Sage of Humanity

After returning from the Chess Sea, Lu Ye had accumulated a total of 5,352 points of merit. Later, he spent 2,000 of those points to buy ten portions of Earth's Core Fire, and he often entered the Mirage Realm to train, causing his merit points to gradually decrease.

During the process of dealing with the Insect Plague, he earned a significant amount of merit, and afterward, Hua Ci decided to grant him a portion of his monthly salary, bringing the total to an even 5,000 points.

Thus, for the time being, Lu Ye was not short of merit points.

In order to accelerate his learning of the Path of Spirit Runes with Madam Yun, he purchased another ten portions of Earth's Core Fire from Heaven's Augury treasure vault, allowing the Talent Tree to devour them one by one, and he obtained a few spirit runes.

Because he discovered something— the more spirit runes he mastered, the higher his attainment in the Path of Spirit Runes would be, making it simpler to learn other related subjects.

This led to his rapid progress in the cultivation of the Path of Spirit Runes with Madam Yun, earning him great admiration from her.

On the first day, it took him the entire daylight hours just to barely decode a spirit rune.

But on the second day, he decoded a spirit rune in just over two hours.

By the third day, decoding a spirit rune only took half an hour.

After five or six days, even the most complex spirit runes constructed by Madam Yun were quickly decoded by Lu Ye.

Decoding a single spirit rune no longer posed a challenge to him.

Therefore, Madam Yun created hybrid spirit runes, which involved a special technique to combine two or even three or more different spirit runes together, thereby allowing these runes to interact and produce a stronger effect.

This type of hybrid spirit rune also has another name: restriction!

Lu Ye had studied restrictions before and had been confused because he found out that what are called restrictions are built on the foundation of spirit runes; however, at that time, he had not systematically studied the Path of Spirit Runes, so he only understood it vaguely and could not comprehend it fully.

Now, with teachings from Madam Yun, his mastery in the Path of Spirit Runes had already greatly improved compared to the past.

Depending on the number of spirit runes comprising a restriction, the restriction has that many paths.

For example, Lu Ye's Boulder Mountain Saber is referred to as a Restriction Level 9 spirit artifact because it is inscribed with nine spirit runes, cleverly interwoven together to form a whole.

Lu Ye started with decoding hybrid spirit runes of the 2nd Dao restriction, and quickly progressed to decoding the 3rd Dao, 4th Dao, and so on.

Now, his lessons with Madam Yun felt like he was playing a game with her, with her providing questions in the form of spirit runes for Lu Ye to decode, which might seem boring to someone unfamiliar with the Path of Spirit Runes.

But Lu Ye found it very interesting, as each decoding process was unique and, with accumulated experience and guidance from Madam Yun, he was able to extract a lot of useful knowledge and techniques.

...

After returning from seeking advice from Shui Yuan, Hua Ci headed straight for the training room, like Lu Ye, she often spent the night there, and was not fussy about her living arrangements.

Compared to her days on Mount Ying, her current life was undoubtedly more comfortable. She did not have to work hard at a stall every day; there were many junior brothers and sisters in the sect, the sect headquarters had a Second Senior Sister who could instruct her, and the nature's spiritual energy here was much richer than on Mount Ying.

Since Lu Ye brought her to Righteous Blood Sect, she gradually grew fond of this place.

Under the guidance of Shui Yuan, her medical skills also improved rapidly.

With a gentle smile that warmed others' hearts, she greeted the junior brothers and sisters she met along the way, pushed open the door of her training room, then suddenly stopped, stepping back a few steps and looking around.

Indeed, this was her training room, but there was an additional person inside.

She looked closely and finally saw what that person was doing...

She couldn't help but laugh silently. Was it finally time to deal with those stored items? She had thoughts of sending these items to the nearest Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union for disposal, but when Second Senior Sister heard about it, she advised her to keep them as Lu Ye might need them anytime.

Now, it seemed that the time had come to put them to use.

She walked into the training room, closed the door, and approached Lu Ye, who was sitting in a corner with storage sacks piled on either side.

There were more on the left side and fewer on the right, only about a dozen or so.

Hua Ci casually grabbed one of those dozen storage sacks from the right, briefly checked and found that these previously locked storage sacks were now open, and their contents could be taken out.

While learning to decode spirit runes with Madam Yun for half a month, Lu Ye was still a long way from being able to decode other people's Sect Protection Arrays, but decoding the restrictions in storage sacks was no longer a big issue.

Storage sacks are actually sewn from a special kind of demon beast hide, which has the characteristic of expanding space when it comes into contact with spirit force; after some procedural handling, it is most suitable for making storage sacks.

This type of demon beast is not difficult to breed, and many sects in the Nine Provinces bred this demon beast to increase the sect's income by selling the demon beast hide, even specializing in it for economic gain.

Because of this, storage sacks themselves are not very valuable, as the cost of producing them is not high.

