Chapter 237: Chapter 144: Slaying the Cultivator, Dividing the Treasures

But everyone had risked their lives, so it was only natural they hoped to get some treasures out of it.

Li Chang’an had no objection to this. After all, the usual spoils were of no use to him, so he didn’t mind letting the others have them.

Several of them went over to the Cultivator’s corpse and began to search it.

And what a haul it was.

The first thing they found was a Storage Bag.

The bag appeared to be only the size of a palm, yet reaching inside revealed a space of about one cubic meter, crammed with all sorts of miscellaneous items.

They had all seen the Cultivator pull things from it earlier, so they knew it was a treasure.

Leng Yanran reached inside herself.

Inside were numerous porcelain vials containing Elixirs, a few talismans of unknown purpose, various broken and shattered Magical Treasures, and several yellowed, ancient books.

Li Chang’an wasn’t interested in the Elixirs, talismans, or broken Magical Treasures.

The only things that interested him were the ancient books.

The first book had a very plain cover, with seven large words written on it: *Cultivation: From Getting Started to Getting Buried*.

The cover of the second book was not so plain. It featured the image of a scantily clad fairy and a title: *The Story of the Foundation Establishment Fairy and the Golden Core Stage Great Power After the Rain*.

The cover of the third book was finally a little more respectable. The book was worn in places, as if the Cultivator had read it frequently. The title was *Evergreen Technique*.

The fourth book was clearly the most valued by the Cultivator; its cover was practically worn to shreds. The title read: *Cultivation Method: Foundation Establishment Chapter*.

Li Chang’an picked up all four ancient books, glanced at them, and then said to the others, “As for the other items, divide them amongst yourselves based on your contributions. I’ll be taking these secret manuals back to study. If I figure anything out, I will share my findings with all of you!”

No one objected.

The credit for ambushing the Cultivator belonged to Li Chang’an to begin with. The others had merely served as backup, and not very effective backup at that—Li Chang’an had personally blocked eighty percent of the Cultivator’s attacks.

So, they were already thrilled that Li Chang’an was willing to let them have the other treasures.

Of course, the main reason was that Li Chang’an now commanded immense prestige in the Li Yang Martial World.

He was, after all, the Martial Arts God who had created the *Martial Scripture* and shared it freely. Everyone present trusted him and had no fear that he would hoard these secret manuals for himself.

Once the distribution of the spoils was settled, Li Chang’an didn’t linger. He rushed back to the Li Yang Capital City and shut himself in his room.

…

The battle sent massive waves through the Jianghu.

Nearly ten thousand Martial Arts Grandmasters had ganged up on a single Cultivator, only to be all but wiped out. In the end, it had taken the Martial Arts God, Li Chang’an, joining forces with the top masters of the Three Major Sects to finally kill the being.

The power of Cultivators spread throughout the world.

But while people were in awe, they were also strangely excited!

This was a legendary Cultivator, after all. No matter the cost, just managing to kill one was a victory in itself!

Moreover, people had heard that Li Chang’an had acquired several cultivation techniques from the Cultivation World from the fallen Cultivator.

Given the Martial Arts God’s track record, it likely wouldn’t be long before they too might have the good fortune to see these cultivation techniques for themselves!

The news caused a huge stir throughout the Jianghu.

Martial Artists across the land once again fixed their gazes on the Li Yang Capital, pinning their hopes on the Martial Arts God to successfully unravel the secrets of the cultivation techniques and bring them a more powerful path to walk.

…

After returning to the Capital, Li Chang’an didn’t rush to interrogate the Cultivator’s soul. Instead, he took out the books and began to look them over.

After all, he knew very little about the Cultivation World.

And he knew just as little about Cultivators themselves.

If he didn’t do his homework first, he wouldn’t even be able to tell if the Cultivator’s soul was telling the truth or lying to him.

*Cultivation: From Getting Started to Getting Buried* was an overview of Cultivator realms.

It described six major Cultivator realms.

These six realms were: Qi Cultivation, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Soul Emergence, and Divine Separation.

’There should be higher realms beyond Divine Separation, but the book doesn’t list them. I guess once you get past that stage, you achieve true longevity and don’t have to worry about ’getting buried’ anymore,’ he mused.

This gave Li Chang’an a basic introduction to the concepts of the Cultivation Realm.

Of course, for Li Chang’an, this so-called progression of realms was nothing new.

He could guess what came after Divine Separation without even needing to read about it; it would just be the usual stuff like Harmonizing with the Dao, Returning to Void, or Crossing the Tribulation.

The second book was titled *The Story of the Foundation Establishment Fairy and the Golden Core Stage Great Power After the Rain*.

The title was so long that Li Chang’an knew at a glance it was nothing serious.

And indeed, his guess was spot on. This *Rainy Day Story* was something the Cultivator used to pass the time late at night.

He flipped through it for a bit and found it rather bland, stroking his chin as he muttered, “Looks like these Cultivators all lead pretty miserable lives if even their smut is this boring!”

The last two books, *Evergreen Technique* and *Cultivation Method: Foundation Establishment Chapter*, were Li Chang’an’s main focus.

He opened *Evergreen Technique* first.

He discovered it was a technique that taught people how to extend their lifespan!

*Evergreen Technique* was divided into three stages. The first stage could extend one’s life by five hundred years, the second by a thousand, and the third by three thousand.

At first, Li Chang’an felt like he had struck gold, thinking he had found something incredible. But as he read on, he discovered the technique had side effects, and they were far from minor.

The reason it was called the *Evergreen Technique* was because it was a Wood-attribute technique. Its life-extending principle was drawn from ancient trees.

As a result, after one extended their life by cultivating this technique, their body would grow increasingly sluggish with age, until it eventually rotted away completely and turned into dead wood.

…

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