Chapter 481: Ancient Treasures

With the strength of his Yuan Shen reaching the early stage of Hua Shen, the benefits were obvious. It took Su Che only five years to advance to the later stage of Yuan Ying.
The original estimate was that it would take at least twenty to thirty years, or even longer, to reach this stage. It was truly unexpected that the power of the Shadow Soul could bring such great advantages to cultivators.
This made Su Che understand even better why the Shadow Clan was regarded as a highly valuable resource by other cultivators. If one ascended to the Spirit Realm alone, it would be like a lamb entering a wolf pack—sure to meet a tragic end…
This further highlighted the importance of the Yuan Shen for advanced cultivators—the higher the cultivation level, the greater the role of the Yuan Shen.
After that, Su Che’s cultivation speed accelerated even more. In just seven years, he reached the peak of the later stage of Yuan Ying and was ready to advance to the Hua Shen stage at any time.
However, Su Che forced himself to stop cultivating, unwilling to take another step forward.
It wasn’t because the success rate of advancing to Hua Shen was too low, but because the laws of the world hadn’t changed yet. Once one reached the Hua Shen stage, they must ascend to the Spirit Realm.
Ascend to the Spirit Realm?
The people there were already struggling to catch him. If he went there, it could only be described as “walking straight into a trap”…
Therefore, Su Che had to suppress his cultivation, stop practicing, and devote all his energy to studying the three great cultivation techniques he had recently learned.
During this time, his travels across the starfields to explore the tribes’ inhabited planets never ceased. Starting from leaving Li Yuan Star, he had visited thirteen planets inhabited by the Witch Clan. Vast amounts of various cultivation resources piled up there like mountains—endless ranges stretching across an unknown distance.
Hundreds of thousands of mountains, all formed from cultivation materials—what a concept! What a spectacular sight!
Yet, only Su Che and Lao He could appreciate this scene. This area, named the “Mountain Range of Wealth,” was isolated separately, using the spatial power of the first layer of the Immortal Prison to completely seal it off. No creature from the Immortal Prison world could enter this place, nor could they even detect its existence.
Su Che’s intention was clear: He could bestow these treasures upon the countless beings in the Immortal Prison, but he wouldn’t allow anyone to steal even a useless stone from the Mountain Range of Wealth.

That day, Su Che arrived at a cultivation planet named “Linlu Star,” intending to explore it and relax, as its natural scenery was truly unique. Su Che and Lao He planned to replicate such landscapes in the Immortal Prison world as well.
“Thirty years have passed!”
On the summit of a high mountain, Su Che gazed down at nearly a hundred small lakes scattered across the landscape. While admiring the view, he suddenly reflected, “Lao He, it’s been thirty years since we left Qi Yuan Star, and I’m already sixty years old in terms of bone age.”
“Sixty years? In the cultivation world, that’s still considered young,” Lao He laughed. “If taken to the Immortal Realm, you’d be considered a toddler.”
Su Che shook his head slightly, thinking to himself, “Calculating further, forty years have passed since the Sky Tremor Warning, and the Witch God still hasn’t returned to the cultivation world. I wonder how much longer we have to wait.”
Lao He chuckled. Of course he knew his master was anxious—because they had to wait until the Witch God returned to break through the spatial crystal walls of the Spirit Realm and completely destroy the rules of the universe established by the immortals of the Immortal Realm before they could advance to the Divine Transformation stage. For now, they could only suppress their cultivation level and not take another step forward.
Forcing a cultivator to hold back their progress must be extremely uncomfortable.
“Let’s go. Let’s take a look at Tianwei Mountain.”
Su Che soared into the air and flew toward the distance.
The Tianwei Mountain Trade Fair, held once every fifty years, was the largest and most renowned trade event on Linlu Star. During its duration, cultivators at the Golden Core stage and above from across the cultivation world would come one after another. It was possible to even encounter rare big names.
Of course, in Su Che’s eyes, the so-called big names on Linlu Star were just some Yuan Ying cultivators. With his current overall strength, even if hundreds of Yuan Ying cultivators stood before him, he could easily defeat them all.
His only purpose for coming to Linlu Star was to have fun!
Participating in this trade fair was also out of a desire for entertainment. Since he happened to be there, he decided to see if he could find anything interesting or novel, and if so, buy it as a way to satisfy his desire to shop.
The so-called “Tianwei Mountain” was just a general term, not referring to a single peak, but rather a range of hundreds of mountains.

The month-long trade fair would take place simultaneously on hundreds of mountains. The higher the mountain in the central area, the higher the level of transactions, and only those with a certain status and cultivation level were qualified to go to the few mountains at the very center.

