405: exposed

How sinister, everyone claimed they didn't take anything, yet their pockets were overflowing.

Unlike Chen De, he didn't say anything.

For no other reason than Chen De always believed that honesty and trustworthiness were the most important virtues in human interaction.

After returning to his residence, he pulled out all his gains from this trip—a large handful of Law seeds.

Counting them, there were over fifty, enough for him to digest for a long time.

Truly bountiful!

Chen De was very satisfied with the harvest from this trip.

A sharp glint flickered in his eyes as he considered whether to sweep clean the other few treasure vaults as well.

But for now, it was better to secure what he had and absorb all these Law seeds.

He took out one seed and integrated it into his body.

"Ding, Host has comprehended the Law—Law of Begging for Mercy!"

The way Law seeds were used on Chen De was somewhat different from others.

Just like spirit medicines, others would painstakingly refine them, but he would swallow them, and they would turn into attribute points.

It was the same now; others had to catalyze their growth, but for Chen De, they directly transformed into comprehended Laws, a one-step process.

It was just that the name of this Law was a bit strange. He glanced at the system's effect description.

Law of Begging for Mercy

Effect: Greatly increases the enemy's probability of begging for mercy, and greatly increases our side's probability of successfully begging for mercy. (The magnitude of the effect depends on the cultivation and strength of both the enemy and our side; when used by oneself, kneeling has a better effect.)

A passive effect, but unfortunately, not very useful.

Chen De also felt helpless about this; the Laws within the Law seeds, not being comprehended by himself, were of varying quality.

Moreover, before a Law seed cracked open, no one knew what Law would be nurtured within.

It was like opening a blind box; some could yield top-tier items, some could yield top-tier among top-tier items, just like now.

Legend has it that in ancient times, a Void Union Realm peak expert even opened a Law of Eating Shit and used it to break through to the Heavenly Imperial Realm.

One can only say that in the vast world, there are all sorts of wonders; being able to open a Law that was somewhat useful was already a stroke of luck.

Let's see what the next Law is... Law of Bullying the Weak and Fearing the Strong?

The effect was: greatly weakens strength when facing someone stronger than oneself, and greatly enhances strength when facing someone weaker than oneself.

The higher the comprehension of the Law, the greater the disparity between the two sides, and the greater the weakening or enhancement.

Seeing the description of the Law, Chen De almost peed himself.

This Law couldn't be said to be completely useless; it could only be described as a pure drag, a piece of trash.

When encountering someone weaker than him, he didn't need it; when encountering someone stronger, he was already no match, and it would weaken him further.

However, upon seeing that it was an active Law, Chen De slowly breathed a sigh of relief.

In that case, it could still be used when bullying weaker opponents.

Next, instead of going one by one, Chen De integrated all the remaining Law seeds into his body.

"Ding, Host has comprehended the Law—Law of Arrogance!"

"Ding, Host has comprehended the Law—Law of Stroking!"

"Ding, Host has comprehended the Law—Law of Guiding!"

"Ding, Host has comprehended the Law—Law of Quick Egress!"

"Ding, Host has comprehended the Law—Law of Quick Egress!"

"Ding, Host has comprehended the Law—Law of Cowardice!"

"Ding, Host has comprehended the Law..."

...After a long string of obscure Law names, it meant that all fifty-plus Laws Chen De had acquired this time had been absorbed.

Except for a very few useful ones, all the others were trash.

However, the good news was that this time Chen De opened a top-tier one, the kind of top-tier used in a positive sense.

Law of Strength!

That's right, it was!

It was the most crucial Law of Strength for body cultivators; body cultivators tempered by the Law of Strength and those who weren't were simply two different concepts.

Besides that, there were also a few decent auxiliary Laws, such as the Law of Hardness, the Law of Speed, the Law of Spirit... Chen De immediately used the over eight million merit golden pills he had saved up to fully upgrade the Law of Strength.

Instantly, countless insights flooded his mind, and at the same time, his physical body underwent drastic changes.

In just a few breaths, Chen De felt that the raw power of his physical body had increased by more than tenfold.

And his overall combat strength was a full thirty percent stronger than before.

After maxing out the Law of Strength, Chen De used a total of 5.4 million attribute points, leaving him with nearly three million.

He poured all of them into the Law of Speed, promoting it in conjunction with the Law of Time, making Chen De's speed even faster.

After all of this, Chen De now had two choices.

One was to stay and acquire the remaining Law seeds.

The other was to temporarily retreat, develop cautiously, digest all these newly acquired Laws, and then return to claim what belonged to him.

After some thought, Chen De decided to see tomorrow.

He hadn't purified this body; the Ancient Hall had something that judged the life and death of its internal members.

So, from the moment he entered, he had adopted a policy of 'influencing without purifying' towards the Ancient Hall members... The next day, Chen De, who had been resting with his eyes closed, slowly opened them.

It was a fluctuation from his communication device; Sacred Ruler Qingqiong was calling a meeting.

They were exposed!

Their actions last night were exposed!

This was the first thought that came to Chen De's mind.

Otherwise, why would they call another meeting today, having just finished one yesterday?

Normally, a meeting might not happen once in several hundred years, but recently, they were so frequent.

Arriving at the location, he saw everyone handing in something.

Chen De understood, so he handed in a strange gemstone.

This was the only extra item he had casually taken last night, besides the Law seeds, and it was also the one he had accidentally dropped last night.

Sacred Ruler Qingqiong glanced at Chen De, seemingly confirming something, then nodded, signaling him that he could step down.

"Thank you, Holy Ruler, for your benevolence!"

Everyone who stepped down shouted this, and Chen De was naturally no exception.

Coming down, he found that the others' faces showed no signs of panic, but instead were very calm.

It made sense; if one or two people stole from the treasure vault, they would naturally be severely punished, possibly even killed.

But now that everyone had done it, they couldn't possibly kill them all, could they?

Let alone kill, even punishing them would be difficult.

They were fearless, truly fearless!

"And..."

At this moment, the progress ahead stopped.

It turned out that after someone handed in their items, Sacred Ruler Qingqiong did not let him step down.

Seeing this, that person hurriedly pulled out another pile of items, but the Holy Ruler remained unmoved.

Knowing that he could no longer hide the truth, he gave a bitter smile and pulled out all the remaining items.

Sacred Ruler Qingqiong glanced at him, and only then let him leave, as if he knew exactly what each person had taken.

However, the people who were there themselves didn't know what others had taken.

Even if there was an informant inside, it couldn't be this precise, could it?

But Chen De knew that his strength was considerably greater than Sacred Ruler Qingqiong's; he had seen the problem within the treasure vault back then.