Chapter 47 Spatial Ring

With all his might, Lu Tianzi slashed across with his concealed knife, determined to put an end to the life of his opponent.

Hu Shenwei's eyes were full of unwillingness as he realised the fate that was looming before him.

However, there was no longer anything that he could do about it.

Blood spurted out from the gaping hole in Hu Shenwei's neck as he fell lifelessly to the ground. The resplendent light given off by his sword dimmed rapidly as it lost its source of Spiritual Essence, reverting to its original appearance as it dropped to the ground along with its owner.

But even as they fell, Hu Shenwei's right hand remained tightly gripped around his sword.

This was a swordsman's conviction, to never release his sword even at his time of death.

At the same time that Hu Shenwei fell, Lu Tianzi also lost all the strength in his body, similarly falling to the ground along with Hu Shenwei.

He lay on the ground and closed his eyes, desperately driving his Spiritual Essence according to the Undulated Currents Breathing Technique in order to recover his strength as quickly as possible.

In this fight, Lu Tianzi had truly been pushed to his limit.

When he realised that Hu Shenwei was in such a weakened state, Lu Tianzi initially thought that it would be a walk in the park for him to achieve victory.

However, Lu Tianzi soon realised that he had far underestimated the gulf between the Essence Building and Essence Condensation realms.

After being struck head on by Hu Shenwei's deadly flames, every last inch of Lu Tianzi's body had been left in agony. On top of that, it was not just once that he had to endure it!

Even after gritting his teeth and bearing through the pain, finally gaining the advantage in the fight, Hu Shenwei simply refused to fall despite his barrage of fists!

Lu Tianzi had already been tethering on the edge of his limits, and he knew that there was no way for him to keep up the barrage for long.

That was the only reason why Lu Tianzi decided to risk exposing a small opening in his chain of attacks, reaching out for his concealed knife so as to end it all.

Thankfully it succeeded, but Lu Tianzi knew that a chance of failure definitely existed at that moment. If Hu Shenwei had been prepared for the opening, he might even be able to completely escape Lu Tianzi's offence!

But that was a risk that Lu Tianzi had no choice but to take.

On the other hand, if he had already broken into the Essence Condensation realm, then Lu Tianzi was confident that his defence would at least be able to keep up a lot better, allowing him to remain in a better condition and thus increase his options during the fight.

Besides that, this fight had also opened his eyes to the fact that he was still far too unskilled with his weapons.

If Lu Tianzi's swordplay had been equal to or beyond Hu Shenwei's, then considering the latter's injuries, Lu Tianzi could have ended this a lot earlier as well.

Lu Tianzi decided that from now on, if he wanted to continue relying on the sword and sabre, or even transition to his dream weapon the spear, he would definitely have to train hard to properly master the weapon of his choice.

Otherwise, he would be better off just using his fists!

At this moment, Lu Tianzi suddenly opened his eyes as he felt a trace of energy escape from Hu Shenwei's unmoving corpse.

When he saw it with his own two eyes, Lu Tianzi was extremely surprised!

The magnitude of this energy was not something that he had ever seen in all his past kills!

Even if he combined all the similar slaughter energy that he had obtained before this, they would still pale in comparison to the one before him.

Yet there was no doubt that they were one and the same, bearing the exact same properties. Just like before, it dove straight into Lu Tianzi with a single thought of his will.

This massive amount of energy surged through his body, making quite a few revolutions within his inner world before it finally spread out throughout his body.

Lu Tianzi smiled in satisfaction upon noticing this.

He had killed Hu Shenwei solely for the sake of revenge, but this was a pretty good side benefit to his victory!

It took Lu Tianzi almost two hours of rest before he finally sat back up. By then, he had already regained most of his strength.

However, every movement he made still caused him to grimace in pain. The burn injuries caused by Hu Shenwei were definitely going to take a while to recover if left untreated.

But before tending to that, he had one more thing to do.

Lu Tianzi stood up and walked over to the corpse of Hu Shenwei as he scanned the body from head to toe.

It was finally time to plunder treasures!

With his identity as the son of Hu Yuanbo, Lu Tianzi would never believe it even if someone told him that Hu Shenwei did not have anything valuable in his possession!

In fact, it was even easier to search Hu Shenwei for treasures as compared to the people before, and that was due to him possessing a spatial ring.

Since Hu Shenwei possessed such an item, he would naturally store most of his items in the ring, especially those that were too valuable to be carried around openly.

So all Lu Tianzi had to do was to inspect the spatial ring!

Martial artists would usually refine their spatial rings, leaving a soul mark on the rings so that the rings would only be usable by them. Otherwise, their opponents would be able to easily access their secrets even in the midst of a fight!

If the disparity in strength between the two parties was too great, then such a thing might really be possible.

But in most cases, refining away another person's soul mark that was left behind in a spatial ring would generally take quite some time and effort, especially if the other party was stronger.

No matter what, refining away the original owner's soul mark was a necessary step as long as one wished to access another person's spatial ring,

But there was one exception to this rule, and that was if the original owner of the spatial ring was already dead.

