Hong Zhe Lingguan let out a yawn: "Next time, you two handle it." "Us two?" Mu Ne Zhen Ce stared at Hong Zhe Lingguan and suddenly laughed. Was this sleeping lion king trying to teach him what comrades were, what friends were, by having the two of them fight side-by-side?

"Friends?" Mu Ne Zhen Ce couldn't stop chuckling. "The Royal Family doesn't need friends!

The future emperor only needs a clear commanding mind, sufficient to govern the livelihood of the entire Zhen Ce Dynasty!" "Friends?" Mu Ne Zhen Ce glanced at Qian Jin beside him. "Such things as friends only lead one to be controlled by emotion, making impulsive, incorrect judgments that can derail the right course." "Let's go!" Qian Jin stood up and walked toward the ruins.

"I imagine the bandits must have a storeroom. Let's see what they've managed to loot." Mu Ne Zhen Ce, while bandaging his wounds, followed toward the ruins with an interested look.

Fifteen thousand gold coins, six thousand silver coins, several swords, some provisions, and some cloth. Qian Jin looked at the storeroom of the Bill Bandit Group and laughed.

A few years ago, seeing these items might have driven him mad with joy, but now, he just felt a sense of... how poor this bandit group was?

Fifteen thousand gold coins! It was clearly a huge sum...

Qian Jin navigated through the various items that hadn't yet been fenced. Ice-Seed Black Jade?

Qian Jin crouched beside a crate of iron ore, picked up a fist-sized object that resembled iron ore, and examined it closely. This was indeed an Ice-Seed Black Jade that could easily be mistaken for a Black Cloud Iron Ore.

"I really didn't expect this," Qian Jin held the Ice-Seed Black Jade, chuckling repeatedly. The Bill Bandit Group probably had no one who recognized it; otherwise, if they had taken this thing to an auction house, why would they still be bandits?

They would have taken the money and disbanded. The value of this thing was a hundred times greater than the combined value of everything else in the storeroom...

No! To an expert who was also wealthy, it could be worth more than a thousand times!

It was a special mineral applicable to forging, potions, even mysterious potions or inscriptions. Most importantly!

This thing could be counted as a material, or rather, an auxiliary material, for crafting Soul Weapons. This material had excellent compatibility; its presence allowed two completely opposing substances to merge without being antagonistic.

One could say it wasn't a necessary material for forging Soul Weapons, but with its existence, the success rate of crafting a Soul Weapon could be raised by a full tenth for him! One tenth!

Theoretically, this meant that out of forging ten Soul Weapons, one would succeed! This success rate was enough to make the eyes of any great Forging Master shatter with envy.

Potions... Mysterious Potions, or Inscriptions!

And its capabilities varied! "Such a large piece of Ice-Seed Black Jade..." Qian Jin gently rotated the new discovery between his fingers.

"Tsk tsk... I can use this many times." "Ice-Seed Black Jade?" Mu Ne Tian Ce, who had somehow replaced his fan with a brand new one, fanned himself repeatedly in front of his chest and leaned closer.

"What is this?" Qian Jin looked strangely at the brand new folding fan in Mu Ne Tian Ce's hand. "What's with the fan?" "I have several hundred in my Dou Realm.

Do you need one? I'll give you one," Mu Ne Zhen Ce smiled nonchalantly.

"It's always good to have spares. What is this Ice-Seed Black Jade?" Several hundred fans in the Dou Realm?

Qian Jin stared at Mu Ne Zhen Ce, unable to comprehend it. What kind of extravagant personality would lead someone to do such a thing?

"A mineral." "A mineral?" Mu Ne Zhen Ce raised an eyebrow, clearly intending to press for details. "I've studied mineralogy.

I can recognize most minerals; how have I never heard this name?" Qian Jin shrugged helplessly. He had only encountered things like Ice-Seed Black Jade in the notes of Uncle Blake and others.

Nearly every one of their notes emphasized that Ice-Seed Black Jade was an extremely rare existence. Qian Jin thought seriously for a moment before summarizing his conclusion: "It's very expensive." "Very expensive?" Mu Ne Zhen Ce continued to press.

"Extremely expensive." "How expensive?" "An uninformed person might offer a few copper coins; an informed person might offer a million gold coins; a very well-informed person might offer ten million gold coins." "That expensive? How well-informed are you?" "No matter how much it costs, I'm willing to pay it." "You mean, you are the most well-informed?" "No.

The most well-informed person would steal or snatch it if they couldn't buy it; they'd just have to get their hands on it." "It's so valuable, why did you put it away?" "I planned to keep it all for myself because among the few of us, I am the most knowledgeable." "That makes sense..." Mu Ne Zhen Ce swayed his fan and walked away, diligently searching through the various goods, hoping to find something valuable that he understood but others didn't. Unfortunately, such items were not common.

Mu Ne Zhen Ce searched around and didn't find anything particularly valuable. Qian Jin had already stored all the ores in his Dou Realm; these things were still excellent materials for forging weapons and armor—leaving them here would be too wasteful.

In a short time, the storeroom filled with goods was completely cleared out. Qian Jin climbed out of the storeroom, took a deep breath of the air in the ruins, and laughed.

