Martial Saint with Passives

Then, Gu Song walked toward the three treasure chests, preparing to figure out how to open them.

However, at that very moment, a calm voice suddenly sounded from behind him.

"I wasn’t mistaken. You truly are a despicable man."

Gu Song was terrified and spun around abruptly!

He saw a young figure dressed in gray, form-fitting clothes, who had somehow appeared silently behind him!

It was Jiang Che!

It turned out he had been using Shadow Escape the entire time, following the three of them and witnessing the whole event.

"It’s you?!"

After his initial shock, Gu Song saw that it was Jiang Che and actually relaxed.

He didn’t know how Jiang Che had snuck up on him, but that was no longer important.

He sneered, "Heh heh, you brat. I wasn’t even looking for you, and yet you delivered yourself to my doorstep?"

He dropped all pretense, and the terrifying aura of the Fourth Layer of True Master Realm erupted from him!

"And I don’t know whether to call you bold or foolish! You knew I was at the Fourth Layer of True Master Realm, yet you still dared to show yourself?"

"Enough! Brat, hand over all your secrets at once, and I might consider... leaving you a complete corpse!"

However, faced with the terrifying pressure of the Fourth Layer of True Master Realm, Jiang Che’s expression remained unchanged.

He was heard muttering to himself:

"Transformation... Black Armor!"

BOOM!!!

An incomparably violent, savage, and heart-stoppingly terrifying aura exploded from within Jiang Che’s body!

Ferocious Black Armor instantly covered his entire body!

In just a few breaths, Jiang Che transformed from a tall, slender young man into a Black-armored Giant nearly four meters tall, brimming with destructive power!

The sneer on Gu Song’s face instantly froze!

He stared at the terrifying figure before him, which looked like a Demon God descended upon the world, his eyes filled with horror.

However, after probing with his Divine Thought, he discovered that although Jiang Che had become much stronger, he was still at the Peak of the Second Layer of the True Master Realm. Gu Song immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

"Brat, so this is your trump card? Heh... Just smoke and mirrors! Not enough!"

As he spoke, he let out another sneer and charged forward to attack!

But the Black-armored Giant simply raised a finger and pointed it gently at him.

"Twenty-five times..."

"Azure Dragon... Annihilation."

A destructive beam of light, as black as ink, flashed and vanished!

Every expression on Gu Song’s face froze instantly!

He stiffly lowered his head to look at the watermelon-sized hole in his chest, which went straight through him. His eyes were filled with horror and disbelief.

"How... is this possible... My Realm... is clearly higher than yours..."

Before he could finish, all the light in his eyes rapidly faded.

Then he collapsed heavily to the ground, dead but with his eyes wide open.

Afterward, Jiang Che slowly deactivated his Black Armor Form.

He walked over to Gu Song’s corpse, crouched down, and began to collect his spoils.

First, he found a Storage Bag containing a thick stack of gold notes and three Rejuvenation Pills that emanated a dense Heaven and Earth Spiritual Mechanism!

In addition, there was a map made from some unknown type of parchment, which recorded information about the mechanisms in the grotto-abode.

’It seems this guy relied on this sheet to get past all those mechanisms.’

He continued searching and found a black dagger as thin as a cicada’s wing.

Jiang Che had personally seen him use this dagger to kill Du Yuanjiang, and thought to himself, ’This is definitely a valuable item.’

Then, he also found the Bronze Array Disc that Gu Song had used earlier, as well as the Clearing Fan that could disperse the poisonous mist.

Jiang Che even stripped off the Defensive Treasure Robe that Gu Song wore close to his body, the same one that had withstood Du Yuanjiang’s sneak attack.

Finally, Jiang Che pulled a thread-bound, ancient Secret Manual from his robes.

The title on the cover read: "Turtle Breath Concealing Secret Technique".

Jiang Che flipped through a few pages and understood.

’So this is what he used to suppress his Realm...’

He couldn’t help but marvel inwardly. ’This guy really knew how to lie low...’

Who knows how many people he’d killed with his trick of pretending to be a pig to eat a tiger. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have amassed so much treasure!

Jiang Che happily stored everything away. He had really lucked out this time.

After looting Gu Song, Jiang Che walked over to the bodies of the couple.

He took the incredibly sturdy Profound Turtle Shield and the Jade Flute capable of launching sonic attacks, placing them all into his bag.

In addition, he found some high-quality Healing Elixirs and tens of thousands of taels in gold notes.

Jiang Che didn’t have time to appraise the grade of each treasure, so he simply stuffed all of them into his Storage Bag.

He planned to study them slowly after he returned.

Then, he walked up to the three enormous Treasure Chests forged from Ten Thousand Year Cold Iron.

However, when he tried to open them, he found that the Treasure Chests wouldn’t budge an inch!

Jiang Che observed them closely and realized the chests were locked.

And these were no ordinary locks.

On the front of each chest were nine rotating bronze rings, and each ring was inscribed with an ancient symbol he couldn’t understand!

’Isn’t this... just like the combination locks from my previous life?’

However, he didn’t immediately try to decode it. Instead, he channeled his True Qi and slammed a fist heavily against one of the Treasure Chests!

"I don’t care what kind of lock this is... Break for me!"

BANG!

With a muffled thud, the Treasure Chest remained completely still!

At the same time, a faint halo of light flashed across the chest’s surface and vanished.

’There’s a Restriction...’ Jiang Che frowned. ’Looks like I’ll have to open it with the code after all...’

But what was the code?

He tried randomly turning a few of the rings, but naturally, the Treasure Chest didn’t react at all.

’Could... the code be on that parchment map?’