The Lin Clan’s ancestral vault was cooler than the hall outside, its reinforced stone walls lined with wooden shelves carved from century-old spirit ironwood.
Adam stepped inside, his blue robes rustling softly against the floor. With his Eyes of Divine Insight active, the vault was not a dark room but a glowing grid of color-coded spiritual energies. He could see through false-bottomed drawers, hidden stone bricks, and ancient defensive talismans.
"A fallen clan, yet they held onto quite a few treasures," Adam murmured, sweeping his eyes across the rows.
These were the clan’s ancestral reserves, sealed by clan law and untouchable without the consent of every elder. That was why Lin Kuang had been forced to scrape together his twelve hundred stones from elsewhere.
Adam flicked his wrist and opened his storage pouch.
WHOOSH!
A small vortex flared from his palm. With his Peak Foundation Establishment Qi behind the sweep, items flew off the shelves in rapid succession.
[Inventory Audit: Lin Clan Ancestral Vault]
Mortal-Grade Spirit Stones (Low-Tier): 2,400 pieces, stacked in heavy iron chests.
Mid-Tier Spirit Stones: 45 pieces. Rare, blue-tinted stones containing compressed natural energy.
Refining Materials: Three bars of Star-Iron Ore, four boxes of Jade-Marrow Powder, and a bolt of Cloud-Silk Cloth.
Martial Scrolls: Seven Mortal-Grade (High) techniques and one damaged Earth-Grade footwork scroll, Mist-Phantom Steps.
At the back of the vault, on a pedestal carved from gray basalt, sat a locked bronze box wrapped in dusty, blood-red seals.
Adam approached the pedestal. His Eyes of Divine Insight pierced the metal at once. Inside lay a single dark crimson ginseng root shaped like a coiled dragon, pulsing with a faint, rhythmic heartbeat.
"A Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Dragon Ginseng," Adam noted, a rare nod of approval crossing his cold features. "The Lin Clan hid this away as their ultimate asset for the day they produced their first Foundation Establishment cultivator. They never even dared use it on Lin Feng."
He raised his hand. A tiny thread of black flame, the Chaos-Devouring Fire, flickered on his index finger and touched the bronze lock.
Sizzle!
The iron seals and heavy lock melted like soft wax in three seconds. Adam opened the box and swept the Blood-Dragon Ginseng into his sleeve along with the rest of the vault’s wealth.
In less than two minutes, the vault, built up over four generations, was picked clean down to the stone floor.
Adam stepped out of the vault into the ruined ancestral hall.
The Lin Clan elders were still pinned to the floor beneath the fading echoes of his pressure, their faces drained of color. Elder Lin Kuang lay clutching his crushed hand, his eyes hollow as he watched Adam leave the vault empty-handed, which meant every asset had gone into storage.
"Lin... Lin Chen..." Lin Kuang croaked through bloody lips, his voice trembling. "You took everything... our stones... our herbs... our legacy... You’ve left us with nothing!"
Adam paused beside the doorway and glanced back over his shoulder.
"You left Lin Chen in the Desolate Ghost Valley with nothing but a blunt sword," Adam said coldly. "Consider yourselves lucky I’m leaving you your lives, so you can watch the Lin Clan fade into obscurity."
Without waiting for a reply, Adam rose into the air as a streak of blue light and vanished into the night sky before the city patrol guards could assemble outside the courtyard gates.
An hour later, high above Cloud-Resting City, Adam sat inside a quiet cave carved into the sheer face of the Northern Mist Cliff.
Below him, the lights of the city looked like scattered embers. A blue isolation barrier hummed softly around the cave entrance, blocking all scent, sound, and thermal signatures.
Adam crossed his legs on a flat granite stone and pulled out the Three-Hundred-Year Blood-Dragon Ginseng and the two Foundation-Solidifying Pills he had saved.
’My Foundation Establishment base is already at its peak,’ Adam calculated, silver light flashing in his eyes. ’But a peak that is merely full isn’t a peak that is perfect. If I’m going to build a Golden Core on this, the base has to be flawless.’
He swallowed the ginseng whole, followed at once by both golden pills.
BOOM!
A roaring furnace of crimson and gold energy exploded in his abdomen.
The ginseng’s blood energy rushed through his five internal organs like a river, while the medicinal power of the pills acted like a massive hydraulic press, compacting the ocean of liquid Qi in his dantian. The Chaos-Devouring Fire stirred in his soul and burned away every remaining micro-impurity in his blood and bones.
Hummmmm—!
His skin turned translucent silver. Above his head, the natural Qi of the surrounding ten-mile mountain range began to swirl into a massive, invisible vortex that funneled straight down into his skull.
For two straight hours, Adam sat motionless as a stone statue.
Inside his dantian, the liquid Qi did not shrink. It deepened. Drop by drop, the ocean thickened until it seemed carved from liquid obsidian shot with veins of gold, and at its center a tiny golden seed trembled, waiting.
Then, with a sound like a distant bell, the churning stopped.
[Foundation Establishment: Perfected (Chaos Foundation).]
[Physical Strength: +40%. Meridian Capacity: +60%.]
[Golden Core threshold detected. Condensation available.]
[Warning: The Host’s Chaos Foundation can support a Nine-Turn Golden Core. Condensing now would form only a One-Turn Core and permanently cap the Host’s Dao foundation.]
[Requirements for Nine-Turn Condensation: Nine-Turn Core-Condensing Elixir (not owned). Thunder-attribute tempering source (not owned). Foundation consolidation: 0 / 30 days.]
Adam exhaled a long breath of dark gray smoke that cut across the cave and carved a line into a stone boulder like a hot razor before dissipating.
The Golden Core threshold waited in his dantian like an open door.
’I could step through tonight,’ he thought, his eyes narrowing. ’And live with a flawed core for the rest of my life. No. A blade snaps if you force it before it’s tempered. I’ll wait.’
He stood, his bones popping like distant thunder. His aura was steadier and denser now, but beneath the Hidden Fortune Aura it was just the flicker of another sickly youth.
By dawn, the morning sun lit the towering, cloud-shrouded peaks a hundred miles northeast of Cloud-Resting City.
There sat the Great Void Sect, one of the three ruling overlord sects of the Southern Continent. Its main peaks floated in the sky, anchored by iron chains as thick as ancient trees and ringed by rainbow-colored spirit arrays and flying sword cultivators.
Adam stood at the base of the mountain trail leading to the outer gate registration plaza. Thousands of young hopefuls from dozens of surrounding cities waited in massive queues for the sect’s talent testing.
He spent the day at the edge of the plaza, listening to the hopefuls’ gossip. Registration would stay open for three more days, and the first test was the Nine-Star Talent-Testing Pillar.
At nightfall, he found a quiet ledge overlooking the Heaven-Ascension Steps and waited. When midnight arrived, the mechanical chime resonated inside his soul.
Ding!
[Notice: Daily Sign-In refreshed!]
[Current Location: Great Void Sect Gate (Heaven-Ascension Steps).]
[Would the Host like to perform today’s Daily Sign-In?]
Adam adjusted his cloak, an expectant smile touching his lips.
"Sign in."
[Sign-In Successful!]
[Location Bonus Applied: Super-Tier Sect Origin Node detected.]
[Congratulations to the Host! You have received: Void-Cleaving Sword (Heaven-Grade Spirit Blade)!]