Chapter 114: Six-Pupil Purple Mushroom

Wang Yu activated the mechanical flying bird and flew low through the air.

His cultivation energy had nearly been exhausted in the earlier battle, but fortunately the mechanical bird could be powered by spirit stones; he seized this chance to absorb spiritual qi and quickly restore his inner energy.

After half a day, he finally felt his cultivation energy restored to nearly half, opened his eyes, pulled two newly acquired storage bags from his robe, and placed them before him, sweeping his spiritual sense into one of them.

One storage bag contained a vast space—over ten square meters—piled high with human and beast bones; atop the pile lay thirteen humanoid skeletons, eerily familiar.

“Bone Demon”

Wang Yu recognized these demonic artifacts at once—he had seen them in Guangyuan Marketplace.

But these Bone Demons were utterly unlike the crude skeletons he had encountered before: each had thick, robust bones, wore pristine white bony armor, and held a small black banner in hand.

The Bone Demons lay still atop the bone pile, each wreathed in swirling black mist, eyes glowing red, chests rising and falling faintly—as if all were alive.

Wang Yu was startled, but immediately withdrew his spiritual sense and swept it into the other storage bag.

This bag, though slightly smaller—only about seven or eight square meters—contained over forty mid-grade spirit stones of various colors, Qiba bottles, a dozen crude bone swords and bone knives, a black-leather book, an exquisite bone token, and a yellow wooden box.

Seeing so much, Wang Yu was overjoyed; his spiritual sense flicked out and snatched the bone token into his hand for close inspection.

The bone token was palm-sized, its surface covered in dense, intricate patterns; one side bore a black character: “Ling,” the other a character: “Gu.”

Drawing on his own alchemy and artifact-crafting knowledge, Wang Yu examined it briefly and understood its basic function; he gripped the token and slowly channeled his cultivation energy into it.

“Hum.”

The next instant, the token vibrated, and six faint black inscriptions surfaced on its surface.

Instantly, Wang Yu felt his spiritual sense connect through the token to the thirteen Bone Demons inside the storage bag.

He merely thought the command, and the bag’s opening loosened, spewing a gush of black mist.

From within the swirling black mist emerged a terrifying skeleton, taller than a man by two heads, standing firmly on the mechanical bird, one hand gripping a black banner half his height.

Wang Yu stared at the skeleton and mentally issued a command.

The skeleton immediately stepped back two paces, then forward one, then raised its arm.

Interesting.

In testing, Wang Yu quickly discovered the Bone Demon could obey simple commands—walk, attack, dodge—but could not distinguish complex ones, such as which leg to step first or which arm to use for attack.

After operating the skeleton through various motions for some time, Wang Yu turned his attention to the black banner in its hand.

He mentally gave an order.

The skeleton handed the banner to him.

Wang Yu took it, inspected it, and found the staff was made of black bone, the banner woven from some kind of hair, radiating a strong stench of blood—clearly not the common Yin Soul Banner of the Black Soul Sect.

Curious, he infused a bit of cultivation energy into the banner; five never-before-seen crimson inscriptions surfaced on its surface.

The moment those crimson inscriptions appeared, Wang Yu, staring at the banner, felt his heart pound and his flesh tremble—as if disaster were about to strike.

What the hell is this?

Wang Yu, startled, immediately averted his gaze.

His spiritual sense was now nearly six or seven times stronger than that of a normal cultivator at his level; even contemplating primordial techniques had never provoked such a strange reaction.

Wang Yu stopped thinking further, returned the banner to the skeleton, flicked his sleeve—and the skeleton, along with the banner, dissolved into black mist and vanished into the storage bag.

Only then did he exhale deeply, shoved the Bone Token back into the bag, and resolved firmly: never touch this strange banner again until he reached Foundation Establishment.

Next, Wang Yu swept his spiritual sense once more into the storage bag; the yellow wooden box floated into his hand.

The box seemed made of some special spiritual material, warm to the touch, with a pale silver talisman pasted on its lid.

He merely brushed his fingers across the lid—the silver talisman drifted down; he opened the lid curiously, revealing a purple spirit mushroom with six leaves, each marked with black patterns resembling eyeballs, emitting a tempting, fragrant aroma.

“Six-Pupil Purple Mushroom”

The moment Wang Yu saw the strange mushroom’s form, his pupils contracted slightly, then his face lit up with joy.

Over the past four years, he had not only spent vast amounts of spirit stones reading every human text in the Four Symbols Sect’s library, but had also flipped through half the books in the “Ji” Hall.

The “Six-Pupil Purple Mushroom” was one of the Foundation Establishment spirit herbs recorded in a medicinal text; even swallowing it raw granted a half-percent chance of success, and if refined into “Purple Mushroom Pill” as the main ingredient, it could increase the chance by another percent—precisely the kind of treasure a Qi Condensation cultivator at the peak would fight to the death to obtain.

If auctioned in the marketplace, it would fetch at least fifty to sixty thousand spirit stones.

He now knew that during Foundation Establishment, a cultivator must consume a Foundation Establishment Pill, but could also take additional spirit herbs or auxiliary pills—though not too many, for excessive substances caused conflicting effects and drastically lowered success rates; three were generally optimal.

The Purple Cloud Pill, which boosted Foundation Establishment chance by one percent, was already an excellent auxiliary pill.

The half-gourd of Illuminating Spirit Liquid left by Chongyun Daoist had a similar effect—but that had drawn hunters after him, forcing him to flee to Huangshi City.

Thinking of the Illuminating Spirit Liquid, Wang Yu felt a pang of emotion; he closed the wooden box, reapplied the silver talisman, and carefully returned the box to the storage bag.

Then he inspected the bottles one by one; three of them each contained a deep-blue pill with two faint silver medicinal patterns—three mid-grade Zengyuan Pills.

This delighted Wang Yu further.

With these three mid-grade cultivation-boosting pills, he could save roughly a year and a half of training time.

As for the other bottles, they contained foul-smelling ointments, milky-white liquids, and tiny black pills the size of beans.

He recognized none of them, so he placed all the bottles into a separate storage bag and secured them.

At this point, having acquired so many treasures, Wang Yu was in high spirits; idly pulling out the final black-leather book and flipping through a few pages, he froze—his eyes widened in shock.