Chapter 246: Golden Core Prisoner

The black-haired old man continued to flee. Su Che once again unleashed his Soul Capturing Technique. He had thought that, given his severe injuries, his ability to concentrate his spiritual essence would be greatly reduced, making the Soul Capturing Technique sufficiently effective.
Yet, in reality, the old man only staggered slightly before continuing his flight, seemingly ignoring the impact of the technique.
“Good!”
Su Che was not surprised but rather pleased. “This means he must possess some kind of soul-suppressing artifact.”
Artifacts with soul-suppressing effects couldn’t be of low grade. Capturing him should yield a valuable prize.
Just as he prepared to use his Demon Prisoning Technique again to stop him, he saw the old man pull out a spirit talisman and activate it instantly. Boom! A burst of fireworks shot into the sky.
“A distress spirit talisman!”
Su Che’s Prisoning Seal once again trapped the old man, but it was only a step short—too late to prevent the distress signal from being sent.
The distress signals emitted by cultivators lasted for a long time and were extremely bright, like small suns, with their light capable of traveling thousands of miles in an instant.
“It won’t be long before his accomplices arrive,” Su Che thought, acting without pause as he delivered another Destroying Fist.
The previous fist had already shattered several of his defenses. To capture him alive, Su Che held back slightly this time, using only 40% of his strength.
The black-haired old man, already severely injured and trapped by the Prisoning Seal, could only watch in despair as a fistprint rushed toward him, growing larger and larger…
Boom!
He fell, but wasn’t dead—he was taken to the Immortal Prison.
Su Che turned and flew away, soon reuniting with Shui Yue and the others. The three of them cooperated to capture all three opponents alive and seal their cultivation abilities.
“Where’s he?” Shui Yue asked softly, referring to the black-haired old man.
“He’s captured,” Su Che replied, sending the other three into the Immortal Prison as well. Now, there were four Golden Core-stage prisoners.
“Your strength is far greater than I initially thought. Truly worthy of being the senior brother of all Tianxuan Sect disciples,” Shui Yue praised sincerely. Until now, she had thought she had never underestimated Su Che, but it turned out she still had. He had effortlessly taken care of four Golden Core cultivators—his strength was probably on par with that of their master, Venerable Xuan Ce…
Strictly speaking, in a direct confrontation, Su Che wasn’t a match for Venerable Xuan Ce. But in certain aspects, there were things Su Che could do that the top masters of Tianxuan Sect might not be able to.

Without wasting time, Su Che also imprisoned the Snake Woman and the Ghost Emperor in the Immortal Prison. He said to Shui Yue, “I guess someone will arrive here soon, and there should be quite a number of them. Let’s go underwater to take cover for now.” Shui Yue naturally had no objections and followed Su Che into the deep sea. Taking cover wasn’t out of fear; Su Che wanted to interrogate the four prisoners he had captured just now. After getting to know both sides, it would be no rush to deal with those people. The reason Tianyuan Sea has the character “yuan” in its name is because the seabed is extremely deep. Su Che and his companion descended nearly a thousand zhang before finally reaching the seabed. At the same time, more than a dozen teleportation lights appeared above the sea surface—all were Golden Core-level treasure hunters. After searching around for a long time without finding any suspicious signs, they had no choice but to leave. This was because the Star Emperor Compass had extremely strong detection capabilities and also had some minor functions for anti-tracking, allowing them to leave without a trace. Deep in the sea, the defensive barrier built into the Star Emperor Compass could isolate the terrifying underwater pressure. Compared to the various strong winds and auroras in the universe, the pressure of the deep sea was nothing. Inside the Immortal Prison, Lao He’s mind-reading interrogation method was highly efficient, and the four prisoners had already been questioned. “Master, they are indeed a temporary team of thirty people, all at the Golden Core stage. They come from all over and are experienced treasure hunters,” Lao He explained in detail. “Normally, they are divided into groups of ten, with each group led by a cultivator in the later stages of the Golden Core stage. Aside from these four we captured, there are three in the later stages, eight in the middle stages, and fifteen in the early stages.” “This group came to Tianyuan Sea to search for treasures one after another. The most experienced among them has been searching this area for nearly fifty years. Of course, before them, countless other treasure hunters had tried to explore Tianyuan Sea without success and eventually gave up. But as some give up, new ones arrive, so there has never been a break in treasure hunters staying here year-round.” Hearing this, Su Che asked curiously, “After searching here for decades, where does this group get such perseverance?” “It’s definitely not because they explore non-stop every day,” Lao He laughed. “They regard this place as a place for cultivation. Two groups cultivate normally while one group explores, taking turns so as not to delay their cultivation. Moreover, since they are all at the Golden Core stage, they gather to discuss theories, exchange skills, and share insights, which also allows them to gain something from each other. This kind of life isn’t as dull as we might think.” “I see. Go on,” Su Che nodded in his mind.

