Chapter 263: The Pavilion of Rare Treasures

The other great master of the Taiyi Sect also heard clearly the conversation between Su Che and Hao Yuan. He immediately stepped forward and said to Su Che with disdain, “Just a dualattribute -> attribute Earth Spirit Root? How dare you call yourself the greatest genius in the cultivation world? It’s a joke!”
Su Che didn’t recognize him and was too lazy to pay attention. He turned to Yin Ling and said, “Let’s go check out another place.”
“Sure, this way,” Yin Ling nodded with a smile and led Su Che to another treasure-selling area.
After Su Che and Yin Ling left, Hao Yuan remained silent with a gloomy expression. It had to be said that Su Che’s words had indeed been very effective, imposing great psychological pressure on Hao Yuan—enough to be considered a seed of a heart demon.
Even Hao Yuan himself understood that as Su Che’s cultivation level rose, the pressure to achieve the Nascent Soul stage would become increasingly urgent. One day, this seed of a heart demon would take root and burst forth completely.
There were only two ways to overcome this heart demon: one was to see through the demonic obstacles and approach the Nascent Soul stage with a calm mind; the other was to find a way to eliminate Su Che, and then the seed of the heart demon would naturally disappear.
Both methods sounded easy, but actually doing them was extremely difficult!
“Junior brother Hao Yuan…” The other great master of the Taiyi Sect was also quite worried. Since he was also at the late stage of the Golden Core realm, he understood better than anyone just how strong the obsession with achieving the Nascent Soul stage was at this point. In such a state, it was easy to trigger a heart demon—a highly dangerous stage in the cultivation journey.
“It’s fine,” Hao Yuan replied with a faint smile. “Such trivial tricks? How could I care?”
Though he said that, no one could predict whether a heart demon would truly arise in the future.
Next, Yin Ling took Su Che to several more areas. Noticing Su Che’s high standards and his lack of interest in these treasures, she said, “How about I take you to the Pavilion of Rare Treasures?”
As she spoke, she naturally stepped closer and gently wrapped her arm around Su Che’s.
Although it was their first meeting, through their earlier verbal exchange, Yin Ling felt that Su Che was full of confidence in achieving the Nascent Soul stage—seemingly able to do so within a few years. So, getting closer to him now was the best investment possible.
“The Pavilion of Rare Treasures?”
At the mention of “rare treasures,” Su Che couldn’t help but feel curious.
“Yes, the Pavilion of Rare Treasures,” Yin Ling said, her expression and tone resembling that of an innocent little girl—without any sense of artificial naivety. This was the innate advantage of a fox spirit.

“Over here, it’s also called the Taobao Area. That means many people will list items of unclear purpose or origin at high prices for sale, waiting for discerning buyers to fall for them.”
Yin Ling smiled, her charming big eyes curving into crescents, making one want to get close to her and protect her…
“Brother Tianyu, if you have good eyesight, you might actually find some treasures.”
Su Che laughed and asked, “Has anyone ever found one?”
“I don’t know,” Yin Ling replied softly. “Even if someone does find a treasure, they probably won’t make a fuss about it, right?”
Su Che nodded, though he thought it unlikely to find anything truly valuable. After all, many Yuan Ying ancestors often visited this place—what treasure could escape their keen eyes? That meant anything passed through their screening wasn’t a rare treasure at all but merely useless junk.
Still, since there was nothing else to do, it might as well be a look. So Su Che followed Yin Ling to the deepest part of the second-floor space.
The so-called Rare Treasures Pavilion resembled a grocery store, not only in its awkward location but also in having the smallest area. This showed that the managers of the Lingxiao Tower didn’t pay much attention to it.
There was only an old man with a sharp face guarding the store. Su Che recognized that the old man had the strength of a third-level advanced cultivator, that is, late-stage Golden Dan stage, though he didn’t know which race of demon cultivator he belonged to.
According to the rules of the cultivation world, using vision magic to recklessly probe the true form of a demon cultivator in the Transformation stage was an extremely rude and disrespectful act—like usingmagic to spy on a woman’s body. magic to spy on a woman’s body. magic to spy on a woman’s body.
Especially in the floating city controlled by demons, such things were absolutely forbidden.
The old man sat at the counter, intently carving jade, showing no reaction to Su Che and Yin Ling’s arrival, not even lifting his eyelids.
“He’s an old monkey. Years ago, he was a famous swindler among our demons. As he got older, he probably returned to simplicity and now tells the truth, never lying,” Yin Ling whispered to him.
Su Che nodded silently.
“Yin Ling, are you talking bad about me again?” the old man asked in a deep voice without even lifting his head.
“I’m praising you!” Yin Ling giggled.
As soon as they entered the area, Su Che felt that there was no isolation barrier, allowing his spiritual sense to return to normal. Undoubtedly, this was to help customers identify all items and quickly find the so-called rare treasures they were interested in.

