Chapter 6: Massive Collection (Part 1)

Zhen Wuji knew better than anyone just how difficult it was for a professional to advance from the sixth-tier altar to the seventh-tier altar. There were several major hurdles in advancing as an altar-level professional, and many got stuck at these barriers.

Advancing from a virtual altar to a tangible altar was a crucial hurdle, followed by moving from the third tier to the fourth, and from the sixth tier to the seventh. The final hurdle was the one that troubled Zhen Wuji himself—advancing from the ninth-tier altar to beyond it. He had been stuck at this hurdle for a long time with no solution in sight. So when he saw Guo Shier advancing so easily, his first reaction was that it was impossible.

If advancing could be achieved just by sleeping, Zhen Wuji would probably sleep every day. He examined Guo Shier carefully. With his keen eyes, he could clearly see that Guo Shier had indeed advanced. He couldn’t help but exclaim, “It’s so frustrating when people are better than you!”

Li Ran smiled and said, “It’s normal. He had long been due to advance, but he just didn’t have the time. It must be his sacrificial spirit helping to construct the structure.” He knew that Guo Shier had obtained his soul scripture, plus the one he already had, so it wasn’t surprising that he could advance quickly. It would be unusual if he couldn’t advance. With these two scriptures, the so-called advancement hurdles for professionals no longer existed for him.

Guo Shier walked cheerfully to the flat ground in front of the Hidden Talismans House, where thick animal skins were laid out. He sat cross-legged and asked, “Where are they? Haven’t they returned yet?”

Li Ran smiled and said, “If it were you… would you return?”

Guo Shier laughed and said, “Hehe, this truly is a treasure trove. I guess they’re already unable to stop collecting. Even if they don’t need it themselves, they’ll keep collecting. The Gu Miluo family… will experience great growth.”

Zhen Wuji nodded and said, “Exactly. Such a treasure trove, filled with countless skeletons, furs, and various rare materials, can greatly enhance the strength of family members once taken back. I reckon in a while, more professionals will come. By then… hehe, I’m not being harsh, but conflicts are likely to arise.”

Guo Shier agreed wholeheartedly. With treasures everywhere, everyone might start collecting on their own when they first arrived. But once more people showed up and most of the good items were already collected, conflicts would emerge. With professionals having such formidable strength, the only solutions would be one side retreating or a fight breaking out.

Guo Shier nodded and said, “Yes, no one knows yet how precious this place is! Hehe, I also plan to collect some things here—it would be a shame not to. There won’t be another chance like this in the future. Moreover, I have a premonition that the mutated and abnormal magical beasts here will gradually decrease. I’m not sure why, but I just have that feeling.”

Li Ran remained silent for a moment before saying, “This place is extremely strange… It’s related to that black object that appeared on the mountain top. By the way, Shier, is that black object still in your altar?”

Guo Shier shook his head. “It’s now in the Soul Calming Cauldron. If it were still in the altar, I’d be extremely uneasy. That thing is really sinister; I can’t figure out what it is.”

Li Ran sighed in relief. “That’s good. If something goes wrong, you can still abandon the Soul Calming Cauldron… Hmm, the weather is clearing!” As the sky cleared, the strong wind and heavy snow seemed to vanish suddenly, leaving behind a blinding brightness from the reflected snowlight.

At that moment, Feng Miluo returned and said, “There are too many of them. We simply can’t collect them all. Ancestor, do you have any solution?”

Guo Shier laughed and said, “Don’t ask me. Go to Brother Li Ran… He must have a solution.”

Li Ran smiled and said, “You little rascal, what do you want me to do?”

Feng Miluo immediately replied, “Don’t worry. As long as we find precious materials, we’ll let the ancestors choose first. I’m afraid if we delay any longer, other professional teams will arrive.”

Li Ran and the others understood that since they had brought in the people from the Gu Miluo family, they definitely wouldn’t give up easily. For an ancient family, this was a priceless opportunity, and they had no reason to give it up lightly.

