"Show me," he pleaded, his voice trembling with excitement. "Please, show me!"
[Activating Treasure Sense.]
Suddenly, a new perception bloomed in his mind. It was like gaining a new sense, an instinctual "pull" towards things of value. He focused, extending this new sense outwards. He felt nothing from the other disciples' rooms—they were as poor as he was. He scanned the sect's meager herb garden, feeling only a weak pull from the low-grade herbs growing there. It was disappointing.
Then, he pushed his new sense further, beyond the sect's walls, towards the cluster of abandoned houses that bordered their property. These were dilapidated homes, long since deserted when the sect was established. Most disciples avoided them, as they were rumored to be haunted.
And there, he felt it.
A clear tug coming from one of the crumbling houses. It felt… medicinal.
"There's a treasure there," he whispered, his eyes wide with disbelief.
He slipped out of his room, moving with a stealth he never knew he possessed. The other disciples were now passed out drunk around their dying fire. He crept past them, a ghost in the night, his heart hammering with a mix of fear and exhilaration.
He reached the edge of the sect grounds and slipped through a gap in the crumbling wall, entering the eerie cluster of abandoned homes. The pull grew stronger, guiding him to a specific house, one whose roof had caved in, leaving it open to the elements.
He pushed aside the rotted remains of a door and stepped inside. The room was filled with dust and debris. The pull was coming from a loose floorboard in the corner. His hands trembled as he knelt and pried it up.
Beneath it was a hidden compartment. And inside that compartment was a jade bottle, sealed with wax. He could feel the faint medicinal aura emanating from it. He uncorked it and tipped it into his palm. Three green pills rolled out.
He recognized them immediately. Qi Enhancing Pills. Low-grade, yes, but for an outer disciple like him, they were a luxury he could only dream of. Each one was worth a month of his miserable chores. Some former resident must have hidden them here and either forgotten or died before they could retrieve them.
"System," he said in his mind, his voice shaking. "Can you… can you devour these?"
[Affirmative. Present the treasure.]
He held the pills in his palm. "I present them."
As soon as he gave the command, the three pills dissolved into motes of pure light. The light flowed from his palm, up his arm, and into his chest, disappearing into his body.
And then he felt it.
A wave of warmth spread from his Dantian, flowing through every one of his meridians. It was a nourishing stream. He could feel his stagnant cultivation base, stuck at the Second Layer for so long, begin to stir. The spiritual energy in his body grew thicker.
[Devouring complete. The host's cultivation has increased.]
He quickly sat down and focused, cycling the new energy. The bottleneck that had plagued him for years felt… fragile. With a deep breath, he pushed the new energy against it.
Crack.
It shattered like glass. The energy in his body surged, settling at a higher level.
He had broken through. He was at the Third Layer of Qi Condensation.
Tears of pure joy streamed down Lin Fan's face. Three years. Three years of pain, humiliation, and despair, overcome in a single night. He clenched his fists, feeling the newfound strength, the thicker Qi flowing through his meridians. He was no longer the trash of the sect. He was a man with a future. He was a man with a system.
He looked up at the moon, a determined light shining in his eyes for the first time in his life. This was just the beginning. With the Treasure Devourer System, he would find more, devour more. He would become stronger than Senior Brother Zhang, stronger than the elders, stronger than anyone who had ever looked down on him.
He would devour the world.
As the initial wave of euphoria subsided, he focused on the new sensations within him. His body felt lighter, his senses sharper. The world seemed clearer, the chirping of crickets more distinct, the moonlight brighter.
[Host's cultivation has increased. Treasure Sense range has expanded.]
The System's voice was a welcome confirmation. He eagerly activated the sense again, pushing it outwards. Before, its range had barely extended beyond the sect's walls. Now, it flowed outwards like a ripple in a pond, covering the entire abandoned district and reaching even further, towards the looming silhouette of the forest that bordered the city.
He scanned the abandoned houses again, but the faint pull was gone. He had already claimed the treasure there. He was about to give up for the night, content with his breakthrough, when he felt it.
A new pull.
It was weaker than the first but it was undeniably there. It was coming from the direction of the forest, from a specific spot not too far from the edge. It felt... metallic. An ore of some kind.
Greed, a sensation he had never been in a position to feel before, surged through him. Why stop now? The night was still young. His breakthrough had filled him with a restless energy.
He didn't hesitate. Keeping to the shadows, he navigated the derelict streets and made his way towards the forest's edge. The pull grew stronger, guiding him to an ancient oak tree whose roots were like gnarled claws gripping the earth. The signal was coming from a hollow at the base of the trunk, concealed by overgrown moss and ivy.
He reached into the damp hollow, his fingers brushing against something cold and hard. He pulled it out into the moonlight. It was a chunk of unrefined ore, about the size of his fist. It was a greyish rock, but it was unnaturally heavy, and silvery veins pulsed with a weak spiritual light.
"System, what is this?"
[Item Identified: Starfall Iron Fragment. A low-grade spiritual ore. Contains a trace amount of metallic essence. Useful for forging Spirit Tools.]
Starfall Iron! He had heard the senior disciples talk about it. It was a valuable material, worth at least one fifty low-grade spirit stones for a piece this size. To him, it was a fortune. In the past, he would have immediately thought of selling it, of exchanging it for pills or a better cultivation manual.
But now, he had a better option.
"Devour it," he commanded, his voice filled with a hungry anticipation.
He presented the ore. Just like the pills, the heavy chunk of iron in his hand dissolved into a shower of silvery light, flowing into his body. This time, the energy was different. It was sharp and heavy, a metallic essence that coursed through his meridians, tempering them, making them stronger and more resilient. The energy was potent, far more so than the three pills combined.
His Dantian, which had just stabilized at the Third Layer, began to swell with this refined power. The barrier to the next level, a wall that should have taken him years of bitter effort to even approach, was already right in front of him.
He didn't even have to try. The sheer volume of pure energy slammed against the bottleneck, and it shattered without any resistance.
Boom.
A small shockwave of Qi erupted from his body, rustling the leaves around him. The spiritual energy within him settled once more, thicker, stronger, and more vibrant than ever before.
[Devouring complete. The host has broken through to the Fourth Layer of Qi Condensation.]