Final Preparations

During Yaan's soul's journey into the strange world of darkness, in the outside world, his body and the golden armour were hidden from view by a white and black light. This white and black light was painful to look at due to the two colours forming a visual contradiction. Even the North Ghu City Lord couldn't glance at it for more than a second without feeling nauseous.

The black and white light completely hid everything within, including the armour's aura. The white-black aura replaced the armour's golden aura, but that in itself was enough to attract the attention of countless stunned cultivators as they stared at the glowing Ghu Clan palace from afar.

In the end, the city lord acted, doing his best to prevent this aura from leaking out beyond the Ghu Clan core sector territory. He realised that if Yaan returned unharmed, as unlikely as that may be, it would be best to keep this entire ordeal a secret.

That armour was definitely a heavenly treasure the likes of which the Ghu Province had never seen before.

No…perhaps such a treasure could be considered shocking even across the entire continent!

That said, the armour had thoroughly terrified the city lord. He wanted nothing to do with it, Yaan could keep it…in fact, Yaan absolutely had to keep it. The city lord wanted nothing to do with this armour, but having that thing fall into the wrong hands was a calamity waiting to happen.

At the very least, the city lord was confident that Yaan wouldn't use the armour to create trouble in a short period of time. And beyond that…he had his own plans for the future, so long as Yaan hung onto the armour for now, the problem would soon go away.

Wup!

Suddenly, the black-white light vanished, revealing Yaan's collapsed figure within, holding the now very ordinary looking golden armour. The city lord was hesitant at first, but after assessing the situation from afar for half a day, he relaxed slightly, realising that everything seemed to have been resolved.

Yaan slept for nine days, but when he woke up, he felt surprisingly refreshed.

"How do you feel? The armour…is it safe…?" The city lord immediately appeared beside Yaan with a calm expression, but a trace of fear was hidden deep within his eyes.

He had stayed by Yaan's side without blinking during these past few days…after all, he wouldn't be able to completely relax until he confirmed that this terrifying armour had been taken care of. In his eyes, this was not a treasure, but a calamity given physical form!

The fact that he was unable to sense even a trace of the armour's splendid grandeur now that it had entered a dormant state, only made the city lord feel even more apprehensive. He had no confidence that something like this wouldn't happen again, making him unwilling to even touch the treasure for fear of triggering another such situation.

Yaan blinked, then turned towards the golden armour by his side. He silently reached out with his hand and touched the gold plating with one finger.

Suddenly, a stream of information flooded into his mind. His eyes widened, but he had already experienced something very similar back in that strange dark place, when the mysterious woman taught him the binding seal. If not for that experience, this would be very difficult to tolerate.

After a few seconds, Yaan removed his finger and looked at the armour oddly.

"It's safe…I managed to bind the treasure spirit." He finally said. The city lord couldn't help but exhale a sigh of relief. However, after he calmed down, he stared at Yaan whilst pondering something. His gaze flashed with a strange glint, but he said nothing and kept his thoughts to himself.

Yaan politely excused himself after saying that he needed to study the armour to ensure that the binding remained stable. This was untrue, but the city lord didn't know that. Regardless of any doubts he might have, the Ghu Clan Grand Elder wouldn't take any chances, so he allowed Yaan to leave without voicing his thoughts.

Of course, he would monitor Yaan very closely from here on.

Yaan only left because he didn't want to speak about everything that he had experienced. That dark space, seeing his own soul, the Third Celestial Demon General…and the mysterious woman.

He didn't understand any of it, and based on the city lord's shock, Yaan determined that his experience was not the norm when binding a soul treasure.

After returning to his temple in the inner sector, Yaan didn't continue training immediately, but instead spent three full days processing the information which had been transferred into his mind by the armour. He quickly realised that he was unable to understand 99% of it, because he was simply too weak.

All he knew was that to properly activate this armour, he needed to strengthen his soul to the level of an Origin Soul as the bare minimum requirement. But even then, he would likely receive a severe backlash if he was hasty, even if he only made use of the treasure's most basic functions!

For now, he simply wore the golden armour beneath his usual robe. The armour was oddly flexible and didn't feel like any sort of metal that he was familiar with. Strangely, it shrunk to perfectly fit his small stature after he put it on. Since it was so thin, Yaan opted to wear the armour like a vest, hidden below his robe.