Guo Shier said, “Brother Li Ran can go back to the Gu Miluo Continent directly. Hehe, then bring more people along. Having too many might not work, but bringing a thousand or so high-level Grand Sage Masters and altar-level professionals should not be a problem, right?”

Li Ran joked, “Sigh, it sounds so easy. Why don’t you go yourself? You always send others, not even sparing your own brother.”

Guo Shier, who wanted to help the Gu Miluo family, said with a smile, “It’s not a loss. The more people there are, the larger the search area, and the more benefits we can get. And you’ll get your share too.”

Feng Miluo looked at Li Ran with great anticipation. His eagerness made Li Ran shake his head. He said, “Alright, Feng Miluo, come with me. We need to act quickly. I think other professional teams are about to arrive.”

Carrying Feng Miluo, Li Ran tore open space and returned directly to the Ancient Miluo Continent. Only he had the ability to do this; even Zhen Wuji couldn’t travel such long distances.

Guo Shier asked, “Aren’t you going to collect any?”

Zhen Wuji smiled and said, “Okay, I’ll look again. Maybe I can find some rare high-level Abnormal Talisman Beasts.” He had little interest in ordinary high-level mutated talisman beasts and abnormal talisman beasts; he was only slightly interested in those rare, exceptionally high-level ones. And there were countless mutated talisman beasts and abnormal talisman beasts accumulated over the years on Bone Mountain—there would always be something that caught his interest.

Guo Shier shut down the Hidden Talisman House and flew up using the altar. He didn’t even look at the foot of the mountain, knowing it was full of ordinary mutated talisman beasts and abnormal talisman beasts. The better ones were all above the middle of the mountain, with higher levels found at greater heights.

The handsome old man appeared again and said, “Put whatever you collect this time directly into the Soul Calming Cauldron. It has plenty of space… Oh, another advantage of using the Soul Calming Cauldron is that you don’t have to lift anything by hand!”

Guo Shier laughed upon hearing this. He knew there was a powerful soul force in the Soul Calming Cauldron that could directly lift objects. This was related to the Soul Beast inside the cauldron—he could draw on its power through it. He couldn’t even guess how strong this power was, but he knew it was extremely formidable.

Spitting out the Soul Calming Cauldron, it turned into a ball of colored light upon exiting and hovered above Guo Shier’s head. The altar flew at incredible speed to the middle of the mountain, where they saw someone busy there. Upon closer inspection, it was Yang Miluo. Judging from his excited expression, it was clear he had reaped a huge harvest.

Guo Shier asked with a smile, “Hey, how was your harvest?”

When Yang Miluo first saw Guo Shier, he was stunned and stammered, “You… you… you…”

Guo Shier was puzzled and asked, “What’s wrong with me?”

Yang Miluo exclaimed in shock, “In just a few days, you’ve advanced to the seventh level of the altar… This… this is absolutely unbelievable!” He had originally wanted to say “It’s too disheartening,” as it indeed was disheartening, especially for a professional like him.

Guo Shier smiled and said, “It’s just good luck.” In truth, if the handsome old man had had time, he could have even advanced to the eighth level of the altar, as his soul was already strong enough. It had nothing to do with luck, but he could only say that to avoid giving off an arrogant impression.

