Chapter 11: Harvest

Seeing the grand formation begin to operate again, Chen Mobai could finally breathe a sigh of relief. He wanted to sit down and rest, but the sight of the two corpses in the water mansion completely put him off. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw their unseeing, lifeless expressions.

However, Chen Mobai had no experience with handling corpses. Pacing back and forth in the main hall, he noticed the dead fish and wondered if he should throw the bodies into the water outside the grand formation to let the fish clean them to the bone. After thinking it over, Chen Mobai shook his head. Although he didn't know where this "Eastern Wilds" was, he had been obsessed with detective shows since childhood and didn't believe the fish here would be fierce enough to completely destroy the evidence. To prevent the bodies from floating to the surface and being discovered by cultivators from the Eastern Wilds, who might then trace them back to this location, Chen Mobai decided the safest method was to completely erase all traces of the two individuals within the water mansion itself.

But how to do it? Chen Mobai paced around again, his face clouded with worry. He considered burning them, but first, he didn't practice any fire-starting techniques. Even if he could generate enough heat, burning bodies in this enclosed space, as an ordinary high school student, was something he simply couldn't bring himself to do.

Finally, he walked back to the old man's dismembered corpse. Forcing himself to suppress his primal instincts, he was about to turn away when he suddenly noticed the closed stone door of the side hall. "Right, I can use the restrictions here." Recalling his first attempt to test the area with a coin, which had been vaporized by a ghostly blue electric current, Chen Mobai felt his idea might work. Without further ado, he immediately set to work. Primarily, Chen Mobai truly didn't want to remain with the corpses any longer.

He used his most proficient Levitation Technique to lift one of the old man's arms and then flung it towards the stone door of the central side hall. *Hiss!* As expected, without the protection of spiritual energy or a shield, the bloody arm was instantly atomized into a cloud of mist by the ghostly blue electric current, faintly staining the floor tiles. The blood splattering on the stone door then triggered the power of the restrictions again. *Zzzzt… zzzzt… zzzzt…* Subsequently, the entire water mansion was enveloped in the continuous flickering and dying glow of electric currents.

After five repetitions, the old man's corpse was finally completely disintegrated. To Chen Mobai's surprise, the power of the restrictions on the side hall's stone door seemed to have weakened slightly. "It seems the side hall's restrictions are not linked to the water mansion's entire spiritual ley line," he mused. "Breaking them will be much simpler this way." An excellent formation master would link important structures to the main spiritual ley line formation when setting up a protective grand formation. This way, as long as the grand formation isn't broken and the spiritual ley line isn't dispersed, the power of the restrictions on the buildings, even if worn down, would immediately recover. Although this "Azure Water Grand Formation" was decent, it was clear that the person who set it up had merely purchased the formation plate and flags and simply replicated the setup.

After Chen Mobai finished disintegrating the old man's remains, he noticed a blood-stained cloth pouch on the floor tiles. Adhering to the principle of caution, he used his Levitation Technique to lift the pouch and then remotely emptied its contents. A heap of items clattered out. Besides a dozen neatly cut gold bars, there were two books, three bottles of pills, a short knife, and a change of robes.

Chen Mobai's breathing quickened at the sight of the gold. Though its value wasn't as high as in the previous civilization, within the Immortal Sect, it was still a cultivation material. Whether it was gold powder mixed through special processes for writing talismans or refined gold essence, there was a significant market for it. These dozen or so gold bars, by rough estimation, were worth over eight hundred merit points. If processed well, they could yield nearly a thousand merit points. Chen Mobai, who had never possessed so much wealth since childhood, felt a surge of excitement.

He picked up the two books and flipped through them. One was likely the old man's cultivation technique, named "Black Water Art." Chen Mobai glanced at it and set it down; now wasn't the time to study it. The title of the other book made his breathing quicken: "Detailed Explanation of the Azure Water Formation." This was actually the manual for the water mansion's protective grand formation. Chen Mobai had initially thought the old man was lying when he claimed to be the water mansion owner's disciple, but seeing this book, he now considered it possible that it was true. However, the formation book was quite thick. Chen Mobai checked his phone and saw he only had an hour until class, so he didn't examine it thoroughly.

At this point, another question occurred to him: could he take all these items with him when he returned to the city? With this question in mind, he began to deal with the corpse of the youth in brown robes. Being experienced now, he first used his Levitation Technique to turn the body over and over. Sure enough, he found six hidden pouches in the youth's sleeves: one bottle of pills, two jade-white stones, a foldable crossbow, and a disciple's manual from the "Flying Needle Sect." He then opened the palm-sized needle case in the youth's hand and collected the earth-yellow flying needles that had been scattered everywhere. Chen Mobai then contentedly gathered all the items from the old man's cloth pouch and piled them together.

After Chen Mobai finished vaporizing the body using the stone door's restrictions again, he used the old man's change of robes as a rag to wipe clean all the blood-stained areas throughout the water mansion. He even used his Levitation Technique for precise remote control of the robes to meticulously wipe the bloodstains from the floor tiles in front of the side hall door. He even picked up the dead fish. Everything was restored to cleanliness, and Chen Mobai felt the sense of accomplishment one gets after tidying up their own home.

He plopped down in the middle of the main hall, in front of the pile of hard-earned spoils he had recovered. The old man's cloth pouch was also stained with blood, which Chen Mobai found unlucky, so he didn't use it. He took off his own shirt, spread it on the floor tiles, and then meticulously placed the items onto it, one by one. Finally, his hand brushed against the two jade-white stones. A gentle, pure spiritual energy surged through the meridians in his palm, like a warm current, causing Chen Mobai to shiver uncontrollably and almost cry out in blissful comfort.

"This... could it be... a spirit stone!" If the previous items had merely excited Chen Mobai, these two jade-white stones completely overwhelmed him. One must understand that within the Immortal Sect, these items were as invaluable as gold was in the previous civilization on Geocentric Star. However, due to Geocentric Star's scarcity of resources, all spirit stone mines had long been thoroughly surveyed and mapped. Mining was forbidden in all of them, except during periods of pioneering wars. Yet, even so, according to the Immortal Sect's latest financial report, the entire Geocentric Star's spirit stone reserves were already critically low. If not for a genius who emerged from the Immortal Sect two thousand years ago, inventing a wondrous art that allowed dried-up spirit stones to be re-infused with spiritual energy, restoring them to eighty percent of their freshly-mined, unused state, the Immortal Sect's merit point system would likely have long collapsed due to the lack of sufficient spirit stones for exchange. Even with this, it was only during pioneering wars that the Immortal Sect permitted cultivators to exchange merit points for spirit stones at banks. Ten thousand merit points were equivalent to one low-grade spirit stone.