had already reached the pinnacle of the Fifth Level of Qi Practice. Now he could even faintly sense the threshold of the Sixth Level. With another month of focused effort, he was confident he could break through.
But instead of rushing, he chose first to examine the storage bags he had seized. For safety, he had hidden them in the backyard with the help of a restriction. Keeping them on his person would have been no different than announcing himself as a murderer in case someone came to check.
Even after a month, he still worried that the two cultivators had connections to some powerful clan. Only after his mind calmed did he finally dare to open them.
Back then, his injuries were too severe, and survival had left no time to check his spoils. Now, he was eager to see whether his near-death ordeal had yielded great fortune.
First, he took out the storage bag of the Jin surname cultivator and wiped away the residual divine sense imprint. The Jin surname cultivator was dead, and his divine sense imprint was easily erased. Rin Tianhai extended his own divine sense to check the contents of the Jin surname cultivator's storage bag.
"Good heavens… this guy was too rich!" Rin Tianhai exclaimed. He is counting the spoil from the standard of the fifth level qi cultivator.
Inside were: Six Qi Condensation Pills, Fifty-five low-grade spirit stones, Three Essence Replenishing Pills, One Jade Detoxification Pill, Two Consolidating Essence Pills
There were also twenty sets of ingredients for concocting Qi Condensation Pills, three stalks of Golden Flower Grass, three stalks of Fire Element Grass, and over thirty stalks of lesser spiritual herbs.
Clearly, the Jin cultivator had been an alchemist, with a fine stock of elixirs and herbs.
The Golden Flower Grass and Fire Element Grass were especially valuable, cost ten low-grade spirit stones each. Both were main ingredients for the Origin Expansion Pill; with only three more main herbs, Tianhai could attempt the pill's refinement.
Curiously, there were no talismans. Likely, he had expended them during the battle.
The last items were a set of clothes and a jade cylinder. To Tianhai's relief, there was no clan token, suggesting the man had likely been a loose cultivator.
When he examined the jade cylinder, his heart trembled, it contained alchemy experience from a Third-Order Low-Grade Alchemist whose cultivation should be at least Core Formation Stage.
For a family like his, which had never produced even a Third-Order Alchemist, this was an unimaginable inheritance. Its value was no less than a Profound Grade technique.
Stunned, Tianhai carefully put it aside, deciding to later offer it to the family for immense merit after copying it.
Amidst his astonishment, he could not help but look forward to inspecting the red-robed man's storage bag even more. He skillfully wiped away the remaining consciousness imprint on the storage bag and sent out his divine sense.
Its contents were: Two Qi Condensation Pills, One Essence Replenishing Pill, One Consolidating Essence Pill, One Jade Detoxification Pill, Thirty low-grade spirit stones, One stalk of Shuiyun Grass, Over ten First-Order inferior herbs, One jade tube and One map.
The absence of a clan token again suggested he was a rogue cultivator.
The Shuiyun Grass was another main ingredient for the Origin Expansion Pill, also valued at ten spirit stones. Now he was only two ingredients short of being able to refine the pill.
The jade tube, however, was extraordinary. Golden runes coiled around it like living flame.
After spending half a day assaulting its rune barrier with divine sense, he realized his current strength was insufficient. He would likely need to reach the Seventh Level of Qi Refinement to unlock it.
Disappointed yet expectant, Tianhai set it aside, certain that whatever was inside must be extraordinary.
The map was half a zhang long, drawn on a beast hide and marked with routes, rivers, and mountains. Faint bloodstains suggested it was less than five years old.
According to it, a cave dwelling lay hundred li south of Lubeck Town, in the outer reaches of the Purple Cloud Mountain part of Whirlwind Mountain Range.
But with his current cultivation too low, venturing now there would be courting death. At minimum, he would need to reach the Seventh Level of Qi Cultivation and prepare sufficient life-saving measures before attempting such exploration.
Packing up all of the spoils of war, he placed them into his own storage bag. Now, with an exceptional surplus of elixirs, including those gained from looting— Fourteen Qi Condensation Pills, Seven Essence Replenishing Pills, Three Consolidating Essence Pills, Four Jade Detoxification Pills, One hundred and twenty-five low-grade spirit stones, Dozens of valuable herbs and over sixty sets of pill materials, Tianhai was truly wealthy.
He also possessed three of the five key ingredients for the Origin Expansion Pill.
Though he had used up his superior talismans in battle, he had gained two fine first-order artifacts. Whether to sell or keep them, he would decide later.
Yet the most valuable gains were the alchemy experience and the potential hidden treasure within the jade tube.
As for the cave dwelling on the map, it could belong to a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage, or even Core Formation. Only time would tell.