Desolate Era (Book 11 - Book 15)

“However…at this level, it merely remains a deceptive tool, a hiding method. When you are truly in a dire situation, what matters the most is your combat ability,” Silvermoon said. “Junior apprentice-brother, although you’ve reached the early Void stage and are comparable to ordinary Celestial Immortals…I’m afraid that slightly more powerful Celestial Immortals would be able to deal with you or even kill you.”


“I understand.” Ning truly did. Unless he was so lucky as to only encounter extremely weak Celestial Immortals, the amount of power he currently had was only enough to allow him to swagger around in front of those who had yet to overcome their Celestial Tribulation.

“That’s why I’ve come to find you, senior apprentice-brother. I’ve come to ask you for help,” Ning said with a laugh.

“Help?” Silvermoon waved his fan, then said in a leisurely manner, “Speak. What do you need?”

“I’m currently quite weak; forgot about the Thee Realms, even in this Crescent world, any random Celestial Immortal might be able to kill me. Thus, I wish to reach the Third Cycle of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] as soon as I can,” Ning said.

Silvermoon stared at him. “The amount of treasures consumed by the training of the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] is utterly astonishing; even I had to spend countless ages to be able to train to my current Sixth Cycle! Can it be that you, you little brat, want me to give you my treasures for free to help you train? No way!”

The [Eight-Nine Arcane Art] used up far too many treasures. To reach the Ninth Cycle? Even Daofathers would feel pain at the cost!

Even a mighty demon like Empyrean God Silvermoon had only trained to the Sixth Cycle; logically speaking, Empyrean Gods should be able to reach the Ninth Cycle, but he simply didn’t have enough treasures.

“Of course I wouldn’t ask you to give them to me for free,” Ning said hurriedly. “During this trip of mine to the outside world, I acquired some Immortal-ranked magic treasures. I wanted to trade them to you for Immortal pills, senior apprentice-brother!”

“Trade for Immortal pills?” Silvermoon nodded lightly. Immortal pills referred to Immortal-ranked spirit-pills, Pure Yang spirit-pills, and Great Firmament spirit-pills.

“That’s acceptable.” Only now did Silvermoon agree. “Bring out your Immortal-ranked magic treasures. I definitely won’t make you suffer a loss, and I won’t profit from this trade with you.”

Ning smiled, then waved his hand. Whoosh. Instantly, one Immortal-ranked magic treasure after another appeared, hovering in the air. These were the spoils he had gained from killing the monster kings and the evil Patriarch on the last journey. In fact, he even took out the low-grade Immortal-ranked flying sword the Grand Xia Emperor had given him.

“Let me take a look.” Silvermoon quickly spread out his divine power to bind each of the magic treasures.

There was no way to use divine power to actually control magic treasures, but upon overcoming the Celestial Tribulation and becoming an Empyrean God, things would change. Empyrean Gods were unfathomable in their power, and their divine power could be applied to all sorts of magic treasures. The Empyrean Gods and True Gods who were birthed from the primordial chaos were born with the ability to easily use magic treasures. Only the weaker Fiendgods, such as those that were born at the Xiantian level, were only able to use Bloodforged weapons.

“Mm.” Silvermoon looked through the weapons, then said, “Three top-grade Immortal-ranked magic treasures, nineteen high-grade, twenty one middle-grade, and sixteen low-grade.”

Silvermoon kept his calculations simple and by grade. For example, he counted the six scimitars which the Flamewing King had used as six separate items! That was why the number was so high.

“Junior apprentice-brother…the difference is pretty huge.” Silvermoon looked at Ning, then said helplessly, “The amount of Immortal pills you can trade for with such a small amount of Immortal-ranked magic treasures…there’s no way you can train to the Third Cycle.”

Ning immediately asked, “How far off am I?”

“Even if I’m generous to the point of suffering a loss…I could at most give you sixty of my top-grade Immortal-ranked spirit-pills! But to train to the Third Cycle, if you completely rely on such pills, you would need at least a hundred of them,” Silvermoon said helplessly.

Ning felt resigned as well. He had kept behind a single low-grade Immortal-ranked flying sword for Little Qing, and had kept the Immortal-ranked magic item he had acquired in the underwater estate for Uncle White! He needed to use both the Thousandbull Sword and the Heavenraker swords. He had taken out every other magic treasure he had left. In fact, aside from the Heavenraker swords, he no longer even had three spare Immortal-ranked flying swords for his [Three Heads, Six Arms] technique!

“How about this?” Silvermoon waved his hand, and a piece of parchment appeared. “Write on top of this paper that today, you are borrowing a total of forty top-grade Immortal-ranked spirit-pills from me. You have to repay me a hundred such pills within ten thousand years. If you are unable to do so within ten thousand years, then you’ll have to pay me back with the most valuable treasure you carry!”

Silvermoon waved his fan as he beamed merrily towards Ning.

Ning felt resigned. He had heard from others long ago as to what sort of a person this Silvermoon was; the reason why all of the disciples of Mount Innerheart secretly referred to him as ‘that demon Silvermoon’ was because he, an exalted Empyrean God, would seek opportunities to squeeze and extort even the ordinary disciples.

“Fine.” Ning lowered his head.

“Hurry up and write,” Silvermoon chortled merrily. “Junior apprentice-brother, the sword you used to display your swordplay last time was pretty good; it nearly has the power of a Pure Yang treasure. That sword alone is worth nearly a hundred top-grade Immortal-ranked spirit-pills. I’m sure that within ten thousand years, you’ll have acquired even better treasures.”

Ning immediately began to furiously scribbling on the parchment.

Between fellow disciples, a written acknowledgment of debt was enough; everyone would give each other face.

“Here you go!” Silvermoon waved his hand and a white jade bottle flew towards Ning. “These are top-grade Immortal-ranked spirit-pills that were forged in Doushuai Palace. They contain extremely pure elemental essence and are very well suited for training in the [Eight-Nine Arcane Art].” [1. Doushuai Palace, in Chinese legends, is the place where Laozi, the founder of philosophical Daoism, resides. In Journey to the West, this is also the place where Laozi concocts pills for heaven, and the place where Sun Wukong stole and ate countless pills of Immortality when he was drunk.]

Ning had been instantly impoverished…and now owed a hundred top-grade Immortal-ranked spirit-pills to Silvermoon. Still…Ning accepted this. He wasn’t strong enough to leave his master’s tutelage yet; any powerful Celestial Immortal was capable of annihilating him.

“The [Eight-Nine Arcane Art].”

Ning sat on the netherwater jade bed within the Still Room. Hefting the jade bottle, he poured out a spirit-pill. The spirit-pill was a white-jade color, and it emanated a faint aroma of mouth-watering fragrance.

If an ordinary Zifu Disciple or Wanxiang Adept were to eat this top-grade Immortal-ranked spirit-pill, they probably wouldn’t even be able to refine it; their Zifus would explode! After all, the purity of the elemental ki within these pills was comparable to that used by Celestial Immortal. These sorts of pills were usually given to reincarnated Immortals, so as to allow them to reach an extremely high level of power in a short period of time.

Alternately, Celestial Immortals who had fought for a long period of time, or who had used up a great deal of energy in binding a Protocosmic spirit-treasure, would use them to instantly replenish their elemental ki.

Whoosh whoosh whoosh…