Chapter 4522 Every Grain Counts

“Wow! Senior, you’re amazing! Not only did you raid the kitchen, but you also managed to snatch their pots and even the stove!” exclaimed Long Chen.

Long Chen's eyes widened as he beheld a vast new medicinal field stretching tens of thousands of miles. To his amazement, the Earth Cauldron had claimed the entire medicinal field.

“Every grain counts; nothing should go to waste,” remarked the Earth Cauldron lightly. Despite its composed tone, Long Chen could hear a trace of pride in its words.

The Earth Cauldron had stripped away an entire layer of the medicinal field, uprooting all the plants. This audacious act left the six Saints fuming with rage, even to the point of coughing up blood.

Originally, due to time constraints, Long Chen had only been planning on taking the Saint-level plants. However, the Earth Cauldron spared nothing, leaving not a single trace of the Heavenly Corrupt Sect's vegetation.

Overwhelmed by the Earth Cauldron’s prowess, Long Chen felt an impulse to bow in reverence. In response, the Earth Cauldron said, “Gathering these plants depleted quite a bit of my energy. When you have time, we should refine more pills so that I can recover.”

Long Chen knew that the Earth Cauldron helped him because it also needed to recover. The only shortcut to its recovery was to refine pills.

This was why it had taken the initiative to help him gather these medicinal ingredients. It seemed that they were also very important to it.

The Earth Cauldron said, “This time, the harvest wasn’t bad. There were over thirty Saint medicinal ingredients, with several of them being top grade. Now, I can refine a dozen kinds of Saint pills with them, and they’ll be greatly beneficial to both of us.”

“Refining the pills won’t be difficult, but I have to leave the Heavenly Corrupt Sect’s territory first. The disturbance caused by these pills will undoubtedly attract them, especially their terrifying sect master. Senior, do you know what realm he’s in?” asked Long Chen.

“He’s in the same realm as you.”

“What? He’s a World King?! I don’t believe it!” exclaimed Long Chen.

“Not that realm. Another realm. Don’t you have another title?” replied the Earth Cauldron.

“A title? Sage King?” Long Chen was befuddled.

“Yes. He is in the highest of the three realms of Eternity, the Sage King realm.”

“Sage King is a realm? I thought it was just a title for a genius,” said Long Chen in disbelief.

“It is a title but also a realm. Those who obtain the title of Sage King will definitely be able to reach the Sage King realm. To put it frankly, it is just an early access ticket to the Sage King realm. In truth, this title has saved your life once. Otherwise, you would have died when you tried to do that soulsearch,” explained the Earth Cauldron.

“What do you mean?” asked Long Chen.

“When you did your soulsearch, you triggered a Sage King’s seal, which was supposed to transform into a curse to kill the person doing the soulsearch. However, this Sage King curse is only effective against people with a lower realm. Since you are also a Sage King, the curse did not manifest,” answered the Earth Cauldron.

Hearing its explanation, Long Chen was taken aback. It seemed that the karmic luck of his title had inadvertently saved his life again.

“Recall that moment. When that Corrupt expert died, you immediately sensed danger and fled. Theoretically, under the suppression of the sect master’s Sage King realm, escaping in time should have been impossible. Typically, one wouldn't have a chance to react before succumbing to the attack. Yet, you managed to evade it. That was also due to your status as Sage King. Therefore, you shouldn’t complain. The title of Sage King is actually very important to you. Some matters can’t be judged simply by looking at the surface. Often, unseen factors silently shape the course of your destiny,” explained the Earth Cauldron.

Despite Long Chen having the title of Sage King, the Heavenly Daos continued to target him. This constant struggle frustrated Long Chen, leading him to complain several times about how the title of Sage King was a joke.

However, with the Earth Cauldron’s insightful explanation, Long Chen realized he might have been too hasty in his judgment. After hastily thanking the Earth Cauldron, Long Chen felt like most of his resentment had vanished.

Next, Long Chen set his gaze onto one of the Heavenly Corrupt Sect’s mining operations—a spirit stone mine.

The primal chaos spirit stones found in the ninth world differed significantly from those in the outside world, mainly due to the thousands of times denser primal chaos qi in this realm. Thus, the spirit stones here weren’t categorized into low grade, middle grade, and top grade. Instead, all of them were top grade.

If the natives found any low grade or middle grade spirit stone deposits, they wouldn’t start the excavation. They would wait until they matured into top-grade spirit stones before excavating them.

Furthermore, amongst these primal chaos spirit stones, there were unique specimens that harbored distinct elemental attributes. For example, some of them contained metal, wood, water, fire, earth, wind, lightning, light, dark, and various other elements.

These particular spirit stones were unprecedented in both the Darklight Heaven and the Nirvana Overflow Heaven; their existence had never been witnessed or even heard of before.

When Long Chen discovered these special spirit stones, he found himself irresistibly drawn to them, as if he had stumbled upon a treasure trove. Long Chen felt like he had been a frog at the bottom of a well now the entire time. There were many good things here.

As a result, Long Chen stealthily slipped toward their spirit stone mine. However, this time, the Heavenly Corrupt Sect had learned their lesson and were on high guard. With dozens of Saints patrolling the surroundings, Long Chen had no opportunity to sneak in like before.

Long Chen wasn’t afraid of these Saints as he had the new saber. Even if he couldn’t beat them, he felt like he could always run away.

Long Chen was just worried that he would encounter their sect master, knowing it was his luck that allowed him to escape last time.

However, if this spirit stone mine had a trap set up inside of it... Well, the sect master was no fool. He would definitely not allow Long Chen to escape again.

Long Chen examined their operation for a full day and then intentionally made an opening for them to notice him. He immediately fled, but just before leaving, he sensed an aura that shook his heart.

As expected, there was a trap. As soon as he tested it, they exposed themselves. Although the sect master did not appear, Long Chen already sensed him.

“Tch, they want to play hide and seek with me? I’ll play you to death!”

Thus, Long Chen started to run around the Heavenly Corrupt Sect’s territory randomly, causing trouble everywhere. He didn’t go to places with high security and just specifically targeted places without much importance.

There was no way to be on guard against bandits forever; there was only a forever bandit. The Heavenly Corrupt Sect had many businesses, so there were too many places for them to defend. Long Chen was like a ghost flitting around the place. The Heavenly Corrupt Sect was unable to tolerate things any longer, but they also couldn’t do much.

Several days later, Long Chen sensed something wrong. The Heavenly Corrupt Sect had started shifting their manpower and directly threw away some veins of ore. Even the guards were pulled away.

Long Chen’s guard went up as he noticed their experts gathering. Just as he thought that they were about to move against him in full force, he realized that they were all going in the same direction.

Long Chen tailed them and quickly saw a shocking scene.