Ning Zhuo stood before the five stone pillars, touched one with his palm, and immediately received the message.
He was to collect the rewards for being ranked first on the Qi Refinement Board, the Speedrun Board, and the Progress Board!
The rewards remained the same: Spirit Stones, mechanical components, and spells. Ning Zhuo had to choose one.
"Each reward contains a hundred Spirit Stones!" Ning Zhuo's heart shook slightly.
His highest reward so far was only ten Spirit Stones.
A hundred Spirit Stones, ten times as much!
Ning Zhuo immediately decided to take at least one reward of Spirit Stones.
Previously, he had taken many items from the preparation room to set up mechanisms. The Buddha Heart Demon Seal couldn't let them be free, all of these came with a cost.
As he set up more and more traps and mechanisms, Ning Zhuo's Spirit Stones were running out.
With an extra hundred Spirit Stones, Ning Zhuo had no more worries.
The mechanical components offered dozens of options, including the hangman's noose, the recoil wire, and the Small Flying Box.
The spells also had some familiar ones, such as the Embrace Ice Technique, the Grasping Fire Technique, and the Grafting Technique.
The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit was also observing Ning Zhuo. Seeing him stand before the leaderboard, deep in thought, the Fire Spirit couldn't help but show a tense expression.
Ning Zhuo didn't think too much and started to sense the Buddha Heart Demon Seal immediately.
However, he was disappointed to find out that he couldn't choose multiple rewards from the leaderboard; he could only pick one.
The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit saw Ning Zhuo's attempt fail and grunted, still appearing nervous.
"Strange," Ning Zhuo felt a hint of something odd.
"Very strange indeed."
The youth was very good at discovering problems from details.
"Each top-ranked reward is essentially the same, letting me choose one out of three."
"But the value of these three options is not equivalent."
"The Spirit Stones option is worth up to a hundred, but the other two options are still the same as the previous rewards."
"Most of these rewards I have already used. I have almost all the spells."
"The Three Ancestral Masters wouldn't make such a mistake…Which means, the actual value of the other two rewards far exceeds what it looks like on the surface."
"Let's try them all!"
Ning Zhuo came to a conclusion.
He had three chances to collect the rewards, so he chose each option once.
One hundred Spirit Stones, genuine and solid.
For the mechanical component, he chose the hangman's noose.
Lastly, for the spell, Ning Zhuo chose one he had not mastered yet—the Gold Gathering Technique.
The next moment, the information about the spell was transmitted into his mind.
Ning Zhuo was moved!
The Gold Gathering Technique was a spell that could extract metal and condense it between the fingers.
Of course, this wasn't enough to excite Ning Zhuo.
The key point was, along with the spell information, came a lot of cultivation insights.
Although Ning Zhuo had just acquired the Gold Gathering Technique, with these cultivation insights, he instantly became someone who had practiced it for two and a half years!
"A method of instant enlightenment? Infusing the cultivation experience of predecessors into the successors?"
"Impressive, truly impressive."
"With this, I can save a lot of time and energy."
Ning Zhuo was secretly delighted.
His background was incomparable to Meng Chong and others; relying on the rewards from the leaderboard was the only way to neutralize some advantages of the opponents.
After testing the spell rewards, Ning Zhuo scrutinized the mechanical component hangman's noose.
He found it didn't differ much from the previous rewards.
However, Ning Zhuo already had a new hypothesis, waiting to be verified in the future.
When the time limit expired, the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit couldn't wait to pull Meng Chong into the Immortal Palace.
In the portal rewards, this time Meng Chong chose a mechanical component.
He stared at the hangman's noose in his hand, quite puzzled: "How do you use this thing?"
The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit gritted its teeth and transmitted a message, explaining the usage and even the mechanical diagram to Meng Chong.
In an instant, in the main hall, two fire whips materialized, fiercely lashing at the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit!
Crack, crack, crack.
For a while, the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit clenched its dragon claws, gritted its teeth to endure the flogging, trembling with pain, its face contorted.
Meng Chong received the information and suddenly understood: "That's how it's used."
He furrowed his brows again; deep down, he didn't like such small gadgets; he preferred to charge straight ahead.
This time, he gently opened the door a crack.
After thinking for a moment, he held the hangman's noose and aimed in a direction, shooting out a blue-purple diamond filament.
The filament quickly merged with the wall, solidifying into one.
Meng Chong controlled the hangman's noose, and the thin rope immediately tightened.
"Using the rope to accelerate, charging in one go!" Meng Chong sensed himself, activating the Superior Talent Frenzied Rushing Thunder.
The next moment, his body sparked with electric light.
As the thin rope snapped back, he pushed the door open with all his might and ran at full speed.
With a crack, the electric light flashed intensely!
His speed exploded to the maximum in an instant.
He was almost like a lightning bolt, tearing through the air, rushing ahead.
But next, a huge fishing net flipped out from the floor tiles, solidly covering Meng Chong.
Every thread of that fishing net was made of recoil wire! This gave the net fantastic elasticity and toughness.
The net stretched out like a drawn bowstring.
Meng Chong's speed plummeted, and within a few breaths, his momentum was entirely gone.
He was like a bullet, shot back fiercely by the shrinking fishing net!
Crack.
A crisp sound, and his whole body crashed into the now-closed door.
He fell apart on the spot.
Boom.
The next moment, a massive thousand-pound hammer fell from above.
Meng Chong...was shattered.
When Meng Chong regained his senses, he screamed in anger.
The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit also slammed a palm down, showing an angry face.
In the dungeon.
Han Ming slowly lifted her head, looking at the Youthful Guest who had reappeared. Her face was haggard and numb, as if she was about to break.
How many times had her soul essence been extracted already?
She couldn't remember.
Some of those times, she was unconscious.
She no longer cursed or berated Ning Zhuo; partly because she had no strength left, her physical condition was so poor, and partly because she finally recognized the reality.
The reality was so cruel that it wiped out her arrogance, forcing her to think exhaustively about how to survive.
"No, don't control me anymore, I will help you."
"I will voluntarily extract the soul essence and pass it to you."
The Youthful Guest Ning Zhuo was slightly stunned, then nodded: "You finally figured it out, Han Ming, this is good. I'm happy for you."
Anger flared in Han Ming's heart again, but she suppressed it: "Please give me the Soul Capturing Shuttle, and loosen the restrictions on the chains a bit."
Ning Zhuo smiled: "No rush, let's have some food first."
He commanded a dozen small puppets to feed Han Ming together. Some sat on her shoulders, holding long spoons to feed her soup. Some stood on her chest, holding up drumsticks and pork feet. Some cooperated with each other, using chopsticks to pick vegetables and feed Han Ming.
After Han Ming finished a sumptuous meal, there were still small puppets holding up handkerchiefs, descending from her head, landing at her mouth, and wiping the corners of her mouth from above.
Finally, three small puppets each held different fruits, feeding Han Ming as desserts.