Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

There were mountains of treasure, stretching on seemingly without end. One could only imagine how much treasure a single Godmyth could accumulate after a few hundred million years, much less the powerful entities in the Joyflower Palace. Of course, ordinary Godmyths’ longevity was too limited to live for hundreds of millions of years.

Even Grand Emperors who lived for hundreds of millions of years would begin to run low on life force. Only people with power indexes in the dozens, hundreds, or thousands could live for tens of billions of years. Those who were not gods could not be truly deathless.

The cycle of life and death was a natural thing in the universe, and could not be undone. For those cultivators who could not become deathless, the inevitable result was to die. The most beautiful women would turn into bleached bones and the mightiest heroes would turn into dust.

‘So many powerful treasures,’ Yang Qi marveled as he looked around. ‘If I really took all of this, I could strengthen the Dao Defense League by millions upon millions of times over. It would probably become one of the top organizations on the Ancient Road to the Gods, instead of the third-rate force it's been up to now.’ Despite how enticing all of the treasures were, there were warding magics everywhere, so Yang Qi knew that he couldn’t do anything rash. If he did the wrong thing, it would provoke a destructive avalanche of a response. Obviously, he needed to avoid attracting the attention of the Joyflower Palace.

At one point, he caught sight of an enormous crystal bottle filled with crackling, blood-colored lightning. ‘That’s firmament-blood lightning-origin! They actually have firmament-blood lightning-origin?’

Opening that bottle would cause an entire kingdom of blood and lightning to spread out. It would provide a boost of power to any Grand Emperor, drawing out the immense potential within them.

For example, after acquiring firmament-blood lightning-origin, his immortal-slaying clone had risen from a power index of two to above twenty. And right now, Yang Qi was looking at an entire bottle of the stuff. It begged the question of why the Joyflower Palace wasn’t actually using it. The only thing Yang Qi could think of was that they were saving it to bequeath as a reward to someone who performed an amazing service. Most organizations would store treasures for such reasons.

‘I have to get that bottle,’ Yang Qi thought.

He was already as entranced as a mouse that had been dropped into a granary. That said, he managed to keep a clear head. Right now, none of the treasures present were as important as King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallion. If he acquired it, he would be able to power the Myriad Worlds Monarch Chart to an even higher level. Then perhaps he could clear out the rest of the storehouse.

Before long, the old women had led the two flower goddesses to a certain bookshelf which was protected with powerful sealing marks. It was impossible to see what other things lay beyond the flickering lights, but they were clearly very important.

“This is the Paramount Repository,” one of the old women said, “which contains a collection of treasures left behind by Paramount Gods. In other words, it contains items from the seventy-two monarchs. Unfortunately, we don’t have any of King Heaven-Devourer’s talismans, although we do have some scripture books written by him. There are also halls from the Mourn-Parting Heaven-Palace, King Life-Killer’s swords, pieces of King Wilds-Horn’s armor, and other objects we've come across on the Ancient Road to the Gods. With the addition of this legacy medallion from King Immortal-Slayer, our collection will grow even more complete.”

Another of the old women produced a magic of unsealing and sent it toward the bookshelf, causing an opening to appear on one of the shelves. King Immortal-Slayer's legacy medallion was placed inside, then the opening was sealed tight.

“We must go now,” another old woman said. “Neither we guards nor you flower goddesses are permitted to stay in here for too long, or to come in very often. We’ll make a record of the newly deposited treasure.”

“Of course,” replied Jade Nightqueen. “The rules are strict for a reason, and we have no desire to break them.”

Although both flower goddesses itched to acquire some of the treasures they saw around them, neither of them dared to take them without the blessing of the empress.

With that, the group of women turned and left.

The door slammed shut, and oppressive power weighed down on the entire storehouse. Everything went completely and utterly silent.

Not a single person could be seen.

Of course, Yang Qi had remained behind when the others left. After some time passed, vital energy fluctuations could be seen as his parasitic powers finally reached the point where he could step out into the open.

‘The abilities of the Cruiser of Civilization are incredible,’ he thought. ‘I'm like a parasite here in this treasure storehouse. As long as I don’t cause too much of a stir, the warding magics won’t notice me at all.’

At the moment, the vital energy around him was completely still, but as soon as he moved, numerous spell formations activated and scanned him. However, the scanning powers would pass right through him, as though he were part of the vital energy in the area.

Normally speaking, any living being that entered the treasure storehouse would be scanned. In fact, even the tiniest mote of dust would receive the same treatment. Thankfully, Yang Qi had a profound cultivation base and the Cruiser of Civilization, ensuring his ultimate safety.

After assessing the situation, he looked over at the tightly sealed Paramount Repository and his heart immediately started pounding. After all, that rack was filled with all sorts of treasures from the seventy-two monarchs.

King Immortal-Slayer. King Heaven-Devourer. King Mourn-Parting. King Life-Killer. King Wilds-Horn. King Hell-Freezer. They and the rest of the seventy-two monarchs all had signature magical treasures, and to date Yang Qi had only fully collected those belonging to King Heaven-Devourer. As for the other treasures, he essentially had no idea where to look for them. For all he knew, they could be in the god world, on the Ancient Road to the Gods, in the Primeval Age, or even in the future world.

To find them all by manually searching would take an inordinate amount of time.

At the moment, his total collection included only about ten, or perhaps twenty percent of the items, giving him only a very partial understanding of the various consummate energy arts of the seventy-two monarchs. Even that was still enough to make him incredibly powerful.

Obviously, acquiring a complete collection of any one of the seventy-two monarchs’ magical treasures would lead to an incredible boost in his energy arts. Complete collections of such magical treasures could rival the God Legion Seal, to the point where they were part of Yang Qi’s strategy to acquire the God Legion Seal that was in the hands of the future world.

He almost couldn't wait to see how much stronger he would grow with the addition of the treasures in the Paramount Repository.

After examining the sealing magics on the Paramount Repository, he exhaled, sending out a stream of energy that encompassed the bookshelf like a spring rain. Dazzling light shone out as he very carefully sent his energy into one of the seals protecting it. Then a faint cracking sound could be heard as the sealing magic unraveled a moment later.

He immediately breathed a sigh of relief. The vital energy he had just expended actually surpassed what he would normally be drained of in a life-or-death battle. The first shelf he had unlocked was not the one containing one of King Immortal-Slayer’s medallions; he wanted to get familiar with the process before attempting to acquire that one.

He had started with the one containing King Heaven-Devourer’s items.

Reaching out carefully, he took a scripture book and what appeared to be a handful of bone pellets.

The pellets emanated a powerful aura that corresponded perfectly with King Heaven-Devourer’s energy. Instantly, Yang Qi thought, ‘Are these actual bones belonging to King Heaven-Devourer?’

The scripture book was bound in snakeskin, and the text was written in god script. According to what the old women had said, the book was penned by King Heaven-Devourer himself, although they hadn’t mentioned anything about the contents.

The title was “Heaven-Devouring Truths”, and upon flipping through the book, Yang Qi found that it contained various insights into cultivation and enlightenment.

‘Awesome!’ he thought. Although he had succeeded in cultivating King Heaven-Devourer’s true energy and energy arts, they contained many profundities that he had not gained enlightenment of yet. With this book of scriptures, he would definitely be able to dispel some of his confusion.

His primal-chaos elder-snake instantly grew even more realistic, detailed, and lifelike, and his Heaven-Devouring True Energy became more refined and effective.

Although his power index didn’t increase, his will convergence increased until it thrummed with the fluctuations of the middle of the Destabilizing level.

With his will convergence having increased, Yang Qi was even more certain that he could move about undetected.