Starting with being handed over to the Imperial Concubine, building a family with a thousand-year hi

Having just been startled awake, Jinzi would certainly be unable to fall asleep again anytime soon. Su Mu smiled and walked over, cuddling it in his arms. Then, he began to take out the items from the storage bracelet one by one, examining them carefully.

Most of the spirit stones were low-grade or mid-grade, with very few high-grade spirit stones; among the magic treasures, most were mid-grade or high-grade Xuan-rank, with no Earth-rank magic treasures except for the ice bowl; the quality of the pills was not very high, but the variety was complete, covering all categories such as healing, body tempering, and power enhancement.

Su Mu did not linger on these ordinary resources; instead, he focused on examining the rare and precious materials contained in the jade boxes.

"What is this?" Su Mu opened a small jade box, inside which was a fist-sized sphere, dark purple in color. It was neither a rare flower or fruit nor a precious pearl, but it exuded an extremely strong demonic aura, continuously radiating powerful energy fluctuations.

There were many more jade boxes containing round spheres like this, and storage bracelets filled a small, dense pile.

"So it's the inner core of a demonic beast." Su Mu activated his divine sense and carefully sensed it for a moment, instantly understanding the origin of the sphere inside the box. He secretly guessed that it might be related to the barbarian tribe's cultivation methods; these demonic beast inner cores must be extremely precious cultivation resources for barbarian warriors.

"What level of demon beast should this inner core belong to?" Su Mu was pondering to himself when Jinzi in his arms suddenly poked its head out and swallowed the inner core in the jade box in one gulp. The action was so fast that Su Mu had no time to stop it.

"You silly bird! You're stealing food again!" Su Mu cursed helplessly, feeling a little annoyed—he had been so focused on examining the inner core that he had neglected the little guy in his arms.

However, he quickly calmed down. A mid-grade Earth-rank Kunling True Fire Pill could harm even gold, so a demon beast's inner core shouldn't be able to harm it either.

As he expected, after swallowing the inner elixir, Jinzi's body once again shone with dazzling golden light, and fine, mysterious patterns appeared on his skin. However, he did not show any signs of pain; instead, he seemed to be thoroughly enjoying himself.

"That's true. It's a demon beast, so it's only natural for it to devour the inner cores of its own kind. It can also better absorb the energy within." Su Mu was completely relieved. The golden light and mysterious patterns on Jinzi's body were clearly indicating that it was rapidly digesting the energy in the inner core and accelerating its own growth.

Jinzi had eaten a Kunling True Fire Pill, and its bloodline was extremely noble. Its digestive ability far exceeded that of ordinary demon beasts. For it, a level four demon beast inner core was just an "extra meal".

Su Mu opened another jade box, which also contained a demon beast's inner core, its aura even more powerful than the previous one. "This one should be the inner core of a level four demon beast. The one that Jinzi ate earlier was probably also level four."

Su Mu had read several ancient books about demonic beasts. The books detailed several common cultivation methods of demonic beasts, clearly divided the levels of demonic beasts, and even explained how to identify the level and strength of demonic beasts by the aura and color of their inner cores.

He quickly opened all the jade boxes and counted them. He had collected more than a hundred demon beast inner cores in total—most of them were level four demon beast inner cores, and there were also about ten level five demon beast inner cores with even more powerful auras!

"A level four demonic beast is comparable to a Grandmaster-level human; a level five demonic beast is comparable to a Great Grandmaster-level human." A hint of joy flashed in Su Mu's eyes as he secretly calculated, "So many inner cores are enough to quickly raise Jin Zi to level five, and it's even possible for him to break through to level six."

"Consuming the inner core of a demon beast allows for a much faster cultivation speed than constantly consuming Spirit Essence Pills."

"Given Jinzi's special bloodline, once it reaches level five cultivation, its strength will likely rival that of an ordinary level six demonic beast, or even surpass it!"

While pondering, Su Mu opened another jade box—this jade box was much larger than the others that contained inner cores, and its design was also more exquisite, so it was clear that it did not contain inner cores of demonic beasts.

Inside the box was a tiny, milky-white insect. It was small and appeared motionless, as if it had long since died, but occasionally a faint white light would flash from its body, making it seem holy and magical, and making it hard for anyone to be wary of it.

As Su Mu was looking down and observing carefully, the seemingly dead insect suddenly transformed into a beam of white light and shot out of the jade box with lightning speed, heading straight for Su Mu's face!

Su Mu reacted extremely quickly. Almost the instant the white light shot out, he activated the true fire and true essence within his body, condensing a thick protective light shield around his body. It was airtight and enough to withstand the full force of a Grandmaster's attack.

To his utter surprise, the seemingly faint white light easily pierced through his protective shield without any obstruction and landed directly on his chest.

The white light did not penetrate his silver silk robe, but as if it were alive, it quickly moved from his chest to his neck—his neck was not covered by armor, only the flames of true fire burning around him.

Su Mu's true fire had already reached an extremely high level, but even so, it could not stop the erosion of that white light. The white light gently touched the skin of his neck, and the next second, it sank directly into his body and disappeared.

"What's going on?" The sudden turn of events made Su Mu's heart sink, and he instantly became alert.

He quickly realized that this was not some rare treasure at all, but a trap deliberately left in the storage bracelet by a barbarian expert!

That young barbarian grandmaster must have already anticipated his possible doom. Once he was killed, the person who took the storage bracelet would surely examine its contents carefully and would definitely open this seemingly special jade box. The small white insect inside the jade box looks harmless and makes people easily lower their guard. Even if one is on guard, it would be difficult to withstand its sudden attack.

"It's an extremely powerful Gu worm!" Su Mu activated his divine sense to carefully examine the situation inside his body. He clearly sensed that after the white light entered his body, it instantly dispersed and transformed into countless tiny white worms, frantically gnawing at his meridians and flesh. Wherever it passed, it brought waves of excruciating pain.

Fortunately, Su Mu had already achieved a spiritual body, with true fire and true essence constantly circulating within his body. Those tiny Gu worms could not cause him fatal damage for the time being. However, if they were allowed to gnaw at him at will, his spiritual body would be completely devoured and his true essence would be completely exhausted in no time.

What troubled him even more was that the true fire and true essence in his body were unable to eliminate these tiny Gu worms, let alone refine them quickly; they could only barely withstand their attacks.

Su Mu dared not delay and quickly took out a Breaking Calamity Pill from the system warehouse and swallowed it without hesitation. Although the Breaking Calamity Pill was only a high-grade Xuan-level pill and its medicinal power was not enough to completely eliminate these Gu worms, it could form a weak protective layer on the surface of his body and temporarily slow down the speed at which the Gu worms gnawed at him.

However, those small white Gu worms seemed to have an extremely strong ability to devour. After discovering that they could not gnaw at Su Mu's physical defenses, they began to devour all the energy in his body—including his true essence, vital energy, and even the medicinal power of the Breaking Calamity Pill, which were all devoured by them.

Seeing this, Su Mu no longer hesitated and quickly took out a large number of Spirit Essence Pills, Qi Condensation Pills, and Yuan Condensation Pills from his storage bracelet, swallowing them in large gulps to continuously replenish the energy in his body—this was the only way he could temporarily "feed" these Gu worms to buy time and find a way to break the curse.