Chapter 743: Competing for Treasures

At the realm of Immortal Emperor, there is no distinction between early, middle, and late stages. Yet, even among Immortal Emperors, there are differences in strength. How can such differences be measured?
Su Che had always been quite curious about this. Upon hearing what Zong Yi said—that ten of him combined would not be a match for Emperor Guangyi—he immediately raised this question.
Emperor Guangyi was about to descend, and Zong Yi, without time for verbal explanation, raised his hand and tapped Su Che’s forehead, transmitting a mental message directly to him.
Knowing he would not harm him, Su Che accepted the message without resistance.
“So that’s how it is…”
As the message entered his mind, Su Che immediately understood that in the Cloud Immortal Realm, there was a naturally formed “Nine Heavens Emperor Immortal Tower,” a sacred place for cultivation bestowed by the heavens upon Immortal Emperor-level true immortals.
The tower had nine layers, each representing a distinct realm. The first layer was called the First Heaven, while the ninth was the Ninth Heaven.
An Immortal Emperor who had just been promoted would enter the first layer of the Emperor Immortal Tower to undergo trials. Even if they found the entrance to the second layer, they might not be able to ascend, indicating that their strength was still at the First Heaven level.
Su Che guessed that Emperor Guangyi, who had just appeared in the void and was one of the oldest Immortal Emperors in the entire immortal realm, must surely be at the Ninth Heaven level.
“The Emperor Immortal Tower has nine layers, and my Immortal Prison Tower also has nine layers. Between the two…”
Su Che suddenly thought of this commonality and transmitted a message to Zong Yi, asking, “Elder, is the Emperor Immortal Tower still in the immortal realm?”
Zong Yi looked at Su Che in surprise and replied via message, “How could it not be? It’s always been there.”
“Oh.”
Su Che felt relieved inwardly. “It must just be a coincidence.”
“I have met Emperor Guangyi.”
When Emperor Guangyi descended before everyone, the true immortals who were close by bowed to him respectfully, including immortals like Feng Lin and Zong Yi.
Although the etiquette between Immortal Emperors was that of peers, it felt similar to when junior disciples in a sect bowed to their senior brothers as a sign of respect.
“I greet all of you, fellow cultivators,” said Emperor Guangyi with a smile, his tone gentle and approachable, like a bright moon high in the sky—soaring yet not blinding to the eyes.
After the greetings, Emperor Guangyi turned to Feng Lin and Yuan Yi and asked gently, “Since you two have established a treasure-contesting wager, I assume everyone knows the rules, so there’s no need to repeat them, right?”

Feng Lin and the others shook their heads together.
Guang Yi floated forward more than ten zhang, arriving at the center of the two lotus platforms, and continued, “Each lotus platform has a quota of five people. No matter how many there are in your group, you can display five treasures—no restrictions on attributes or effects… If I find it difficult to make a decision during the evaluation, I will also send detailed information about the two most controversial treasures to the Sacred Mother Immortal for final judgment…”
After a brief pause, she added, “According to the rules, the winning side must pay 30 million immortal crystals after obtaining the treasure, while the losing side must also pay 20 million immortal crystals after losing their treasure. I’m sure all of you understand this, right?”
“We understand.”
“We’re clear.”
Feng Lin and Yuan Yi nodded in turn.
Su Che was impressed—making money this easily!
After the treasure competition determined a winner, the winner had to pay 30 million immortal crystals to Emperor Guang Yi; the loser faced an even worse situation—losing not only their treasure but also their face, plus having to pay another 20 million immortal crystals to Emperor Guang Yi…
It was truly ruthless.
However, Su Che thought further—that Guang Yi was the most powerful emperor beneath the Immortal Sovereign, so her fee must be high. She surely couldn’t act as an impartial arbiter for free.
When asking someone for a favor, one naturally has to pay. Moreover, if the value of the treasures was hard to determine and a dispute arose, it would eventually require the intervention of the Sacred Mother Immortal…
“First round of treasure display—begin!”
At Guang Yi’s command,
In the first round of displaying treasures, both sides had to bring out all the treasures they were competing with—minimum one, maximum five.
This meant that if Su Che only brought out a Kunpeng egg, even if he won, he could only take the most valuable treasure from the other side. But if he brought out three treasures and still won with the Kunpeng egg, he could claim all three treasures from the other side.
In other words, the more you bet, the more you win—proportional to your bet.
Of course, anyone with a bit of common sense could see that there was a clever way to take advantage of the rules: if Su Che was confident in his Kunpeng egg and wanted to gain more treasures from the other side, he could display one Kunpeng egg along with four worthless items. As long as the Kunpeng egg outperformed all the other treasures, he could win them all.
On the surface, the rules seemed flawed and unfair. But at the emperor level, no one would stoop to such petty tactics just to save face.

