Chapter 5: Robbery (Part 2)

The handsome old man said crisply, “Alright, leave it to me.”
When the man landed on top of the altar, there was a clattering sound—as all his belongings fell onto the altar and were collected by the handsome old man. At the same time, a virtual talisman chain reached in and pulled out the man’s life talisman book. In an instant, the man fell into a coma. The handsome old man sneered and said, “Heh heh, as expected. This guy’s life talisman book… He has almost no weapons; everything is made up of spirit-hiding talismans to create a huge storage space. Kid, you’re a lucky guy!”
Then, the handsome old man threw the man away. A ball of talisman fire shot out and burned the man to ashes.
Guo Shier asked, “What happened?”
The handsome old man replied, “I don’t know if this guy was sent to steal materials from the warehouse or if he stole them on his own. But… that doesn’t matter. What matters is that I’ve taken everything. Haha, kid, go to the warehouse quickly—good things need to be seized.”
Luo Zhan sighed and said, “What good luck. Heh, Shier, let’s go in.”
Guo Shier had no idea what good things the handsome old man had obtained, but he guessed it must be a huge profit, judging from the old man’s joyful expression. He tapped the altar, which rapidly shrank until it was the size of a palm. It flew above his head and rotated slowly, with only the old man’s head visible. Since they would need to rely on his eyesight inside, Guo Shier didn’t fully retract the altar.
The two entered the small building and found a large staircase leading underground. Guo Shier said, “Uncle Luo, let’s hurry.” He flew down, with Luo Zhan closely following. Along the stairs, they found several corpses, but they paid no attention and continued descending quickly.
After a while, they saw a huge underground hall in disarray, with various debris scattered across the floor, including some materials. Guo Shier didn’t see Ancestor Nan Qiang or the others. The hall had four large passages, each marked with runes above them.
The handsome old man said, “The passage on the left!”
Guo Shier looked up and saw the runes “Warehouse” above the passage. He nodded and said, “Let’s go!” The two quickly entered the passage.
It was a massive warehouse, unknown how it had been built. There were piles of raw ore on the ground—each pile was as high as a mountain. Looking from one end of the warehouse to the other, one couldn’t see the end. Guo Shier estimated there were at least a thousand piles of raw ore. Still, they didn’t see Ancestor Nan Qiang or the others here.

The handsome old man said, “This is unrefined ore. Although it can be collected, it’s too troublesome. Let’s go further in.” Guo Shier and Luo Zhan flew forward without hesitation. In just a few breaths, they saw the passage at the bottom and rushed in immediately. It was another huge warehouse. Guo Shier couldn’t help but exclaim, “Damn it! Has the Gujin family dug out the entire underground space?” After passing through six large warehouses filled with unrefined ore, and finally entering the seventh, Guo Shier and Luo Zhan realized that the items here were different from those they had seen before. These were products of initial refining, with various metals shining brightly. Each piece of metal was as big as an ancient city brick from his past life, neatly stacked. The handsome old man said, “These are metals after initial refining. Further in, there should be refined ones… We need the refined ones. If there aren’t any, we’ll come back to collect these.” There was enough initially refined metal to fill three large warehouses. Guo Shier and Luo Zhan flew quickly and soon arrived at another large warehouse filled with refined metals. About one-tenth of the refined metals in one warehouse had already been taken, and Guo Shier knew that those had been collected by Ancestor Nanqiang and the others. The handsome old man cheered, “Great stuff, great stuff!” Without waiting for Guo Shier’s instructions, he flew the altar above the pile of refined metals and started collecting quickly. Guo Shier said, “Uncle Luo, collect some too!” Although Luo Zhan also had a storage space for talismans, it wasn’t very large. He said with a wry smile, “I can’t collect much… Sigh, what a pity.” Guo Shier laughed and said, “Don’t you have many talisman bags? Collect as much as you can. This kind of opportunity doesn’t come often.” Luo Zhan nodded. “Okay!” Since his materials were provided by Guo Shier, he wasn’t as interested in collecting as Guo Shier was. But since this was such a rare opportunity, he also wanted to make an effort to collect as much as possible. With the handsome old man helping to collect, Guo Shier, like Luo Zhan, used his talisman bags to store the metals. Since it was free, why not collect as much as possible? After working for a while, each of them had collected more than a dozen bags of refined metals, and the handsome old man also returned on the altar. “Kid, that’s enough. I’ve collected each type. Let’s go further in.” Guo Shier and Luo Zhan flew toward another passage. There were only two warehouses filled with refined metals. When they arrived at the last warehouse, they finally saw Ancestor Nanqiang and the others, who were also busy collecting. Without saying much, the handsome old man flew the altar and started collecting.

The Ancestor of Nanqiang looked up and was stunned. Guo Shier’s altar was extremely bizarre—countless tentacles extended from it, sweeping everything in their path clean, not even allowing an ant to survive. Not only was the collection speed fast, but it was also tricky, as it sought out specific piles of metal, with one pile after another disappearing rapidly.

After watching for a while, the Ancestor of Nanqiang finally regained his composure and said, “Hurry up, everyone! Otherwise, Guo the Ancestor will take it all!”

Guo Shier flew over and said, “Ancestor, you arrived first… You’ve already collected way more than me!” He deliberately spoke to the Ancestor of Nanqiang because his altar was controlled by the handsome old man, so he didn’t need to exert any effort to operate it. But the Ancestor of Nanqiang had to do it himself. Despite being an expert with a fifth-tier altar, he didn’t have a powerful spirit guardian.

