The Supreme God of Martial Arts

Violet measured up the little beast curiously, as if it was an incredibly powerful monster.

"Gnome?" Austin had never heard of such a thing before.

"Yes. They're very rare. In fact, their species is almost extinct.

The other diabolic beasts said that back in the ancient times, there were many gnomes.

They are good at finding various kinds of precious natural resources because they can sense them.

Gnomes like to eat underground minerals which contain intense spiritual energy.” "Wow! It sounds like they're really special!" Austin's curiosity had been aroused by Violet's words.

Just then, the gnome pointed at his Space Ring again.

Austin laughed bitterly. He knew that the gnome wanted to eat the crystals in his Space Ring. He had collected these crystals from the round cave, and all of them contained a large amount of spiritual energy.

But since the gnome had found two kinds of precious natural materials for him, Austin didn't want to refuse its request. He took out three more crystals and gave them to the gnome.

The gnome let out a joyful cry before swallowing the crystals immediately.

"Little fellow, we have to say good-bye now," Austin said.

He had decided to hide in the imperial capital city and help the young man fight for the throne in half a year.

He walked toward the direction of the imperial capital city with Violet.

But after taking several dozen steps forward, he realized that the gnome was following closely behind. In fact, it was walking right beside him now.

"You want to go with us?" Austin asked, stopping.

The gnome quickly nodded.

‘With this gnome by my side, I'll be able to find many precious natural resources in the future, ' Austin thought to himself excitedly.

He laughed and gestured to the gnome to jump on his shoulder.

The gnome didn't protest. In the blink of an eye, it was perched on Austin’s shoulder. The three of them set off on their journey together.

Austin knew that he was being hunted furiously by people from the Flaming Sun Valley and the Blood Wolf Team. Both groups must have cultivators who were good at tracking.

He was especially worried about Blood Wolf Team members, who specialized in hunting and killing people. He knew that they would definitely find a way to track him.

To avoid being tracked, he kept choosing small mountain roads in remote mountain ranges along the journey.

A few days later, Austin found himself above a huge valley that covered an area of tens of thousands of miles. Looking at the chilly fog rolling up and down, Austin and Violet frowned.

Although they hadn't entered the valley yet, Austin could tell that it would be hard to resist the cold. When he heard the wind howling like ghosts crying, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

Austin planned to change his route to bypass the valley, but the gnome stopped him. It pricked up its ears, twitched its nose, and sniffed carefully. And then, all of a sudden, it grabbed Austin's clothes and pointed at the valley.

Austin was a little surprised by this new development.

"There are treasures in the valley?" The gnome nodded.

"Violet, how about having a look in the valley?" he asked.

Violet smiled.

"It's up to you, Master. I'll follow you wherever you want to go." Austin thought about it for a while.

‘Wealth and honor have always required adventure. Maybe there are some extremely valuable treasures in the valley. It would be a pity if | missed the chance.

Besides, the Golden Sun Scripture | have cultivated is a prime masculinity formula, so it should be sufficient for me to resist the cold in the valley." With that thought, Austin gritted his teeth and made up his mind to enter the valley.

He looked at Violet and reminded her, "You must follow me closely. Never stray more than thirty feet away from me." "Got it!" Violet made a face at him. Then, she wrapped her clothes tighter around herself.

Without any hesitation, they headed toward the valley with the gnome.

Using the Golden Sun Scripture skill, Austin summoned the light golden vital energy in his body and made it surround Violet, the gnome, and himself.

The moment they entered the valley, strong cold winds blew at them from all directions. Violet shivered in the cold. But after a short moment, the light golden vital energy gave off a stream of heat and dispelled the surrounding coldness. Soon, Violet recovered.

Austin wasn't affected by the coldness as he had reached stage three of Overlord Body-refining Formula and his body was tough enough to resist cold winds.

On the other hand, the gnome didn't seem to mind the cold winds at all. It jumped around Austin and Violet, looking around and rummaging about from time to time.

The deeper they walked into the valley, the more desolate it seemed. There were barely any trees in the valley. And even when they did see a cluster of grass occasionally, the grass looked cold and grim.

