Chapter 178: Chapter 167: Underground Secret Room

’Since this Liu Chengze is known as the third-greatest Alchemy Master in the Divine Wind Empire, his home must be filled with countless elixirs, medicinal materials, and plundered wealth. I’ll start by taking all of it!’

Liu Chengze’s mansion was very easy to locate; Nie Yun found it just by asking around. It didn’t take him much effort to enter the courtyard.

With his current abilities, he could infiltrate the Liu Mansion without being detected, let alone the Imperial Palace. Even getting caught there would be difficult!

’This must be his Alchemy Room...’

He circled the area and found where Liu Chengze performed his alchemy. Just as he was about to go in and loot the place, he saw Liu Chengze rush in with his son, Liu Yuan.

"All my savings from these years are stored in the secret room beneath the Alchemy Room. Once we get our things, we’ll leave directly through that underground tunnel!"

Liu Chengze instructed his son in a low voice.

"Just grab our things and leave? But... what about Mother and my sister?" Liu Yuan was taken aback.

"We can’t worry about anyone else right now. Just leave them here! Think about it: if that Nie Yun really comes for revenge, how furious will he be when he can’t find us? We have to at least leave some people behind for him to kill and vent his anger! Otherwise, he’ll chase us to the ends of the earth, and we’ll never escape death!"

Liu Chengze sighed.

"Use Mother and my sister as human shields?" Liu Yuan asked, stunned.

"That’s right. If you want to live, you have to be ruthless. Hurry up, or we won’t be able to escape either!"

Liu Chengze snorted and was the first to push open the door to the Alchemy Room.

’What a ruthless bastard. It seems death would be too good for him!’

Hearing that the man would even abandon his wife and children to save his own life, Nie Yun’s eyes instantly narrowed.

To be honest, what he hated most in his life were heartless and disloyal people who would abandon even their own families at a critical moment!

SWOOSH!

As the thought crossed his mind, Nie Yun transformed into a gentle breeze and quietly followed them into the Alchemy Room.

The Alchemy Room was quite spacious, with nothing but a Pill Furnace in the very center. Liu Chengze walked up to it and tapped lightly on one of its legs. With a CREAK, the furnace slid to one side, revealing a passage just wide enough for a single person.

"Get in, quickly!"

Liu Chengze glanced around guiltily before being the first to jump into the passage.

Although the Alchemy Room was empty and Nie Yun wasn’t making any special effort to hide, Liu Chengze couldn’t see him. An Ultimate Venerable Powerhouse could use True Qi to bend the light around them, allowing them to blend into their surroundings. Even if they stood right in front of an ordinary person, they would remain unseen!

This was the ability of an Ultimate Venerable Powerhouse—so divine it could no longer be described as mere martial arts. To put it bluntly, it was a form of magic, a mystical art!

’So there’s a secret passage here. It looks like Liu Chengze knew this day would come and deliberately left himself an escape route!’

Watching the father and son disappear into the passage, Nie Yun smiled faintly. ’Good thing I got here quickly. Otherwise, if they had hidden in here, it probably would have taken me some effort to find them.’

Of course, only Nie Yun would think that. Anyone else, even another Ultimate Venerable Powerhouse, would never have found Liu Chengze if he had hidden ahead of time. It wouldn’t just take "some effort"—even with a thousand hands and a thousand feet, they wouldn’t find him!

After all, not everyone was a Tracking Master!

No matter how well you could flee, could you possibly escape the Tracking of a Tracking Master?

Back then, Luo Yu had located Luo Yan’s remains from hundreds of miles away using just a single trace of his aura. The power of a Tracking Master was simply beyond description!

With a flicker, Nie Yun also entered the passage. Just as he was inside, he heard a CREAK from above as the Pill Furnace slid back, blocking the entrance.

The passage was long and narrow. After following about seven or eight hundred meters behind the father and son, it suddenly opened up into a secret room of about forty to fifty square meters.

’He really knows how to hide things. This passage extends deep underground—so deep that not even the Spiritual Power of an Ultimate Venerable Peak Powerhouse could penetrate it!’

Although the Spiritual Power of an Ultimate Venerable Powerhouse could scan a vast area, its reach underground was limited to one or two hundred meters at most. Building a secret room this deep... one had to admit, Liu Chengze’s planning was meticulous.

Even an Ultimate Venerable Powerhouse would likely be unable to discover this underground chamber with a Spiritual Power scan!

"Father, here... there are so many elixirs!"

As Nie Yun was lost in thought, he heard Liu Yuan cry out in amazement. Looking up, he saw that the shelves filling the entire room were densely packed with jade bottles of all sizes, each containing a different kind of elixir.

A quick sweep with his spirit revealed several hundred different types!

To one side of the shelves was a series of crossbeams, on which hung all sorts of medicinal materials, each one a thousand years old and incredibly precious.

Seeing this, Nie Yun couldn’t help but sigh in amazement. ’As expected of the third-ranked Alchemy Master in the Divine Wind Empire. The amount of treasure he’s collected is truly staggering!’

"What are you doing? We can’t possibly carry all these elixirs. If we’re going to take any, take the important ones!"

Seeing his son rush forward madly at the sight of the elixirs, wanting to take them all, Liu Chengze quickly reprimanded him.

They didn’t have a Storage Dantian; with only their bare hands, they’d be lucky to carry a dozen or so jade bottles. Trying to take all the elixirs was nothing but a daydream.

"Take the important ones? Father, which of these elixirs are important? They all look about the same to me."

Liu Yuan was stumped. He stood before the shelves for a long time but couldn’t decide which bottle was more precious.

"Forget it, I’ll do it!" Seeing his son’s confusion, Liu Chengze shook his head. "This Great Rejuvenation Pill can help a wounded body recover in a short time, so we must take it. It’ll be useful if we get injured. And this one..."

Liu Chengze rattled off seven or eight types of elixirs in a row, all of them essential for escaping. After stuffing them into his robes, he turned and lightly pressed a spot on the shelf.

CREAK!

Another opening appeared in what had been a solid wall of the room.

Beyond the opening was an even more spacious room.

"Those elixirs just now were merely secondary. The most important thing is hidden in here!"

Entering the room, Liu Chengze’s eyes lit up with excitement as he stared at a golden-yellow gourd placed in the very center.

"The most important thing? Is it inside this gourd?" Liu Yuan was confused.

"That’s right. This is the essence I’ve extracted bit by bit from countless medicinal materials over more than twenty years of alchemy. It can prolong one’s life. A single sip can increase your lifespan by at least five years!"

Liu Chengze laughed.

"Essence extracted from medicinal materials? It can prolong life? How come I’ve never heard of such a thing? What’s it called?"

Liu Yuan couldn’t comprehend that such an amazing thing existed in the world, and a look of bewilderment crossed his face.

’Isn’t breaking through to a new realm the only way to increase one’s lifespan? Can medicinal materials do it too?’

"What’s it called? Heh, you wouldn’t know it even if I told you. This is Essence Energy, the most refined part of all medicinal materials!"

Liu Chengze said.