Staying Alive Cautiously in the Celestial Realm and Becoming the Strongest

But it was an exceptionally heavy snowfall.

Soon, a thin layer had accumulated in the yard.

Wang Chen brought the corpse of the man in black into the house and began to search it by the light of the bedroom.

The man in black carried no magic artifacts, only a storage bag hanging at his waist.

From the storage bag, five feet square in size, Wang Chen took out fifteen Low Spirit Stones and some Fragmented Spirit Stones, three bottles of pills, nine magical talismans, a dagger, and a crane-shaped pot.

Wang Chen was speechless.

He owned a similar crane-shaped pot, the Enchanting Fairy Pot he had acquired by killing a traveling merchant in the past!

Such plundering trinkets were useless to Wang Chen and couldn’t be sold, so he had always kept it at the bottom of his storage bag.

He never expected to acquire another one.

Moreover, among the three bottles of pills was one that he was very familiar with, Corpse Dissolving Powder!

Together with Evil-Repelling Talismans, Armor and Horse Talismans, Rebirth Talismans…

Wang Chen seriously suspected that this man was from the same sect as the traveling merchant he had killed.

Just another destitute outlaw!

Yet, there was no end to poverty, only degrees of it.

The brawny man he had blasted to death at the door with his Fire Crow Technique didn’t even have a storage bag!

The weapon in his hand was also just ordinary goods.

Not only that, but Wang Chen hadn’t been able to obtain even a little bit of Heavenly Merit from him.

This was quite interesting.

Killing was, as far as Wang Chen knew, the only known way to acquire Heavenly Merit.

He had always been puzzled why the points of Heavenly Merit he received were inconsistent.

Now he understood.

Tonight, Wang Chen had killed three people and had seen two pieces of information appear in his vision, both before and after.

Seven points and five points of Heavenly Merit, corresponding to the middle-aged cultivator and the man in black.

And before making his move, Wang Chen had used the Spiritual Perception Technique to probe them, finding one at the seventh tier of Qi Cultivation and the other at the fifth tier!

If he still didn’t understand, he really would need to recharge his intelligence.

Killing a cultivator would yield Heavenly Merit, with the number of points determined by the cultivation level of the one killed.

Seven tiers meant seven points, five tiers meant five points!

As for the brawny man, he wasn’t a cultivator at all.

So killing him was in vain; Wang Chen got no Heavenly Merit from it.

Such rules made Wang Chen feel a chilling malice coming from the immortal cultivation panel.

Malice targeted at cultivators!

Do you want Heavenly Merit?

Then go kill cultivators. The more you kill, the more you get!

It was simply inciting crime.

But Wang Chen had no qualms.

To date, he had killed six people, five of whom were Qi Cultivation cultivators.

All were in self-defense.

And even after understanding the Heavenly Merit rules,

Wang Chen would never deliberately kill innocent people just for the sake of Heavenly Merit in the future!

A true man should know what to do and what not to do.

If one doesn’t even have the baseline of humanity, then what kind of immortal is one cultivating, what path is one achieving?

It’s nothing but demonry!

Of course, towards enemies, one must be as merciless as the autumn wind sweeping away fallen leaves!!

Both the man in black and the brawny man had yielded no noteworthy gains.

Therefore, Wang Chen placed his last hope on the middle-aged cultivator.

And he indeed unearthed a substantial haul!

First and foremost was a long sword.

Since the middle-aged cultivator was killed in a very short span with a barrage of powerful strikes from Wang Chen, he didn’t even have time to draw his sword before he met his end in the Netherworld.

When Wang Chen took the sword in hand and drew it from its sheath, he was nearly blinded by the flash of the Sword Light!

“`

The sword was about three feet in length, its design simple and unadorned.

The blade shone with a cold gleam, fiercely sharp, and the straight spine of the sword was reminiscent of a clear stream, faintly exuding an aura of mana fluctuations.

Engraved on the guard were the seal characters for “Autumn Water.”

The Autumn Water Sword!

This was the finest quality magic sword Wang Chen had ever seen.

It was at least a top-tier first-grade level!

Truth be told, upon witnessing the true face of this long sword, Wang Chen couldn’t help but break out in a cold sweat.

A first-grade top-tier magic sword was worth at least several hundred, perhaps even a thousand spirit stones.

And the middle-aged cultivator who wielded the sword was of a high Qi Cultivation level; he must have had considerable skill in swordsmanship, otherwise, he wouldn’t be flaunting such a fine sword just for show, right?

Perhaps he was even a Sword Cultivator!

Sword Cultivators were extremely capable in combat, often able to crush cultivators of the same tier.

If Wang Chen hadn’t taken him by surprise, seizing the advantage of timing and location to quickly end the fight…

Who would have ended up as the victor was really up for debate!

Of course, such speculation was meaningless. Victory was victory; it wasn’t possible for time to flow backward and for the battle to occur again.

Inside the middle-aged cultivator’s Storage Bag, Wang Chen found over two hundred Low Spirits, five bottles of pills, dozens of talismans, several hundred jin of Spirit Rice and Monster Beast meat.

As well as a palm-sized bronze bell.

Struck it rich!

Truly, a horse won’t get fat without night grass, a man won’t get rich without windfalls.

This haul was so enormous that Wang Chen nearly laughed himself into a doggie!

Not to mention, the Storage Bag itself had a volume of three zhang cubed.

Storage Bags are valued according to their volume. The first Storage Bag he had used was merely three chi squared; later on, he switched to one that was one zhang squared.

Now this one was a full three zhang cubed—it was like trading a musket for a cannon!

Wang Chen carefully checked and didn’t find any marks or prohibitions on the Storage Bag.

The design was a standard model, completely safe and bold to use.

The most troublesome aspect of Wang Chen’s previous excavation of the underground fortress was the issue of moving soil.

The small capacity of the Storage Bag meant he had to move up and down frequently; otherwise, he would have finished the project long ago.

This Storage Bag, Wang Chen was definitely going to keep for his own use!

A first-grade top-tier magic sword, over two hundred spirit stones, pills, talismans, Spirit Rice, beast meat, and the large Storage Bag.

Plus a bronze bell that, though its origins were unknown, was clearly a magic artifact at a glance.

This haul had earned him at least two thousand spirit stones!

Thinking back to when he first arrived, with only seven Low Spirits and thirty-nine Fragmented Spirit Stones in his worn Storage Bag.

Wang Chen felt as if he was dreaming.

Happy as he was, he didn’t delay the important matters at hand.

He positioned the three corpses together and poured Corpse Dissolving Powder on each, dissolving them completely.

He then threw the clothes and various objects found in the two Storage Bags on top and burned them clean with the Fire Crow Technique.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, may the souls of the deceased return to the earth…”

Specks of Spiritual Light fluttered like fireflies, a Rebirth Talisman silently perished, elevating the departed souls.

Next, Wang Chen clapped two Evil-Repelling Talismans together, purifying the room of any lingering spirits.

If a sentient being died with immense grievance and was not given timely liberation, their soul or remnant soul might linger in the human world and not move on.

Given enough time, there was a good chance they would transform into an Evil Wraith!

Therefore, these procedures were necessary.

After cleaning up everything, Wang Chen immediately returned underground through the secret passageway in the Spirit Fields.

Seeing him return unharmed, Wei Lian let out a huge sigh of relief.

Wang Chen smiled and said, “It’s alright now.”

“Mm,” Wei Lian obediently nodded.

She was intelligent and, seeing that Wang Chen had no intention of explaining, didn’t ask any further questions.

It saved Wang Chen some trouble.

Back in his room, Wang Chen took out the bronze bell.

————

The first update is delivered.