Upon arriving at Tianwei Mountain, Su Che flew straight toward the central area. With his powerful cultivation at the late Yuan Ying stage, no one dared to stop him along the way. Even though Su Che was a complete stranger to everyone, no one would foolishly go looking for trouble with a high-level cultivator like him.

The late Yuan Ying stage was considered the pinnacle of cultivation in the realm of cultivation. Across the entire Linlu Star, there were only a dozen or so cultivators at this level. An hour later, after browsing numerous shops, Su Che attended a high-level auction. Even those with the lowest cultivation level there were at the late Jin Dan stage, and all of them had extremely prominent status—either the heads of their sects or their direct disciples or descendants.

Everyone present was very curious about this completely unknown figure with such peak-level cultivation. Many guessed that he might be an outsider from another cultivation realm in the stars. Before long, the auction began. Su Che had little interest in most of the items, as he already possessed numerous top-quality and supreme-grade Dao artifacts. The few supreme-grade spiritual treasures up for auction paled in comparison.

As for materials or spiritual herbs, there was no need to mention them—what they considered rare treasures could be found in abundance in the Immortal Prison, with mountains of materials and forests of spiritual herbs…

“A trade fair held by a bunch of beggars—there’s really nothing worth seeing!” That was Lao Hei’s assessment.

“Beggars can still find good things; don’t underestimate them,” Su Che thought to himself with a smile.

Sure enough, Su Che was right!

Halfway through the auction, an item on display suddenly caught Su Che’s intense interest. Even Lao Hei exclaimed loudly, “There really are some good things here!”

On the display stand, a palm-sized token was suspended in mid-air by a miniature array, rotating slowly to show its full appearance from all angles. The token was dark brown, with the character “Lian” engraved on the front and the character “Bing” on the back, exuding a strong sense of antiquity.

Su Che immediately recognized it as an ancient token, similar to the Ancient Town Mountain Token and the Ancient Prison Demon Token he had obtained years ago—products from the same era of cultivation.

“This is an ancient weapon-refining token that can be used to upgrade the grade of magical artifacts!”

The auction host announced loudly, “Esteemed masters, if you possess a treasured artifact you hold dear, but its grade is too low and no longer suitable for your current cultivation level, then you can use this ancient artifact upgrading talisman to raise its grade—for example, turning it from an upper-grade spiritual treasure into an ultimate-grade spiritual treasure. Of course, you need to prepare sufficient materials in advance for the upgrade, and the function of this ancient talisman is to ensure a 100% success rate for your artifact upgrade. That’s right, 100% success—such is its magic…”

“An ancient artifact upgrading talisman can be used to upgrade artifacts?”

The host’s explanation immediately piqued many people’s interest.

In today’s cultivation world, it’s no longer possible to create artifacts at the spiritual treasure level or above. Firstly, those at the Yuan Ying stage don’t have the qualifications to craft spiritual treasures, and secondly, the cultivation world simply can’t gather the top-tier materials required for such creations.

As a result, almost no one in the cultivation world has the ability to upgrade spiritual treasure-level artifacts, as doing so is far more difficult than creating one from scratch.

Although this artifact upgrading talisman is a one-time-use ancient treasure, its ability to guarantee a 100% success rate in upgrades made some of the senior cultivators present, who were at the Yuan Ying stage, feel deeply tempted: If my ultimate-grade spiritual treasure could be upgraded one more level, wouldn’t it reach the lower-grade Dao artifact level?

Though they knew it was unlikely to gather all the materials needed for the upgrade, it still sparked endless hope and imagination.

Of course, the real question was what price would have to be paid to acquire this talisman.

“An ancient artifact upgrading talisman!”

At this moment, Su Che was even more excited than the others, because this talisman held great significance for him—it was far more than just a simple talisman.

In someone else’s hands, it would be a one-time-use item that would be completely wasted after a single use. But if Xian Yu could integrate it, it would grant him the powerful ability to upgrade artifacts. His desire to continuously upgrade his wealth would then become possible.

As for the materials needed for the upgrade, he believed he could gather them from his harvests across more than a dozen Witch Clan inhabited planets. Even if one or two types were missing, he could find alternative materials…

He must have it!

“This talisman is mine!”

Su Che was secretly thrilled: “As long as I can get it, it will be a huge gain. My trip to Lin Lu Star will definitely not have been in vain.”

“Yes, master. No matter what the cost, we must get it.” Lao He was also extremely excited. How could he not understand the immense power that upgrading a magical artifact entailed?
Since this ancient command token was a one-time consumable, its starting bid for auction was not high—just one hundred top-quality spirit stones.
Of course, this “not high price” was only applicable to ultra-wealthy tycoons like Su Che. In reality, one hundred top-quality spirit stones could already be used to purchase a fairly good magical artifact on Linlu Star.