Ji Ning followed Emperor Goldisle and Emperor Blackcloud through the dark passageway. After walking for a short while, he finally saw yet another stone door.
âOpen,â Emperor Blackcloud command. The stone door instantly sank downwards, revealing the vast treasury behind it.
âWow.â Ning felt dizzy when he saw what was behind the stone door. He was able to sense many varied auras, some brutal, some cold, some stately... countless treasures were hanging there, so numerous that at a glance Ning was able to see tens of millions of treasures just with the naked eye alone.
âAll treasures stored within our treasury are quite extraordinary.â Emperor Goldisle smiled. âMany treasures here are one-of-a-kind! But of course, there are also some that are quite numerous, in which case weâll just put a single sample item here.â
âSeniors,â Ning said hurriedly, âMy lifeblood weapons need to personally touch the treasures in order to sense if they can make use of them or not.â
âJust touching is fine,â Emperor Goldisle said solemnly, âBut donât damage anything. Some of the treasures here are incredibly valuable.â
âPlease donât worry. My lifeblood weapons wouldnât dare,â Ning said.
The nearby Emperor Blackcloud laughed. âGo, then. Inspect them to your heartâs content.â
Ning nodded. âCome out,â Ning willed mentally. Swish! Swish! Swish! All six Northbow swords flew out from their scabbards, and as they did so an adorable child appeared from each of them.
âMaster! Master!â All six children began to call out repeatedly.
âListen up. This treasury is filled with countless treasures. You can touch them to sense which are of use to you,â Ning said, âBut remember, you absolutely must not damage any of them, nor are you allowed to absorb any of them. After the inspection is complete, with any luck, Iâll be able to give you some treasures to absorb.â
âAlright.â
âHaha, donât worry.â
âLeave it to us!â All six Northbow sword-spirits were quite excited.
âGo.â Ning immediately sent them flying into the skies towards the various treasures, which they began to scan.
This vast treasury was filled with long stone tables that were covered with countless treasures. There were also incredibly long twelve-layered treasure shelves, with each layer filled with many treasures. The ones placed on the shelves were clearly less valuable! There were also individual stone daises that held only a single treasure each.
This place had all sorts of weapons, even Universe weapons! There were all sorts of marvelous treasures here, including many strange curios that had been collected from the Terror Starsea...
......
Time slowly passed on, one minute at a time. Ning continued to furiously send his six Northbow swords flying everywhere, touching the various treasures. After roughly the time needed to boil a kettle of tea...
âMaster! Master! I can sense that if I ate this flower, it would be of big use to me,â Northbow Five called out spiritually to Ning.
Ningâs eyes lit up as he immediately looked towards the sword. This was a semi-ethereal flower that was surrounded by a faint gray aura. There was a jade slip next to it that introduced it as the âshadowless six-thief flowerâ. It was capable of hiding itself amongst other objects, making it extremely difficult to find. It was an incomparably marvelous item.
âHow many of those can you eat?â Ning asked spiritually.
âIâm not sure. At least ten thousand,â Northbow Five replied.
âGot it.â Ning nodded, silently memorizing this flower. He then continued to search for other treasures. This treasury most likely had copies of almost all of the decent treasures located within the Flamedragon Realmverse! When would he ever have another chance like this to just scan them as he pleased? Even if he wasnât able to acquire what he needed due to not having enough fruit, he could at least memorize them for future collection.
......
Outside the Palace of Immortals. Hegemon Brightshore, Hegemon Windrain, Hegemon Netherlily, Emperor Severfive, and Emperor Islehide continued to wait patiently alongside their retainers.
âBrightshore,â Hegemon Windrain said hurriedly, âThe Dao Alliance wouldnât be playing a trick on our young friend Darknorth, would they? If he ends up trading with them without giving us a chance...â
âAgreed. Brightshore...â Emperor Islehide said hurriedly, âDarknorth belongs to your Brightshore Kingdom.â
âDonât worry.â Hegemon Brightshore smiled. âI can reach out to Darknorth at any time! Heâs currently within the treasury of the Palace of Immortals, scanning the countless treasures there. This process will take some time, so donât be impatient. Once he knows which treasures he needs, heâll publicly announce it.â
âGood. At least we can compete fairly,â Emperor Severfive said. All of them were truly the most elite figures of the Endless Territories, but this competition over the coldflame cauldron fruits still made them nervous.
