Desolate Era (Book 31 - Book 35)

“Treasures of the Flamedragon Realmverse aside, the treasury of the Palace of Immortals has collected many treasures from other realmverses as well,” Emperor Goldisle said with a smile. “It’s hard to even count how many treasures we have. Choose whatever you like, Darknorth. We’ll give you what you need for those fruits.”


“Understood.” Ning nodded.

“So this is Daolord Darknorth?” A deep voice boomed out from afar as a black-robed, black-haired old man walked towards them across the celestial pathways.

Emperor Goldisle made the introductions: “Darknorth, this is Emperor Blackcloud! The two of us jointly administer the Palace of Immortals for the Dao Alliance.”

Ning was secretly speechless. So it was these two Emperors who were in control of the Palace of Immortals? Perhaps they were a bit weaker than the Hegemons, but they were actually even more influential.

“Daolord Darknorth, you’ve only trained for such a short period of time but have reached such incredible heights in power. Impressive.” Emperor Blackcloud smiled. “Goldisle and I shall open the treasury for you to peruse as you please.”

“Sorry for the trouble, seniors,” Ning said modestly.

While chatting, these two leaders of the Dao Alliance led Ning to the location of the treasury.

“Open.” Emperor Blackcloud waved a finger.

Rumble…

The white stone door in front of him began to split apart, revealing a dark passageway inside.

“The treasury is an important place, and so this passageway is filled with many barriers and wards. Not even Hegemons would dare to trespass here,” Emperor Blackcloud said smugly.

“Come, Darknorth.” Emperor Goldisle led the way, with Ning following from behind. In truth, the reason why they dared to open up the treasury like this for Ning was because Ning was weak; if a Hegemon had actually come here, there was no way they would’ve dared to let the Hegemon actually enter the treasury.





* * *





Book 34, Chapter 4 - Treasures the Northbow Swords Need


Ji Ning followed Emperor Goldisle and Emperor Blackcloud through the dark passageway. After walking for a short while, he finally saw yet another stone door.

“Open,” Emperor Blackcloud command. The stone door instantly sank downwards, revealing the vast treasury behind it.

“Wow.” Ning felt dizzy when he saw what was behind the stone door. He was able to sense many varied auras, some brutal, some cold, some stately… countless treasures were hanging there, so numerous that at a glance Ning was able to see tens of millions of treasures just with the naked eye alone.

“All treasures stored within our treasury are quite extraordinary.” Emperor Goldisle smiled. “Many treasures here are one-of-a-kind! But of course, there are also some that are quite numerous, in which case we’ll just put a single sample item here.”

“Seniors,” Ning said hurriedly, “My lifeblood weapons need to personally touch the treasures in order to sense if they can make use of them or not.”

“Just touching is fine,” Emperor Goldisle said solemnly, “But don’t damage anything. Some of the treasures here are incredibly valuable.”

“Please don’t worry. My lifeblood weapons wouldn’t dare,” Ning said.

The nearby Emperor Blackcloud laughed. “Go, then. Inspect them to your heart’s content.”

Ning nodded. “Come out,” Ning willed mentally. Swish! Swish! Swish! All six Northbow swords flew out from their scabbards, and as they did so an adorable child appeared from each of them.

“Master! Master!” All six children began to call out repeatedly.

“Listen up. This treasury is filled with countless treasures. You can touch them to sense which are of use to you,” Ning said, “But remember, you absolutely must not damage any of them, nor are you allowed to absorb any of them. After the inspection is complete, with any luck, I’ll be able to give you some treasures to absorb.”

“Alright.”

“Haha, don’t worry.”

“Leave it to us!” All six Northbow sword-spirits were quite excited.

“Go.” Ning immediately sent them flying into the skies towards the various treasures, which they began to scan.

This vast treasury was filled with long stone tables that were covered with countless treasures. There were also incredibly long twelve-layered treasure shelves, with each layer filled with many treasures. The ones placed on the shelves were clearly less valuable! There were also individual stone daises that held only a single treasure each.

This place had all sorts of weapons, even Universe weapons! There were all sorts of marvelous treasures here, including many strange curios that had been collected from the Terror Starsea…

……

Time slowly passed on, one minute at a time. Ning continued to furiously send his six Northbow swords flying everywhere, touching the various treasures. After roughly the time needed to boil a kettle of tea…

“Master! Master! I can sense that if I ate this flower, it would be of big use to me,” Northbow Five called out spiritually to Ning.

Ning’s eyes lit up as he immediately looked towards the sword. This was a semi-ethereal flower that was surrounded by a faint gray aura. There was a jade slip next to it that introduced it as the ‘shadowless six-thief flower’. It was capable of hiding itself amongst other objects, making it extremely difficult to find. It was an incomparably marvelous item.

“How many of those can you eat?” Ning asked spiritually.

“I’m not sure. At least ten thousand,” Northbow Five replied.

“Got it.” Ning nodded, silently memorizing this flower. He then continued to search for other treasures. This treasury most likely had copies of almost all of the decent treasures located within the Flamedragon Realmverse! When would he ever have another chance like this to just scan them as he pleased? Even if he wasn’t able to acquire what he needed due to not having enough fruit, he could at least memorize them for future collection.

……

Outside the Palace of Immortals. Hegemon Brightshore, Hegemon Windrain, Hegemon Netherlily, Emperor Severfive, and Emperor Islehide continued to wait patiently alongside their retainers.

“Brightshore,” Hegemon Windrain said hurriedly, “The Dao Alliance wouldn’t be playing a trick on our young friend Darknorth, would they? If he ends up trading with them without giving us a chance…”

“Agreed. Brightshore…” Emperor Islehide said hurriedly, “Darknorth belongs to your Brightshore Kingdom.”

“Don’t worry.” Hegemon Brightshore smiled. “I can reach out to Darknorth at any time! He’s currently within the treasury of the Palace of Immortals, scanning the countless treasures there. This process will take some time, so don’t be impatient. Once he knows which treasures he needs, he’ll publicly announce it.”

“Good. At least we can compete fairly,” Emperor Severfive said. All of them were truly the most elite figures of the Endless Territories, but this competition over the coldflame cauldron fruits still made them nervous.

There was a rough, accepted ‘value’ to these fruits, but they were simply never available for sale. Very, very few were willing to sell these fruits, which was why in normal times the Hegemons were willing to pay multiples of the ‘accepted’ value for the few coldflame cauldron fruits which appeared from time to time! Now that Crimsonwave Temple was going to be located within the Endless Territories indefinitely, they’d be able to harvest 300 of the fruits every 100,000 chaos cycles. This was why they hadn’t offered excessively high prices in their negotiations with Ning.

However… they also understood that the future couldn’t be predicted. Who knew when Emperor Waveshift would end up taking the temple away again?

……

Within the treasury of the Palace of Immortals of the Dao Alliance.

Ning continued to control his six Northbow swords, sending them flying about like streaks of light towards various treasures, then gently brushing against them.