The howling of the wind grew louder. The coldness in the valley seemed to have penetrated their spiritual souls.

"Let's move on!" Austin said and led them deeper into the valley.

He was surprised that, except for the uncomfortable environment and the cold winds, they had not met with any danger. Of course, he wanted it to stay that way.

After walking for a long time, they came across some debris. They walked over and looked at it for a while.

There must have been a building here, but it had collapsed a long time ago, leaving only broken walls behind. The edges of these broken walls had been smoothed by the wind.

Austin suddenly yelped in surprise. He seemed to have found something special.

He quickly strode a few steps forward and stopped in front of the broken walls. Then, he began to walk around an area there.

He released his spiritual sense power to probe around the area and didn't find any danger around them.

After a while, he walked back to Violet and the gnome, lost in thought.

"What did you find?" Violet asked curiously.

"Array," Austin answered in a low voice.

"Since there is some trace of array here, this should be the ruins of some sect. We have to be really careful. Normally, the power of array increases the deeper we go into the territory of the sect. Maybe we didn't see any arrays until now because we haven't entered the influence sphere of the sect yet." Violet nodded and asked, "Which way shall we go?" Austin released his spiritual sense power and probed the area within a thousand meters. After a short moment, he pointed in a certain direction and said, "This way!" Since Austin had spent some time on spiritual sense power cultivation with powerful crystals, he was able to sense a range of a thousand meters now.

As they walked, they found more arrays. However, these arrays seemed to have lost their power after all this time.

Along their way, Austin and Violet occasionally came across a few arrays which were still powerful but could be broken easily.

Austin guessed that these arrays might have been very powerful many years ago, but now, they had lost most of their power.

Although he could break these arrays easily with Violet's help, he didn't feel relaxed.

On the contrary, he looked more anxious. 'From looking at the ruins of the sect, it's clear that the arrays were arranged many years ago. However, they're still effective, so the sect should have been extremely powerful once. The arrays it arranged in its territory should also be extraordinary, * he thought to himself.

After breaking another array, Violet clapped delightfully and turned to say something to Austin.

But before she could open her mouth, Austin suddenly rushed toward her and pulled her behind him. Then, he reached out lightly and released a strand of vital energy force.

At first, it seemed like the light golden vital energy hit nothing but air.

But then a shrill scream rang out. It had an incredible power similar to what the spiritual souls attacking skill released. It began to attack Austin and Violet's Soul Sea. However, its power was not strong enough, so it failed to break the defense of their Soul Sea.

Violet's face turned pale. She was shocked because she hadn't sensed any danger before being attacked.

She calmed herself down and looked carefully in Austin's direction. To her surprise, Austin was holding a faint and almost invisible figure in his hand. The figure, which was surrounded by rolling vital energy, had a pained look on its face. Its visibility decreased and it kept shrinking until it vanished completely.

"Was that a ghost?" Austin and Violet cried out simultaneously.

They looked at each other and felt a chill run down their spines.

Ghosts were formed from the spiritual souls of creatures when they died. They were like another form of being of these creatures.

Normally, without a body to attach to, the spiritual soul of any creature would be unable to exist for a long time. It would disappear in the air and become a part of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. However, if the spiritual soul was kept in a suitable Secret Weapon or attached to some other creature's body, it wouldn't disappear.

However, the Secret Weapon to store spiritual souls was not easy to refine. And it was extremely dangerous for a spiritual soul to enter another creature's body as it was very likely to be swallowed by the spiritual souls of its new host.

In addition to these two methods, there was another way for a spiritual soul to keep on existing: finding a suitable environment.

As the valley was very cold and moist, the dissipation rate of spiritual souls was very slow. Under these conditions, they could exist for a long time and finally become ghosts.

But when a spiritual soul was transformed into a ghost, it would lose its wits and would only follow its instinct.

Ghosts were very aggressive and treated all living things as their enemies. It was hard to kill them without proper magical skill or a Secret Weapon.

The Golden Sun Scripture Austin had cultivated was a prime masculinity formula, so the light golden vital energy he released was able to suppress the ghosts. Other cultivators who hadn't cultivated such formulas wouldn't be able to destroy the ghosts as easily as he had.