Martial Peak

Translator: Silavin & PewPewLaserGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain & Dhael Ligerkeys

These items were all from the Corpse Cave and had been swallowed by the Stone Puppet. At that time, Yang Kai and Yang Yan had been busy trying to collect the Sun’s True Essence, so they hadn’t had any time to deal with the mountains of materials and Saint Crystals lying around. Therefore, they had let the Stone Puppet handle this matter.

There had been seven or eight hills of various ores and a few more of pure Saint Crystals, so although the Stone Puppet only had time to swallow about half of them, they still added up to an amazing amount.

Some of the ores had their essence absorbed by the Stone Puppet to strengthen it and make up for the damage caused by the Sun’s True Fire, but the vast majority was now piled up in front of Yang Kai.

Up until now, Yang Kai had too many things on his mind, so he wasn’t able to take inventory of this harvest, but since they had been piled up out in the open, Yang Kai figured these materials weren’t as high in quality or rarity as the ores he had found in the four Space Rings atop the Ice Jade Pedestal. Sweeping them with his Divine Sense, Yang Kai confirmed his speculations.

However, he did not need to worry about such things as all these minerals would be handed over to Yang Yan to process.

While preparing to stuff these ores into Space Rings, Yang Kai’s eyes suddenly landed on one of the hills of materials. He reached out, and picked up a fist-sized, perfectly round, flawless and pure white object.

Staring at this sphere in amazement, Yang Kai soon had a thought and a look of surprise filled his eyes. Circulating his Secret Art, he noticed the huge amount of pure energy flowing from the sphere in his hand into his body and his expression turned strange, glancing over at the Stone Puppet in amazement and asking, “You can even purify this kind of thing?”

The Stone Puppet looked at him with a tilted head and did not say a word.

Yang Kai smiled slightly, knowing that it might not be able to express its thoughts; after all, the Stone Puppet’s sapience was limited.

Taking out the token Yang Yan gave him to control the cave mansion’s arrays, Yang Kai poured his Divine Sense into it and sent out a message.

A moment later, the barrier around the cave mansion was opened from the outside and Yang Yan walked in quickly, asking curiously, “Didn’t you say you were going to enter retreat? Why suddenly call me over?”

“Look at this!” Yang Kai said as he tossed the white sphere in his hand over to her. Catching it, Yang Yan looked at him suspiciously for a moment before taking a closer look at the sphere.

Soon after, Yang Yan’s beautiful eyes widened as a look of pleasant surprise filled her face, as if she had just discovered something incredible. Quickly turning to Yang Kai, she eagerly asked, “Where did you get this thing? Are there any more?”

Yang Kai simply pointed his finger to a hill in front of him.

Yang Yan turned her head in the direction he pointed and was immediately dumbstruck as she saw many similar spheres lying in that hill.

After a few breaths, Yang Yan let out a cry of joy as she rushed over to the hill and began stuffing everything into her own Space Ring.

“Leave me a few,” Yang Kai stared at her with a depressed expression.

“What do you want them for?” Yang Yan snorted as her small hand covered her Space Ring, hiding it from view.

“Cultivation. You can see what these things are formed from, right? I just finished breaking through so using these things will help better consolidate my realm,” Yang Kai said while his face twitched slightly.

“Of course I can see what this is! These things should have been condensed by Xiao Xiao, right?” Yang Yan picked up the Stone Puppet and kissed it repeatedly, causing Yang Kai to wear a dumbfounded look while the Stone Puppet wore a helpless one.

“I didn’t expect that Xiao Xiao could even purify and compress Saint Crystals. This is perfect! One of the worries I had has been solved, hehe!” Yang Yan stared at the Stone Puppet with her beautiful eyes, seemingly wishing she could kiss it a few more times.

“Can Stone Puppets even purify and compress Saint Crystals? Did you know about this before?” Yang Kai asked curiously.

Yang Yan shook her head, “I tried before, but Xiao Xiao didn’t have this ability then. Stone Puppets have an innate ability to absorb and temper various ores and mineral essences, refining them into their bodies to strengthen themselves. Xiao Xiao being able to do this now might have something to do with it absorbing some of the Sun’s True Essence, although I’m not completely sure.”

Hearing this, Yang Kai gently nodded, the Sun’s True Essence was said to be the source essence extracted from a Sun Star. The Stone Puppet had refined a little Sun’s True Fire, so it wasn’t surprising that its abilities had undergone some changes.

However, being able to purify and compress Saint Crystals, transforming their essence into the shape of a ball was quite a sensational development.

Throughout the Star Field, the highest quality Saint Crystal known so far was High-Rank Saint Crystal, but the existence of this sphere completely went against that norm, creating a brand-new precedent.

The energy contained in this sphere was both denser and purer than an equivalent-sized piece of High-Rank Saint Crystal. Yang Kai had only absorbed a small part of it, but he estimated that the energy contained inside this sphere was five to six times greater than High-Rank Saint Crystal.

That was not to say that the value of this sphere was only that of five or six High-Rank Saint Crystals of equivalent size; in fact, its value was far greater than this.

In theory, the exchange ratio between High-Rank Saint Crystal, Mid-Rank Saint Crystal, and Low-Rank Saint Crystal was one to ten, but every cultivator knew that in truth, the higher the rank of Saint Crystal, the greater its value was.

With higher quality Saint Crystals, a cultivator would be better able to impact their bottlenecks, restore their Saint Qi, or restore themselves while meditating. At a critical moment, such an advantage may even mean the difference between life and death.

