By killing the Yellow Bandit, Lu Yu gained 3523 experience points, out of which 2000 were for completing the task.

The experience points were just a small bonus; the real prize lay in the items found in the Yellow Bandit's house.

In the Yellow Bandit's storage bag, there were no pills or miscellaneous items, just a jade token and a book. The purpose of the jade token was unknown, but since the Yellow Bandit kept it with the book, it must be significant.

Lu Yu first put away the jade token, placing it in a corner of his backpack. With too many items in his backpack, he stored things that seemed important but whose use he didn't know in a corner to prevent accidentally selling them.

When he opened the book, it turned out to be a manual on secret techniques.

Secret techniques differ from martial arts and secret arts; they are closer to magic, with a wide range of effects and are much harder to cultivate than martial arts. However, that doesn't necessarily mean that secret techniques are more powerful, as most of them are not offensive.

The secret technique Lu Yu obtained from the Yellow Bandit wasn't an offensive one, but an escape technique—a secret earth escape technique.

The cultivation requirement was having earth-attributed spiritual power. Without it, one could consume earthly treasures containing earth-attributed spiritual qi to perform earth escape, though casting time would increase, and the effect would depend on the quality of the consumed treasures.

Once the earth escape secret technique is activated, one can move freely underground.

The downside is that you can't see anything underground and must rely on feeling to move, and the movement speed is slow, making it unsuitable for Martial Cultivators of lower realms.

"Earth-attributed spiritual power?" Lu Yu quickly skimmed through the escape technique and discovered that using treasures to perform earth escape was quite tricky. The Yellow Bandit had met a tragic end, having been tricked by the earth escape technique.

Without earth-attributed spiritual power, one must use their own spiritual power to guide the earth-attributed qi from treasures, forming a specific structure of qi circulation within the body to complete the earth escape secret technique.

If you have earth-attributed spiritual power, it's simpler—just control the spiritual power to form the corresponding structure.

But if you don't have earth spiritual power and rely on external items, you'll first have to use your spiritual power to wrap the earth qi from the items, then bring it back into your body to seal it. During this, one must maintain a high level of focus, or else the foreign earth qi might harm you.

You must also maintain a balance between your own spiritual power and the earth qi—too strong and it will refine the earth qi; too weak and the earth qi will break free, causing harm. You must control the amount of earth qi, using more in some areas and less in others...

Lu Yu admired the Yellow Bandit's ability to use objects to perform the earth escape; if it were him, he'd likely be exhausted just going through the process, let alone maintaining qi balance, strength, and control over the qi path...

After hesitating for a moment, Lu Yu put away the earth escape secret technique and decided not to learn it. Once Lu Yu learns the earth escape, the words on the secret technique book will disappear, making it impossible for another player to learn.

The text and illustrations also vanished from previous secret manuals like the Eight Steps to Catch a Cicada and the Bladeless Saber Technique after Lu Yu learned them.

Lu Yu kept the book, hoping to find an opportunity to sell the earth escape to someone else. Secret techniques are inherently rare and expensive, and a practical secret technique like the earth escape could fetch a high price from a good buyer.

For Martial Cultivators with earth spiritual power, the earth escape can be a life-saving trump card.

When Lu Yu tried to use his identity token to teleport to the Divine Weapon Pavilion Secret Realm, he suddenly received a message from Jianghu Relay Channel 77. The other party entrusted him with posting a task to craft a fourth-grade spiritual weapon and asked if Lu Yu had time to meet at the Celestial Immortal Guest Inn to collect the materials and commission fee.

Since Lu Yu needed to return to the Divine Weapon Pavilion Secret Realm anyway, he went to the Celestial Immortal Guest Inn and found number 77 in a suite on the third floor.

Receiving the storage bag handed over by his counterpart, Lu Yu opened it for a glance and was shocked by the contents.

"So many materials? Are you sure it's just to forge a sword?"

