Chapter 749: Gray Clouds

Before Ye Feng could think too much, his vision blurred. When he regained his balance, he found himself in a strange place. It seemed to be a vast palace, with a dome nearly twenty meters high and covering an area of dozens of hectares.

“Is this the secret treasure vault?”

Ye Feng looked around and saw various treasures, each emitting colorful lights as if competing in brilliance. But one thing concerned him—each of these treasures was protected by a barrier. With his current spiritual strength, he couldn’t penetrate those barriers at all, let alone determine the functions or grades of the treasures. This made him want to curse.

With no other choice, he had to move forward step by step and examine them one by one. Fortunately, he had three days to make his selection.

Ye Feng immediately skipped over pills, herbs, and materials that seemed to be used for crafting. At his current rate of improvement, he didn’t need pills to enhance his strength. A single grant of power was equivalent to the effects of countless pills, with no side effects. So, there was no need for herbs either.

As for crafting materials, Ye Feng wasn’t interested. Firstly, his crafting skills weren’t advanced enough to create top-tier treasures. Secondly, he didn’t have a crucible of that caliber. To craft such treasures, the crucible itself had to be of supreme quality, and the Nine Directions he possessed was still only at the peak level of a treasure. Thus, those crafting materials were useless to him.

What remained were finished weapons, armor, and some items whose purposes he couldn’t identify.

Ye Feng walked around the palace for over three hours, finally examining all the finished weapons and armor. But the more he looked, the more uncertain he became. Due to the barriers outside, he couldn’t determine the grades of these items.

He had hoped to instantly resonate with a particular item, but such a legendary occurrence didn’t happen.

With no other choice, Ye Feng put aside the selection of weapons and armor for now and turned his attention back to those items whose uses he couldn’t figure out.

He spent another hour examining them. His steps stopped in front of a mass of gas. It was gray and motionless, floating quietly within the barriers, giving off an impression of complete lifelessness—unlike everything else in the palace.

Inside this palace, everything seemed to strive to emit its own light, fearing being overshadowed. Yet within this seal, not a trace of light could be seen. The things inside that seal appeared as if they were in deep slumber, or even dead.

“What exactly is this?” Ye Feng frowned slightly, hesitating whether to take the risk of choosing this object of unknown purpose.

After a brief pause, a voice suddenly reached Ye Feng’s ears. “Choose this!”

Ye Feng was stunned. The voice came from the Sky-Piercing Tower, which had not given any opinions for a long time. “Do you know what this is?” Ye Feng asked immediately.

After a moment of silence, the Sky-Piercing Tower gave an answer that left Ye Feng speechless: “I don’t know…”

“Then why did you ask me to choose it?” Ye Feng raised his eyebrows. He had expected the tower to offer some explanation, but its reply was simply that it didn’t know.

“I indeed don’t know what this thing is, but in my memories, it’s very important. However, those memories are buried too deep. I searched carefully just now, but found not a single clue about it. Yet I’m certain it’s far more complex than it appears.” These words from the Sky-Piercing Tower made Ye Feng fall into deep thought.

“I have three days. Should I keep searching?” Ye Feng pondered inwardly.

After a while, Ye Feng finally made up his mind. He placed his hand outside the seal surrounding the gray mass and transmitted a level-177 divine technique based on spatial power from his palm into the seal.

Yet the energy of that technique vanished without a trace, as if it had disappeared into the sea.

Ye Feng stepped back a few steps. The Imperial Demon Vine transformed into a long sword, and using the art of the Dominant Sword, he once again activated the level-177 divine technique to attack the seal.

Again, nothing happened—not even a ripple. Ye Feng’s attack was completely erased, as if swallowed by something.

With two failed attacks, Ye Feng began to doubt that the seal could be broken through force.

Left with no choice, he calmed himself down, sat cross-legged in front of the seal, and slowly analyzed its structure.

Two hours later, Ye Feng finally opened his eyes. He had analyzed the seal using secret runes.

Now that he knew its composition, breaking it was much easier.

Ye Feng formed one secret seal after another in front of that restriction. After a short while, it was impossible to tell how many seals he had created. Eventually, the restriction began to thin at a visibly rapid pace until it completely disappeared.

Meanwhile, that gray cloud, which had initially shown no trace of energy, started to emit a powerful aura. It seemed to be growing exponentially in strength. In just a few breaths, Ye Feng felt that the aura of that entity had surpassed his own.

A few more breaths passed, and although the intense aura stopped rising, the cloud remained lifeless.

Ye Feng could also sense that the atmosphere throughout the palace was becoming heavier, and even the objects sealed not far away began to show strange reactions—reactions that seemed to be of excitement and anticipation.

Although he still didn’t know what this entity was, it didn’t prevent him from proceeding. He casually cut his palm, condensed some of his vital blood into a droplet, and dropped it onto the gray cloud.

The cloud didn’t resist Ye Feng’s vital blood and absorbed it entirely. This made Ye Feng slightly pleased; he had thought it would take more effort, but the most difficult step was done so easily.

But this was just the beginning. Ye Feng patiently waited for some kind of contract to appear, but after a long time, nothing happened. This made him anxious. “What’s going on? It has absorbed my vital blood—why is there no reaction at all?”

At that moment, the mass of energy slowly flew in front of Ye Feng and wrapped around his arm.

Warm currents flowed from his right hand into his body, entering his dantian before disappearing.