Each storage sack has spirit runes inscribed by a spirit runes master, and depending on the master's habit, the types of spirit runes inscribed vary; however, without exception, there's always a restriction centered around explosive combustion.

This restriction is key to the storage sack.

The restriction, centered around explosive combustion, is constructed by a special technique. If it comes into abrupt contact with unfamiliar spirit force, it will quickly ignite, thereby destroying the entire storage sack.

Therefore, there is something called a restriction lock in each storage sack, and the key to unlocking it is the cultivator's spirit force.

Of course, because of this restriction, another profession called locksmith has emerged in the cultivation world...

Lu Ye had once hired a locksmith from Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union to unlock a storage sack, profiting once and losing once. In summary, unlocking involves risks, and investment should be cautious.

With Lu Ye's current proficiency on the Path of Spirit Runes, being a locksmith would be more than enough for him. According to Madam Yun, those truly talented in spirit runes wouldn't choose to be locksmiths.

The so-called locksmiths are just mediocre spirit runes masters, hardly acknowledged in distinguished circles.

However, Lu Ye currently needed such experience to train himself, and although learning from Madam Yun allowed for rapid growth, observing the methods of other spirit runes masters surely wouldn't hurt.

This was also Madam Yun's suggestion. According to her, the Path of Spirit Runes depends on three things: talent, skill, and practice and accumulation, none of which can be absent.

As Hua Ci was examining those storage sacks, Lu Ye suddenly threw the storage sack in his hand, and before it hit the ground, it burst into flames and quickly turned to ash.

Hua Ci looked up at him, "Did I disturb you?"

"Not at all."

Lu Ye picked up another storage sack emotionlessly and continued to break its restriction. Though he had a high success rate now, he failed occasionally.

This was unavoidable in the early stages.

A moment later, he managed to open the storage sack in his hand, looked inside briefly, and then tossed it aside.

Overall, the governors and deputy governors who participated in the Spirit Stream Defense Battle were not too poor; their storage sacks always contained some Spirit Stones, elixir pills, and Spirit Talismans.

However, there were no spectacularly eye-catching items to be found.

One would think that participating in a dangerous event like the Spirit Stream Defense Battle, carrying anything valuable would be risky—if one were to be killed, wouldn't it just benefit the enemy?

So, the items in these storage sacks were generally practical, and not of very high value.

These were precisely the things that Hua Ci needed at the moment; the accumulation of items from so many storage sacks amounted to a considerable fortune.

In the deep silence of the night, Lu Ye unlocked storage sacks while Hua Ci sat in the center of the Spirit Gathering Array and cultivated.

Only at dawn did Lu Ye finish dealing with all the storage sacks. The number of sacks that had been destroyed was about a dozen, not too many.

His efficiency had already been quite impressive, especially since Lu Ye had never done this job before.

He must continue to push himself!

Lu Ye stood up and stretched lazily.

"I'm going to Bright Heart Peak, message me if you need anything!"

As he passed by Hua Ci, he ruffled her hair, left a word, and then pushed the door and left. Explore stories on My Virtual Library Empire

"Sixth Senior Sister!" A crisp voice called out from outside, apparently waiting.

Eyes locking, He Xiying was stunned, "F... Fifth Senior Brother?"

Her gaze shifted, passing over Lu Ye to see Hua Ci inside the training room, arranging her hair, her smile gradually stiffening.

"Don't block the way!"

Lu Ye placed his hand on her head and moved He Xiying aside, walking straight toward the direction of the Heaven's Augury Hall.

That day, many saw He Xiying wandering around the camp like a zombie, muttering phrases like "no chance left" and "someone got there first"...

During the days, as usual, she studied the Path of Spirit Runes with Madam Yun.

In the evening, instead of going to the training room, Lu Ye went straight to the marketplace.

This marketplace had originally been established by independent cultivators under Chen Yu's management. Later, these cultivators either became disciples in name of the Righteous Blood Sect or affiliated themselves with the sect, and the marketplace was consequently retained.

Compared to before, its popularity hadn't diminished; rather, it increased as more independent cultivators came to this area, even including those affiliated under Haotian Alliance forces drawn by its fame.

This kept the marketplace bustling as sect disciples and independent cultivators came here to do small business, supplementing their cultivation needs, and Lu Ye naturally wouldn't stop them.

Righteous Blood Sect didn't have as many rules as other sects—just one: don't do anything that harms the Righteous Blood Sect.

Also, because they had weakened two nearby Ten Thousand Demons Ridge forces a while ago, the Righteous Blood Sect disciples now had a larger area to operate within. With more room to operate, naturally, the profits increased.

Lu Ye found a quiet corner upon arriving, set up a sign he had prepared in advance, and then took out a book to read, appearing relaxed.

"Fifth Senior Brother!" Those passing by greeted him promptly, quickly noticing the sign next to him, and couldn't help but read out loud, "Free Lock Opening!"