Rivers of the Night

Theron had never expected to run into such a thing, but the value didn't need to be explained.

Although he had the library, there were too many things about this world that weren't clear to him, while joining a Sect would come with its own trials and tribulations.

That wasn't to say that Theron was against joining a Sect. But he knew how these things went: the politics, the danger, the way insignificant ants like himself could be snuffed out just for looking at the wrong person the wrong way on the wrong day.

But this… this would give him a chance to feel things out for himself.

It didn't matter if they knew Patriarch Nightingale had been replaced or not. In fact, Theron was in an even better position than Patriarch Nightingale.

In order to get these soul strands, Patriarch Nightingale had to personally see and capture these geniuses young. The fact the weakest of them had called him by name just went to show that even if Patriarch Nightingale hid his identity well back then, these people had grown to the point that they had the resources to find out who he was.

The difference between Theron and the now-dead Patriarch, though, was that Theron was still a shadow, and the only person to have seen his face was Patriarch Nightingale, who obviously wouldn't be giving anyone any information now.

Carefully, Theron put all of the Soul Lamps away in his new spatial ring, the very one he had taken from the unnamed cultivator.

The dagger was definitely the most valuable item in the spatial ring aside from the ring itself, but Theron knew that there were other things in there that he had yet to go through completely. He hadn't had the time just yet, and now he was about to come into another boon.

Even so, this and that were two separate matters.

The unnamed cultivator had most definitely done all he could to extend his life and break through near the end. As such, all of his wealth had mostly been poured into those endeavors, leaving not much behind other than immutable resources.

For the Nightingale Sect, though… they were responsible for the cultivation of so many. They didn't have the luxury of burning through all of their funds.

As expected, in the next vault over, Theron found rows of pills and herbs.

What was kept here was only the most valuable of things—resources designed for high-level Gold Mancers prepping for entry into the Touching Cloud Realm and those firmly within the Touching Cloud Realm as well.

There were three main sources of wealth here.

The first was a pill labeled as the Whisking Mana Pill.

It was an odd name for such a valuable thing, but just the scent of it made Theron feel as though his Mana was about to enter a chaotic spiral.

Likely because he was just a Silver Mancer, his Core even showed signs of collapsing on the spot. This wasn't an illusion, but instead reality.

It felt like the pill placed his Mana into an agitated state that forced the once solid form of his Mana to spontaneously sublimate into a gaseous form.

Recalling the fog that surrounded the unnamed cultivator and Patriarch Nightingale, Theron realized that this pill was probably related to helping one cross into the Touching Cloud Realm from Gold Resonance.

He still didn't quite understand this. It felt like you were working backwards.

After spending so long compacting, purifying, and solidifying your Mana… why turn it back into a gas? It would take up more space, be harder to control, and even seemed weaker.

However, Theron didn't believe himself to be infallible. If there was something he didn't understand, that didn't necessarily mean that it was wrong.

He would have to get his hands on a cultivation technique of Water Mancy that touched these realms first to analyze things properly.

The second pill was labeled as the Supplementing Flesh Pill. Just a whiff made Theron feel alive and active, his internal injuries showing rapid signs of regeneration.

These pills were powerful enough to target the internal injuries of even Touching Cloud Realm experts. Theron's body was exceptionally powerful, and he thought that this would make these pills less effective on him, but oddly enough it was the opposite.

It felt like his body was even more supplemented by these pills than usual.

Logically, the more powerful a body, the harder it was to damage, and thus the harder it was to heal. It should require higher-class pills.

However… this was only true of lower-class healing pills.

Higher-class healing pills like this one that functioned by stirring Life Mana to action were actually more effective the more talented a person was. For Theron, who could even wield his own Life Mana to a certain extent, it could practically heal him back to 100% with a single bite.

Normally, these pills would stop being effective by the time you reached the Ascending Cloud Realm, but Theron could probably easily continue to use them even into the Treading Cloud Realm beyond it.

The third resource here was an herb, the Tracing Cloud Resonance Herb.

This herb was an enormous strategic resource. And though Theron didn't know this, what he could tell was that even eating a leaf from this herb accelerated his cultivation speed several times over.

Usually, these herbs would be given to alchemists who would process them into two types of pills. The lesser valuable pill was the Whisking Mana Pill Theron was already now familiar with. But the more valuable pill was the Accumulating Cloud Pill.

One pill helped prep a person for entering into the Touching Cloud Realm. But the other… it accelerated growth within the Treading Cloud Realm as a whole.

However, the latter was strictly controlled and too few had the formula for it. It seemed that even with all his scheming, Patriarch Nightingale didn't have this formula on hand either. But what he did have was a large number of these Tracing Cloud Resonance Herbs.

'This is…'

Theron's eyes flashed, and he turned his attention to the unnamed cultivator's spatial ring again.