Picking treasures like picking fruit

Gaofeng could likely have swept all the treasures within this treasury with him if he so desired, but Gaofeng's Dao was one of absolute personal strength and domination. He didn't want to rely too much on external items to help his path, as that might dull his regular fighting prowess and other abilities.

He would make do with a single weapon, a great heavy staff. Otherwise, he would only accept items which were focused on increasing his personal strength, regardless of having the item or not, either through refinement or other means, like the Crimson Arena. The Crimson Arena's main feature was to refine the body through blood, and actually only served a secondary purpose as a fighting arena and a tool which could increase one's strength in a fight.

Throughout the last days, the Crimson Arena had continuously refined the Blood Ocean and injected the purified blood essence into Gaofeng. This had allowed him to make great progress in Bloodbath. In fact, he was on the verge of breaking through to the second level of the technique. As long as he continued refining the blood from the Crimson Arena, he would enter the second level within a week.

Gaofeng walked down the corridor at a slow pace, making sure to use his True spiritual sense to read each and every description for the items, as well as feeling their aura and powers. These treasures could all be said to at least be Transcendence level treasures, with likelihood of the treasures further in even being on the level of the Deity realm.

Treasures at the Deity realm very rarely appeared within small worlds, but when experts broke through to the Deity realm within a small realm, they could remain there for a total of a hundred years before ascending. This meant that there were still the possibility of Deity realm experts dying in the small realm, either due to some taboo zone or to other Deity realm experts.

Naturally, throughout the long history of the Holy Temple, they had also had their fair share of Deity realm experts, meaning that these treasures were likely either form them or gathered by them. Although Gaofeng was sure that this collection was far from the main treasury of the Shangsheng family, it could almost be compared to the treasury of a large family branch.

The Holy Temple had really fallen low after losing their greatest asset, the 10th valley, and seeing the new generation compared to this treasury was the greatest proof of this. Gaofeng would easily change this, however. It was only a matter of time.

None of the Transcendence level treasures could even peak his interest. They might seem powerful in the eyes of a regular cultivator, but Gaofeng would soon outgrow them. Even his physical body was superior to quite a few of these Transcendence level treasures. Only those illusive and unidentifiable treasures, as well as the Deity level treasures could possibly aid him well.

These greatest treasures were naturally gathered at the end of the corridor, where it opened into a larger room. This room consisted of multiple small platforms which had a single item displayed on them. In total there were 22 items in this room, as well as a decent amount of empty platforms.

Obtaining these items were quite different from simply taking the item, however, as that would allow untalented or unfilial juniors of the temple to wantonly waste their power, which likely would lead to the loss of many of the treasures due to a lack of true power. Additionally, even if the newer generations were directly given these items, they would never be able to gain their true recognition except through their own talent and effort.

Upon seeing all of these treasures, Gaofeng took a quick overview. There were a total of 11 offensive weapons, which included two spears, two longswords, a dagger, a mace, an axe, and four great staffs. The Dao of the Buddhist temple was naturally more inclined towards the staff compared to other weapons, so these were likely from Deity realm seniors of the Holy Temple, while Gaofeng guessed that at least some of the other offensive treasures were gained through winning fights against other Deity realm cultivators or perhaps rewards from secret zones.

In any case, Gaofeng directly dismissed all of the weapons which weren't the staffs. He didn't immediately attempt to gain the recognition of these staffs however, as there were another 11 items which might have some use.

When it came to utility tools that didn't primarily focus on fighting prowess, Gaofeng didn't mind having a few. It was always better to be prepared for any situation that may or may not happen compared to being unprepared when a situation arose.

Gaofeng decided to walk up to each platform to feel the aura and power of the remaining treasures. The first one he chose was a chest plate the color of the deep green sea. It was so dark that it had almost turned black. It released a feeling of the underworld, in the sense of making one feel lost and disparaged, left to rot in complete isolation. This aura was likely purposefully created to instill a sense of dread and helplessness in the enemy, making them lose their battle intent.

A simple advantage in one's aura could be the difference between victory and defeat when it came to cultivators of similar strength. If the opponent felt that the fight was hopeless, they naturally wouldn't be able to utilize their full prowess, making them at a great disadvantage in every clash of abilities.

When Gaofeng felt the aura of this item, the Heaven Devouring Vine's seed, which existed within Gaofeng's dantian, stirred for the first time since its creation. This seed had been formed from Gaofeng's own understanding of the Heaven Devouring ability he had gotten from the Golden Tablet, and it could be considered both a genuine seed of the true Heaven Devouring Vine, as well as a manifestation of the Dao which was condensed in a divinely intricate manner through the Heaven Devouring ability.

The Heaven Devouring Seed had never had a reaction previously, and Gaofeng didn't even know that it could react in this manner, but he realized that the Heaven Devouring Seed wanted this chest plate armor. Since the Heaven Devouring Seed wanted it, how could Gaofeng refuse? He naturally had to obtain it for the seed to devour it. That would allow Gaofeng to cultivate the initial sapling of the Heaven Devouring Vine, which would be of great use in the upcoming Realm Competition.

When Gaofeng began walking up to the stand which the chest plate was on, an immense pressure pressed down on his body. This was the test of the ancestor which had placed the chest plate here, and it was actually a test of one's mortal body. One would need to have at least a Dao Transformation realm level body to withstand this pressure, so to Gaofeng, whose body could already be compared to the Transcendence realm, this pressure wasn't much more than a simple breeze.

After taking each step steadily, without pause, Gaofeng reached out a hand and took the armor. At this point, if one wanted to utilize the treasure, one would have to refine the armor over a long time before being able to use it properly, but Gaofeng only wanted it as food for his Heaven Devouring Vine. This meant that he didn't even need to spend any time refining it. Instead, he transferred the armor to inside his dantian space, and put it next to the Heaven Devouring Vine seed.

The reaction of the seed was instantaneous. It leaped at the armor and attached itself to it before it began siphoning its powers. Because the grade of the armor was so high, and the seed was in its infancy, this process would take a long time, but when the seed had completely devoured this armor, any future devouring of similar grade would be simple.

Any treasure which could be graded as a Deity level treasure and above had some semblance of a spirit, and this spirit was currently desperately attempting to fight back and resist the Heaven Devouring Vine seed's attempt at consuming it, but to no avail. The result of the altercation was that the seed momentarily changed its attention to the spirit of the armor, and completely consumed it. The spirit actually helped the seed, as the seed began expanding due to the nourishment from the spirit.

The armor would be completely devoured within a year if the seed continued this pace of devouring, but as the seed devoured more and larger pieces of the armor, its devouring ability would grow, and thus its rate of devouring the armor would exponentially increase.

Gaofeng let the seed eat its meal in peace, and began inspecting the other treasures available to him. The other ten items consisted of one completely white book, without a proper description, a soul-guarding treasure in the shape of a pyramid, a black cloak, a chain of prayer beads, a golden statue of Buddha, a pair of gloves as black as the darkest abyss, a pair of rose-tinted glasses, a pair of white wings akin to the wings of an angel, an unidentified golden sphere covered in intricate patterns, and a huge black cauldron.