Buddies, Big Bro is here to save you all

【“Bam!!”】

【You kicked the Daoist temple’s mountain gate clean off its hinges, sending it flying into the sky.】

【“Old Hag! Your grandpa’s here!!”】

【You really were a cunning bastard.】

【Before storming the temple, you had first found the lair of a nearby exotic beast and stacked “Heart of Steel” to ten thousand layers.】

【It had taken a very long time, but it was absolutely worth it.】

【You discovered that even after breaking through to a higher realm, the maximum number of “Heart of Steel” stacks remained at ten thousand. It had not increased any further.】

【The number of racial talents “Calamity of Ten Thousand Races” could carry simultaneously had not increased either. It was still limited to ten.】

【You guessed that growth-type traits might have a limit, or perhaps they needed some other kind of stimulus before they could grow again.】

【Now that you had “Concentrated Essence,” you had no need to make your body ten thousand layers larger as well.】

【After all, you had no idea whether the Myriad Soul Banner and the others were inside the temple. With a body that enormous, you might accidentally injure your allies.】

【The instant you smashed through the gate, you alerted the servants and disciples of the Old Hag inside the temple.】

【The entire temple was instantly covered in a layer of red light.】

【Countless sharp blades rained down from the sky, sweeping toward you.】

【“Reverse Engineering” allowed you to see that this was a powerful third-grade killing formation—the Thousand Blades!】

【Even you were incapable of setting up a formation like this.】

【Naturally, you didn’t dare to underestimate it.】

【But you still snorted coldly, making your disdain clear.】

【Then you pulled out a divine artifact—the Female Heavenly Emperor’s underwear!】

【You spun the underwear over your head like the handkerchief in a traditional two-person performance. It spread out like an umbrella, reflecting every attack from the killing formation.】

【“Who are you?! Why have you forcefully entered our ‘Many-Treasures Temple’?”】

【Someone shouted at you.】

【You cast a sidelong glance at the crowd and said coldly,】

【“I’ve come to take back what belongs to me! If you don’t resist, you may live.”】

【These people still hadn’t realized how serious the situation was.】

【“How presumptuous! Fellow disciples, defend the temple!”】

【You weren’t someone who killed indiscriminately.】

【But you had given them a chance. Since they insisted on seeking death, you couldn’t be blamed for granting their wish.】

【Just as Chen Two had discovered after keeping watch for so long, every person in the temple really did possess at least one spiritual treasure.】

【Spiritual treasures were extremely valuable in the Material Realm.】

【Ordinary cultivators could only use magical artifacts.】

【High-quality acquired spiritual treasures could be put up for auction.】

【However, acquired spiritual treasures had no artifact spirits—not even the finest legendary-grade acquired spiritual treasures.】

【You had heard that innate spiritual treasures possessed artifact spirits, but you had yet to see even a single innate spiritual treasure.】

【The power of spiritual treasures was indeed extraordinary.】

【Take the temple’s senior disciple, for example. He wielded a pitch-black fire poker, yet it could actually unleash the so-called “Samadhi True Fire.”】

【Even though you cultivated a fire-element technique and possessed the Flame Race talent, those flames could still scorch your flesh.】

【Moreover, after being injured, you could clearly feel that “Wolverine” was healing more slowly. It seemed that wounds inflicted by the “Samadhi True Fire” were much harder to recover from.】

【Another female disciple held an oiled-paper umbrella.】

【Whenever she opened and closed the umbrella, she could appear and disappear around you without making a sound.】

【It wasn’t invisibility. It was more like phasing. She used this technique to evade many of your attacks.】

【“Good, good, good! As expected of Old Hag Many-Treasures—the things your disciples use are all this impressive! Excellent! They’re all mine now!!”】

【You shouted and stamped both feet, making the entire mountain tremble!】

【“War God of the Inner Struggle”!】

【“Calamity of Ten Thousand Races”!】

【“Arm of the Qilin”!】

【“One Serious Punch”!】

【The spiritual treasures were excellent, but the people using them were far too weak. They were completely incapable of withstanding you at the height of your might.】

【The highest realm among them belonged to the senior disciple, who was in the early Core Formation stage.】

【The others were merely at the Qi Transformation realm, or even lower.】

【Clearly, even though Old Hag Many-Treasures had amassed considerable resources through her talent for crafting artifacts, she still couldn’t mass-produce Core Formation cultivators.】

【Core Formation depended heavily on aptitude.】

【The immortal roots of Old Hag Many-Treasures’ disciples were generally poor.】

【Judging from the situations on Fortune Star and Blazing Light Star, humans with high-grade immortal roots simply couldn’t grow up.】

【Alone, you tore Old Hag Many-Treasures’ Daoist temple to pieces.】

【The temple itself wasn’t large, but the formations arranged inside it were varied and intricate.】

【However, with your overwhelming strength and “Reverse Engineering” allowing you to see through the formations’ structures, they posed almost no obstacle to you.】

【There had originally been sixty-seven people in the temple. After the battle, only ten remained, all kneeling on the ground and clinging to life.】

【Three others had managed to escape during the chaos through the marvels of their spiritual treasures.】

【You searched the temple from top to bottom but found none of your belongings.】

【You even felt every corpse from head to toe, but still found nothing.】

【In this battle, you obtained nine spiritual treasures, eighty-nine magical artifacts, a number of Origin Stones, and various cultivation-assistance pills.】

【You also found a copy of “The Essential Art of Artifact Refining,” personally written by Old Hag Many-Treasures.】

【There were also various cultivation techniques practiced by the disciples of Many-Treasures Temple, including qi-refining arts, spells, killing moves, and more. However, you saw no divine arts.】

【The temple’s warehouse contained a large quantity of artifact-refining materials, including quite a few treasure-grade materials.】

【In addition, you discovered a large collection of books related to human culture in the Old Hag’s study.】

【There were books on literature, architecture, agriculture, and many other subjects.】

【“No wonder she managed to build a Daoist temple like this in the Material Realm, where human culture is almost impossible to find.”】

【You discovered that all of her books were “banned books.”】

【How could you tell that they were “banned books”?】

【Because every one of them bore a red stamp on its title page. The stamp contained two large characters—BANNED BOOK!】

【Beneath those two large characters was a smaller line identifying the organization that had stamped them: the Sacred Dragon Society.】

【“The Sacred Dragon Society… What is that?”】

【You had never heard of the Sacred Dragon Society before, though you had heard of the Sacred Dragon Race.】

【You had no idea whether the two were connected.】

【Looking at the ten people kneeling before you, you asked calmly,】

【“I saw some of you using divine patterns just now. Why didn’t I find any techniques or manuals related to divine patterns?”】

【Someone answered with a trembling voice,】

【“Only Senior Brother and a few direct disciples were qualified to learn divine patterns from Master. Master taught them orally. She said that we humans are forbidden from mastering divine patterns, and even after learning them, we’re not allowed to use them in public.”】

【You nodded.】

【“I have several things that your master stole from me. They look like this.”】

【You took out an illustrated book containing drawings of all the immortal artifacts Old Hag Many-Treasures had stolen from you.】

【“Have you seen them?”】

【“Y-yes, we have…”】

【“Where?”】

【“The rear mountain… the Spirit-Nurturing Pool…”】

【“The Spirit-Nurturing Pool? Take me there!”】

【The Myriad Soul Banner was surely enduring the Old Hag’s torture right now. It might even have been reduced to nothing but scattered bones!】

【My companions, don’t be afraid. Big Brother is coming to save you!】