The Nine Cauldrons

“Hu!”

With a gaze as sharp as a blade, Teng Qingshan gripped the shaft of the Reincarnation Spear and ruthlessly pulled it out in an instant!

“Puchi!”

Blood frantically spurted out of the hole in Sima Qing’s chest as he stared at Teng Qingshan in shock, his eyes wide open. Horror, resentment, and an unwillingness to die fiercely shone in his eyes......It was quite a complicated look.

“I, an Innate Realm Master, am being slain by a seventeen year old youth?” Sima Qing felt his vitality quickly leaking out of him; however, his consciousness was still present, allowing him to think clearly. The eyes that were slowly dimming were fixated on the cold murderous figure standing before them. “In my whole life of roaming the lands, even Wei Wuya was not able to kill me, Sima Qing. I had only initially decided to join in on this battle for the Black Fire Spirit Fruit for fun...Who would’ve ever thought that I would fall to the hands of a seventeen year old youth! Yes, this time around, I’ve fallen to my own arrogance. When faced with any other innate master, I would’ve always made sneak attacks; if I failed, I would’ve escaped. I was too arrogant this time when faced with a seventeen year old young man. Just from this one slip-up, I, ‘Ghostly Fox’ Sima Qing, will die!”

Sima Qing’s eyes turned completely dark as his consciousness started to blur.

After Teng Qingshan pulled out his spear, he fiercely stepped on the corpse of Sima Qing to reduce the speed of his plunge. Contrary to his intentions however, Sima Qing’s body began to plummet at an even faster speed!

Boom!

His corpse fell harshly onto the sandy ground, fresh blood splattering all over.

“Boom!” A low rumble could be heard when Teng Qingshan landed on the ground.

“To freely plunge down from a height of about one hundred metres, I should be able to take the impact with just my body.” Teng Qingshan nodded to himself. “If I were to use internal strength to reduce the weight of my body, the descending speed would be greatly reduced. If I further combined that with my resistant skills, I should be able to freely plunge from a height of three hundred metres without requiring the resistance of external objects!”

His abilities had continued to rise, but it had been some time since Teng Qingshan had checked his limits on the height he could fall from.

For security, when he jumped from tall mountains, Teng Qingshan would usually jump from or step on rocks to reduce the speed of his fall.

From the free fall of a hundred metres earlier, Teng Qingshan had realised that his body could definitely take more, compared to a few years ago, and that it was much stronger.

......

On the sandy ground beside the precipice, the sand and rocks were dyed in blood, and Sima Qing’s corpse was already in pieces. Teng Qingshan headed towards it.

“‘Ghostly Fox’ Sima Qing!” Teng Qingshan carefully observed Sima Qing’s body and he saw his pair of gloves. “Those gloves would’ve allowed one to contend with weapons with their bare hands...too bad that they are now torn!” Teng Qingshan reached out his hands to tear off Sima Qing’s clothes.

Hua la!

Beneath his clothes lied a layer of black inner armor! Similarly, there was a large hole at the chest area of the black inner armor.

Regardless of if it was the gloves or the inner armor, facing Teng Qingshan’s best skill — the ‘Toxic Dragon Drill’ — they had both been pierced through and torn. Afterall, back when Teng Qingshan was using the Damascus Steel Spear and was weaker compared to who he was now, he could already pierce through the outer layer of the scales of a Flood Dragon. Teng Qingshan was very confident...

That if he were to use the strongest ‘Toxic Dragon Drill’ at his full physical power, as well as with his internal strength, that even the Flood Dragon would suffer damage.

“These torn inner armor and gloves have gone to waste. I have no need for them.” Teng Qingshan reached his hands into the inner pockets of Sima Qing’s clothes and took out all of the items inside.

Some crushed silver! One wet silver note!

The translucent Black Fire Spirit Root, which was emitting a strange glow! The roots of the Spirit Root were a faint milky white.

And a small package that was tightly and firmly bound by sheepskin.

“One would be completely wet when entering the deep lake to go underground. But this Sima Qing was really rich and imposing. He didn’t even put that note of a hundred taels of silver inside the sheepskin package. As expected of an innate master, he didn’t care for such a small amount of money. What’s in this package?”

Without a second word, Teng Qingshan kept the Black Fire Spirit Root in his bosom. It was the most important thing.

Thereafter, Teng Qingshan opened the sheepskin package.

“Tsk tsk!” Teng Qingshan’s eyes popped out. “This old man was really rich!”

A thick stack of golden glittery notes!

These were gold notes!

The words on the notes were all in gold. The most shocking thing was that there were only two notes worth a hundred taels of gold — most of them were of the denomination of a thousand taels of gold. At the very end, there were a few notes of the denomination of ten thousand taels of gold! There was a huge stack of about seventy to eighty gold notes in total!

“Sixty-eight notes worth a thousand gold! Two gold notes worth one hundred taels of gold, and eight gold notes that are worth ten thousand taels of gold! In total, there are 148,200 taels of gold in gold notes! It’s close to a hundred and fifty thousand taels of gold.” Teng Qingshan gasped!

This was close to 15 million taels of silver!

No matter where one was, it would be a huge sum of wealth!

“Just this stack!” Teng Qingshan grabbed on to the stack of gold notes as if he was grabbing onto a stack of one hundred renminbi (currency used in china). It was just that the value was thousands of times more. “Why would this old chap keep such a big amount of wealth on him?” Teng Qingshan thought for a while, before it became clear to him!

A smile broke out Teng Qingshan’s face. “This Sima Qing took on the identity of ‘Wang Yun’! He would need to be prepared to flee anytime, of course he wouldn’t be keeping his money in Wang Yun’s quarters!”

