Cave Refuge

It was precisely for this reason that the vast majority of Demon Path Solo Cultivators would refine the Three Flags. After all, with the help of the Three Flags, not only could they swiftly clean up the battlefield after combat, but they could also earn some extra income. Who wouldn't like such a thing?

Upgrading the Three Flags turned out to be much simpler than Dong Tianyu had imagined. Although it was just an upgrade from a Magical Weapon to a Spiritual Treasure, this particular upgrade brought about fundamental changes to the Three Flags.

If ordinary Magical Weapons could only be stored in the Storage Space when not in use, aside from those few Magical Weapons with growth potential, most were fixed in form once successfully refined, making upgrading them to a Spiritual Treasure more resource-intensive than creating a new Spiritual Treasure.

Spiritual Treasures, on the other hand, were different, for most could communicate with the user's thoughts.

Using a gaming analogy, under normal circumstances, when a Cultivator obtains a Magic Artifact, they can only utilize 80% of the Artifact's inherent strength. However, as they spend more time with the Artifact, owners can eventually leverage 100% of its functionality.

With Spiritual Treasures, it's a different story. When not in use, Spiritual Treasures can be nurtured within the Dantian inside the body. As the nurturing period increases, the Treasure can exhibit effects reaching 150% or even 200% efficiency.

That's why there is a saying that Magical Weapons and Spiritual Treasures are not of the same ilk.

Having just re-refined the Three Flags and upgraded them to a Spiritual Treasure, Dong Tianyu then stored it within his body.

After Dong Tianyu stored the Three Flags inside his body, he realized why the difference between a Spiritual Treasure and a Magical Weapon was described as one being in the heavens, and the other buried in the ground.

That was because after storing the Spiritual Treasure within his body, Dong Tianyu suddenly discovered that even without summoning the Three Flags, he could freely use the abilities it possessed.

With a casual gesture, he summoned a Resentful Spirit from the Hundred Ghosts Banner, and in the blink of an eye, transported it back to the banner.

A flick of his finger shot out a sharp bone spike, and at that moment, without his noticing, the ground beneath Dong Tianyu's feet became covered with Tainted Blood from the Blood Sea.

These abilities were unique to the Three Flags; Dong Tianyu had to summon them and imbue them with energy for activation previously.

But now that the Three Flags had become a Spiritual Treasure, nurtured within Dong Tianyu's Dantian, its powers now seemed as innate to Dong Tianyu as a Super Ability, at his beck and call.

After familiarizing himself with the usage of the Three Flags post-upgrade to a Spiritual Treasure, Dong Tianyu continued to control his Companion Spiritual Treasure to move forward, eager to uncover the source of danger in this perilous area.

As Dong Tianyu ventured deeper, he found nothing else. Apart from the desolate silence and the absence of any lifeforms, there was nothing unusual here.

According to the tablet's locator, Dong Tianyu had now arrived at the center of the dangerous zone on the map. As when he arrived, the area was just as silent, devoid of any signs of living creatures.

Just as Dong Tianyu was about to leave, something occurred to him. He then immediately had the Companion Spiritual Treasure ascend while continuously extending Divine Sense downward to explore.

When the Companion Spiritual Treasure rose to a certain height, Dong Tianyu suddenly saw the scene below through his Divine Sense.

From above, there turned out to be a giant deep pit. Considering the size of the pit, Dong Tianyu recalled the size of the large creature he had killed and suddenly realized that the creature's body could fit perfectly into this pit.

Having discovered this, Dong Tianyu was no longer in a rush to ascend; he was now curious about what could keep such a large creature continuously staying in this area.

Logically, with the presence of such a large creature, it was normal for the surrounding lifeforms to be completely devoured.

But with no food remaining here, logic dictated that the large creature should have migrated away. Yet from what he had just seen, even if it went great lengths to feed elsewhere, it would return here after sating its hunger, no matter the grueling effort required.

So there was no need to wonder too much, there must be something here that attracted that creature; otherwise, judging by the behavior of that large creature from before, though it possessed a massive body, it was clearly not very intelligent, as all its actions still seemed to be driven by instinct.

Having established this, Dong Tianyu could not leave the area. If he chose to leave the previous location, it was because he had also not been certain whether there were any unknown items left, so the reluctant Zhang Tianyu had decided it wasn't worth wasting time and had simply left.

However, the behavior of that large creature had confirmed that there must be something extraordinary here. Otherwise, it wouldn't have traveled such a long distance to forage and then returned to this location.

As often depicted in many novels, the vicinity of Heavenly Materials and Earthly Treasures was almost always guarded by Alien Beasts, and usually, the higher the level and the greater the combat strength of the guarding beast, the more valuable the protected treasure would be.

Now that Dong Tianyu had eliminated the original Guardian Beast of this spot, it was natural for him to search for the treasure that had been guarded. After all, there's an old saying that treasures belong to those with virtue.

The surrounding area was silent, devoid of any other living creatures, so the person of virtue was undoubtedly Dong Tianyu.

Having confirmed that there was nothing in the water, Dong Tianyu began to use his Divine Sense to probe deep into the seabed's sand and mud.

There was no need to think too much about which direction to search in; it was obvious that he should start from where the Guardian Beast's head had been.

Dong Tianyu's guess was correct, and within a short time, his Divine Sense found a special item in the position where the Guardian Beast's lower jaw should be.

Because it was hidden within the mud and sand, Dong Tianyu directly summoned the White Bone Puppet to temporarily act as an excavator.

With the White Bone Puppet's frenzied digging, the originally clear seawater had also become quite turbid.

However, whether for the White Bone Puppet or Dong Tianyu, the murky water caused by the puppet's digging had no effect on them.

As the hole on the seabed grew larger, the White Bone Puppet gradually dug its way to the spot where Dong Tianyu had discovered the special item with his Divine Sense.

When the White Bone Puppet successfully reached the object that Dong Tianyu had detected with his Divine Sense, Dong Tianyu controlled the Companion Spiritual Treasure to directly retrieve it.

Upon Dong Tianyu's command, the White Bone Puppet reabsorbed its bone weapons back into its body, then plunged its hands into the hole, grasping something shaped like a cylinder and pulling it out from the pit.

The surrounding seawater was still murky due to the White Bone Puppet's previous digging, but when the White Bone Puppet brought the object within a short distance from the Companion Spirit's cockpit, Dong Tianyu could still see what was in the puppet's hands.

When he saw the yellow and black markings on the outer skin of the object, Dong Tianyu suddenly had an ominous feeling in his heart.

How could such a thing still exist after the disaster, and why would it be underwater?

Even though the object in the White Bone Puppet's hands seemed tightly sealed from the outside, when Dong Tianyu used his Divine Sense for a closer inspection, he sensed that inside the object, there was a faint energy continuously leaking out. Although the leakage was very slow, it persisted indefinitely, never stopping.

This led Dong Tianyu to suddenly realize that what should have been an ordinary object, even if it leaked, should have vanished long after the flood disaster, now appeared to be akin to a rare treasure.

The energy inside, though slowly spreading, seemed endless in its leakage.

The reason the large creature had grown so big had likely been due to the mutation caused by absorbing this object, and the reason humans developed problems when near this area was probably due to the energies emanating from this object.