It was originally a battle of pride, a competition for face. If one resorted to such despicable tactics from the start, regardless of the outcome of the bet, they would essentially have lost completely, only to attract ridicule from all the immortals and become a laughingstock that would circulate in the immortal realm for a long time. As an Emperor Immortal, one could not afford to lose face and would only display truly valuable treasures that could be shown openly to avoid embarrassment. Moreover, this was the Void of Heavenly Will; if one won a bet through underhanded means, what might be lost could be extremely serious. Trying to play petty tricks here—do you think you can outwit Heavenly Will? Whoosh! On the lotus platform across from them, the three Emperor Immortals—Yuan Yi, Chi Lin, and Ming Gu—each took out a treasure and displayed it on the platform. Once the treasures were revealed, they could not be taken back until a winner was determined; once the bet was made, there was no turning back. The two Great Luo Golden Immortals who followed them did nothing, clearly aware, just like Zong Yi, that their own treasures had limited functions, were too specialized, and only useful to them—useless in the eyes of others, so there was no need to show them and embarrass themselves. On this side, Su Che stepped forward and displayed five treasures on the platform at once. The largest one was over ten zhang tall, while the smallest was slightly smaller than a walnut. Logically, since the other side had only shown three treasures, even if Su Che won, he could only take three of them, so he would only need to display three as well. But since it was a battle of pride, it was a competition of boldness. “I have five, all precious treasures. If you can win, take them all!” That was the spirit—losing wouldn’t bring shame. Feng Lin nodded silently, sending Su Che a look of silent gratitude. She could clearly see that Su Che’s bold stance was meant to win face for himself. “Not bad, not bad,” Lan Ling also whispered in Su Che’s ear. “This is what a man is like. Even I feel honored.” Zong Yi said nothing, merely observing quietly the eight treasures displayed by both sides. At this moment, what puzzled the immortals present was why Feng Lin’s representative was that most unremarkable little celestial being. Could it be that all their treasures were concentrated in him? With three Emperor Immortals present, yet letting a single celestial being carry all the treasures—this was clearly extremely abnormal.

Not to mention the three Immortal Emperors across from him—Yuan Yi, Chi Lin, and Ming Gu—but even the Immortal Emperor Guang Yi at the Ninth Heaven realm showed great interest in this young celestial being. However, no one expected that these five treasures actually belonged solely to Su Che and had nothing to do with Feng Lin and the others. A mere young celestial daring to compete with three Immortal Emperors in terms of treasures using his own possessions—would anyone believe such a thing if told? After a short while, as a notary, Guang Yi announced again, “Please have both sides introduce their first treasure!” Yuan Yi across from him raised his hand in a gesture of invitation, saying, “You have more treasures, so you should go first.” This reasoning was quite reasonable, and Feng Lin nodded slightly at Su Che in agreement. Since these treasures were all Su Che’s personal collection, only he could truly understand each one’s properties, effects, and value. The task of praising them thus fell on Su Che’s shoulders; no one else could take his place. For a celestial to give a public speech in front of over thirty thousand Da Luo Immortals was an extremely rare honor in the immortal realm. Though it couldn’t be said to have never happened, most of the true immortals present were seeing and hearing it for the first time. As Su Che stepped forward to one of the treasures, ready to begin his description, Immortal Emperor Guang Yi suddenly asked, “May I also ask, what is your name, young man?” “I am…” Su Che was about to say his title, Tian Yu, when he suddenly heard a reminder from Immortal Emperor Feng Lin and immediately changed it to, “My name is Su Che.” “Su Che…” Not only Immortal Emperor Guang Yi but all the Da Luo Immortals repeated this name silently at that moment. Earlier, Immortal Emperor Feng Lin had warned Su Che in time not to reveal his title, Tian Yu, which made Su Che alert: “Could it be that Feng Lin already knows my true identity?” Having been in the immortal realm for over thirty years, Su Che had never encountered any negative reactions whenever he mentioned his title, Tian Yu. As a result, he thought that what he had done in the mortal world hadn’t reached the immortal realm, or at least hadn’t spread widely—only a few people were aware of it. Yuan Yuan had never revealed to anyone the possibility of the five great immortal lords combining forces to use the “Great Erasure Technique,” so Su Che was completely unaware of this as well. Back to the topic—let’s start praising the treasures!

Among the five treasures, Su Che first approached a set of blood-red skeletal armor and explained loudly, “This set of bone armor has not been truly refined. It was merely assembled from 3,000 pieces of demon god bones using the most rudimentary methods. If it were placed in the Heavenly Will Divine Furnace and refined with the power of heaven, what grade and form of protective armor would it become? With my limited wisdom, I truly cannot guess.”

The immortal emperors present were all connoisseurs who could instantly tell that these were fragments of some ancient demon god’s bones. But the key was to determine which specific demon god they belonged to.

Ancient demon gods were just a general term; there were also different ranks among them…