Ghostly Fox ‘Sima Qing’ — once he was discovered, he would have to run for his life!

Of course the money would have to be kept near him!

As an innate master, the Ghostly Fox ‘Sima Qing’ was well known for being sly. It would, of course, be very easy for an innate master to get ahold of money. After so many years, ‘Sima Qing’, who was over a hundred years old, would of course have accumulated an astonishing sum of wealth. And with his character, he wouldn’t place his trust in others easily.

If he kept it close by and safe with him, the money could only be stolen if he were killed. And if he was to die, the money would no longer mean a thing to him.

So long as he was still alive, with his abilities as an innate master, who would be able to steal from him? Therefore, the best place to keep his money was on himself.

“With so many gold notes, he must’ve spent his life accumulating it. I’ll be keeping it then!” Suddenly possessing such a large amount of wealth, Teng Qingshan was shocked. But it was also a pleasing thing. Afterall, as a powerful expert, it would be easy to get ahold of money. The Ghostly Fox ‘Sima Qing’ must’ve only earned from a few bigger transactions before he’d stopped.

Afterall, with the abilities of an innate master, he could rob people during the daylight!

It would be an easy feat for him to just rob any large salt merchant and get himself millions of taels of silver.

It was just that to an inmate master, money didn’t matter much.

“The thing about money is that, if there’s too much, it’d just be merely numbers. But......without it, it would also be troublesome.” Teng Qingshan was well aware that this sum of money could let both his family and the villagers lead a better life. “Hmm, let’s take a look and see if there’s anything else. Why didn’t he even have a secret manual! This ‘Sima Qing’ was able to change his looks to be like Wang Yun. He must’ve had some strange methods in the area of disguise. Moreover, he was more nimble than me in dodging in such a small area. He should’ve had a top tier secret manual on close combat.”

Teng Qingshan had originally thought that there’d be a secret manual within such a thick package.

But it was too bad — while the package was thick, it had been mostly filled with gold notes. There was no secret manual at all!

Initially Teng Qingshan was still hoping to get himself a secret manual on close combat. Afterall, 《Crossing Worlds》 was a secret manual that was about travelling far distances in a straight path with Qing Gong, and wasn’t for dodging within a small area!

“Weird items are definitely weird.” Teng Qingshan realised that other than the gold notes in the package, the rest were all assorted items which were necessities for those who roamed the world, such as a silver needle, a Lan Yun Pearl, and a small porcelain bottle. Other than that, there were two......

“Masks?” Teng Qingshan picked up the two beige colored faces astonishingly. “Could these be human skin masks?”

Teng Qingshan scrutinized the two human skin masks. One of them looked like an ordinary young man, while the other was a middle-aged man with a scar on his face. The masks looked like they were made with fine workmanship. Teng Qingshan touched them with his hands. They felt very cooling, and were light, as if there was nothing there.

“Hmm? Then on Sima Qing’s face......” Teng Qingshan took a good look at the chin, temples, and other parts of Sima Qing face, before he found it. Exerting some strength, he tore off another human skin mask.

Under the human skin mask was Sima Qing’s actual face.

Sima Qing had very thin lips and long, narrow eyes, it was the look of an unkind man.

“This Sima Qing was really good with his disguises. The workmanship of these human skin masks is comparable to those top notch masters of disguise of the future.” Teng Qingshan could tell with just one touch that these human skin masks were made with special materials. “With these human skin masks, it would be easier for me to do things in the future!”

Teng Qingshan could control the veins, muscles, and bones of his body to make himself taller or shorter, and bulkier or skinnier. But he wasn’t able to change his looks.

In Teng Qingshan’s past life as an assassin, he’d also learnt the art of disguise.

But that would require certain materials and such, while these human skin masks were much more convenient!

“Although I didn’t get the secret manual that I wanted the most, these items aren’t too bad. I’ll let you rest in peace in the ground.” With one hand, Teng Qingshan smashed the Reincarnation Spear in his hands furiously, and thrust it into the sandy ground in front of him. At the top of the spear was a rotating internal strength that could be seen with the naked eye.

Boom!

“Boom!” A loud sound sounded, as if explosives had been hidden underground. A large hole one zhang wide and close to a zhang deep appeared in the sandy ground in front of him.

Five Techniques of the Ardent Flame — Legacy of the Ultimate Flame!

Teng Qingshan only used a small amount of internal strength to easily blast this big of a hole into the ground, before he kicked the corpse into the hole. He also piled the earth into the hole, and buried the corpse completely.

Other than Teng Qingshan, no one else was aware.

“Hu!” Teng Qingshan quickly dashed to a stream besides the bamboo forest nearby.

After the battle, Teng Qingshan’s body was covered in dust. He cleaned himself a little, and took out the mask with the face of ‘Wang Yun’ to wash. “This mask is that of an old man. If I were to wear it, I’d need to dye my hair. It’s quite troublesome. The other two are more suitable for me!”

Teng Qingshan put on the human skin mask that had the face of a scarred middle-aged man.

Teng Qingshan only felt an icy cold feeling when the human skin mask came into contact with his skin, before the mask adhered itself comfortably. Teng Qingshan didn’t feel any discomfort at all. “This Sima Qing had mediocre attacking skills, but he was really good at creating human skin masks.”

Looking into the surface of the stream, the face of a harsh middle-aged man was reflected back.

“If I change my physique a little, even my parents wouldn’t be able to recognise me.” Teng Qingshan immediately wrapped the masks and gold notes inside the sheepskin, before hiding them between his Coldsteel inner armor and his undergarments. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to put them in the pockets of his outer clothes, but that it was just that it had been completely torn to shatters.

“Now, it’s time to eat this thing!”

Teng Qingshan grabbed onto the Black Fire Spirit Root!