Astral Pet Store (WN)

Su Ping was thrilled; he didn’t expect the ghosts to be that friendly.

He wasn’t worried that the old man would be lying and luring him into a trap, because there were already a large number of ghosts present and they could have easily overpowered him!

There was a chance that he could beat them, thanks to his experience in the Chaotic Realm of the Undead, but someone else with a similar combat ability would have never beaten them!

“Thank you for your enlightenment, senior!” Su Ping quickly cupped his hands and thanked him.

All the ghosts were warriors who had died fighting in the divine residence. Their words implied that they were his predecessors, who had made enormous contributions to humankind. He could only feel respected for them.

“No need to thank us. After all, we’ll soon be gone. The Twilight Deity King’s lineage shouldn’t be cut off; I simply hope that you can defend and protect humankind if you acquire the legacies. You mention that humans are already the strongest species, but there are still certain things you need to be vigilant of!” said the old man thoughtfully.

Su Ping was puzzled. “What things should we be vigilant of?”

“Things we must not talk about. If you smoothly obtain the legacies and reach the Twilight Deity King’s height, you would naturally know,” said the old man in a low voice, as if he were scared.

The other ghosts were also sobered up by the comment, shivering at the thought, as if they would have been reminded of something horrifying.

Su Ping thought of the Golden Crows. Even though they were strong, they were still living in seclusion to avoid catastrophes. What was it that made the Golden Crows so afraid?

“Is it the Cycle of the Heavens’ Will? Some sort of supreme being is going to rain disasters upon us?” Su Ping ventured, feeling like he was touching the deepest secrets of the universe.

The old man was surprised that Su Ping knew that. He glanced at Su Ping and shook his head. “Not the Heavens’ Will, but something more ancient and dreadful…”

He suddenly shivered as he talked, as if suppressed by some sort of power. He quickly stopped talking.

The elder took a deep breath and said to Su Ping, “My friend, I’ll give the treasury of the divine residence to you. As for the Twilight Deity King’s legacies, we don’t know if there are any, or where he left them. You have to find out by yourself.”

Su Ping didn’t probe further, seeing how weary the old man was. He simply nodded with a heavy heart. “Got it.”

Soon after, a map popped up in Su Ping’s head. It was the map of the divine residence!

“I’ve given you the map of the entire divine residence. The treasury is over here,” pointed the old man.

There was a place marked with golden light on the map. That was the actual treasury the old man mentioned.

Su Ping instantly became excited. It was a map of the ancient divine residence, which could help him avoid many unnecessary dangers!

He had not dreamed about finding the legacies, but he could find a lot of other treasures through the map. That would be rewarding enough.

“Thank you, senior,” said Su Ping quickly.

“Go…”

The old man gradually faded away. The other ghosts also turned into fumes of death, to then return to the soil and the tombs.

The previously withered peach trees were instantly enlivened, becoming pink again.

Su Ping took a deep breath and walked to the exit that the old man had opened for him.

Su Ping then returned to the square. He carefully read the map in his head, only to find that it was slightly different from what he saw.

The depicted channels to enter the divine residence included not just the lotus lake and the garden of laws, but also a floating mountain and a bamboo garden.

However, he didn’t see the latter on his way in. There was no telling whether they had been destroyed, or if they had been modified after the old man’s death.

In addition, there wasn’t an abyss below the stairs from where he came; it used to be a sacred place where cranes and marvelous beasts lived.

And yet, that place was brimming with bodies at the moment.

The square he was in had kept its original appearance.

The palaces ahead were also the same, except that there were some hidden traps and arrays in the square that weren’t marked on the map. Some of them were even fatal!

He had also been teleported to the graveyard a moment earlier by a trap that was so inconspicuous that he didn’t notice.

Those traps must’ve been set up after the deaths of those ghosts.

Su Ping took a deep breath. He had a map, but he still had to circumvent the traps on his way carefully.

That’s a prison of deadly beasts. I can’t go there.

The Pill Temple is over there. Ultimate divine pills are kept in it. I should check it out. The treasury is at the rear of the divine residence. I’m sure that all the Ascendant State experts are there at the moment. There’s no need to go there just yet.

Su Ping found the direction he should take on the map and then took action.

He was aiming at an enormous palace; he went there while carefully avoiding the traps on the way.

He didn’t try to crack the traps. After all, cracking took too long; he wouldn’t do so, unless there was no way to avoid them.

Fortunately, while the traps were old, they weren’t very sophisticated and Su Ping could even destroy them with brute strength.

Such traps had obviously not been implemented by that Deity King, or Su Ping couldn’t have noticed them as easily.

Boom!

Su Ping accidentally stepped into a hidden trap, and a glowing, golden-armored divine guard charged at him with a sword.

Su Ping changed his expression and hurriedly fought it after merging with the Little Skeleton and the Inferno Dragon.

Su Ping finally crushed the guard after a battle which lasted several minutes; the latter dispersed into a puff of mist. He then returned to the square.

Su Ping was breathing heavily. The golden-armored guard was already at the advanced phase of the Star State. Taking into account its divine techniques and solid defenses, it was much stronger than the advanced Star State warriors of the Federation!

Whoosh!

Su Ping pressed on.

Several hours later—

Su Ping finally reached the edge of the square after some fighting and fumbling.

The divine residence at the end of the square looked as magnificent as a mountain, and as distant as if it were a million kilometers away. Once he finally reached it, he found it so tall that he couldn’t even see its eave.

There were several characters on the board above the gate, but Su Ping didn’t recognize any of them.

He was illiterate when it came to the language of the deities.

There’s indeed a barrier here…

Su Ping saw the golden light of a barrier outside of the divine residence. It was also quite a sophisticated one.

At this moment, Su Ping felt that he was missing Joanna.