“Some time ago, some members of the team gave up on treasure hunting and left Tianyuan Sea. They then recruited two new members, one of whom was skilled in array techniques. He suggested setting up a Spirit-Sensing Array to try and locate the exact position of the ruins.”
Su Che wondered, “After decades, even centuries of effort, do these treasure hunters still not know the exact location of the ruins? Tianyuan Sea isn’t that large—how can it be so hard to find?”
Lao He replied, “According to their estimates, the location of those ruins isn’t fixed. It moves around and is hidden extremely well, making it harder than finding a needle in a haystack.”
“So, the disturbance in the natural spiritual energy we sensed earlier was caused by that Spirit-Sensing Array?” Su Che asked again.
“Yes,” Lao He answered. “But they themselves aren’t confident that this array will work.”
“It should be somewhat useful,” Su Che thought. “Look, the location of the array is already quite close to here.”
Based on the clues, Su Che’s current position was likely right above the ruins. However, it was still the eighth day of the month—not the best time to open them.
After talking for a while more, they had learned quite a bit about the group’s overall strength. With so many members, fighting them head-on was out of the question; they could only take them down one by one.
As for why the old man with black hair wasn’t afraid of soul-grabbing powers, they had figured that out as well—though it disappointed Su Che a bit.
He wasn’t skilled in refining his spiritual essence nor did he possess any soul-subduing treasures. Instead, years ago, during a treasure hunt, he had obtained a sacred Buddhist relic, which he had integrated into his spiritual essence, granting it extremely strong defensive capabilities.
That sacred Buddhist relic wasn’t very useful to Su Che anyway, and after being integrated into his essence for decades, extracting his spiritual essence would be pointless. The ‘treasure’ he had hoped for turned out to be nothing but a illusion.
Still, these treasure hunters were experts at excavating ancient sites, and after years of effort, they were not poor—their personal wealth was considerable.
Su Che remembered something else and said to Lao He, “We still have another treasure of unknown use. It would be good to show it to them…”
Lao He immediately understood—his master was referring to the purple jade faceless figurine.
Back then, they had obtained both the bronze treasure gourd and the purple jade figurine from the Xiaomi Immortal Realm. The function of the treasure gourd was already clear, but the purpose of the purple jade figurine had remained unknown, and the Immortal Prison Pagoda had never expressed any desire to incorporate it.

Today, with the profound archaeological experience of these treasure hunters, it remains to be seen if an answer can be found. The result was that even the four expert-level criminals could not identify its origin or purpose and could only make random guesses based on experience. Su Che was not disappointed at all; instead, he was even more delighted. It must be a magical artifact, not just an ordinary jade—this could even be seen by a blind person. As a magical artifact, to have survived for millions of years in the Little Mi Immortal Realm, its grade must be at least that of a spiritual treasure. Under these circumstances, the harder it is to identify, the higher its rank and more extraordinary its origin must be—it’s simply because ordinary eyes cannot uncover its secrets. This is good news, excellent news! Su Che believed that one day he would be able to figure out its function, and it would most likely be a huge surprise. For now, there was no rush; in fact, he hoped even great cultivators at the Yuan Ying stage would not be able to identify it. Then, the value of this treasure would likely be… immeasurable! “Keep it safe, keep it safe—make sure to protect it well!” Old He also understood the importance of this and carefully stored the purple jade faceless statue. Next, Su Che discussed with Shui Yue, “The enemy still has twenty-six people, including three in the late Golden Dan stage and eight in the middle Golden Dan stage. I plan to use these one and a half days to eliminate them one by one, so that when we open the ruins the day after tomorrow, we’ll face less pressure.” Shui Yue was extremely intelligent and immediately understood that she couldn’t participate, as she would only be a burden. After all, Su Che wouldn’t engage in a direct fight but would use a strategy of stealth and ambush, so his assistance wasn’t needed. “Go ahead, I’ll wait here,” Shui Yue said with a gentle smile. “Don’t worry. I have a Water Spirit body. In the ocean, only the divine vision of a Yuan Ying stage cultivator can detect me.” Su Che nodded, of course having no doubt about her ability. With the Star Emperor Compass, there was no risk of getting lost—the location had already been determined by the compass, and it would be easy to find their way back no matter how far they flew. Based on the memories of the four criminals, Su Che used the Water Displacement technique to swim silently toward where the treasure hunters were gathered. “Stealth and ambush—no matter how good the displacement technique is, it’s not as convenient as complete invisibility. It’s a pity the Hidden Spirit Pearl has already been returned to Senior Yu Qing,” Su Che thought to himself. That day, when delivering the materials for forming the Golden Dan stage, the Hidden Spirit Pearl was also in the Qian Kun Bag and returned to Yu Qing together.

Since it’s a temporary loan, it should be returned proactively; it would be outrageous if Yu Qing had to ask for it back.