Chapter 1709: Mats, Incense, and a God Statue
The place appeared to be a Buddhist Temple.
The area wasn’t small. There was even a small gate to either side, each a passage to a different area.
Han Li quickly swept his gaze past the large hall and eventually looked at the two rows of wooden cabinets.
The wooden cabinets were white as snow and faintly released threads of icy Qi. They were made from the snow wood famous throughout the spirit realm.
The wood was an ideal material to refine ice attributed treasures, but here it was being used as the material for a common cabinet. This was so extravagant, it left Han Li speechless.
The cabinets had a dozen various-colored tools laid on top of them. From a distance, he could see scepters, alms bowls, small bells, and other items.
Han Li narrowed his eyes and his spiritual senses swept past the objects. After a brief moment of shock, delight beamed from his face.
The tools possessed astonishing spiritual Qi, every one of them a top-grade half-finished treasure. If the original master refined them fully, they would be considered common spirit treasures at the very least, if not Divine Spirit Treasures.
Most importantly, from the outer appearance of the treasures, he knew they were obscure treasures of extraordinary abilities.
Even if he spent the effort to truly refine them completely, their effectiveness would still be as powerful as treasures refined by their original master. In this case, they could be considered top-grade treasures of the spirit realm.
Han Li shook his sleeve and suddenly, a wave of azure mist flew out and swept over the area, sweeping up every last treasure.
After acquiring so many powerful treasures, Han Li felt delighted.
After looking past the hall once more, he slowly lowered his head and looked at one of the mats several times. Suddenly, he let out a yelp as if he discovered something.
He immediately swiped his hand out the ground. Woosh. The mat silently entered his grasp. Not only did he find it flexible as water and numbing to the touch, but he sensed a wave of spiritual Qi suddenly blow past him.
“This is...” Han Li’s eye flickered.
The mat was clearly refined from some sort of spirit grass. It survived an unknown number of years yet it was still brimming with spiritual Qi.
His expression stirred as if he had discovered something. Suddenly, he placed the mat underneath his nose and took a sniff, catching a faintly fishy scent.
Han Li’s face turned off and he flipped his other hand. In an azure flash, a meter-long sword appeared in his hand.
He flung it at the mat and shook his wrist, chopping at it with a streak of swordlight.
An astonishing scene occurred. The swordlight sliced atop the mat with seemingly unstoppable force and entered several inches deep before being firmly deflected.
Yellow light roamed across the surface of the light and restored the cut damage from the sword. The grass alone had blocked the strike from the Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword.
Han Li flipped the mat several times and muttered, “This must be the legendary Cloth Armor Grass! It is a truly fantastical item. The grass by itself is capable of blocking the strikes of blade-type magic treasures. If turned into armor, it’ll be a top-grade defense. It is a pity that it’s deeply vulnerable to fire-attributed attack. This is truly an Immortal’s residence. They used such a vastly important material as a mere mat.”
Since he’s discovered the mat’s value, he naturally wouldn’t leave it there.
He promptly stretched out a pitch-black palm from his sleeve and he casually grasped towards the ground. A grey wave of light soon rolled across it.
As grey light flickered, hundreds of mats silently vanished from the ground, sweeping the entire hall clear.
When his spiritual sense swept through the storage pouch and saw the mats neatly arranged, he nodded with satisfaction. Since the grass has long been extinct in the spirit realm, the mats alone made the trip worth it.
With that thought, Han Li let out a long sigh and took a deep breath. For some reason, he felt the scent of the sandalwood seemed to have grown denser.
“Sandalwood!”
He suddenly turned his head and his eyes lit up as he quickly looked at the incense burner at the corner of the room.
The incense stick in the burner was burned halfway and its color was a faint yellow. It was unknown how long it was placed there.
Han Li’s brow stirred and he took large strides towards the corner. But before he arrived, he had already looked at the incense burner with his spiritual sense and immediately frowned.
Surprisingly, the incense burner was made out of common bronze. It couldn't be considered a magic tool.
Han Li blinked and he already walked in front of the incense burner. He then lowered his head and looked at the remaining third of the burning incense stick. A rich scent was leaking from the stick.