When an owner of a soul mark was defeated and killed, then the soul mark would lose its connection to the soul. Having a soul mark without a connection to the soul was almost the same as not having the soul mark.

Right now, that was the case for Hu Shenwei's spatial ring as well.

Since Hu Shenwei was dead, Lu Tianzi no longer needed to spend time and effort on refining away his soul mark before accessing the contents within.

Lu Tianzi swiftly took off the spatial ring from Hu Shenwei's corpse before sinking his perception within.

He was truly looking forward to see what kind of treasures the son of the Lord of Ivory Rock City possessed!

And indeed, what he saw made him grin in excitement.

Essence Stones!

And it was not just one, but a few of them!

On top of that, they were still giving off a bright glow, testament to the fact that the energy within the Essence Stones had not been plundered.

These were what he desired the most at the moment!

After Lu Tianzi lost the Essence Stones that he possessed, his cultivation speed had been far too slow. Attempting to increase the unification rate of his Spiritual Essence particles was simply too taxing on his concentration and energy.

But by tapping on the energy within the Essence Stones, he would be able to greatly increase the speed at which he increased the unification rate of his Spiritual Essence particles!

Not just that, but he would definitely require a large amount of energy in the future when he was attempting to break through to the Essence Condensation realm, and having these Essence Stones would resolve that issue!

Lu Tianzi had originally intended to scour the area around Shadowfront Fortress in search for more Essence Stones. Never in his wildest dreams would he expect that this problem of his would now be alleviated thanks to Hu Shenwei.

What a fortunate turn of events!

Despite his elation, Lu Tianzi continued probing the independent space of the spatial ring.

There was food, water, spare clothes, spare weapons, and other necessities that would make his life more comfortable. But those were things that even Lu Tianzi could obtain on his own, so he was unimpressed.

Just as he thought that there would be nothing else of note, Lu Tianzi suddenly came across something that made his heart race once again.

It was the paper talisman from before!

This was the second slip that Hu Shenwei had used to scare off Nanhong Yechang and his subordinates, allowing the two of them to make their escape.

Since Hu Shenwei did not activate the paper talisman, it was naturally still intact and Hu Shenwei had returned it to his spatial ring.

Lu Tianzi's eyes glinted with a bright light as he carefully inspected the paper talisman.

From what he saw before, the paper talisman had activated the moment Hu Shenwei pierced it with his sword and poured his Spiritual Essence in.

That was a simple enough method of activation that Lu Tianzi would have no trouble emulating.

With this paper talisman in hand, Lu Tianzi would gain the strength to suppress Intermediate Essence Condensation realm martial artists, or perhaps even those who were at the Advanced or Peak Essence Condensation realm!

After making sure that there was nothing else of significance, Lu Tianzi started to refine the spatial ring by pouring in his own Spiritual Essence to form a soul mark.

Now, this spatial ring was as good as his.

The independent space within was the size of a sphere that had a diameter of approximately four metres.

It was not too big, but that was still more than enough space for Lu Tianzi to place his own items within as well.

When that was done, Lu Tianzi finally began to apply some first aid to his injuries.

Before leaving Ivory Rock City, he had made ample preparations for survival in the wild, even bringing along a small bag of various herbs. Right now, this preparation was starting to bear its fruits as he spread some crushed herbs over his skin to treat the burns.

This might not be enough to immediately heal the injuries, but it would at least help to alleviate the pain and hasten the process of healing.

After doing so, Lu Tianzi sat down in meditation until the sun was up. That was when he finally stepped out of the cave.

Lu Tianzi took in a deep breath as he basked in the warm sunlight.

By now, the heavy downpour from last night had already stopped, bringing away with it all his tension from the night before.

Lu Tianzi shot a cold glance at Hu Shenwei's lifeless body lying in the cave behind him before turning to leave, not even bothering to hide or destroy the corpse.

After all, he was not intending to return here again. Even if the corpse was found by others, there was no evidence whatsoever that pointed towards him as the culprit.

Thus there was no reason at all for him to be waste energy on a mere corpse, even if it belonged to the son of Hu Yuanbo.

No, it was especially because it belonged to the son of Hu Yuanbo that he could not be bothered.

But before he could walk far, Lu Tianzi suddenly sensed someone sweeping his perception over him!

It was done in an extremely subtle manner, as though the person was trying to prevent Lu Tianzi from noticing.

Thankfully, Lu Tianzi's own perception was stronger than an ordinary Essence Building realm martial artist's. Otherwise, he might really have remained oblivious even after he had been discovered!

Lu Tianzi immediately frowned.

It seemed that the heavy thunderstorm last night was still insufficient to hide the shockwaves of their battle in the cave.

If nothing else, that last attack of Hu Shenwei's would definitely attract attention from the demons who were looking for them!

Without waiting another second, Lu Tianzi turned around and sped off!

"Don't let him escape!" Nanhong Yechang roared as he charged out from behind the trees.

Upon hearing his command, another two demons rushed out from other directions.

When Lu Tianzi saw that, he felt a shiver running through his body.

If he had continued moving forward just now, then he would have stepped directly into the encirclement of the three demons!

Once he entered the centre of the encirclement, then the demons would definitely not allow him to escape unscathed!