Sage of Humanity

Strictly speaking, the wine gourd around Li Baxian's waist can also be considered a type of supplies box, only with a rather unique shape, and its functions are far more powerful since all of his Spiritual Artifacts are nurtured within the gourd.

Lu Ye's supplies box was undoubtedly inferior to Li Baxian's wine gourd, but it was already sufficient for his use.

This item could be tied around the waist without hindering movement, and on normal days, Spiritual Artifacts were nurtured within the supplies box, ready to be summoned and activated whenever necessary.

It was much more convenient than taking them out from a storage sack, especially since Lu Ye was preparing to increase the number of Spiritual Artifacts he could control.

The beehive-like supplies box had nine holes, each capable of nurturing one Spiritual Artifact.

Lu Ye had long prepared the backup Spiritual Artifacts, which only needed to be refined before they could be used.

He bought the supplies box from Heaven's Augury treasure vault and also acquired fifty portions of Earth's Core Fire.

Even though Lu Ye had not encountered the situation where the Talent Tree lost its effect of burning off pill poison again, he vaguely felt that the stored fuel in the Talent Tree was not very abundant.

That was because, as his cultivation gradually increased, his consumption of elixir pills became much greater, especially at the Level 9 Realm; opening a single orifice would cost him about forty Spirit-Nurturing Pills if he relied solely on elixir pills for cultivation.

With larger consumption of pills, more pill poison would accumulate, and naturally, the consumption of fuel by the Talent Tree would also increase.

Moreover, after being poisoned by someone at the Tianyan Sect, a good amount of fuel in the Talent Tree was consumed in just that instance.

It had been a long time since he last replenished the Talent Tree's fuel or obtained new spirit runes from it.

Because he had been accumulating merit to buy a Heaven Rank technique for himself and orifice repair pills for his Fourth Senior Brother.

Orifice repair pills were so expensive mainly because they were nearly extinct; with every use, one less remained, and if someone in the world could refine orifice repair pills to replenish the stock in Heaven's Augury treasure vault, the price would surely drop dramatically.

Now that he had a Heaven Rank technique and had purchased the orifice repair pills for his Fourth Senior Brother, other than waiting to ascend to the Cloud River Realm and then replacing the Spiritual Artifacts with a better batch, he had no more needs.

Buying Earth's Core Fire was thus no longer a pressure for him.

A mid-grade Spiritual Artifact supplies box cost Lu Ye over nine hundred merits, which was not too expensive for him, but for an average cultivator at Level 9, it was still worth weighing carefully.

After all, even the worst Heaven Rank technique only cost just over a thousand merits, so this supplies box was almost equivalent to the worst Heaven Rank technique.

Not all mid-grade Spiritual Artifacts were so costly; low-grade Spiritual Artifacts in Heaven's Augury treasure vault were generally priced between thirty to one hundred and fifty merits, mid-grade ranged between two hundred to five hundred, and only top-grade Spiritual Artifacts reached nearly a thousand merits.

Supplies boxes are a special kind of Spiritual Artifact, so their pricing could not be calculated using the normal figures.

The pricing of items in Heaven's Augury treasure vault was very fair, and with Heaven's Augury as the standard, taking advantage or finding a bargain was absolutely impossible.

Fifty portions of Earth's Core Fire cost Lu Ye ten thousand merits.

Checking the remaining merits he had, there were only over two thousand left.

Thinking back, he used to have three hundred and ten thousand merits...

Merits truly couldn't withstand spending.

Looking at his own spiritual orifice, he had opened two hundred and twenty-five, only fifteen short of switching to a Heaven Rank technique.

He already had two hundred and eighteen orifices open when he emerged from the Hundred Arrays Pagoda, and in the more than a month and a half since then, he only opened seven orifices, mostly because he had been busy leading the Allied Forces in battles from east to west, leaving little time for cultivation.

However, if truth be told, even this pace of orifice-opening was not slow compared to the normal cultivation of other cultivators at Level 9.

A supportive Cultivation Technique like Bestial Gluttony Feast, which was almost useless to others, combined with the Talent Tree's effect of burning off pill poison, was immensely helpful to Lu Ye, unimaginably so.

After securing the supplies box and Earth's Core Fire, Lu Ye headed to his dwelling.

Yiyi and Giant Armor were nowhere to be seen, even Amber was out of sight; with the nature's spiritual energy so rich at the garrison, no one wished to waste time on cultivation when idle.

Lu Ye's dwelling was initially built by Chen Yu with his men, and next to it lived Hua Ci; it could be considered one of the best scenic locations within the entire garrison.

To speak the truth, Hua Ci and Chen Yu were already unfit to remain in the outer circle since they had both ascended to Level 8.

They should be heading to the inner circle by now.

But the turmoil within the inner circle hadn't fully settled down yet, and moreover, the density of the spiritual energy at the sects' garrisons in the inner circle might not even match that of the Righteous Blood Sect.

So delaying their entry into the inner circle wasn't too consequential.

Upon returning to his dwelling, Lu Ye refined the several Spiritual Artifacts he had left behind one by one to complete the set of nine, then placed them in the supplies box to nurture.

Finally, he tied the supplies box close to his waist and stood up to move around, adjusting the position to ensure it wouldn't hinder him.

When previously consulting his Fourth Senior Brother about the Weapon Control Path, Lu Ye came to understand the secret behind his ability to control hundreds of weapons.