On several rows of shelves, countless items were packed tightly together in a chaotic mess. Without divine perception, relying solely on the naked eye would quickly cause confusion and frustration. Su Che’s divine sense, along with Lao Hei’s detection abilities, immediately covered all the items on the shelves, carefully screening and examining them. It had to be said that although he knew most of them were likely useless, the process itself was quite interesting, driven by a sense of curiosity and hope. For example, some items with extremely irregular shapes that looked like stones turned out to indeed be stones upon closer inspection… Su Che found this hard to understand—how could such things be displayed as “mysterious treasures of unknown function”? Were those people just being foolish? After all, leaving items for sale here required paying a handling fee in advance, and any expense in the Floating City was no small amount. “Spending money on a prank? But who would fall for it? In the end, it’s just oneself being tricked…” Su Che mused to himself, “In a big forest, all kinds of birds exist. Some people must have been in seclusion for too long, their minds rusted; some may have their nerves damaged by overly powerful cultivation techniques; others might have had their souls searched… So, one shouldn’t overestimate the wisdom of cultivators too much.” Even so, Su Che and Lao Hei continued to examine everything with interest. Yin Ling, holding onto his arm, also watched Su Che’s every expression with keen interest. To be honest, she knew very well what these so-called treasures were. She brought Su Che here just for fun, to see if this 20-year-old youth would do something silly yet endearing. The old monkey behind the counter pretended to be carving jade, but in reality, he was also observing Su Che carefully with his divine sense. For some reason, he sensed something strange about Su Che, though he couldn’t pinpoint why… The grocery store known as the Mysterious Treasures Pavilion fell into brief silence, with only the carving knife in the old monkey’s hand making a faint sound. After a while, Su Che suddenly raised his hand and summoned an item from a shelf in the distance.

The size of this object is roughly comparable to that of an adult man’s palm. It’s not large in volume, but extremely heavy, weighing tens of thousands of pounds. Through spiritual perception, it can be determined that it’s neither metal nor wood, nor jade. Though its purpose is unknown, it’s clear it’s not an ordinary item. Only such a “fragment” qualifies as a mysterious treasure of unknown use.

The main reason Su Che became interested in this fragment was its blood-red color, which matched exactly the color of his bones at present. During the battle on the Battle Arena against Jin Chong from Tianjian Peak, Su Che’s bones had been transformed by the drop of mysterious blood in his heart chamber, allowing him to master the Destruction Divine Art. Since this fragment was neither metal nor wood nor stone, Su Che guessed, “Could it be a fragment of bone?”

“If it’s truly just a small bone fragment yet weighs tens of thousands of pounds, what kind of creature could have such extraordinarily heavy bones?”

All these hypotheses were naturally resolved when the fragment came into his hands.

Bang! Bang! Bang…

The drop of mysterious blood in his left heart chamber still retained the shape of a miniature heart. The moment Su Che’s palm touched the fragment, it, which had been silent as death, began to beat violently. Clearly, there was some connection between the two.

“In the Wasteland God Valley, that ancient demon god only has one heart suppressed deep underground. It’s very likely that this bone fragment is one of his remains left in the outside world…”

Su Che was always good at inference and analysis, and he came up with a bold hypothesis in his mind.

“Brother Tianyu, you have great insight,” Yin Ling whispered in Su Che’s ear. “There are a few items in the Treasure Pavilion that are truly extraordinary, and this blood-red fragment is one of them. It’s just that no one can figure out its origin.”

Su Che held the fragment and pretended to hesitate for a moment before asking, “Is this thing expensive?”

“I remember it’s about twenty Spirit Stones,” Yin Ling turned to ask, “Right, Old Hou?”

The old monkey behind the counter nodded silently.

Su Che knew that “twenty Spirit Stones” referred to twenty top-quality Spirit Stones. In the Floating City, lower-quality Spirit Stones weren’t even considered valid currency. Spending twenty top-quality Spirit Stones on an item of unknown use was generally a foolish thing no one would do. After all, in the current cultivation world, top-quality Spirit Stones were extremely rare, each one being of great value and not to be wasted.

But for Su Che, knowing it was very likely a fragment of an ancient demon god and had a profound connection to him, he had to buy it no matter how expensive it was.
“Can I haggle?” Su Che asked with a smile.
“No,” Yin Ling shook her head. “The prices of these items are set by the sellers themselves. We only charge a handling fee and have no authority to adjust the prices. Only if the seller fails to claim it after the agreed deadline will ownership pass to the Floating City.”
“Alright, I’ll take it.”
Twenty top-quality spirit stones was still within Su Che’s means. Besides, all expenses from this shopping trip in the Floating City would be covered by his sect, and he could reimburse Master Zi Xiao later.
Clatter!
Twenty top-quality spirit stones were laid on the counter, and the blood-red relic was taken by Su Che.