Yang Miluo gave a bitter smile. Guo Shier quickly changed the subject and asked, “The harvest must be good, right? What good things did you find?”
“This place… it’s beyond imagination. There are so many treasures. I don’t know why, but there are so many corpses of advanced mutated beasts and abnormal talisman beasts here. I… can’t figure out why they all died here.”
Yang Miluo looked puzzled and added, “This place is too large, with too many corpses. I’ve been cleaning up for days, working hard to collect things, and I’ve gained quite a bit. But… there are still more corpses underground…”
Guo Shier smiled and said, “It’s okay. A large number of people from our family will arrive soon. Although it’s impossible to collect everything, more people mean more strength, so we can gather more materials.”
Yang Miluo was surprised and said, “What? You can bring people from the family here? Oh… I see. It must be Senior Li Ran.” He suddenly realized that only Li Ran had the ability to return directly to the Ancient Miluo Continent and bring people here.
Guo Shier nodded and said, “Mm, he should be back in a few days. Try to collect as much as you can. I’m going upstairs.”
With corpses everywhere, just a few people couldn’t collect much. They were all looking for more valuable things and couldn’t bother with the rest. If they had enough time, many things would be worth collecting.
Guo Shier flew upward on the altar, while Yang Miluo got back to work, peeling the skin of a dragon-type abnormal talisman beast.
They soon reached the mountainside, covered in ice and snow. Guo Shier glanced down, carefully avoiding areas where people were, before activating the Soul-Stabilizing Cauldron. A colorful light emerged, and in an instant, a loud rumbling sound came as a large amount of snow slid down the mountain, forming an avalanche that roared its way down, revealing countless corpses of mutated talisman beasts on the slope.
Due to the freezing ice and snow, the bodies of the dead mutated talisman beasts hadn’t rotted or been damaged. Apart from their souls dissipating and some of their blood being lost, most of their valuable parts remained intact.
The handsome old man said, “Kid, collect more flesh and blood. You can give it to the soul beasts to eat. Their strength will increase a bit, making it easier for their bodies to solidify.”
Guo Shier nodded and said, “I’ll put the corpses of the mutated talisman beasts in the altar. You take care of them. Throw away anything unnecessary and put it in the Soul-Stabilizing Cauldron for the soul beasts to eat.”
The handsome old man said, “You also planted the Soul-Nurturing Tree. It needs the flesh and blood of mutated talisman beasts too. Eating it will help it grow. Don’t forget that.”
Guo Shier said, “You take care of that. I’ll try to find some corpses of advanced mutated talisman beasts.”

The Soul Calming Cauldron was indeed incredibly powerful. Guo Shier didn’t even need to get his hands dirty—he simply used the Cauldron to sweep up large amounts of corpses and throw them directly into the altar. In moments, a significant portion of the hillside was gone. It was the old man who was truly busy; aside from splitting up the corpses of the mutated beasts, he also had to throw away the excess into the Soul Calming Cauldron.

After collecting the thousand-meter-long mutated beasts, their skins needed to be processed. Once processed, these skins and leathers would shrink to less than a hundred meters in length, with the useful parts being at most about ten meters square. The old man carefully stored all of these. Not all bones were useful either, and those that could be used were initially refined.

Some essence could be extracted from the blood, while as for the internal organs, some were useful and some weren’t—each had to be carefully sorted and collected by the old man, making his work extremely arduous. Fortunately, being a soul entity, he could resolve many things with just a thought; otherwise, he might really have died from exhaustion.

Guo Shier walked around the hillside, collecting everything along the way while constantly discarding unwanted waste. His initial excitement had gradually given way to numbness. There were treasures everywhere—any mutated beast collected was a rare high-grade variant. In the past, not to mention hunting them, even seeing them would have made one flee far away, but here they were all just corpses.

Guo Shier worked for three days, not knowing exactly how many beast corpses he had collected. Wherever he passed, countless large pits were left behind.

By then, Li Ran had returned with a large group of professionals—over a thousand in total. Most of them were low-level altar professionals, while the rest were high-level Grand Sage Masters, all carrying large bags for storing talismans.

The high-level Grand Sage Masters felt extremely uncomfortable here. The place was not only bitterly cold but also made people restless due to the aura left after slaughter. Altar-level professionals could ignore it, but Grand Sage Masters found it unbearable, so they were assigned to collect items at the foot of the mountain.

At the top of the Bone Mountain, it was the patriarch-level professionals who were collecting, while those below the middle of the mountain were the ordinary altar professionals.

This time, the Gu Mi Luo family launched a full mobilization, deploying a large number of people. Feng Mi Luo decided to stay here for only ten days before sending everyone back. The place was too dangerous, and he didn’t dare risk the family’s reserve forces here.