Although the energy contained in this sphere was only equivalent to the sum of five or six High-Rank Saint Crystals of equal size, if it were to be circulated in large quantities, it would likely be valued at ten or even twenty High-Rank Saint Crystals.

Of course, that was only assuming a massive amount of them entered the market. If this sphere were to be auctioned off as a single treasure, it could likely sell for 100,000 High-Rank Saint Crystals or more.

After all, rare things were always more expensive.

Of course, Yang Kai didn’t have any intention of releasing these things into the market. From Yang Yan’s reaction just now, this Saint Crystal sphere which had unintentionally been compressed by the Stone Puppet was of great use to her.

Most likely, this was related to whatever secret project she had been working on. Yang Kai did not ask any questions though. Since Yang Yan had said she wanted to give him a surprise, he decided to patiently wait until she was ready to reveal it to him.

After confirming that these spheres were something the Stone Puppet had created after refining the Sun’s True Fire, Yang Kai set the matter aside and asked Yang Yan about Qian Yue. Apparently, since coming here, Qian Yue had quickly gotten close to the other residents and Wu Yi had provided her with a lot of cultivation resources and a good cultivation environment. Right now, she was also in secluded retreat.

After about the time it would take to boil a cup of tea, Yang Yan happily walked out of Yang Kai’s cave mansion, taking with her not only the strange Saint Crystal spheres and all of the various ores, but even the Stone Puppet as well.

According to her, even if Yang Kai had not called her over, she would have come looking for him to ask for the Stone Puppet’s help. With the Stone Puppet beside her, the efficiency of her Artifact Refining would greatly increase, which was essential to bringing her grand plan to fruition.

After Yang Yan left, Yang Kai opened the cave mansion barrier again while touching the special Space Ring Yang Yan had refined for him with a smile on his face. There were only two things inside this ring, the Ten Thousand Year Ice Jade Pedestal and the Sun’s True Essence; however, these two things were without a doubt the most valuable and precious treasures he had obtained on this trip. If any news were to leak of their existence, it would create a stir across all of Shadowed Star.

Pondering for a while, Yang Kai’s expression became dignified as he took out a certain ancient book.

This ancient book had also been obtained from the Corpse Cave and had once belonged to the Ancient Yang Sect. At first, there were too many of these ancient books and Yang Kai did not have time to investigate them carefully. Later, while Yang Yan was refining the special Space Ring to store the Sun’s True Essence, Yang Kai casually browsed through these ancient books and this one in particular had caught his attention.

Because this ancient book was not some ordinary Secret Art, but rather one that was specifically for Body Tempering.

Yang Kai’s physical body was already much stronger than average cultivators in the same realm, but this was a result of various opportunities he had come across over the years rather than intentional cultivation. Secret Arts specifically for Body Tempering and Soul Cultivation were extremely rare, and even if some were occasionally widely circulated outside, they were generally trash that couldn’t enter the eyes of truly powerful masters. Yang Kai naturally looked down on these generic methods as well.

Yang Kai had never expected that in the underground Corpse Cave of the Ancient Yang Sect he would obtain this Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art.

When Yang Kai first saw it, he thought that this Secret Book was an art related to swordsmanship, but after careful investigation, he learned it was actually a Body Tempering Secret Art.

Yang Kai had a rough understanding of this Secret Art from the last time he browsed through and knew it was extremely profound and mysterious. If this Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art worked as described, once someone cultivated it to the extreme, they would be able to obtain a near immortal and indestructible physique; moreover, even at the minor accomplishment stage, one would be able to use their vitality and Blood Qi to condense Five Elements Profound Heavenly Sword Qi, which had incredible offensive and defensive power.

Reading about this Secret Art’s possibilities made Yang Kai excited, but the requirements to cultivate it were also extremely high.

The physical strength of anyone who wished to cultivate this Secret Art had to already be at least twice as high as an average cultivator in the same realm just to withstand the pain involved in the tempering process. This condition was no problem for Yang Kai.

Secondly, one needed to possess extremely strong vitality because cultivating this Secret Art would cause a great deal of harm to oneself. If one did not possess tenacious vitality, not only would they fail to cultivate this Secret Art, they may end up losing their life in the process. Yang Kai felt that this requirement would also not be an issue for him. Although he did not dare claim he had the strongest vitality of any cultivator in the Star Field, with the astonishing restorative power of his Golden Blood, he was confident that only a few people could surpass him in this aspect.

Thirdly, to cultivate the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art, one needed to obtain extremely high-rank precious treasures from the five basic elements. By absorbing and refining the energy contained in these precious treasures, they would continuously temper their flesh and wash their marrow. After many years of repeated accumulation, one would eventually reach the pinnacle of the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art.

What kind of precious treasures were required was only vaguely described in the Five Elements Indestructible Sword Tempering Art’s ancient book, but essentially, the minimum requirement would be something equivalent to a Tenth-Order Monster Beast’s Monster Core.

This requirement alone basically made it impossible for anyone on Shadowed Star to cultivate this Secret Art; after all, Tenth-Order Monster Beasts were equivalent to Origin King Realm masters, and there were no such things on Shadowed Star.

Yang Kai currently had two treasures he was certain met these criteria: The Sun’s True Essence and the Profound Yin Sunflower Water. The Ten Thousand Year Ice Jade Pedestal also met the appropriate conditions, but if he were to really begin cultivating this Secret Art, Yang Kai wasn’t prepared to use the Ten Thousand Year Ice Jade Pedestal as he had other important uses for it.