Chapter 278 - A Familiar Method and Another Gift

Chapter 278: Chapter 278 - A Familiar Method and Another Gift

Huo Yan soon discovered that the three storage rings had prepared him for absolutely nothing.

Once Su Bai received permission, he began transferring the remaining materials out of his System Inventory.

A massive section of ancient formation metal appeared first and landed heavily against the reinforced floor. Several mineralized beast remains followed, along with damaged structures whose materials were still valuable despite the formations within them having long since ceased functioning.

The available space disappeared much faster than either of them expected.

Huo Yan watched in silence as Su Bai continued.

Eventually, even the wide forging chamber could no longer accommodate everything.

They had no choice but to move outside.

Su Bai followed Huo Yan into the open area surrounding the chamber and continued taking materials out there. Objects too inconvenient for ordinary storage rings gradually accumulated into several uneven piles.

Before long, calling them piles had become somewhat dishonest.

They looked more like small hills.

Huo Yan had already stopped calculating their value.

There were limits to what a man should demand from his own mind in a single afternoon.

However, as another enormous piece of ancient material appeared from seemingly nowhere, Huo Yan’s attention finally shifted away from the treasure itself.

His eyes narrowed.

He had been too distracted earlier to notice the manner in which Su Bai was producing everything.

There was no storage ring in Su Bai’s hand. Yet another object simply emerged beside him.

Huo Yan’s expression abruptly changed.

"You..."

Su Bai paused and looked over.

Huo Yan stared at him strangely.

"You can do that too?"

Su Bai tilted his head.

For an instant, he wondered whether Huo Yan had finally become overwhelmed by the amount of material.

Huo Yan stepped closer, studying him more carefully.

"The way you’re storing and taking things out... your father could do something similar."

Su Bai stopped moving.

Everything around him seemed to grow distant.

Huo Yan realized what he had said almost immediately.

His mouth closed.

The excitement on his face disappeared with suspicious speed.

Su Bai, however, barely noticed.

His thoughts had already gone somewhere else entirely.

Actually, he had prepared an explanation for this long ago.

If anyone seriously questioned where he kept objects that obviously could not fit inside an ordinary storage ring, he could simply claim that a remnant soul had taught him a spatial method.

The explanation was believable enough. Storage rings and Spirit Beast Pouches already relied on independent spaces, so a technique capable of opening another small pocket of space was hardly impossible.

He had expected curiosity.

He had not expected anyone to connect it to Su Qingshan.

Su Bai slowly looked at Huo Yan.

"My father could store things like this?"

Huo Yan’s expression stiffened.

That reaction alone answered more than Su Bai wanted it to.

Another question immediately appeared.

Did Su Qingshan possess something resembling his System Inventory?

The possibility sent an uncomfortable chill through him.

The System had always been one of the strangest things about his existence.

If Su Qingshan had possessed something similar...

Su Bai’s thoughts accelerated.

Had his father also received a System?

Was the resemblance merely superficial?

Was it a spatial technique after all, or something completely different?

More importantly, how many other peculiar abilities had Su Qingshan possessed that nobody had bothered mentioning?

Su Bai’s eyes sharpened.

Huo Yan noticed.

He visibly regretted speaking.

"Your master has already told you something about your father, judging from that expression."

Su Bai did not deny it.

Huo Yan rubbed the side of his face.

"Don’t read too much into what I said. Su Qingshan always had strange methods. Half the time, nobody understood what he was doing until after he had already done it."

Su Bai opened his mouth.

Huo Yan immediately turned away.

"Continue unloading the materials."

Su Bai stared at his back.

"Martial Uncle, about that storage method..."

"I need help."

Su Bai’s eyebrow twitched.

Huo Yan was already walking away.

"There is too much here for me to decide alone. I’ll bring the others before you bury Heavenly Forge Peak under whatever else you’ve collected."

"Martial Uncle..."

Huo Yan accelerated.

A moment later, he rose into the air and disappeared toward the other peaks.

Su Bai remained where he was.

His hand was still raised from the interrupted transfer.

For several breaths, he simply stared in the direction Huo Yan had vanished.

He had been left at another cliffhanger.

Again.

Su Bai slowly lowered his hand.

At this point, learning anything about Su Qingshan seemed to follow the same pattern.

He exhaled through his nose.

His own constitution could reverse poison, corruption, curses, and all manner of unpleasant effects.

Apparently, it could not reverse other people’s determination to avoid talking about his father.

There was nothing he could do about it now.

Su Bai looked at the remaining materials and continued unloading them.

...

By the time Huo Yan returned, the scene outside his forging chamber had changed considerably.

The chamber itself had long since lost the battle against available space. Ancient materials now occupied a broad section outside, separated only enough that the pathways remained passable.

The activity had inevitably attracted attention.

Disciples from Heavenly Forge Peak lingered farther away, pretending to have legitimate reasons for being nearby while repeatedly glancing toward the growing collection.

Their attempts at subtlety became increasingly poor.

Su Bai ignored them.

Eventually, several powerful auras approached from above.

Huo Yan returned first.