There was a rough, accepted âvalueâ to these fruits, but they were simply never available for sale. Very, very few were willing to sell these fruits, which was why in normal times the Hegemons were willing to pay multiples of the âacceptedâ value for the few coldflame cauldron fruits which appeared from time to time! Now that Crimsonwave Temple was going to be located within the Endless Territories indefinitely, theyâd be able to harvest 300 of the fruits every 100,000 chaos cycles. This was why they hadnât offered excessively high prices in their negotiations with Ning.
However... they also understood that the future couldnât be predicted. Who knew when Emperor Waveshift would end up taking the temple away again?
......
Within the treasury of the Palace of Immortals of the Dao Alliance.
Ning continued to control his six Northbow swords, sending them flying about like streaks of light towards various treasures, then gently brushing against them.
âMaster! Master! I can sense that this stone is going to help me out a lot!â Northbow Three called out as well. Ning immediately memorized the stone in question.
By the time he had nearly finished a complete scan of all the treasures within the treasury, he had already discovered a total of twelve treasures that would be of use to his Northbow swords! However, the Northbow swords would devour absolutely enormous amounts of material as they grew. Ning worried as to whether or not this would even be enough.
Finally, after roughly ten hours of scanning, Ning had finished his first review of all the treasures.
âHowâd it go?â Emperor Goldisle and Emperor Blackcloud both looked at Ning.
âThere really are quite a few treasures that are useful to my lifeblood weapons,â Ning said.
âWhich treasures do you need? Go ahead and tell us and weâll try to help you collect them as best we can,â Emperor Goldisle said.
âI should probably say it outside,â Ning replied hurriedly. âThe Hegemon reminded me long ago that we have to keep things fair.â
âOh. Right, right. Fair.â Emperor Blackcloud and Emperor Goldisle exchanged a glance, rather resigned. In the end, Ning belonged to the Brightshore Kingdom, making Hegemon Brightshoreâs instructions quite effective.
Emperor Blackcloud and Emperor Goldisle didnât really worry too much. Given how filthy rich the Dao Alliance was, they were quite confident in their chances.
âLetâs go.â Emperor Blackcloud and Emperor Goldisle led Ning in departing from the treasury.
......
Outside the Palace of Immortals. Ji Ning, Emperor Blackcloud, and Emperor Goldisle flew out at the same time.
âThere they are.â The three Hegemons, Emperor Severfive, Emperor Islehide, and the various retainers all looked towards Ning, their eyes lighting up.
The time for the final negotiations over the coldflame cauldron fruits had come.
âDarknorth, did you find any suitable treasures?â Hegemon Brightshore asked.
âI found twelve,â Ning said. The Hegemons and Emperors were all rather startled by this answer. Twelve? It seemed likely that everyone would be able to provide Ning with something he needed.
âThe first is known as the âshadowless six-thief flowersâ,â Ning said. âI need at least ten thousand of them.â
âThe shadowless six-thief flowers?â
âOver ten thousand?â
âBut...â
The three Hegemons and the various Emperors exchanged glances, all feeling rather resigned.
âWhat is it?â Ning was puzzled.
âDarknorth, even if we scraped up all of the shadowless six-thief flowers that the Flamedragon Realmverse has accumulated over the countless years of its existence, we would probably only be able to find a few hundred of them,â Hegemon Brightshore said.
Emperor Goldisle nodded as well. âThe shadowless six-thief flowers are invisible, hidden throughout the cosmos. They are extremely hard to find. Although they arenât that useful, they really are quite rare.â
Ning felt quite helpless upon hearing this. If the Northbow swords were to grow, they needed materials in sufficiently large quantities. For example, they had absorbed a terrifying amount of that golden sand! Based on what the Northbow sword-spirit had predicted, he would need at least ten thousand of those flowers, but it seemed as though Ning wouldnât even be able to acquire a tenth of that. Such a small amount would be of limited benefit.
âThe second type of treasure is known as the flamebearer tathata-metal,â Ning said. âIâll need a mountain of it, a mountain which is roughly thirty thousand meters tall.â
âThirty thousand meters tall?â The Hegemons and Emperors sighed again.
âYou are asking for too much. Flamebearer tathata-metal is used in palm-sized chunks for forging treasures. You want a mountain of it?â Emperor Goldisle shook his head. âThereâs no way to get that much in the Flamedragon Realmverse. If the Dao Alliance was willing to pay incredible prices to have other realmverses help out and deliver them, we might be able to do it... but the coldflame cauldron fruits in your possession arenât nearly enough to trade for a mountain of the tathata-metal.â