It would have been easy to crack the barrier if she were by his side.

Unfortunately, he couldn’t take the employees out, at least not at the current level of his store.

Su Ping heaved a sigh. What made him feel better was that he could more or less understand the barrier, thanks to what Joanna had taught him.

The gods were ahead of all the other species in every aspect, having established a super country that was way ahead of others in technology, finance, infrastructure and all remaining aspects.

Gods were as good as the ancient deities in terms of barriers and arrays.

Once you got to the bottom of it, deities were actually evolved human beings, whereas gods were independent and were unrelated to humanity. Or rather, human beings had been created by the gods.

Later on, the Heaven Masters, the ancient deities and other strong beings emerged from humankind, and it was no longer an inferior species.

Nevertheless—from what he learned from Joanna—the gods were still condescending; they despised human beings and all the other races.

Su Ping set foot on the first step in front of the divine residence.

The moment he stood there… Su Ping detected a gale passing through his body like a blade. Fortunately, his body was hard enough to endure it.

If any other battle pet warriors were there, they would have been wounded even if they were in the advanced phase of the Star State.

Su Ping calmed himself down and quickly cracked the barrier.

He didn’t have to fully crack the restriction; all he needed to do was to lift part of it so that he could crawl in.

It’s not that he couldn’t crack it completely.

Time flew; there was no telling how long it had been, but Su Ping finally found a weakness and was able to reach the second step.

The trap was instantly triggered. Su Ping felt like he was being scorched; the board above his head glowed even more brilliantly, as if an intelligent god was looking down at him.

The pain in his body and the intimidating power above his head were both enough to make anyone retreat. That was just a weak part of the barrier; the other parts were even more powerful, and even Star Lords would have to step aside!

Su Ping calmly continued cracking the rest of the barrier.

His special resistance to flames was helpful; a heat that was enough to set Star State warriors ablaze only made him feel slightly hot, and he soon regained control of himself from being subject to the intimidating power above his head. After all, he had seen too many giants such as the Chief Elder of the Golden Crows.

Days, or maybe months, passed while he remained in a trance.

Since he was fully devoted to cracking the barrier, Su Ping was unable to sense the passage of time.

There was no sun inside the divine residence and the hazy light always remained the same. Su Ping considered quitting halfway, both because cracking the barrier was too hard and because it was taking too long.

He could have spent that time searching for treasures in other places, with the chance of finding something good.

But he eventually dropped the idea, as he preferred to finish what he started.

Phew!

Su Ping took a deep breath and defeated the three golden-armored divine guards that challenged him. He finally smiled when he saw the mist gone, finding himself outside of the temple.

He managed to cross the barrier; the gate of the palace was right before his eyes.

Su Ping exerted strength on both hands and pushed the gate.

He felt like he was pushing a mountain!

An echoing creak was heard, after tens of millions of years of silence.

Perhaps that gate had been opened frequently ages before, but it hadn’t been opened for a long time until that day.

Dust fell from the gap. Su Ping quickly entered the palace after slightly opening the gate. He had already scanned the palace and didn’t detect any traps.

The palace was extremely spacious; it looked like a world of treasures.

There were tall shelves with frames nearby, with hundreds of bubbles floating inside those frames. Every bubble was about half a meter in diameter, and every frame could contain a thousand of them. It was not hard to imagine how big the palace was!

Some of the bubbles contained furnaces; some had bottles, and some contained divine pills.

Su Ping instantly became excited.

He had stepped into a treasury!

There were so many items!

Such pills were also available in the Federation. They were crafted by other civilizations and left in ancient mysterious realms; the Federation had copied some of them.

Pills from mysterious realms boosted the development of medical technology in the Federation. A lot of medications designed for battle pet warriors had been created.

Whoosh!

Su Ping flew to one of the shelves, on which plenty of bubbles were floating.

He focused his attention on a bubble, and information instantly popped up in his head, showing the name of the pill. However, it was just a name without any description.

What should I do? I can’t eat it directly. This isn’t a cultivation site where I can be resurrected and run tests with my own body. Su Ping was in a dilemma. He didn’t have enough storage to take all the pills away!

If he were a Star Lord, he would be able to absorb all of them into his small world.

Su Ping put on a bitter smile, wishing he were a Star Lord!

“Little Skeleton, you’re good at regeneration. Why don’t you have a taste?” Su Ping looked at the Little Skeleton by his side.

The Little Skeleton raised its head and looked at Su Ping. Soon, it realized it didn’t have a choice.

It was already used to it, too. Su Ping had always “preferred” it while testing and exploring cultivation sites.

The Inferno Dragon and the Dark Dragon Hound were both present; Su Ping had summoned them in case he was caught in danger.

Both of them looked at the Little Skeleton sympathetically; the Dark Dragon Hound glanced at it and then licked its paws.

Please don’t notice me…

Su Ping glanced at it. While the Dark Dragon Hound was good at self-protection, it didn’t have a lifesaving bloodline ability as the Little Skeleton did. Otherwise, he would have given the opportunity to the dog…

He snatched a green bottle inside the bubble and opened it by plucking the cork as if it were champagne.

However, a smell rose from the bottle… It was so nastily that Su Ping had to hold his breath.

What’s going on here? Have the pills expired? Su Ping couldn’t help but think.

Could divine pills expire?

Well… Probably not even Google knew the answer to that one.

Deities weren’t immortal. After all, not all deities could reach the Ascendant State or higher.

Many gods in the Demigod Burial had high start points, but they also had to train one step at a time. Most of them couldn’t even become Major Gods.

If deities weren’t immortal, why wouldn’t their pills expire?

Su Ping was almost weeping after thinking it through.

He had finally cracked the barrier and snuck in. Would he have to embrace the cruel reality that the divine pills had expired due to a long-time storage?