Lu Canghai descended beside him, followed by Mo Shanyue, Yao Ding, and Shen Youran.

The disciples watching from the distance immediately straightened.

Greetings spread through the area before most of them wisely withdrew. Whatever had brought so many Peak Masters together clearly was no longer something they should stand around staring at.

The newcomers, meanwhile, had stopped paying attention to the disciples.

Their eyes had gone directly to the materials.

Mo Shanyue stared at the nearest mound.

Yao Ding’s gaze moved slowly across the ancient fragments, mineralized remains, and unfamiliar substances spread throughout the area.

Even Lu Canghai, who had already heard Su Bai describe much of what happened inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary, took several moments to process the physical scale of what his disciple had actually brought home.

Shen Youran’s expression changed the least.

Her eyes simply moved from one collection to another before settling briefly on Su Bai.

That small pause somehow felt more meaningful than Mo Shanyue’s open disbelief.

Huo Yan spread one arm toward the scene.

"This is what your disciple considers ’the useful parts.’"

Lu Canghai looked around.

His expression remained composed for approximately two breaths.

After that, the corner of his mouth rose.

"I’ve always told him not to be excessive."

Mo Shanyue slowly turned toward him. Yao Ding did the same.

Neither man said anything.

They did not need to.

The pride in Lu Canghai’s voice was impossible to hide.

Huo Yan gave him a disgusted look.

"At least pretend you’re ashamed."

Lu Canghai stroked his beard.

"I am deeply troubled."

His smile suggested otherwise.

Su Bai approached and bowed.

"Master. Peak Masters."

Their attention finally shifted toward him.

Su Bai was actually relieved that Huo Yan had gathered them.

He had originally intended to distribute several things separately, but having the relevant Peak Masters in one place saved considerable time.

"There is something else I wanted all of you to examine."

The amusement surrounding Lu Canghai faded first.

He knew Su Bai well enough to recognize the difference in his voice.

Huo Yan stared at him.

"You still have more materials?"

"Not materials."

That answer somehow made Huo Yan more wary.

Su Bai glanced toward the forging chamber.

"It would be better to discuss this inside."

No one objected.

They entered together, leaving the mountains of materials outside under Heavenly Forge Peak’s protection.

Once the doors closed, the atmosphere changed.

Su Bai approached the stone table and began taking out jade slips.

This time, there was no dramatic pile.

Lu Canghai watched several jade slips appear and immediately recognized that Su Bai was treating them differently from the physical treasures outside.

"What are these?"

"Some of the cultivation methods and techniques I obtained inside Fallen-Star Sanctuary."

Su Bai placed another group beside them.

"I spent some time reorganizing the portions that cultivators of the current era can actually use."

Yao Ding reached for one of the slips after receiving Su Bai’s nod.

His spiritual sense entered it.

At first, his expression remained ordinary.

Several breaths later, his eyes sharpened.

He read farther.

The others noticed.

"What is it?" Mo Shanyue asked.

Yao Ding did not answer immediately.

When he finally withdrew his spiritual sense, he looked at Su Bai instead.

"You rewrote this?"

"I simplified it."

Yao Ding’s gaze returned to the jade slip.

"Simplified? And it still reached Supreme Grade?"

The word came out considerably more slowly than usual.

He passed it to Huo Yan. He inspected it next.

The longer he read, the more his earlier joy over the mountains outside began to look strangely insignificant.

"This is Supreme-grade indeed..."

Su Bai nodded.

"There are others."

Silence settled over the chamber.

Huo Yan looked at the jade slips already covering part of the table.

For once, he seemed incapable of deciding whether he should laugh or become angry.

The materials outside could enrich the sect.

These could change how future generations cultivated.

Lu Canghai picked up another slip and inspected it carefully. His expression grew more serious as he progressed.

Su Bai continued before anyone misunderstood.

"The original inheritances were not all suitable for current cultivators. Some required things that people in this era simply don’t possess, so I removed what couldn’t be reproduced and rebuilt the usable portions."

That explanation made Yao Ding’s eyes narrow slightly.

He understood exactly how much work was hidden behind the casual description.

Shen Youran finally reached for one.

Her expression remained almost unchanged as she examined it, although one eyebrow rose by the smallest margin.

For anyone else, the reaction would have meant very little.

For Shen Youran, it was practically an exclamation.

Su Bai waited until they had understood the first group before moving his hand toward another set of jade slips kept distinctly separate.

His expression became more serious.

"These are different."

Lu Canghai immediately looked toward him.

Su Bai continued.

"Some of the methods preserved inside the Sanctuary came from the younger cultivators who died there."

Nobody interrupted.

"A large number belonged to factions Senior Yue Cangyu later warned me about. They were righteous forces whose members had been exposed for cooperating with the demonic side."

The room became noticeably quieter.

This time, Shen Youran was the first to reach for a jade slip.

Her spiritual sense entered.

She did not read it as an inheritance.

She read it as evidence.

The circulation routes, the habits built into the technique, the places where power accumulated before release, and the weaknesses accepted in exchange for its strengths were all laid bare within the method.

Her eyes lifted toward Su Bai.