CHAPTER 73
Secret High Order: Valia's Surprise.
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"Let's see what Mr. Nineteen Sons sent me." Lu Xie mocked Valia.
With a flick of her wrist, she unscrupulously dumped the bead's contents onto her bed.
Clatter! Clink! Thud!
A small mountain of items rained down.
Lu Xie's eyes widened slightly.
Piles of Crystalline Bronze, Silver, and Gold coins shimmered in the lamplight. These were the standard currencies used here, but they held trace amounts of Qi.
But what caught her attention most were the, fist-sized Colorful Gemstones resting atop the pile, pulsing with a chaotic but potent energy.
"Chaos Stones!"
>>>>>>>>>>>~^~<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Kush Heavenly Realm~
The Seventh Courtyard~
...
Lu Xie sat amidst a sea of glimmering stones, analyzing the currency of this world.
In the Coven, these Chaos Stones were also used as standard currency, holding a higher denomination than the common Crystalline Coins. Like the disciples, they were graded by color, Red being the lowest quality, shifting through orange and yellow, up to Violet, the highest quality.
However, there was a problem.
While they contained Elemental Essence, the energy within them was a mess. It had failed to separate during formation. Fire clashed with Water, Metal ground against Wood and a hundred more sub elements clashed relentlessly, compressed into a small cubicle space of a stone shell.
To a cultivator of this realm, these stones were pretty timebombs.
A reckless disciple who tried to absorb one would explode upon infusing just a wisp. The myriad elements would clash their way through the cultivator's body like a thousand warring armies until there was nothing left but bloody mist.
Lu Xie had gained one Green chaos stone, along with tens of yellow, orange, and red lower-rank ones.
'One Red Gem exchanges for 10 Crystal Coins,' she calculated. 'Useful for buying dumplings, useless for buying high cultivation resources.'
She pushed the mountain of gems aside with her foot. Money was boring. Her attention shifted to the other items in the pile—the "Surprise" Valia had promised.
First, she picked up a rectangular object wrapped in velvet.
"A manual? A secret map of the Holy Gan Valley?"
She unwrapped it with anticipation.
It was a framed portrait.
Lu Xie froze. Her left eye twitched violently.
The painting depicted a close-up of Valia's face. He was wearing nothing but a loose, translucent robe that slipped "accidentally" off one shoulder to reveal a scrawny chest. He was biting a red bloody rose, winking at the viewer with a seduction level of a negative one thousand.
Written in gold calligraphy at the bottom were the words:
"To My Fans."
"EUGHHHH!"
Lu Xie let out a guttural noise of pure repulsion. She tossed the portrait across the room as if it were coated in a lethal neurotoxin.
Thrack!
It hit the wall and landed face down.
"My eyes! I need to wash my eyes with Purifying Waters!" Lu Xie gagged, shielding her face. "Bless my mind, bless my heart, and bless my soul! My sight shall see no evil!"
She rubbed her temples, trying to scrub the mental image of Valia's "seductive" wink from her brain.
For a moment, she felt a grudge towards Lela. 'How could she let this through?'
But then she realized—Lela had checked the storage bead with her Spirit Sense. Since the portrait was wrapped in velvet, Lela likely mistook it for a map or a scroll and didn't pry further out of respect.
Valia had planned this. The man was a strategic genius when it came to being annoying.
Hoping for redemption, Lu Xie turned back to the pile.
She found a few dozen small jade bottles containing elixirs and pills.
Pop. Sniff.
Pop. Sniff.
Most were standard for healing, first-aid detox pills, and minor energy boosters. Useful, but ordinary.
However, one bottle was unlabeled.
Lu Xie's instincts sharpened.
Pop.
Inside were seven white pills that looked ordinary, but smelled of musk and desperation.
She peered into the bottle and found a small, folded note. She retrieved it and read aloud:
"Greetings, Junior Alia.
After you mentioned the withering of the 'Jade Pillar' today, I, as your future Martial Uncle, had to gift you this surprise. Just in case the man you fancy in the future actually suffers from that disorder. Aren't I great?
Signed, Your Future Martial Uncle."
Lu Xie: "..."
She was stunned silly.
"Trash," she spat, crushing the note.
So this was his revenge. He was playing coy, hiding this perverse gift as surprise.
"Shame. Shame. Shame. If shamelessness was a person, he would be the Emperor of a whole civilization of shameless citizens.
No wonder he had scurried off. It turned out he was rushing away to plan such evil."
She looked over at the corner of the room where a glass terrarium was placed. Inside, three brown cockroaches were scuttling along the glass constraints.
She had instructed Trisha to acquired three pet cockroaches earlier that evening from the garden, intending to use them to gross Valia out if they ever crossed paths again.
"Mei Mei! Wei Wei! Pei Pei! Dinner time!"
She popped the bottle open and flicked three glowing white Vigour Pills into the tank.
"Eat up. Let's see if his 'vitality' works on insects."
The roaches swarmed the pills immediately.
Ignoring them, Lu Xie looked at the remaining herbs and materials. They were decent, suited for her Innate Spirit, but nothing earth-shattering.
With a forlorn sigh, she returned the objects back into the wooden bead.
None of these things were of huge value.
She raised her petite hand, admiring the obsidian black ring on her finger.
The Spatial Ring.
This was her true treasure. It was the ring she had worn before she descended from the Nine Heavenly Realms. Inside lay the Primordial Carp's complete ten sequence of Sanguine Essence and Primordial Soul, as well as the Iridescent Pearl given to her by the strange youth Xue Xing in the Sky Reaching Pagoda.
But it was locked.
The ring required a massive surge of Qi to open—energy she was currently lacking.
It was like standing in front of a vault full of gold without the key.
"I am a billionaire beggar," she muttered.