The storage bag had only 0.5 cubic meters of space, but it was already packed with various materials. From Lu Yu's perspective, such an amount was more than enough to forge an Overlord Saber, let alone a regular-sized longsword.

"The Divine Weapon Pavilion stipulates when commissioning crafting tasks, the materials provided must exceed what is needed by 50%. Some material loss during the process is inevitable, and the amount required by the Divine Weapon Pavilion is already much less than outside artifact refiners."

"If you were to commission an outside artifact refiner to craft a spiritual weapon, you'd need to provide at least double the materials or more. The cost of providing materials to craft a spiritual weapon isn't cheaper than directly purchasing a spiritual artifact, unless necessary. Otherwise, people usually don't commission someone to forge a spiritual weapon specifically," number 77 said helplessly.

He handed Lu Yu a blueprint and a money bag, saying, "This is the weapon style the client requested, and this is the commission fee, both according to Divine Weapon Pavilion's standards. Take a look."

The money bag was also a small storage bag, only 0.1 cubic meters, filled with 110 pale blue spirit stones, roughly the size of mahjong tiles. This was the commission fee for crafting a weapon, with 10 stones belonging to Lu Yu as a 10% share of the commission fee for posting the task.

Spirit stones are the currency used by Martial Cultivators from the Qi Cultivation Realm and above, issued uniformly by the Great Zhou Dynasty.

A standard spirit stone contains 100 units of spiritual qi, valued equivalently to 100 gold, and can be directly used for cultivation and restoring spiritual qi.

But that is just the exchange rate set by the Great Zhou Dynasty. Often, the price of spirit stones is higher than 100 gold, reaching up to 120 gold per stone.

For Martial Cultivators at the air control realm and above, spirit stones are far more important than money and are in a state of chronic shortage.

Gold, silver, and copper can still circulate, but once the spiritual qi in a spirit stone is depleted, it must be reforged. Since there are many ways to use spirit stones, their actual value is higher than the official valuation.

Spiritual qi is akin to real-world electricity, while spirit stones are like energy, a form that doesn't require second or third conversion for use.

Just as the heat in the air cannot be directly utilized, spiritual qi in the air cannot be directly utilized, making spirit stones the most important source of energy supply.

The fire crystal stones Lu Yu previously acquired are also a kind of spirit stone, except fire crystal stones are naturally occurring and unprocessed, with the amount of spiritual qi depending entirely on the strength of the fire spirit.

Moreover, fire crystal stones can't be used as currency, at most being bartered.

The fire qi in fire crystal stones does not surpass the efficiency of absorbing non-attributed spirit stones for most Martial Cultivators, and to sell them requires finding the right buyer. Most of the time, they're regarded as earthly treasures and sold to merchants who acquire such treasures.

Upon inspecting the blueprint, Lu Yu noticed the sword's design looked familiar and suspiciously said, "Isn't this Frostmourne from the game?"

Number 77 nodded helplessly and said, "The client requested it, so we must comply."

Undoubtedly, this client was a player.

After putting away his 10 spirit stones, Lu Yu cinched the money bag closed and set aside the three items to avoid mixing them up.

"Hope our first cooperation goes smoothly." Number 77 stood up as Lu Yu was about to leave.

Returning to the Beifeng City branch of the Divine Weapon Pavilion, Lu Yu prepared for the disciples' accommodation and then activated his identity token to return to the Divine Weapon Pavilion Secret Realm.

After resting on his bed for a while until the dizziness and nausea subsided, Lu Yu opened the door.

Although it was already daytime when he returned, the surrounding houses were still devoid of people. Lu Yu guessed he might only see his senior brothers when their master gave a lecture the day after tomorrow.

Utilizing the Eight Steps to Catch a Cicada, Lu Yu stepped on bamboo tips, rushing towards Heaven-Breaking City. The brief gliding in the air gave Lu Yu a sense of flying.

Just as his internal spiritual qi was about to be exhausted, Lu Yu finally arrived at Heaven-Breaking City, landing off the treetop and walking towards the Southern Heaven Hall.

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