Robbing bandits was quite a good job. "I wonder what the other bandit warehouses hold?

The higher the grade of raw material, sometimes the more ordinary and unremarkable it looks, making it easy for people to treat it as common junk." "Let's go. We'll head to the next bandit stronghold," Mu Ne Zhen Ce dusted the dirt off himself.

He hadn't found anything particularly valuable this time, but next time he absolutely had to beat Qian Jin to finding it. He was the Sixth Prince of the Zhen Ce Dynasty, the Sixth Prince with a super memory who would never forget anything he had ever read!

...The Bill Bandit Group is annihilated! All wealth swept clean by the attackers!!

...The Seventy War Blade Bandit Group is annihilated! All wealth swept clean by the attackers!!

...The headquarters of the Stab-Mad Bandit Group is destroyed! All wealth looted!

Sixty-six corpses, all other personnel missing! Rumors of the destruction of several bandit groups spread like the wind across the Northern Wastes in just a few days.

The Bill Bandit Group wasn't large in power but was highly elite. This group only recruited elite members; ordinary bandits were never accepted.

The Seventy War Blade Bandit Group was also not large, but its reputation was immense. It was known across the Northern Wastes as a band of fierce fighters who dared to fight.

They once launched an assault on a merchant caravan guarded by three hundred mercenaries, routed the mercenaries, and seized the goods, leading to the complete downfall of that well-known mercenary group. As for the Stab-Mad Bandit Group, it was the banner of the Top Ten Bandit Groups in the Northern Wastes, a nightmare and disaster for merchant caravans, mercenaries, and even other bandit groups.

These bandit groups could be seen not only on the bounty lists of the Zhen Ce Dynasty but also on the high bounties posted by the Lucifer Dynasty of the Demon Race. Many mercenary groups and adventurers launched attacks for the rewards substantial enough to retire comfortably for life, but over the years, the Northern Wastes buried more mercenary corpses.

Those bandit groups continued their irregular lifestyle of robbing when they pleased, killing when they felt like it, pillaging caravans, and even attacking strongholds. Just as the Mercenary Guild was considering whether to dispatch a team from the General Guild to wipe out one bandit group and curb the arrogance of the bandits, the wind in the Northern Wastes suddenly shifted overnight.

The bandits, who had been enjoying the most comfortable days recently, collectively became subdued. Unless something extraordinary happened, like starving for food, they chose silence and ceased their rampant roaming across the Northern Wastes.

It wasn't that no bandit group wanted to resist these sudden bandit hunters. The day after the Seventy War Blade Bandit Group was destroyed, the Stab-Mad Bandit Group, ranked fifth among the bandit groups in the Northern Wastes, publicly declared its intention to punish and eliminate these bandit hunters.

As a result, the message issued in the morning was met with the complete eradication of the Stab-Mad Bandit Group's well-hidden headquarters by noon that same day! Of the five hundred bandits comprising the Stab-Mad Bandit Group headquarters, besides the sixty-six who died, everyone else seemed to have evaporated like water exposed to the scorching sun, disappearing entirely from the Northern Wastes.

No one knew where they went. Feng Lian Ci Kuang, the leader of the Stab-Mad Bandit Group who had been staying as a guest at the Black Wind Bandit Group, stamped his feet and ranted everywhere, swearing to kill all these bandit hunters if he ever saw them.

"Damn bandit hunters!" Feng Lian Ci Kuang paced back and forth in Black Wind's main tent, his hands clasped behind his back. "They stole my things, and now they dare send me a letter!" Black Wind, the leader of the Black Wind Bandit Group, took the letter from Feng Lian Ci Kuang and read it carefully.

The area where his prominent eyebrows should have been was bare, revealing nothing of his true expression, yet the slight upward curve at the corner of his lips suggested that the great leader Black Wind was smiling! "A bit interesting," Black Wind's broad shoulders shook repeatedly, causing the cloak woven from black eagle feathers draped over him to sway incessantly.

"Interesting?" Feng Lian Ci Kuang raised his hand to touch his hooked nose, glaring angrily at Black Wind. "Black Wind!

I listened to your advice and brought men to help clean up your rebels, and my lair gets wiped out! And you tell me it's interesting?" Black Wind suppressed his smile, handed the letter to a young warrior beside him, raised a wine bowl, and gulped down the strong liquor, laughing inwardly.

This letter was indeed interesting! In the Northern Wastes, bandit groups had always been the ones robbing others and capturing caravan members, then sending a letter to the victim demanding gold in exchange for the goods and personnel.

Now, these bandit hunters who had appeared in the last few days had actually demolished a bandit headquarters, looted their supplies, captured their members, and then sent a letter to the bandit leaders demanding ransom for the return of the captured men. If the gold wasn't delivered by the deadline, they threatened to transport everyone to the Zhen Ce Dynasty to claim the hefty bounties, thereby compensating for their 'losses.' "Losses?

Losses my foot!" Feng Lian Ci Kuang slammed his hand onto the nearby tea table and roared. "Who the hell suffered losses?

I suffered losses! I lost my headquarters, I lost my men, I lost my honor!

And now these bandits! Yes, these bandits—are demanding that I compensate them for their losses?"