Even if he couldn't activate it, this was still an incredible armour after all. Yaan was confident that nobody in the inheritance would be able to damage it at all, let alone pierce through it.

As for the knowledge that the armour transmitted into his mind…he couldn't fully understand this information, but what he did understand was shocking.

It seemed that this treasure was incomplete, it was actually one of four in a set!

Celestial Demon Armour, Celestial Demon Helmet, Celestial Demon Boots, Celestial Demon Sword.

Usually, it was only possible to bind a single soul treasure at any one time, and these treasures could only be unbound by forcefully cutting the connection and enduring the severe backlash. However, the four Celestial Demon treasures were a set, meaning that a single being could actually bind all four together!

He was in possession of the armour, but there were no clues regarding the possible locations of the other three treasures.

Yaan laughed at himself and shook his head. It was already a shocking stroke of luck that he somehow succeeded in binding this armour, but to find, and also bind the other three? Attempting such a thing with his meagre strength would be asking for death. He had only dared to bind this armour because there was simply no other choice in that moment of crisis.

As the inheritance opening drew near, the city lord delivered Yaan some of his requested goods, but he no longer had the time to use everything. He made sure to properly use the Rank 3 Tendon Tempering and Blood Refining Pills, but he had no time to attempt anything else.

During this time, the whole Northern Ghu Province was going through an upheaval like never before.

In a matter of two weeks, nearly every cultivator on this side of the province knew about the Yuso Clan's destruction, and the Ghu Clan's repossession of their mountain!

The Yuso Clan's name was slandered and dragged through the mud, whilst the Ghu Clan and the other eight Northern factions who took part in the assault on Yuso Mountain, were praised as the province's heroes. The fact that the Yuso Clan hid the existence of the Spirit Heart, despite knowing that it was attracting an ever-growing beast tide, made people curse their names endlessly.

The city lord didn't think much of it when Yaan said that he wanted the Yuso Clan's corpses, so he didn't mind agreeing to Yaan's terms in their deal. The Ghu Clan fulfilled their obligations, refining as many of the Yuso Clan's corpses as possible into corpse puppets prior to the inheritance. All of these refined puppets were promptly handed over to Ghu Nadda.

Whilst Yaan was busy training and preparing for the inheritance, Nadda fulfilled his side of their agreement, finally hosting the corpse puppet auction within North Ghu City.

It was unexpected that all of those corpses would be sold in Nadda's auctions within a single week! But even more shockingly, the average sale price of each corpse increased by a factor of 20 times compared to the usual prices! On the final day of the auction, this number went as high as 40 times!

The mixture of fear towards the inheritance, which had been exacerbated by their recent stresses, combined with everyone's total lack of corpse puppets since they had mostly been destroyed during the battle against the Yuso Clan, led to around one third of the cultivators who would be participating in the inheritance buying at least one corpse puppet at these insane prices!

Thanks to Yaan's recent training with the remaining Rank 3 unique body tempering pills, his fleshly body was now much stronger than before. However, due to his extreme efficiency in using these pills after having built up some experience by now, his Vital Energy didn't increase by much, since the pills' medicinal energy had all been used to temper his fleshly body to the utmost degree.

Overall, his Vital Energy was now at 19% progress. If he wanted to continue improving at his previous speed, he would need to use many valuable medicines intended specifically for increasing a body temperer's Vital Energy.

These sorts of resources, and ones that were both powerful and safe enough for Yaan to use with his current strength, were not only expensive, but also very rare. They would be much easier to find within the inheritance.

Obtaining what Yaan really needed would take the city lord some time, but Yaan had no time to use those things right now anyway.

Besides, amassing a large quantity of wealth wasn't convenient for Yaan right now. He couldn't use spatial rings, so he could only take the most essential items, and his most valuable assets, with him into the inheritance.

He had most of his current wealth converted into high ranking Vital Recovery Pills, since he could place these into a leather satchel and take them with him. Nadda helped him to store the remainder of his wealth within the Ghu Clan's secure vaults in the core sector.

Finally, Yaan had put all of his affairs in order. He had trained as well as he could train before the inheritance opened, and during these last few days, he rested well, knowing that he might not have the chance to rest properly for some time.

Finally, the day of the inheritance opening arrived.