All the abducted females were rescued, and an additional three thousand female primitives were captured. The amazing result made the heavenly ghosts from the valley cheer and howl in ecstasy. Unlike humans, common heavenly ghosts had no concept of chastity, except those who had cultivated to the level of Heavenly Ghost Kings and Ghost Saints. Although more than half of the rescued females were pregnant, for these heavenly ghosts, it meant they had gained a batch of strong offspring without paying any price, which was actually beneficial to the development of their clan.
The three thousand female primitives were a windfall. By providing them with enough food and keeping them safe, they could help to rapidly expand the population of the clan. It was generally an iron law among the heavenly ghosts that females obeyed the males. As long as the savageness of these primitives could be gotten rid of, they would naturally obey and become the mothers who would eventually populate the clan.
Ignoring the heavenly ghosts who were dancing with excitement, Wu Qi swept the lair of the primitives with his divine sense. A moment later, he suddenly discovered something strange in the depths of the lair which made his heart race. Without hesitation, he headed toward the discovery.
There was an about mile wide cave under a black, screen-shaped reef. It must have been the residence of the clan chief, and in it were heaps of countless strange things these primitive heavenly ghosts had gathered from all over the place.
There were glittering stones, stakes emanating strange waves, queer-looking dried grassroots, and many peculiarly-shaped objects. As the largest clan within ten thousand miles, whenever these primitive heavenly ghosts went about hunting and plundering other clans, they always found something strange, which they brought back and was kept as the clan's property by their chief.
It was in this mountain of trash that Wu Qi found many good things that excited him.
He found about three thousand translucent stones the size of a thumb, as black as ink and as cold as ice. These were 'Ghost Relics', which were the condensation of the fusion between the innate Yin energy and a wisp of innate ghost energy. Their origin was similar to that of the Buddha relics—they could only be formed in the bodies of heavenly ghosts full of blood essence. After they had fused as one and were devoured by powerful heavenly ghosts, they would begin to grow by absorbing the blood essence of the hosts like parasites. Eventually, the hosts would grow weak and thin, and the ghost relics would grow larger.
A ghost relic could contain almost unlimited spiritual energy, which made it the best material for crafting all sorts of magical artifacts of the Ghost League and the Fiend League. There were only about three thousand of them here; albeit small in quantity, they were absolutely enough to craft a decent offensive artifact.
But, Wu Qi did not intend to use them to craft an artifact. Inherently rich in blood essence and spiritual energy, these stones were also the main ingredient used to concoct the 'Three Courts Source Replenishing Pill'. The so-called Three Courts were the upper, middle, and lower dantians. This kind of pills could greatly replenish one's essence, including both innate and acquired; significantly boost the strength of the immortal's divine sense and immortal soul; and greatly improve one's aptitude.
Even a pig could be transformed into the best genius by taking this pill.
If nothing went wrong, at least a thousand of such magical pills could be produced with these three thousand little Ghost Relics. With so many disciples in his Underhand Sect, Wu Qi could select a batch who were dependable and loyal to him and give them the pills. That would surely skyrocket their cultivation bases and make them cultivate a hundred times faster than ordinary immortals.
As an upper-grade Gold Immortal pill, the Three Courts Source Replenish Pill was listed as a strategic pill even in the Heaven. No one had ever seen how it looked save for those Great Heavenly Venerates, Celestial Emperors, Immortal Kings, Celestial Lords, and their immediate disciples.
And the Ghost Relics were only produced in small quantity in the Ghost Realm. Even the Heaven had been paying a hefty price to the thirteen Great Heavenly Ghost Kings and the four hundred Ghost Saints for such a rare treasure, and the quantity could barely serve the needs. Also, through the memory obtained from Immortal Ding Jun's soul, Wu Qi had learned that the Sovereign only managed to gather ingredients enough to produce several hundreds of the magic pills within every one hundred years.
All in all, the three thousand Ghost Relics in front of him were basically equivalent to the total number the Heaven had obtained from the Ghost Realm in two hundred years.
After gladly putting these Ghost Relics into his interstitial world, Wu Qi found a black wooden stick that was shaped like a dragon and measured more than a hundred feet long from the pile of trash. It was twisted and gnarled, covered with a layer of shell that looked like dragon scales. When he tapped it with a finger, it produced a sound like that of a dragon roar; crisp and melodious but filled with an evil undertone that made his soul shiver.
It was called the 'Yin Dragon Bone', which was a rare treasure in the outside world, a fossil-like treasure formed after a dead flood dragon that fell into the Ghost Realm and soaked in the innate ghost energy for a long period of time. It could be used for artifact crafting, but was also an excellent ingredient for concocting spirit pills.
This Yin Dragon Bone alone was enough to produce three to five cauldrons of 'Bone Strengthening Pills of Yin and Yang'. The body of a flood dragon was of Yang, and the innate ghost energy was of Yin; both of which had reached a perfect balance within the Yin Dragon Bone. The pills made with such an ingredient could provide significant nourishment to cultivators who cultivated all kinds of body tempering techniques. Basically, a Bone Strengthening Pill could give a Nascent Divinity cultivator a fleshly body that was no weaker than an eighteenth-tier Heaven Immortal who specialized in body tempering.
