Vessel of Worlds

Most of what Andy knew about talisman treasures came from various texts. They were a fairly well-known type of treasure in the cultivation world, so while few cultivators actually possessed one, many had heard of them.

Beyond that, Jian Xin'er had also mentioned talisman treasures. It was when the Jian family held a wedding for their wind-root cultivator Jian Yun and a thunder-root girl from the Han family. The Jian family patriarch—their sole Core Formation cultivator—had personally appeared at the ceremony and presented the newlyweds with a Supreme Balance Sword talisman treasure each. Every cultivator present, Foundation Establishment cultivators included, had burned with envy.

The power of artifacts varied enormously—a low-grade artifact and a peak-grade artifact were worlds apart.

The same was true for dharma treasures. The gap between an ordinary dharma treasure and a truly formidable one was even more staggering than the difference between low-grade and peak-grade artifacts.

A talisman treasure's power was directly tied to the strength of the dharma treasure sealed within it. Talisman treasures crafted from different dharma treasures differed wildly in potency.

From his reading, Andy knew that a talisman treasure forged from an ordinary dharma treasure was not vastly stronger than a peak-grade artifact. But a talisman treasure crafted from an exceptionally powerful dharma treasure could surpass an ordinary dharma treasure in raw might. Such things existed, though of course a Foundation Establishment cultivator or below could never fully activate their sealed power.

How strong this opponent's talisman treasure truly was, Andy couldn't tell. He could only pit the peak-grade silver sword against it and see.

Under Andy's anxious gaze, the silver-shrouded sword and the yellow-glowing knife clashed.

In stark contrast to the tremendous spiritual pressure and momentum the two weapons carried, the collision was utterly silent. The instant the silver and yellow auras met, the silver was compressed to half its size—but then it held, refusing to give another inch, withstanding the talisman treasure's strike head-on.

The talisman treasure's yellow glow clearly had the upper hand, but the silver aura could still resist. For the moment, the two were locked in a stalemate.

It seemed this talisman treasure was only the most ordinary variety. Andy's heart unclenched, and only then did he notice that his palms and back were already slick with cold sweat.

Breaking the deadlock would come down to which side could keep feeding its weapon enough spiritual power. Both men poured the last of their dwindling reserves into their respective treasures while simultaneously pulling out spirit stones to replenish themselves.

The white-robed youth produced a dark yellow earth-attribute mid-grade spirit stone. Andy brought out a semi-transparent, blue-crystal water-attribute high-grade spirit stone.

"A high-grade spirit stone!" The white-robed youth felt a surge of extraordinarily pure spiritual energy emanating from Andy's direction. One glance revealed the blue crystal in his opponent's hand, and the sheer density of its energy told him exactly what it was.

"You—how can you possibly have a high-grade spirit stone!" His eyes went wide, his face a mask of disbelief, as though he had seen a ghost. High-grade spirit stones were treasures that even Core Formation cultivators couldn't easily obtain. How could one be in the hands of a twelfth-layer Qi Condensation cultivator? If offered to a sect, a stone like that could be exchanged for eight or ten Foundation Establishment Pills!

Shock, elation, greed, and fear crashed through the white-robed youth in rapid succession, all converging into a single resolution: he would kill Andy at any cost and seize everything he owned.

He surreptitiously palmed a green pellet the size of a mung bean and flicked it toward Andy with a subtle motion.

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Andy was absorbing the surging, refined spiritual power of the high-grade spirit stone, but he had not devoted all of his spiritual sense to controlling his weapons. With his formidable spiritual sense, operating the silver sword and ice shield simultaneously still left capacity to spare. The rest he kept spread outward, carefully monitoring everything around him. This was standard practice among cultivators, and precisely why sneak attacks so rarely succeeded against them.

The white-robed youth's release of the green pellet was subtle, but Andy detected it the instant it left his hand. He had no spare spiritual power to operate another defensive artifact, so he maneuvered the mid-grade spirit tool ice shield to block his front.

