If you die, I will be able to inherit your cultivation.

Zhou Ming stood silently in the mountain wind for a moment, setting aside his question for the time being. At least a few things he could be certain of:

First, Liu Jun is dead beyond dead.

That legendary figure in the Great Xia Dynasty, the founding emperor whom Su Mubai revered for half his life, couldn't even withstand a single blow from him.

Secondly, he was invincible, at least within these three kingdoms.

The mountain wind completely dispersed the blood mist, and an ancient ring and a longsword fell from the mist, gleaming with a dark luster in the sunlight.

Zhou Ming used his magic to summon the ring and longsword from a distance, and they landed steadily in his palm.

Looking at the bloodstains on the ring and the longsword, Zhou Ming suddenly felt nauseous. This was the first time he had killed someone in his two lifetimes.

Feeling somewhat uncomfortable, Zhou Ming steadied himself and forced down his discomfort.

He made a cleansing gesture with both hands, and a beam of clear light flowed from his hands, brushing over the ring and the longsword.

In an instant, he cleaned the blood and bits of flesh off the ring and longsword.

The ring was entirely black, with a cloud pattern he couldn't recognize engraved on its face. It felt cold to the touch and was several times heavier than an iron ring of the same size.

"What is this? A storage ring?"

He probed the ring with his divine sense, and the next second, a huge space with a diameter of 100 meters appeared in his perception.

The interior space is neatly divided into several areas.

The most eye-catching feature is a row of rosewood bookshelves, which are not filled with paper books, but instead with neatly arranged jade slips.

These jade slips were exactly the same as the ones he had observed with his divine sense that Liu Jun had stuck to his forehead in the cave. Each one shone with a warm, gentle light.

Next to the bookshelf were dozens of ores of varying sizes, some as red as branding irons, others as black as ink with speckled starlight.

There was also a fist-sized transparent crystal with a wisp of dancing blue flame inside.

Further inside were several spiritual herbs sealed in jade boxes. The talismans affixed to the jade boxes had faded and turned yellow, but the herbs themselves still emitted a very faint fragrance.

The remaining space was filled with mundane objects that had no spiritual energy fluctuations.

Boxes of gold and silver jewelry, several neatly folded python robes, several jade seals carved with dragon patterns, piles of land deeds and house deeds, and some tokens and seals that looked like royal tokens from various countries.

This is probably the worldly wealth he has accumulated on this land over the past six hundred years.

To mortals, each item is a priceless treasure, but to cultivators, they are no different from scrap metal.

Zhou Ming withdrew his divine sense from the storage ring, looked at the storage ring, and then looked at the longsword.

The longsword was three feet and three inches long, engraved with cloud patterns, and emitted a chilling light.

In the mortal world, it might be an unparalleled sword, but Zhou Ming discovered a problem with it: the array within it had been broken.

Zhou Ming guessed that it must have been his palm strike that crippled him.

Putting the matter of the longsword out of his mind, Zhou Ming couldn't help but feel a surge of joy. In his previous life, he had seen many storage rings in novels.

Every time he saw it, Zhou Ming would fantasize about how wonderful it would be if he had a storage ring.

Now that the storage ring was in his hands, how could Zhou Ming not be overjoyed?

He tried to put the longsword into his storage ring with a thought.

The longsword disappeared from Zhou Ming's hand.

With another thought, the longsword reappeared in Zhou Ming's hand.

Disappearance, appearance

Disappearance, reappearance.

Zhou Ming was having a blast playing with it; having this thing would make things so much more convenient in the future.

Just as Zhou Ming was having a great time, a burst of noise interrupted him.

Zhou Ming frowned and scanned the valley below with his divine sense again.

The once orderly camp was now in complete chaos.

Several Foundation Establishment cultivators were the first to react, and Liu Jun's aura completely disappeared in the sky.

Although the purple-gold magical hand only existed for a few breaths, it was enough for them to understand what had happened.

They didn't even bother to pack up their belongings in the cave; they transformed into several streaks of hurried blue light and sped towards the valley exit.

A dozen or so Qi Refining stage cultivators followed closely behind, some without even shoes, others still carrying pieces of animal meat they hadn't had time to put down.

Their faces were ashen, and they staggered, like a swarm of ants whose nest had been disturbed, scattering in all directions.

They fled extremely fast, but no matter how fast they ran, they couldn't outrun Zhou Ming's divine sense.

Zhou Ming hovered in mid-air, looking down at the cultivators who were scattering like ants, his eyes devoid of any extra emotion.

His right hand emerged from his sleeve, fingers spread, magical power condensing into a purple-gold sphere in his palm.

Then turn your palm downwards and press down gently.

A giant purple-gold hand, several times larger than the one that crushed Liu Jun earlier, descended from the sky.

Before the giant hand even landed, the force of its palm had already flattened the vegetation in the valley.

Several Foundation Establishment cultivators were still desperately running towards the valley entrance. Some even crushed a protective jade talisman at their waist, and a layer of pale golden light enveloped their entire bodies.

When the giant purple-gold palm descended, the protective barrier shattered like a soap bubble without even a moment's resistance.

The cultivator was slammed into the mud, without even having time to utter a muffled groan.

The dozen or so Qi Refining stage cultivators didn't even have time to react before being thrown to the ground by the gale brought up by the giant palm. Then, the palm force penetrated into the ground, crushing them and the rocks beneath their feet into dust.

One palm strike.

All the Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining stage cultivators were reduced to a dark mass of mud and gravel, with not a single complete skeleton to be found.

The valley fell silent again.

The martial artists bound by chains inside the iron cage remained in the position of looking up at the sky; they had witnessed everything that had just happened.

I saw the giant purple-gold hand, and I saw the bloodstains falling from the sky.

They witnessed a giant hand descending from the sky and killing all the cultivators.

But they didn't cheer, they didn't cry out, and their expressions barely changed.

Their faces remained pale and numb, as if drained of all life force, but a glimmer of light appeared in the eyes of some of them before quickly fading away.

Zhou Ming flashed into Liu Jun's cave and put all the jade slips on the stone table into his storage ring.

He then used his divine sense to scan every corner of the cave, making sure he hadn't missed anything of value, before flying back to the valley.

He hovered above the iron cages, looking down at the more than two thousand empty eyes inside, and began to ponder how to deal with these people.

All of these two thousand-plus people are martial artists at the Blood Refining Realm or above, the fifth realm after refining skin, flesh, bones, and tendons. Above that is the Meridian Opening Realm.

These people would all be capable of ruling a region in the Great Xia Dynasty.

In terms of combat strength alone, he is probably no weaker than a cultivator in the late stage of Qi Refining.

But now they are locked in this valley, their vital energy drained for who knows how many years, and they are so weak that they can't even stand up.

"Yeah, it's a bit of a shame he died."

"These people haven't practiced the 'Scripture of Salvation' yet."

"If they were to walk out with most of their vital energy drained away, they would soon die in this forest from exhaustion."

"But if they learn the 'Scripture of Crossing the World' and generate magical power in their dantian, with their martial arts foundation above the Blood Refining Realm, they can recover their vitality in a few days, and even advance further."

Thinking of this, Zhou Ming's eyes lit up, and he had a brilliant idea.