After exchanging a few words, the Ancestor of Nanqiang realized something was wrong. Annoyed, he said, “Sigh, I fell for your trick!” He ignored Guo Shier and rushed back to the piles of metal to continue collecting refined metal. He knew that once the family took over in a few days, even as the Ancestor, he wouldn’t be able to collect as he pleased.

Luo Zhan followed behind, laughing heartily. Guo Shier was indeed cunning. There wasn’t just one type of refined metal in the warehouse—some were precious, while others were ordinary. It all depended on each person’s judgment and collection speed. This delay meant the Ancestor of Nanqiang missed out on a lot.

Guo Shier didn’t handle things personally but flew along the edges of the warehouse to scout around.

There were many small doors nearby. After a quick inspection, Guo Shier found that most of the rooms were for resting, either dining halls or sleeping quarters, or workspaces. Soon, he spotted another small black door. He landed, pushed it, only to find it locked.

With a flick of his finger, he conjured a virtual talisman. With a soft “bang,” the door opened. Guo Shier stepped in, followed by Luo Zhan.

The room wasn’t large, with lighting talismans on the walls. Rows of wooden shelves held hundreds of talisman bags. A glimmer of excitement flashed in Guo Shier’s eyes as he picked up one of the bags and took a quick look—then he was overjoyed. It was colored gold, a full thousand pieces! Without hesitation, he began to loot, gathering nearly two hundred talisman bags in no time.

Luo Zhan smiled slightly and said softly, “We’ve made a profit now.”

Guo Shier nodded and said, “Let’s look again.” With that, he rushed out of the room and flew swiftly along the walls. A few minutes later, he spotted another small black door and rushed in immediately. Unfortunately, this time there was no luck—although there were wooden shelves, they were empty, and the talisman bags had already been taken away.

A total of seven small black doors were found. Two rooms contained talisman bags, while the other five were empty, likely taken by the Gujin family members.

The old man in charge returned with the altar and said, “It’s a pity we can’t take everything.” Both the old man and Guo Shier understood this—after all, these were the spoils of the Gunan family. If they took everything, it would look too shameful. Moreover, the space for storing talismans was limited, so after collecting some, the old man stopped further collection.

After retrieving the altar, Guo Shier placed all the collected talisman bags inside its internal space, much to the old man’s surprise. There were many precious metallic materials inside, all refined and ready for use.

For a professional, material collection was the most important task. Most experts at the altar level spent most of their time gathering various materials and searching for different soul entities. This way, when it came time to advance, they would have enough materials to construct altars and refine sacred treasures. However, collecting materials alone was extremely difficult.

If a family provided support, material collection would be much easier. So, although many altar-level experts liked to wander around, once they found a suitable family, they would serve as guests for a while, with the goal of collecting materials.

The Ancestor of Nanqiang said, “Alright, let’s move to another place. The family’s experts should have entered the city by now. Hehe, we’ve had a good harvest. Let’s go.” The group flew out joyfully following the Ancestor of Nanqiang.

After a short while, they arrived outside the Xiaobai Building. By then, a large group of Gunan family disciples had already arrived. Nanyou gave a few instructions, and immediately some disciples started guarding the Xiaobai Building.

If such an important place wasn’t protected, its contents would be stolen within a day, no matter how large the stockpile. There were many warehouses in this city, as most of the raw ore from the Chijin ore veins was transported here for purification before being sent elsewhere. The output from the Chijin ore veins was very large, making it one of the most important ore veins for the Gujin family. It had been developed for nearly a thousand years and was a highly mature mining area.

After checking several warehouses in a row, Guo Shier found that most of the high-quality items had already been taken by those who arrived first. They could only choose ordinary refined ores. Even so, it still made the old man smile broadly—the space of his altar was almost filled. After all, the core of his altar was the Ancient Ink Lotus. Just the space occupied by the Ancient Ink Lotus was several times larger than that of ordinary altar masters. Add to that the space of the altar itself, and such a huge area was still not enough.

The old man said, “I need some time to purify the materials so that I can free up space. Sigh, it’s fortunate we have the Jiebaina Beads; otherwise, I really wouldn’t know how to purify them. There’s just too much of it.” Receiving so many metal ores at once was also a hassle, as it required a lot of time for purification.

Guo Shier laughed and said, “It’s better to have materials to refine than none at all.”

Nan Qiang, the ancestral master, said, “We’ve collected most of them. Let’s head to their headquarters, hehe.” He clearly was in a good mood, and everyone agreed. Everyone had reaped good gains this time, which satisfied them greatly. They followed Nan Qiang, the ancestral master, to the headquarters of the Ancient Jin family in the city.

Soon, all the altar masters above the rank of grand elder gathered at the headquarters. It was now filled entirely with professionals from the Gu Nan family, while the disciples of the Ancient Jin family had long since fled without a trace.

Guo Shier saw an elder-level Grand Sage and asked, “How many disciples of the Ancient Jin family have we captured?”

That Grand Sage glanced at Guo Shier and swept his eyes over the identity token on his belt. His expression immediately changed, and he said respectfully, “Ancestral master, let me go ask.” He didn’t dare admit he didn’t know.

Another Grand Sage nearby said, “I know. There’s only a rough estimate for now; we haven’t finished counting yet.”