Tian Zhu stood with his hands behind his back, gazing at the horizon through the glass windows.
A gentle breeze passed, and a person appeared behind him.
"Tian Zhu, I'm here." Along with Bao Wuji's figure ca his voice.
There was no excessive respect in his tone, unlike the other elders who usually addressed the sect leader. He even called him directly by na, which, in this world, was considered speaking from a position of superiority.
People on the sa level or lower would normally address him as Sect Leader Tian.
However, it depended on who was speaking. As an ancestor, Bao Wuji calling him by na wasn't considered disrespectful.
Despite being the sect leader, Tian Zhu was still a junior before Ancestor Bao, both in cultivation and in position. Ancestors were figures taken very seriously in this world.
Tian Zhu turned and looked at him calmly before nodding.
"Ancestor Bao," He said indifferently.
Bao Wuji then turned his gaze toward a long table in the corner, where various items were laid out.
"Is this for ?" He asked, glancing back at Tian Zhu.
The sect leader rely nodded calmly.
Bao Wuji walked over to the table and saw several small piles of items. In the first pile were two low-grade spirit stones.
He raised his hand, placed it over them, closed his eyes, and tried to guide his position skill—equivalent exchange.
Aotian didn't know exactly what the abilities did or how they worked when they first appeared. He could only experint with their uses on his own, guided by assumptions.
After a short mont, Bao Wuji opened his eyes, looked at the stones that remained unchanged, and shook his head.
"I thought about exchanging them for a mid-grade stone, but with the price of just two low-grade ones, it's not an equivalent exchange," He said, looking at the leader.
Tian Zhu nodded indifferently, as if he had already expected that.
Bao Wuji then went to the second pile.
There were ten low-grade stones. This ti, when the ancestor tried, a five-colored light flashed in his hand. When he withdrew it, the ten stones had vanished, leaving behind a single mid-grade spirit stone in the middle of nine small piles of stone dust.
Aotian's eyes sparkled upon seeing that, and his excitent grew imnsely.
'Just as I thought. It's widely known that a mid-grade stone holds about ten tis the energy of a low-grade one. Its value being a hundred tis higher is due to its energy purity. So, despite being worth a hundred stones, equivalent exchange doesn't work based on monetary value but on real energy value!'
After pondering this, he continued the tests more intensely. That ability could be far more terrifying than he imagined.
Without wasting ti, Bao Wuji moved to the third pile, which held about a hundred spirit stones. He placed his hand over them.
Once again, with the colorful glow, the hundreds of stones turned to dust, leaving behind only ten mid-grade stones resting calmly in the middle.
Waving his hand and dispersing the dust with his spiritual energy, Bao Wuji placed his hand again over the ten stones, his eyes glowing, and activated his ability.
In their place appeared a high-grade stone, twice the size of a mid-grade one, with dazzling purity, glowing in a deep blue.
'Incredible! This is the first high-grade spirit stone I've ever seen! And even more amazing is the ability. I thought it was limited and unable to perform simultaneous syntheses. This is amazing!' Aotian thought, euphoric.
Next, Bao Wuji took the storage pouch at his waist — which had belonged to Bao Hui — poured out ninety mid-grade stones, and used his ability, obtaining nine high-grade stones. With the one he had synthesized before, he now had ten high-grade stones.
He tried again, but this ti he failed, which made him frown.
'Seems like it's not enough...' Aotian thought.
By spending nine hundred more mid-grade spirit stones, he synthesized ninety high-grade ones, which, when added to the ten he already had, brought the total to one hundred.
This ti he tried again to synthesize the high-grade stones, and it worked.
From them, a stone erged the sa size as a high-grade one but radiating an extrely pure and powerful energy, sitting amidst the dust.
'I've never heard of such a spirit stone, but I imagine it must be a perfect-grade stone.'
Bao Wuji held the stone with a bright glow in his eyes and analyzed it.
'This stone has a hundred tis the energy of a high-grade one, and its purity is unmatched. There isn't even a trace of impurity or of the five elents within it. It's useless for cultivation, but it can power a formation for a long ti. Even Bao Wuji, a Nascent Soul cultivator, could quickly recover his energy if he ditated and absorbed this stone.'
Greed and curiosity grew in Aotian's eyes as he thought.
But above his greedy thoughts ca reason.
'Anything beyond the perfect-grade spirit stone is probably out of my reach for now. I imagine that even with a thousand perfect-grade stones, it wouldn't be possible to synthesize sothing superior. And to synthesize a thousand perfect-grade stones, I'd need a million high-grade ones… which I don't have. Even the fortune from the Shi family I obtained is valued at only 260,000 high-grade spirit stones.'
Aotian reflected and abandoned his insane, greedy thoughts, realizing he couldn't sustain such desires.
Changing the focus of the tests, he began trying to perform equivalent exchange with a new intention.
From his tests, if he changed the intent of what he wanted to obtain, the result would be different.
Bao Wuji gathered five hundred low-grade spirit stones, and with a different intention, he managed to create five elental low-grade stones, one of each elent.
But when he tried to do the sa with mid-grade stones, he needed one thousand mid-grade stones to form five mid-grade elental stones.
And by combining ten low-grade elental stones of the sa elent, he could get one mid-grade elental stone.
