Han Sen said with a coy smile. The main character on the other hand was not interested in the slightest as he said, "No need..." before drawing the Atlas.
This time, there was no blinding light but a slick silver blade. A small dip went along its centre, with a line of runes running along its sides. Drawing it fully the main character pushed the sword's tip towards the golden sphere. Just as the tip was a hair's width away from the sphere, countless layers of high tier defensive arrays appeared surrounding the sphere.
Han Sen was not surprised as this was the Sect treasury they were dealing with so it was expected to encounter some resistance. That was what he had expected... but what he didn't expect was the high tier defensive formations breaking like brittle glass upon making contact with the sword. There wasn't even any resistance.
'Just what kind of weapon is that, and what kind of monstrous power does one need to wield it with such ease???'
The more Han Sen thought the more he was convinced that the master in front of him was obviously a Sage level monster capable of untold destruction.
'Later when I get a chance, I should ask him to become my Master! Its not everyday you find a cultivator of such high calibre...'
As he was thinking that, the blade of the sword kept advancing, slicing into the sphere with little to no resistance. The main character proceeded with his action before finally sheathing his sword. Lightly tapping on the inside of the cut with the hilt, a precisely cut circular section fell into the sphere. In its place now stood a hole big enough for a single person to pass through comfortably.
Peeking inside, the duo saw a brightly lit room with dozens of shelves lined in neat rows; by a rough estimation there were around forty arranged in rows of ten.
Nudged by the MC, Han Sen floated into the sphere before gracefully landing in between the shelves. The main character, after having checked the safety of the sphere, also floated down, supposed by the celestial essence that swirled around him in tattered pieces.
'Oh how I've longed for this...' He thought as he landed. Finally having the power to do magical things, the main character was especially delighted.
Looking around, he saw all sorts of treasures housed on the shelves. There were books, herbs, special ores of all sorts and the likes. Han Sen was most interested in the books as he quickly made his way and browsed through them, the main character on the other hand was more concerned with anything with a descent amount of qi in it.
Spotting a small pile of spirit stones, the main character swiftly dashed towards them before commanding the Atlas to absorb them whole. The sword did as it was told, unsheathing itself just a little, a bright and blinding light emanated from the blade, influencing the spirit stones into its eternal embrace.
The main character felt a small increase in his godly essence, but was dissatisfied by its lowly magnitude.
'It can't even be compared to when I absorbed the spatial rings earlier...'
Of course that was different as he had several thousand people's worth of possessions. But thinking back to it, even that wasn't enough to max out the quota to get the godly essence into a full and applicable state... applicable in terms of the Truth ability.
'Thinking about it though, it does seem like a fair exchange...'
Remember, with the Truth ability up and running you were besically omnipotent, so the fact that you had to pay such a high price was totally acceptable.
Deciding he had to absorb more energy, the main character slowly turned his attention towards all that was in front of him. A greedy smile appeared on his face as he commanded the Atlas to absorb everything in the treasury that had high celestial energy.
Suddenly, as if being called by their Master, countless treasures flew towards him. The treasures ranged from spiritual herbs, to enhanced weapons, to spirit stones, to medicinal dans... basically anything that would usually be found in a Wuxia novel's Sect treasury.
But feeling his godly essence increase by an insignificant amount, the main character couldn't help but be a little depressed.
'Baby steps, baby steps...' He chanted, trying to make himself feel better. But then he remembered something crucial. A crooked grin slowly made its way onto to his face.
'YES, yes that will do nicely...'
Han Sen on the other hand was preoccupied with skimming through the contents of the books.
'Shadow Sword: able to shoot out sword like projections from ones own Shadow. At higher levels of proficiency the number of projectiles will increase based on your compatibility with the technique.... hmmm, sounds strong.'
He continued skimming through the books but was interrupted when he saw a thin red book with the tag, Gluttonous Consumption cultivation technique. Curious, he flipped through the book only to find that it only contained three, the rest having been ripped off.
He read through the description that stated that the technique was a forbidden Demonic technique. It explained how the cultivators engaged in such a technique were trading off the number of applicable skills in their roaster for power. It described how when one reached the third layer, they would be able to undergo physical enhancements and would gain an altered form.
This form consisted of black scalars and pale skin that was decorated with strange markings. These markings were ones affiliated with the underworld and would be able to inflic- that was the end of the three pages.
'So this was the cultivation technique used by that bastard ...' He was obviously referring to the late Sect Master. The physical enhancements fitted his description to a T.
'That explains why the Sect Master used so few martial techniques, I mean, I too use few techniques but that's because I choose to focus on my already existing techniques, reaching their maximum potential before incorporating new techniques into them...'
Han Sen had long figured that maxing out techniques and thoroughly combining them was one of the best ways to increase his combat prowess. Thinking about his current movement technique he commented,
'I wonder how much more potent it will become once I maximize its potential, but I just can't reach the next layer. During the fight with the Sect Master I had pushed it to its limits and felt as if I was a step away but I couldn't cross it no matter how hard I tried... I'll need to fix that.'
Han Sen had indeed derived such a method but speaking about it and doing it were two completely different things. The difficulty was beyond what any young genius could handle. Even most of the olden cultivators would struggle to achieve such a feat. Let alone combining martial techniques, the act of maximizing the potential of a technique would have most pulling out their hair in frustration.
So the fact that Han Sen was able to accomplish it only attributed to his monstrous talent.
Turning his attention to the other shelves, Han Sen browsed through its contents, not finding anything of interest.
The main character on the other hand had been looking through the other shelves wanting to find anything of value but he couldn't seem to identify any of them.
'For fucks sake, the sheer amount of nonsense in this treasury is insane, after looking through everything I'll just absorbed them all...'
Unbeknownst to him he had already reached the end of shelves when he suddenly saw two grand octagonal doors on the other side of the treasury.