Outside the cave, a pall of gloom hung heavy!
Yu Feng and the several dozen warriors of the Haike family stood there in a daze, staring at the scene before them. Not a sound could be heard.
Though they had witnessed Yang Kai slaying Xu Zhishen and his group across cultivation ranks the last time around — and knew his combat prowess was extraordinary — they now realized that Yang Kai had grown even stronger than before.
Xu Zhikun, even while injured, was a warrior approaching the Void Returning Realm. In the end, he had overdrawn his life force and burned his blood essence to unleash his full potential, yet he still couldn't withstand a single punch from Yang Kai.
Was this fellow some kind of monster? Yu Feng stared at Yang Kai's retreating figure, his eyes trembling wildly.
Or were all warriors from the outside this terrifying? If every warrior out there was like Yang Kai, then what on earth were the people of the Dark Star even cultivating?
Amid the collective shock, Yang Kai walked out and picked up the artifacts and over a dozen space rings scattered on the ground. He swept his Divine Sense through them briefly, clicked his tongue, and tossed them casually back to Yu Feng.
"The Holy Crystals and materials inside are for Wu Yi. Divide the rest among yourselves."
"Huh?" Yu Feng was startled. "You don't want any?"
"I have no use for them."
The things belonging to the Xu family members truly didn't catch his eye. Unless the Xu family had another Artifact like the Hundred Peaks Map — but items like that were rare, and Yang Kai was confident that even the Xu family had possessed only one.
"Then thank you, Brother Yang." Though shaken, Yu Feng didn't stand on ceremony. He nodded hurriedly in gratitude, then scurried off to the side with a beaming smile, eagerly beginning to inspect the contents of the dozen-odd space rings. The others crowded around too, letting out astonished exclamations from time to time.
The Xu family might not have been particularly strong, but they were still a clan. Among all the space rings, the family head Xu Zhikun's held the most: artifacts, pills, the cultivation manuals and martial techniques practiced by the Xu family, plus over twenty thousand high-grade Holy Crystals, more than forty thousand mid-grade Holy Crystals, and over a hundred thousand low-grade Holy Crystals.
Yu Feng's eyes turned red with greed.
He had long known that killing and plundering was the quickest way to wealth. But the Haike family was at the very bottom of the food chain — who could they kill? Who dared they provoke? Seeing this today, he realized the rumors hadn't been exaggerated.
A hundred of their brothers ventured through the starfields, risking life and death for a year or two to mine ore, and when they returned to the family, the total reward didn't even reach ten thousand high-grade Holy Crystals — and even that had come out of Wu Yi's own pocket as compensation.
Yet today, Yang Kai had slain barely a dozen people and reaped a haul that these several dozen men couldn't have earned in a lifetime of toil. The sheer disparity filled them with both excitement and bitterness.
The artifacts and pills weren't particularly high-grade — most were saint grade, with a few at saint king grade — perfectly suited for the several dozen warriors who followed Wu Yi.
Most of them were in the Entry Saint Realm, with only four or five at the Saint King Realm, and even then just the first level. Saint-grade artifacts and pills were exactly what they needed.
"King Transformation Pills — there are ten of them!" Yu Feng suddenly shouted, the large hand clutching the jade bottle trembling.
At this, many faces lit up with excitement.
Though Yang Kai had never refined King Transformation Pills himself, he understood their purpose. Saint King Pills were used by warriors who had just advanced to the Saint King Realm to stabilize their cultivation, while King Transformation Pills could increase the chances of an Entry Saint Realm Stage Three warrior breaking through to the Saint King Realm. They were a low-grade Saint King level pill.
Many warriors would get stuck at the peak of a major realm, unable to break through to the next. The Saint King Realm Stage Three was a massive bottleneck — nine and a half out of every ten warriors ran into it. Someone like Yang Kai, who cultivated without hitting bottlenecks, was exceedingly rare.
Yang Kai had only managed this thanks to the abilities of the World-Destroying Demon Eye. Without it, he would have been like every other warrior, needing pills to assist with major realm breakthroughs.
A single pill could boost one's chances by at least thirty percent. For any warrior whose aptitude wasn't too poor, having one such pill meant a ninety percent chance of breaking through to the Saint King Realm.
Among the several dozen warriors who followed Wu Yi, nearly twenty were at Entry Saint Stage Three. The value of these King Transformation Pills went without saying.
The Haike family did have King Transformation Pills, but those were reserved for disciples with decent aptitude. The several dozen who followed Wu Yi had never qualified to receive them. Those nearly twenty warriors standing on the verge of breakthrough had been stuck at their bottleneck — with King Transformation Pills, they could absolutely become Saint King Realm warriors.
Seeing the fervent gazes of his brothers, Yu Feng's expression turned solemn at once. He carefully tucked the jade bottle into his robes and said in a low voice:
"This goes to the Young Miss. She'll come up with a fair distribution plan!"
Everyone nodded in unison, no objections raised.
A thought stirred in Yang Kai's mind — he should probably refine some cultivation pills for them. He himself never needed pills to aid his training, but that didn't mean others didn't. After all, King Transformation Pills weren't hard to make.
With his decision made, Yang Kai turned his cold gaze toward the distance.