The stick appeared to be more than meets the eye. From its appearance, it was no different from a common incense stick. But since it was able to retain a dense fragrance after so much time had passed, it must be extraordinary.
Han Li looked at it for a long while and his face turned grim.
He raised his hand and reached out to extinguish the burning incense, but before he touched it, spiritual light flashed and a layer of azure light wrapped around his fingers.
With extreme care, he put out the tip of the burning incense and nothing happened.
However, Han Li’s expression still remained odd. He sternly looked at the incense several more times and took a long sniff before wearing a pensive face.
Suddenly, he flicked his finger and red light flashed. A rice-sized star shot out from his fingertips and struck the end of the incense stick.
As the light faded away, the incense wasn’t reignited.
Han Li narrowed his eyes, faintly betraying a trace of excitement. He flicked his finger again and a crimson fireball shot out from the tip of his finger. It floated motionlessly in the air.
When the fireball struck the end of the incense stick, he stared in silence.
As a result, the scorching flames hadn’t burned the incense stick in the slightest.
“As expected, its the Serene Blackice Incense! It wards off one’s inner demons when breaking through to the Body Integration stage!”
When Han Li saw this, he wore a face of delight.
He promptly flipped his hand and a pure-white jade box appeared in his hand. He carefully put the stick into his hand.
Afterwards, his body shifted as he looked for the other half-burned incense stick at the other corners of the hall. With that said, he summoned a jade box in his hand with a flicker and it completely vanished.
Afterwards, Han Li took another look throughout the hall. It was a pity there were many things there to begin with. Apart from the shrine and the withered spirit fruits offered to the shrine, there was nothing else.
With that, he eventually took a look at the shrine.
Purple light shimmered from the shrine and it appeared three meters tall. It contained the statue of a god as if it had been carved from top-grade jade.
The god statue wore green robes and held a snow-white horsetail whisk in one hand and a purple gourd in the other. He had a long beard and mustache trailing down his chin, giving him a faintly Immortal aura.
However, Han Li simply looked at the god statue for a short moment more, and he couldn't help but betray his shock.
He suddenly discovered that no matter how long he stared at the statue’s face, he could only see a haze of glimmering green light in front of it. He hadn’t been able to perceive the statue’s true appearance.
Suddenly, he narrowed his eyes and blue light soon shined from them. He then forcefully peered at the god statue’s face.
It did have an effect. He gradually saw through green light mist covering the statue’s face and saw it thin out.
His mood lit up and his gaze grew focused, wanting to look at the god statue’s face.
But before he could see the finger details, a heavenly sound and a Buddhist chant rang through his mind. As his ears rang, his entire spiritual sense was thrown into disarray.
Han Li's eyes turned black and he staggered to the ground. He took a seat, nearly dazed.
Fortunately, his spiritual sense was comparable to Body Integration-grade cultivators. After hastily circulating the Great Development Arts through his body, he eventually regained clarity of mind and stood back up.
After straightening himself, he took another look at the god statue with bewilderment.
The god statue was so strange; even given his current cultivation stage, he wasn’t able to see its true appearance. The statue itself was a grand treasure of immeasurable power.
Since it was enshrined, the statue must’ve been modeled after an important figure even in the True Immortal Realm.
The god statue was an immensely profound object. Even a few vastly powerful individuals in the spirit realm, drew the support of god statues to manifest the primal soul or soul fragment from a deity an unfathomable distance away.
Even though it had never been heard of for an immortal of the True Immortal Realm to use such a method to descend into the Spirit Realm, taking this god statue would definitely be unwise if it really were modeled after an important figure of the True Immortal Realm.
Han Li’s expression wavered for a long while before he eventually took a deep breath. After forcefully suppressing his desires, he looked away from the shrine and to a door at the side.
His body stirred and he walked over without any further hesitation. And with a mental command, the huge ape puppet followed after him.
Soon, all that was left in the hall was the lone shrine.
At that moment, Han Li already walked through a passage and arrived in front of a dozen side rooms. The rooms didn’t appear very large and there all appeared identical.
Han Li quickly looked at them and had the huge ape puppet open the doors to the rooms one by one. When he saw that nothing happened, he began to flicker and enter each of the rooms.