Desolate Era (Book 6 - Book 10)

Being a genius of cultivation didn’t necessarily mean that one was intelligent in handling worldly affairs. Still, Xue Hongyi was still quite intelligent; upon being rebuked by young master Youngflame as an ‘imbecile’, although he felt incredibly insulted, he then immediately understood what Youngflame Nong was thinking.

Ninelotus, standing next to Ning, sent a mental laugh to him. “This Xue Hongyi really is an imbecile. Since young master Youngflame has elected to come to this estate, he most likely has already prepared for all contingenices. As far as he is concerned, if he can bind this estate, then all of the monsters within can be toyed with as he pleases; they wouldn’t even be able to escape. Tens of thousands of monster-slaves, and all of which are Dao-soldiers as well! There are even precious Yaksha Dao-soldiers here… only Celestial Immortals could afford to be so extravagant. Once he offers these Dao-soldiers to his clan, not only will he be able to make up for his losses, he will be rewarded richly! To negotiate with the monsters and to let them leave… isn’t this the same as letting an enormous fortune just walk away?”

Ning nodded his head. The vast number of Seawave Dao-armors and Yaksha Dao-armors alone was an inestimable fortune.

“This palace actually doesn’t even have a single golem within, nor are there any attacking formations.” Youngflame Nong no longer focused on his losses, instead carefully inspecting the palace.

“Hmph.” He suddenly waved his hand, and a bubbling, boiling black strand of elemental ki spread out in every direction, striking against the walls of the palace. Rumble, rumble, rumble. The palace walls were incomparably sturdy, but under the assault of the elemental ki, three words suddenly appeared on the palace wall in front of them: DAO REPOSITORY PALACE.

“Dao Repository Palace?” The eyes of Ning and everyone else lit up.

Every single power needed to build a Dao Repository. Even the Ji clan of West Prefecture City had its own vault that was used for hiding sutras and scripts for its descendants to learn from. The Black-White College had its own Dao Repository as well. Immortal Witchriver had his own forces; although his roots weren’t as deep and his history wasn’t as old as the Black-White College, he vastly surpassed the likes of Snowdragon Mountain.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Without even waiting for Youngflame Nong to say anything, Ning and the others transformed into streaks of light, charging towards a corridor right next to the three characters, ‘DAO REPOSITORY PALACE’. The reason they all charged towards this corridor was because this was the only corridor there was.

“These guys…” With a swooshing sound, Youngflame Nong charged forward as well.

……

Upon charging into the corridor, what greeted them was a massive, vast hall. The insides of this hall were filled with countless books, a veritable sea of them, most likely not much smaller than the Dao Repository of the Black-White College.

“Quick, take them.”

“Quick.”

All of them seemed to have been possessed.

Every single power cared deeply about its techniques and secret arts. If they were to find any which the Black-White College was not in possession of and offer it to them, they would be able to acquire enormous sums of black-white pellets.

“Whoosh.” Ning waved his hand, and a large number of books in front of him were immediately collected into his storage-type magic treasure.

As for the Azure Skysnake, she blinked from place to place, calling out in celebration, “C’mere, all of ya!” The books beneath her all vanished.

“Come.” The Whitewater Hound collected the books before him as well.

“Take them.”

“These are mine.”

Xue Hongyi had gone crazy as well. Everyone, including the final person to enter, Youngflame Nong, began to quickly collect the books.

Although this giant hall had a massive number of books, in just a few moments, the entire hall had been completely emptied out. In the end, they didn’t even spare the shelves used to carry the books.

“Look at how crazy all of you have gotten.” Youngflame Nong shook his head. “I hope these aren’t just the abridged versions. All of you will be stupefied if they are.”

Ning and the others knew this as well. It was very likely that the books here were simple abridged versions… but no one wanted to take the risk that they weren’t. After all, it would take some time to ascertain if a book was an abridged version or not, and in the time it took, everyone else would have seized all the other books.

“Let’s take a look.” Ning and the others started to take out one book after another, perusing through them carefully. Moments later…

“Abridged.”

“This one is abridged; it just has the very first part of the technique.”

“This is abridged.”

“This one is also abridged.”

“This one isn’t abridged, it is complete, but it is actually the most commonly seen formation technique.”

All of them were instantly downfallen; nearly ninety percent of the books were abridged, and as for the complete versions? They were commonly known commodies; in the Black-White College, one didn’t even have to use black-white pellets to trade for them. Almost all larger schools had them.

The books with more valuable techniques, secret arts, and divine abilities… were all abridged.

“Almost all of these are abridged,” Ning mused to himself. “But there should definitely be a place where the full versions are located. The full versions should be located in a more hidden area. I refuse to believe that Immortal Witchriver carried all of those books with him. Can it be that his clansmen wouldn’t need to train while he was wandering and adventuring?”

Swoosh! Ning immediately scurried towards one of the four corridors leading away from the massive hall.

It wasn’t just Ning who had come to this conclusion; the others had as well. There had to be complete versions somewhere! And that place was most likely hidden.

Swoosh. Youngflame Nong, by relying on the affinity from the key to the estate, moved into one corridor, quickly discovering a private room.

“Here it is.” Youngflame Nong entered the room, immediately seeing the skeleton within it.

This skeleton was the guardian of the Dao Repository Palace!

“In you go.” Youngflame Nong collected the skeleton, and then turned his gaze towards a stone book. His key was telling him… that this stone book was the core for the entire Dao Repository Palace.

“Bind.” Youngflame Nong just bound a small part of it, then came to a halt. He only needed to bind a small part of it to ensure that all of the formations and restrictive spells within the Dao Repository Palace would be deactivated.

And then, Youngflame Nong quickly left the room, beginning to search as well. If he were to locate a powerful divine ability or secret art which the Youngflame clan didn’t already possess, he would be rendering a major merit. However, given how ancient and powerful the Youngflame clan was… it was very, very hard to discover secret arts or divine abilities they didn’t already have.

……

Ning’s divine sense had been activated long ago, filling every single part of the hall he was in. However, since the walls of the Immortal estate blocked out divine sense, he wasn’t able to search deeper.

“Ning, son, quick, come over here!” Uncle White suddenly sent him a mental message.

Ning, just about to push open a stone door and investigate, suddenly came to a halt. He transformed into a streak of light, hurrying towards Uncle White’s direction. Just a few seconds later, he entered a private room.

Within the private room, there were rows of books, all of which were protected by restrictive spells. However, these restrictive spells were all inactive, and the Whitewater Hound, Xue Hongyi, and Adept Vastriver were frantically seizing them.’

“Quick.”