Chapter 150 - The Treasury and the Card

Wu Yunhai led Cale deeper into the sect compound, stopping before an ornate door sealed with complex magical formations.

He formed hand symbols, though his gestures were crude and unpracticed.

’Hmm, he likely doesn’t visit this place much... Well, the young masters can get whatever they want on whim. Why would they ever need to enter the treasury?’

As the door opened, Cale was presented with a massive sight.

A 60-meter-wide square chamber stretched before him, its walls lined with hundreds of chests and cultivation supplies. Low-tier herbs, elixirs, spiritual stones, weapons — all the accumulated wealth and resources of a sect that had existed for centuries.

Most items were low-tier, which made sense given that the Soaring Crane Sect had far more low-stage cultivators than high-stage ones. The truly valuable artifacts would be in the sect leaders’ personal collections.

Cale extended his hand.

Items flew upward in sequence, one by one, disappearing from the material world and being stored within the Arsenal of the Infinite Heavens and his personal spatial storage in the inner sanctum, but separating weapons and items mentally turned out to be quite easy.

As he registered what he’s acquired, his grin widened.

[HOST HAS ACQUIRED 17 LIFESPAN INCREASING GU. HOST SHOULD GIVE THEM TO THEIR FEMALE COMPANIONS.]

He frowned.

’Are you on my side or theirs? Seriously, the first thing you want me to do is have sex with women all day long. Am I some flower boy?’

Sighing, he replied mentally.

’Although I don’t mind being a flower boy, this world won’t be a happy-go-lucky ride for me then. Still, if it’s 17, I can give them a few... happy now?’

[...]

The system’s silence was almost accusatory.

"Right, heh," Cale muttered aloud, continuing his looting of the treasury.

As he literally absorbed the treasury, resources their sect and their ancestors had painstakingly collected over thousands of years — Wu Yunhai could barely control his escalating rage. His hands trembled with suppressed fury, his jaw clenching as he fought the urge to attack.

But he held himself back, stopping just short of stepping on that landmine. A direct attack would mean immediate death.

Cale patted his shoulder condescendingly.

"Good work. That’s more than enough. Now go."

As soon as Wu Yunhai turned to leave, he suddenly flexed his fingers and fired a concentrated beam of qi backward.

Cale dodged easily.

’He dodged it?’

Wu Yunhai’s expression shifted to shock. He genuinely thought the surprise attack would connect!

Cale used the Second Step of the Three Illusionary Steps Mystic Art and appeared directly behind him, his fist driving forward.

But Wu Yunhai simply vanished.

Cale’s eyes narrowed with sudden understanding.

’I can sense him, but he isn’t here? An artifact to become invisible? There must be a time limit.’

Using the same beam attack, Yunhai fired multiple projectiles in rapid succession from his fingers, flooding the space with scattered attacks.

Wu Yunhai reappeared from behind, his voice filled with desperate fury.

"Die, you scum!"

But Cale was ready. He threw a barrier talisman, and the attack was immediately absorbed by the protective shield.

"Sigh... even though he didn’t train, he still is an Apex Stage cultivator," Cale muttered to himself. "Remind me again to not underestimate people like him."

’Let’s end this.’

Taking out Noxis, Cale made a horizontal slash — a simple, elegant cut that tore through space itself. The blade’s intent carved through everything in its path from Wu Yunhai’s torso through the sect’s treasury hall behind him.

The roof of the hall collapsed, crumpling inward as massive stone and wood came crashing down.

Wu Yunhai’s body was split perfectly in half at the waist. Blood erupted from his mouth as both halves of his body fell to the ground, his death instantaneous.

Flying upward to escape the collapsing debris, Cale withdrew three special explosives, unlike ordinary explosives, these were designed to spread devastating fire after detonation, making them particularly famous and expensive among the sects.

He threw all three downward into the devastated compound.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Massive explosions erupted in succession. Fire erupted from the ground in violent waves, spreading outward in expanding circles of destruction. Flames consumed everything they touched—buildings, artifacts, records, cultivators still trapped within the sect’s boundaries. The entire sect became a raging inferno, the flames reaching toward the sky like the wrath of heaven itself.

The Soaring Crane Sect, which had stood proud for thousands of years, was reduced to ash and charred ruins in mere moments.

Cale flew upward, his body moving like an eagle cutting through the night sky. Behind him, the burning wreckage continued to consume itself.

His next destination was already decided- Asper.

Asper was a coastal nation within Inkarsia, known primarily for its seafood trade and merchant commerce. It would be correct to say that Asper was the undisputed seafood capital not just of Inkarsia, but of all neighboring continents combined.

’Next goal is to find a man named Sesrir Arnhem... although I’ve seen how he looks, it should be slightly challenging to find him. And I’ve also got that Premium member card from the Soaring Crane Sect. Such cards are hard to come by. Hehe, I’m going to spend it all~’

The auction houses and merchant families spread throughout this region were legendary in their own right. Their branches existed in every major city across tens of continents, their power and influence rivaling that of martial sects with thousand-year histories.

The amount of wealth they accumulated from a single country was in the millions of spiritual stones and gold coins. When multiplied across tens of continents, the numbers became truly astronomical.

This was precisely the kind of infrastructure Cale wanted to establish in Vaeloria. With Fiora’s support, he intended to create an auction house selling high-tier pills and elixirs he would personally craft — like youth-regaining pills, lifespan-extension elixirs, and other rare compounds.

He would also sell valuable items acquired through his various encounters; like the treasures taken from defeated enemies like the Soaring Crane Sect itself.

Although cultivation items would soon flood Vaeloria through alliances with eastern continent sects, Cale would make the first move. And thanks to his unique position and identity, he would have a distinct advantage in establishing market dominance.

"Ahh... I will be filthy rich," he mused. "And I will only accept spiritual stones, not gold, we already have a shitload of that.."

Back to his immediate plans, the auction houses in this region operated through membership systems. Sects paid substantial annual fees to maintain membership cards, and could then add funds to these cards — functioning like bank accounts for accessing auctions.

From what Cale could sense, the Soaring Crane Sect hadn’t utilized their Premium membership this year. The year had only recently begun, and they’d been away on expedition for months.

It was the perfect opportunity.

Using their sect’s identity and credentials, he could access the auction houses freely and withdraw virtually unlimited resources. The merchant families wouldn’t question a ’supposed’ sect representative since they operated under strict confidentiality agreements.

Just thinking about the possibilities made Cale’s grin widen into something demonic.