If combined with some other ingredients and concocted with a high degree of skill, a perfect Bone Strengthening Pill could give a Nascent Divinity cultivator an overall strength equivalent to that of a peak body tempering Heaven Immortal.
Both Great Yu and the Heaven were producing this fascinating elixir in large quantities. However, as its main ingredient, the Yin Dragon Bone was hard to come by. In Great Yu, only the imperial guards of the Human Emperor could enjoy it, and in the Heaven, only the immediate heaven soldiers of the Great Heavenly Venerates could have the luck to be rewarded with such amazing spirit pills.
Similarly, Yin Dragon Bones were produced only in the Ghost Realm. So, in order to get the amount they needed, both Great Yu and the Heaven had no choice but to trade with the local tyrants here. Furthermore, in order to keep its production going, a batch of demon cultivators who had freshly transformed into flood dragons would be secretly killed every year and thrown into different places within the Ghost Realm, so that their remains would turn into Yin Dragon Bones after tens of thousands of years.
To ensure a steady supply, Great Yu had built special ponds for breeding flood dragons. With Great Yu's attitude toward demon cultivators, such behavior was understandable. On the other hand, as the nominal governing body of all the immortals under heaven, the Heaven dared not to do so blatantly. But, truth be told, some notorious Celestial Lords and Heaven Lords still kept a large number of flood dragons in their cave abodes. When these poor demon cultivators had their cultivation bases reaching a certain level, they would be killed and sent into the Ghost Realm.
Measuring over a hundred feet long, the Yin Dragon Bone was more than enough to concoct about three hundred Bone Strengthening Pills, allowing Wu Qi to raise a group of dependable elites in Dong Hai Province. He put it into his interstitial world happily as well. After all, he could not always use blood sacrifices to exchange for power from Lei Meng. Firstly, it was against the order of nature, and secondly, where was he going to find so many immortals for blood sacrifices, with the Myriad Immortal Alliance now completely uprooted? He could not just pay a visit to some outer heavenly realm and randomly abduct immortals and cultivators, could he?
Contented, Wu Qi continued to rummage through the heap of trashes; before long, he found more than thirty other treasures. He was not interested in the crafting materials of the Ghost Realm. After all, it was the immortals of the Ghost League who were best suited to use these materials. Besides, he did not have any cultivation techniques of the Ghost League currently, so they were of no use for him.
However, all the ingredients for alchemy produced in the Ghost Realm were of the highest quality, and many could only be found here. On top of that, the Great Heavenly Ghost Kings and the Ghost Saints had imposed strict control over the sale of these ingredients, causing the spirit pills that were concocted with ingredients from the Ghost Realm to be extremely scarce and expensive in the outside world.
And because of the unique character of the innate ghost energy, the spirit pills concocted with ingredients from the Ghost Realm could either boost the strength of one's divine soul or temper one's flesh and rapidly strengthen the fleshly body. These effects were extremely attractive to both Great Yu and the Heaven. As a result, ingredients produced from the Ghost Realm were so rare in the outside world that the average person had not even heard of their names and the pills they could be made into.
Therefore, it was a pleasant surprise for Wu Qi to find dozens of alchemy ingredients from the primitive clan's heap of trash.
Over the next few days, Wu Qi sent the heavenly ghosts he had tamed into the surrounding wilderness to search for valuable things. They did not disappoint him, for they brought back many ingredients of excellent quality. These naturally produced treasures were useless to these heavenly ghosts, but to Wu Qi and the immortals in the outside world, each one of them was a rare and precious treasure.
As the harvest increased, Wu Qi's interest grew. For a moment, he had forgotten his primary objective of looking for a way out of the Ghost Realm, and concentrated on collecting all kinds of rare treasures. Huang Liang or the others did not dare to disturb him either. Although they did not know why Wu Qi was cheerfully collecting everything that looked like trash to them, who dared to comment on his action?
Just when Wu Qi was about to expand his scraping range by tens of thousands of miles, something happened in the river near the valley where the heavenly ghosts lived. The thick yellow water in the river suddenly surged up into the sky, and a long shrill howl kept sounding out from the upper reaches.
All of a sudden, a terrible murderous aura swept over them, and the shrill howling made everyone's ears ache and visions get dimmed. Huang Liang and all the soldiers were knocked unconscious at the first sound of the deafening howl, and the heavenly ghosts fell to their knees in fear.
In Wu Qi's horrified glance, a tattered dragon boat slowly emerged from the river hundreds of miles away. A majestic-looking man in a crimson robe was standing on the bow of the boat, with the long howl coming out of his mouth.
Almost immediately, the man spotted Wu Qi looking at him from hundreds of miles away. He gave a low cry as the dragon boat began to fly toward him.
As he approached, the man slowly raised a 10-feet-long broadsword in his hand. With that, Wu Qi felt a towering killing intent was washing over him.