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nSomewhere in the underground vaults of the Special Task Force, in the Imperial Capital.

nLu Xuan stood before the vault, which was over 50 meters underground.

n“Some defenses you guys have here indeed.”

nLu Xuan was feeling quite impressed, as the trip to the vault by an elevator took them quite a while.

n“We have to defend against some frightening beings, after all.” The Dragon continued, “The usual brand of thieves wouldn’t dare to venture down here. Even mercenaries would die by the dozens if they dared to trash the place. These supposed *ssholes could hit us hard with the element of surprise, but none of them would be able to get out alive all the same.

n“But then again, the same couldn’t be said for some others out there, like the likes of Count Dracula.”

nWhat the Dragon said made Lu Xuan realize right away that the very reason the vault was constructed in such a secretive location at 50 meters below ground was to defend against inhuman beings like the vampire lord.

nIf the vault were to be constructed above ground, the likes of Count Dracula would be able to leave easily with whatever goods he came to steal.

nThings, however, were completely different with the vault being underground.

nEven if the Count were able to infiltrate the place, it still would have been impossible for him to leave without breaking a sweat.

nAnybody who dared to hit the place was guaranteed not to be able to leave alive.

nCultivators at Celestial Realm were terrifying, but they were not nigh-invincible, after all.

nAs for anybody who was trapped in such a place, and the one in charge of the place being desperate enough to blow their place up, not even ten or 100 Celestials would be able to survive explosions with such amounts of high explosives.

nThe Dragon opened the huge, thick metal door after going through a series of verification procedures.

nThe entire vault was bright as day.

nPrecious treasure pieces were placed in a well-organized manner throughout the vault, which was divided into sections.

nEven back in his past life, Lu Xuan had only heard of the rumored vault of the Special Task Force but had never seen it personally.

n“Any treasure that the Special Task Force is able to collect and deems to be of greater value is stored here. You can find all manner of treasures for furthering your cultivation. The four bronze pillars that you asked for before were once stored here as well,” the Dragon elaborated.

n“The place is divided into the herb section, the treasures of the earth section, the power item section, the text section, and some others.”

nEven Lu Xuan was thoroughly impressed. The Special Task Force was indeed a cultivation force established with the backing of the country, after all.

nThe insanely huge vault alone served as a testament to how deep the pockets of the Special Task Force ran.

nNo clan or sect, regardless of size and history, would be able to compare in terms of material resources and manpower with a force backed by the nation, such as the Special Task Force.

nIf Lu Xuan were to go out and collect treasures like that on his own, there was simply no telling how long it would take.

nIt was indeed a good move to cooperate with a force backed by the nation.

n“The Special Task Force really is something indeed. While most things here aren’t of much use, some are indeed priceless,” Lu Xuan commented.

nThe Dragon was quite shocked by what Lu Xuan just said. The younger man’s vista and breadth of knowledge was not something common folks could compare to, after all.

nIf it were something that even Lu Xuan would find precious, then said item would indeed be very valuable.

nBut then again, the Special Task Force was not actually familiar with the use of most items found in the vault, and those that they knew how to use were not actually of much use in a practical situation.

nOne such example would be the four bronze pillars that Lu Xuan took before. While it was easy to tell that the four pillars were definitely of great value and were not common power items, they were unable to find out how the pillars worked.

nMany of those power items had been scattered throughout the country, and the Special Task Force just so happened to find them.

nThey were unable to find out what function most of those items served, but it seemed that Lu Xuan knew. There were even many that Lu Xuan deemed to be valuable pieces, and those would most definitely be valuable pieces.

nWhile the Dragon had no idea how Lu Xuan evaluated those items, he chose to trust Lu Xuan’s judgment nonetheless.

nLu Xuan, as someone who possessed the Delusion-breaker Eyes, had little to no problem with such evaluations.

nIn an MMORPG setting, Lu Xuan’s eyes would be something that came with a skill for evaluating items and people; said skill would also be one that was fully developed.

nWhile the eyes did not enable him to learn of the items’ origins, he was able to roughly tell what level said items were at and what kind of use they had.

nNone of that had been much of a problem to him.

nBut then again, despite noting the Dragon’s intention to have him evaluate some of the items in the vault, judging from the look on the Dragon’s face, Lu Xuan chose instead to ignore it and came to the power item section.

nThe Dragon had no idea what Lu Xuan came to the vault for, but Lu Xuan knew very well what he was after.

nLu Xuan’s eyes settled on some of the items in the section before long.

nHe had to acknowledge that the Special Task Force had indeed been able to collect some good stuff, yet none of what he currently saw was of use to him.

nA lot of power items had degraded, and it was thanks to the small-sized Spirit Gathering Formations—specifically developed by the Special Task Force, siphoning spirit qi to those items—that they were able to continue rejuvenating.

nThere was a ring in the midst of all of those items that caught Lu Xuan’s attention. The ring was emanating some bit of energy waves due to being nourished by spirit qi, although the effects were hardly noticeable.

nYet, Lu Xuan was able to sense its fluctuations nonetheless.

n“This!” Lu Xuan continued, “Dragon, I’ll be taking this ring as payment for yielding the count’s dead body to you guys.”

n“What’s so special about this ring?” the Dragon asked.

n“This is a defensive ring,” Lu Xuan said as his gaze continued to lock on to the rustic ring. It had a crimson color throughout its body, featuring a subdued, rustic pattern on it.

nHe held nothing back from the Dragon.

nLu Xuan had no lack of offensive means with the Dragonslayer in his hand, but he had nothing as far as defense went that could compare with the likes of his Dragonslayer.

nIf he were to go out and look for such means on his own, it would have consumed a lot of time, and there was no guarantee about the quality.

nThe ring in question was different.

nHe had seen that ring before. The ring was named “Black Tortoise’s Protection,” and it had once been worn by the Dragon back in his past life. It was said that the Black Tortoise’s Protection could sport a quality rivaling that of the True Force Sword when restored to its fullest capacity.

nIt was an item capable of defending against all manner of attacks, and it was what Lu Xuan needed the most at the moment.

nWith the ring in his hand, Lu Xuan no longer needed to worry about his own safety.

nWhile Lu Xuan was fully capable of crafting common defensive power items himself, the exercise was deemed pointless, for his constitution was so formidable that he had no fear of common attacks, to begin with.

nEven a direct hit from a missile would only be able to break through his Shield of Vigor, and making him look haggard was the very limit attacks like that could do. Dealing actual harm to him was totally out of the question.

nIf there were to be anything capable of actually harming him, those things would have definitely not been something that Shield of Vigor was capable of shrugging off, which, in turn, made common defensive power items utterly useless.

nThat was a weakness that the Black Tortoise’s Protection was capable of compensating.

n“No problem.”

nThe Dragon understood what was going on in Lu Xuan’s head right away. Defensive power items had always been expensive, far more than the common offensive types.

nHowever, the way the Dragon saw it, the ring was hardly worth mentioning when compared with the corpse of Count Dracula.

nLu Xuan put the ring on his hand and began to sense it quietly.

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