Though Andy's cultivation was considerably lower than his opponent's, a high-grade spirit stone restored spiritual power many times faster than a mid-grade one. Before long, the spiritual power Andy was channeling into the silver sword far exceeded what the white-robed youth could feed into the yellow knife.

The silver aura, which had been struggling on the back foot, gradually began pushing forward with the steady influx of power. In short order, it fought the talisman treasure's yellow glow to a dead even.

The white-robed youth could do nothing about it.

His attention was now focused on guiding the unassuming green pellet around the ice shield's defense, trying to strike Andy directly.

Andy would never fall for something so simple. The crystalline ice shield orbited five or six chi from his body, tracking the green pellet's every move, never allowing it to close the distance.

Suddenly, the green pellet surged forward with a burst of speed, changed direction, and shot straight at Andy.

The ice shield was no slower. It flickered into position before Andy, intercepting the pellet.

A deafening crack of thunder and a blinding flash of lightning erupted where the two met. The white glare, too intense to look at directly, lasted several breaths before fading to reveal the ice shield shattered into several pieces on the ground.

That tiny pellet, no larger than a bean, had completely destroyed a mid-grade defensive spirit tool comparable in power to a Foundation Establishment cultivator.

The blast's shockwave drove Andy back seven or eight steps before he found his footing. Without the dozen-odd layers of defensive barriers on his body, he might have taken injuries.

The green pellet's power was staggering. If the other man had a second one, Andy had no idea how he would defend against it.

But the other man clearly had no second pellet.

The green pellet's origins were far from ordinary. Its true name was Azure Thunder Seed. It was created by cultivators who practiced thunder-attribute techniques and had reached at least mid-stage Foundation Establishment. During thunderstorms, they would collect natural lightning strikes and seal the captured thunder inside a pellet made from a rare material called Thunderbreak Stone, using specialized crafting methods. Once thrown, the pellet's outer shell of Thunderbreak Stone would shatter on impact, and the sealed lightning would detonate with a force that even an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator couldn't withstand head-on.

Azure Thunder Seeds were extremely difficult to produce, and since they self-destructed upon use, they were single-use consumables. Cultivators below Foundation Establishment typically kept them as a last-resort trump card, and no one ever had many. The white-robed youth's single Azure Thunder Seed had been bestowed by a sect elder—three in total, divided among himself, a senior brother, and a junior brother, one each.

The Azure Thunder Seed's power was formidable, but the mid-grade ice shield spirit tool was no trifle either. Had it been a flawless mid-grade spirit tool rather than a damaged remnant, it could have absorbed the full force of an Azure Thunder Seed by expending all the spiritual power in its mid-grade ice spirit stone, without the tool itself suffering any damage.

Having thrown his Azure Thunder Seed and still failed to harm his opponent, the white-robed youth's face turned an even more ghastly shade of white. It dawned on him that this was no longer a question of whether he could take his opponent's life—it was a question of whether he could escape with his own.

Unfortunately, this spot he had so carefully chosen for his ambush was ill-suited for flight. If he turned and ran on foot, he could never outpace a flying sword.

Cold sweat rolled down his spine in fat drops. He spoke in a trembling voice: "If I leave all my treasures behind, would you be willing to spare my life? I swear I will never breathe a word of what happened today!"

"What do you think?" Andy's lips curled into a cold smile. "Do you really believe I would let someone who knows I possess a high-grade spirit stone walk out of Dragon Descent Valley alive? As for keeping secrets—only the dead can truly keep them."

The white-robed youth's last shred of hope died. Though his storage pouch still held several fine artifacts, he had no spiritual power left to wield any of them.

The talisman treasure knife's yellow glow grew steadily weaker. The silver sword's radiance was gradually gaining the upper hand.

And Andy, intent on ending this battle as quickly as possible, pulled out another stack of red talismans.