Chapter 13: Treasures

As Lance oriented himself, he saw that he had landed with the all the members of the Destroying Spear sect but the other sects were nowhere to be seen.

He looked around the place where he landed, a vast desert revealed itself to him. He was surprised as he was in a clearing in a forest only a little bit earlier. As a dry breeze blew through the area, all the moisture seemed to be sucked out of his body. The sect cultivators fared a little better as their thick robes covered most of their body from the sand. The sky was clear with not even a cloud in sight, only the sun was hung in the sky scorching

The cultivators soon organised themselves and started off in a random direction as the domain's layout changed every time it opened. The heat did not affect them too much as the essence energy circulated in their bodies to stave off the effects of the atmosphere.

Finding treasures in this vast land could only depend on their luck, but they would almost certainly meet the sects who had entered with them as they generally landed in the same area. So, conflicts were unavoidable and they had to be prepared. Their luck seemed to be in their favour as they soon found a small oasis in the middle of which grew a lotus. It was nearly 2 feet from the stamen to its top most petal and emitted dense water attributed essence energy. The blue lotus had 9 petals around the bulb in the middle.

"Be careful, that is a Nine Petal Water Lotus, a Spirit Bronze grade treasure. It will surely have a guardian, do not be greedy and rush forward!", warned Gong Yu as he took out a black spear. The rest also took out their weapons but most of them wielded spears. Spatial artifacts were common among cultivators of even the lowest star rating but they could only hold a couple of cubic feet of space. The space started increasing as the grade of the artifact increased, but even the artifacts of spirit iron grade were monstrously expensive. The rings these cultivators wore could only be considered half-step spirit iron grade.

Lance also took out his swords as he looked for the guardian. Gong Yu slowly moved forward with his spear pointed at the water, soon a bulge appeared on the water surface as the head of a huge toad poked out. The toad had sickly green skin and a pair of sunken black eyes. It croaked as its tongue immediately flashed out toward Gong Yu who was only a couple of feet away from the edge of the lake, but he was ready as he deflected the slimy appendage with his spear. He jumped back as the toad immediately attacked again. Soon he was out of attack range of the toad so the toad immediately jumped out to continue its attack.

"Its tongue has poison coated on it, don't let it touch your body. Brother Lance, let us handle this beast. It would be dangerous for you to attack it due to your shorter range."

Lance only nodded as he too was curious of the battle prowess of these cultivators. Three cultivators including Gong Yu tried to keep its tongue busy so that the other seven cultivators could hurt it but the tongue was too slippery to be held down. The cultivators continuously landed hits on its body as even the spirit beast couldn't fight ten cultivators at once.

But the attacks only hurt it superficially due to its hard and thick skin. Gong Yu seemed to get impatient as essence energy fluctuations spread out around him. His spear caught fire as he thrust it forward, it directly penetrated the tongue and came out the other side. Lance was surprised as the tongue hadn't even been scratched till now. The toad croaked in pain, but Gong Yu wasn't done just yet.

"Burning Spear Thrust!", the spear seemed to disappear as it flashed toward the head of the toad. It directly pierced through and came out the other side bathed in blood. The toad slumped down as Gong Yu pulled his spear back.

"Brother Lance what do you think of my skill?", he asked proudly as he cleaned the blood on his spear with a cloth.

"It was very impressive brother Gong! But isn't it said that skills should only be used only after reaching the muscle stage?"

Gong Yu snickered at the question and said, "Brother Lance, skills can be used with a treasure as long as it has the same elemental affinity as the skill. I can use the Burning Spear skill with the Burning Spear artifact of my sect. Did your teacher not give you an artifact?", he asked.

"No, my teacher never told me such a thing." Gong Yu's eyes glinted after he heard this as he thought to himself, 'His teacher is at most a peak skin stage cultivator, even his tiger must only have a tiny sliver of the impure Cloud Tiger bloodline. That too must have been obtained with some good fortune.'

But Lance was too preoccupied to notice Gong Yu. He glanced at Cloud discreetly but the tiger seemed to have noticed as he replied, 'The treasure must have the same elemental affinity as the skill. You have the elemental affinity of destruction, where do you think Anushka would find such a treasure? I have never seen a skill or treasure of that affinity. And skills too will only be strong when they have an affinity, you can only use affinity-less skills with your unique element. But you do not require a skill to defeat these weaklings, if you cannot even beat them, you should jump off a cliff.'

Lance only gave the cub an irritated glance as he looked at the cultivators harvesting some body parts of the toad. Soon they had stored all the valuable parts and gathered at the edge of the lake.

"There should be no more beasts here but we should still be careful, I will collect the Lotus and keep it in my spatial ring. Of course, it is only for safekeeping till the end of the first round, after that everyone will get their share.", Gong Yu looked at lance as he said this.

He felt a bit suspicious but could only leave the matter be after seeing the rest of the cultivators agree. Soon the Lotus was stored in a jade box and paced in Gong Yu's ring.

They started off once more in the same direction in search of more treasures.