The Desolate Era (Web Novel)

“Judging from the look on young master Youngflame’s face, he must be about to go crazy from grief.” Mu Northson’s mental voice had a hint of schadenfreude to it. This exalted young master had taken one one powerful treasure after another. How could Ji Ning, Northson, Xue Hongyi, and the others not feel powerless before them?

They all understood that they were nothing more than geniuses of Stillwater Commandery…while the man before them was very likely going to be the next Godplume Duke! Someone who was even more exalted than the Marquis of Stillwater!

Even though he was just the heir to the position, the treasures he possessed were enough to cause Ning and the others to constantly sigh in amazement.

“The monsters of this Immortal estate…I won’t spare any of them.” Youngflame Nong ground his teeth. To charge into this fourth palace, he had to use up his Heaven-ranked construct-warship, a Wildcore, and his ‘Lock’ scroll; psychologically, he had been completely unprepared to have to use up all three treasures. And this was just the fourth palace; by now the Seawave Dao-soldiers and the Yaksha Dao-soldiers had surely assembled outside the fifth and final palace. The cost for them to enter that fifth palace would definitely be incomparably astonishing. Just thinking about it made young master Youngflame feel miserable.

“I am definitely going to enslave them all, then sell them offer to various tribes. Their descendants will forever be slaves,” Youngflame Nong said with a hate-filled voice.

“Young master Youngflame.” Xue Hongyi spoke out softly.

“Yes?” Young master Youngflame looked at him. “What is it?”

Xue Hongyi immediately smiled and said, “Young master, are you worrying about entering the fifth palace? As I see it, actually, there’s no need to fight head-on against them. These monsters just want to leave this Immortal estate world, right? Young master, you can promise to let them leave. I imagine that these monsters would be willing to accept. Each of you can set an oath to the Dao of the Heavens, which they wouldn’t dare violate. In this way, young master, you would be able to enter the fifth palace without using up any treasures. What do you think, young master?”

Xue Hongyi thought that his idea was a good one.

Young master Youngflame gave him a cold glance. Between grinding teeth, he spoke out two words: “You imbecile!”

“Young…” Xue Hongyi’s face instantly turned red.

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 as 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 in 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 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?”

Swoosh1 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.”

Ning had no time to waste. He began to frantically start collecting books. Actually, as soon as he entered the room and saw the books and bookshelves, Ning felt quite certain that they should all be complete versions. This was because generally speaking, complete versions of techniques would span up to ten full volumes. Abridged versions, in turn, might take up just a thin book.

“…and this. And this!” Ning was frantically collecting books.

A short while later, the entire room was completely empty. The final person to arrive, young master Youngflame, was only able to collect a few books.

“These are all full versions.” Ning and the others began to look through the books they had acquired.

“Eh? Just Earth-ranked techniques?”

“This one is Mortal-ranked?”

“These ‘secret arts’ are too ordinary.” Ning and the others began to frown as they looked. They were all geniuses, and in the Black-White College, they chose from Immortal-ranked Ki Refining techniques. However, the books they had found here were all Mortal-ranked and Earth-ranked techniques and secret arts. Although the books were extremely numerous, there wasn’t even a single Heaven-ranked technique.

“My Youngflame clan has plenty of this sort of crap. There isn’t even a single useful book here.” Youngflame Nong furrowed his brows, shaking his head.

Ning, however, just laughed. Right. These books were useless to him, but they would be very useful to the Ji clan. The Ji clan had far, far too few techniques and secret arts, and those they had, he had purchased from the Heavenly Treasures Mountain. But how many could he possibly buy, on his own? To accumulate a large number of secret arts and techniques, generally speaking, the only way was annihilate another large clan and seize their books.

“More than a million techniques and secret arts. Although they aren’t that good, they are enough for Xiantian lifeforms and Zifu Disciples to use,” Ning mused to himself. “In the future, after I find some top-tier Ki Refining techniques, my Ji clan will be able to set up a Dao Repository of its own to pass down to later generations.”

Dao Repositories were the heart of any tribe, sect, or school. Each generation relied on their Dao Repositories to grow strong.

“Immortal Witchriver was a Celestial Immortal; he definitely must have more powerful techniques and divine abilities. But where are they?” Youngflame Nong frowned.

“The most powerful techniques and divine abilities must be stored in extremely well-hidden places. They might not even be in this Dao Repository Palace.”

Ning and the others just pondered briefly, and then…swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh! They all scattered in different directions, searching for treasures. Although this Dao Repository Vault didn’t necessarily have any top-tier techniques, secret arts, or divine abilities, perhaps it did!

Swoosh.

Youngflame Nong once more returned to that earlier room. He sat down in the lotus position in front of the stone book, beginning to once more bind the core of this Dao Repository Palace.

“Once I bind it, I’ll be in complete control of this entire Dao Repository Palace. No matter how well-hidden a room is, I’ll know about it,” Youngflame Nong mused to himself. “I need roughly two hours to bind it. Given how well-hidden the top-tier secret arts and divine abilities must be, they might not be able to find them within two hours.”