Weapon control is a matter of talent, but it also depends on the strength of one's psyche, which is directly related to the psyche's robustness.

Someone with a strong psyche like Lu Ye would undoubtedly be greatly aided in weapon control, which also explains why he could continuously increase the number of weapons he could handle, as the power of his psyche was constantly growing.

Li Baxian's ability to control hundreds of weapons relied not only on his innately vigorous psyche but also on his capacity to simplify his mind and divide his psyche into finer distinctions, an innate talent that, even with diligent postnatal efforts by others, would be hard to achieve to the extent of Li Baxian.

His current methods of weapon control were based on an innate starting point higher than others, continually honed through cultivation.

Lu Ye didn't need to control hundreds of weapons, otherwise he wouldn't have chosen a supplies box with only nine sockets.

Mastering the ability to control nine weapons was enough, and with his current resources, he was capable of achieving this level.

The best practice is real combat!

Lu Ye took out the Breath Fruit Core, which he hadn't used for a long time, and channeled his power into it.

He hadn't entered the Mirage Realm since reaching Level 9, and he was now ready to temper his weapon control in the Mirage Realm.

The view before his eyes changed as he entered that familiar small space.

Lu Ye was slightly taken aback as he looked up to survey the figure shrouded in mist not far ahead.

This was an encounter he had never had before; this strange little space had always been a transitional area when entering the Mirage Realm. Lu Ye would usually pass through here and spend fifty merits to push open a door, and then he would enter the Mirage Realm.

He had never found anything out of the ordinary here before, but this time there was a figure present.

Was it one of the beings from the Mirage Realm, or did someone else, like him, enter this place using a Breath Fruit Core?

The other party had apparently also noticed him, and for a moment, they both stood still, stupefied.

Moreover, Lu Ye discovered that he was also enveloped in a layer of mist, unable to see the other person's appearance clearly, and undoubtedly, the other person could not see him either.

Just as Lu Ye was vigilantly assessing the other person, they suddenly raised a hand, and from within the mist, a red glow shone through.

This bastard is from the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge!

With no need for niceties, the moment Lu Ye thought this, several streaks of light flashed out from the supplies box at his waist, whirling and crisscrossing like a pair of scissors, attacking the figure.

"Spirit Stream Realm!" An androgynous voice came from the opposite side, and then Lu Ye saw the figure wrapped in mist slowly slap out with a palm.

The controlled streaks of light flew back the same way they had come; that palm not only repelled several Spiritual Artifacts but also, before Lu Ye could react, struck his chest.

Then Lu Ye's vision blurred, and his consciousness returned to reality.

Killed?

Lu Ye was stunned for quite a while, struggling to accept such an outcome.

The moment the other party made their move, he knew he was no match, because the spirit force fluctuations from the other party were not what a Spirit Stream Realm cultivator should possess; at the very least, it was someone from a superior Cloud River Realm or even the True Lake Realm.

But to be killed so unclearly and unfairly like this irritated Lu Ye.

He hadn't even managed to land a single blow!

Who was that person?

In that strange little space, neither could see each other's faces clearly. All he knew was that the person was a cultivator from the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge, but their cultivation, gender, and everything else were unknown.

The fact that they could enter there meant they surely possessed a Breath Fruit Core as well.

This was not surprising. The Chess Sea in the Spirit Stream Defense Battle had appeared more than once, and although the Breath Fruit Tree did not appear every time, over the years, there must have been more than one Breath Fruit Core that could connect to the Mirage Realm.

The reason Lu Ye had never encountered it before was mainly because the timing of their entries into the Mirage Realm was different; those who entered didn't linger in that transit space.

This time, by chance, Lu Ye entered at the same time as the other party, leading to the encounter.

With growing annoyance the more he thought about it, Lu Ye channeled his spirit force again and entered the small space.

The other person was pressing against the door leading to the Mirage Realm, yet to enter.

Lu Ye drew out the Boulder Mountain Saber from his waist and cleaved with a single strike.

Then, as the world spun around him, his consciousness was ejected from the small space.

The third time he reappeared, the other person wasn't in a hurry to enter the Mirage Realm anymore. It seemed they were waiting for him. As soon as Lu Ye appeared, a streak of light shot towards him and then… Lu Ye was gone.

The fourth time, the fifth time…

It wasn't until after the seventh attempt that Lu Ye slowly calmed down.

Find more chapters on My Virtual Library Empire

He was completely outmatched, and this couldn't continue; moreover, due to the frequent deaths inside, his head was starting to ache.

This was where he could see the benefit of having a more resilient psyche. Before, every time Lu Ye died and left the Mirage Realm, he would be in excruciating pain, but now, it took several times before he felt the reaction.

Currently, Lu Ye was frustrated that he had no way to ascertain the identity of that scoundrel, not even knowing who to seek vengeance from in the future.@@novelbin@@

In the small space, after a long time without Lu Ye reappearing, the figure shrouded in mist chuckled, pushed open the door before him, and entered the Mirage Realm. In their opinion, that cultivator from the Haotian Alliance's Spirit Stream Realm was utterly foolish, acting recklessly to show off their bravery, and having been killed so many times, their psyche must have been damaged. What was the point?

Meanwhile, at the Three Saints Sanctuary in Bingzhou, a second-grade sect welcomed a distinguished guest...