The conclusion was clear: only five thousand low-grade stones were needed to form five mid-grade elental stones, whereas using mid-grade stones directly required one thousand — the energy equivalent of ten thousand low-grade stones — a considerable energy waste.
Therefore, there was a 50% resource saving when using low-grade stones to create elental stones, as due to being more impure, they contained more elental energy.
Aotian didn't attempt it with high-grade stones, as it would be a waste. He knew that the amount of elental energy in them was negligible, and with perfect-grade stones, it wouldn't even be possible, since they contained no elents or impurities.
The elental stones were a very welco surprise for Aotian, as with them, even breaking through cultivation realms — or even major realms — was possible, even without the aid of a spiritual vein.
They possessed a high concentration and purity of their respective elents, which made them excellent for nourishing spiritual roots.
It was a sha they were an extrely rare and scarce resource in the cultivation world.
But with Elder Bao Wuji, everything changed for the Infinite Dao Sect. They were no longer limited to spiritual veins, as long as they had enough spiritual stones.
Other tests involved equivalent exchanges with other materials. From those, it beca clear that, as long as compatible energy was supplied — in sufficient quantity and quality — any material could evolve.
This news made Aotian's body tremble, once again drawing a strange look from Rihai.
'Now I just need to know if there's a limit to the level of what he can synthesize… there must be. But since Bao Wuji is a Nascent Soul cultivator, that won't be a problem for now. This ability is truly unexpected, but amazing!'
He analyzed excitedly, and there were still two more abilities to test.
[Na: Bao Wuji (aning: Treasure Without Limits)
Position: Sect Ancestor (Treasure Pavilion)
Cultivation: 7th level of the Nascent Soul (3 Major Realms Above Host)
Position Skill: Equivalent Exchange
Affiliation Skill: Storage Space
Position Bonus: Treasure Radar (4 tis per day)]
Bao Wuji then tested his Storage Space ability and discovered that items disappeared upon using the ability, and only he could access this special space.
'The internal space of the affiliation skill seems very large… probably because he's a Nascent Soul cultivator, and it'll grow even more with realm advancent. Although there are more interesting and necessary abilities, it's still useful, since I don't even have storage rings right now,' Aotian pondered.
And finally, it was ti for the main course.
Bao Wuji closed his eyes and focused. Then, with a long pulse of his terrifying energy, mysterious and complex patterns ford and shot out, entering directly into his mind.
Bao Wuji's eyes widened as the massive amount of information invaded his mind, and he quickly deactivated the ability before his mind exploded.
Gu Jian, the external elder at the Peak of Qi Refinent, could find treasures of the sa level from a distance of 9 miles (14 km), and Bao Wuji was a thousand tis more terrifying… no, even more than that.
Although he hadn't found any, Aotian estimated that with his current seventh level of Nascent Soul, he could detect treasures of the sa level up to 7,000 miles (~11,000 km) away. If the treasures were of a lower realm, such as the Golden Core level, the detection range would increase tenfold — and for each realm below that, it would continue expanding by the sa magnitude.
Thus, he was seeing Qi Refinent-level treasures within a radius of 7 million miles (~11 million km) from his position. That distance was simply too frightening for his mind to process so many low-level treasures.
Such a range almost gave Aotian a heart attack. One must rember that the Earth's diater in his previous life was just under 8 thousand miles (12,800 km). Therefore, Bao Wuji could detect Nascent Soul-level items across nearly a third of the planet, and if he were at its core, almost the entire Earth — including underground.
And when it ca to the terrifying range for Qi Refinent treasures, even if you placed the Sun side by side seven tis, it would still fit within the range of Bao Wuji's gaze if he were at the center.
Even if he could only see dots of different colors representing different treasures — which he would still have to study to understand what they were — there were simply too many dots and too broad a range for his mind, even as a Nascent Soul cultivator, to process.
But, based on Gu Jian's abilities, the external elder, he already knew what so of the dots represented and was familiar with everything around the sect. However, with Bao Wuji's ability, he saw a color within the sect that he hadn't seen before: a deep blue hue.
He turned his gaze to Tian Zhu and realized the color was on him. And around the mountain, there were a total of 191 other light points of the sa color.
Bao Wuji used his spiritual sense and discovered that each point of light represented a mber of his sect.
'Makes sense! Bao Wuji, as an ancestor, has a much stronger bond with each mber of the sect than an external elder like Gu Jian. That's why he can see the sect's disciples and mbers — they are also the treasures of an ancestor, while to Gu Jian they are not… wait!'
While Aotian was reflecting, sothing clicked in his mind.
'I, as the system's owner, am also technically a mber of the sect, right? Besides, I'm at Qi Refinent, so the search will be at the greatest possible range for now. So… can I find myself?' With that thought, Aotian's eyes narrowed, heart beating anxiously.
Using Bao Wuji's ability again — but this ti limiting the search only to the type of treasure referring to sect mbers — he activated the ability at full power.
In Bao Wuji's mind, lights quickly lit up around him, once again registering the positions of the 192 lights, and the range continued expanding, and expanding, and expanding.
Aotian's eyes widened at the sheer distance and still found no other point.
'Could it be I don't count as a sect mber?' He frowned.
But just as the ability was about to end, a final point lit up on the edge of his perception.
Aotian was stunned — and bitter.
'You've got to be kidding …'
He was only a small distance away — the equivalent of three and a half suns.
'Shit, damn these gigantic cultivation worlds…'
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