"Thank god I made those explosives," Brax says as he sees the burnt remains of his dead foe.
With the strength disparity between him and the middle-aged man, he had nothing that could have killed him.
Brax's vigilance and prescience made him make those Qi bombs, which allowed him to easily squad wipe an entire bandit camp and take down a foe much stronger than him.
"He was at least a 9th stage Foundation Establishment cultivator," Brax concludes.
With his current strength, he can easily go toe to toe against a 7th-stage foundation cultivator, he might even be able to put up a really good fight against someone in the 8th stage, but the 9th-stage ones will definitely put him on his backfoot and that is exactly what happened.
The Qi bombs were the only thing that could successfully kill a 9th-stage Foundation-Establishing cultivator.
'The Qi bombs need a lot more refining. They will definitely come in handy in the future.' Brax plans to make the Qi bombs much more potent so that he can hurt or even kill much stronger foes that are beyond his capability.
Now that the fight is over, he finally gets to concentrate on his surroundings again and immediately notices something.
A mangled and burnt hand lying a few meters away from where the middle-aged man exploded.
He approaches the hand and smiles with delight as there is a plain green color ring on one of its fingers. An ordinary cultivator might completely miss it, but someone who is incredibly sensitive to Qi energy such as Brax, he immediately notices a signature Qi around the ring.
"A storage ring," Brax exclaims, pulls it out of the finger, and tosses the mangled hand away.
"I didn't expect to get so lucky today," Brax says and tries to channel his Qi into the ring to access it, but he fails. "A Qi blocking mechanism?" He questions being unable to access the inside of the storage ring. With this mechanism in place, only the owner of the ring can access the ring's storage.
"I need to find a way to overcome this mechanism," he says and puts away the ring. He also takes the middle-aged man's saber that is sticking out of a tree.
"Incredible," Brax says, as he examines the blade. The saber is a high-grade intermediate-level weapon. The material used, its structure, and its ability to channel Qi is beyond anything Brax had in his possession previously.
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
The sword and spear he used were just mortal weapons that were of a lower standard than a basic-level weapon. The only reason they were able to perform so well during the battle was because of Brax's rich and dense Qi, along with his insane Qi-controlling ability.
Just like manuals, weapons that cultivators use are also similarly ranked. From Basic to Divine. Then there is the perfect level that is almost impossible to find, let alone forge.
Satisfied with the reward from the battle's outcome, Brax brings his focus back to the bandit camp.
He looks around and sees nothing but blood and carnage. The foul stench of blood and guts is very present, and Brax is not a fan of it, even though he is the one who caused all this.
"Let's focus on something else," he says and starts looking around the camp. The items kept outside the camp are decent, but not something that warranted his attention. He then begins looking inside the tents and finds some decent loot.
He found precious metals and stones, and even some low-grade spirit stones that were probably hidden by bandit subordinates.
"Only the big one left," Brax says looking at the big tent.
He walks in and is immediately greeted by riches far beyond anything he has collected till now. There is even a big pouch of low-grade spirit stones along with a bunch of precious items.
But his steps come to a halt when he sees someone staring at him from inside a cage. Brax narrows his eyes and approaches it. Inside, he sees a beautiful girl with torn clothes and light scratches all over her body.
The girl, too, is staring at Brax with wariness in her eyes. She backs away a little, as she doesn't know who he is. 'Were those loud sounds his doing?' The girl questions herself.
"You are Farco's daughter," Brax says, and he recognizes the girl. She is the same girl in the painting he saw back in Farco's house, but this girl in front of him is even better looking than the one depicted in that painting.
Hearing Brax's words, the girl's eyes flash. She instantly comes forward and grabs onto the cage. "Do you know my father? Did you come to save me? Please help me," she begs.
Brax doesn't answer. He just stares at the girl contemplating in his thoughts.
"Why?" He suddenly asks, catching the girl by surprise. "Huh?" she lets out a confused sound. "Why should I save you?" Brax asks, this time with more clarity.
"Didn't you come here to save me? You know my father, right?" she questions back.
"I don't know your father, but I had the pleasure of finding his corpse in the basement of his house. I know you are his daughter because I saw your painting inside the house. And I only came here to get rid of the bandits." As Brax clears the girl's delusion, her spirit shatters.
She didn't know if her father was truly dead or not. She could only go off with the words given to her by the man who took her father's face, but now this man in front of her is saying that he found her father's dead body in their basement.
She realizes that her father is truly dead. Tears start to build up in her eyes.
Unbothered by her emotions, Brax starts looting the tent of its precious items. First, he bags the low-grade spirit stones. "There are at least three hundred spirit stones in here," he says with delight. Strapping the pouch around his waist, he starts looking for other things.
His eyes land on the large treasure chest that is filled with precious metals and crystals. There are even some basic-level weapons among them, but now that he has an intermediate-level weapon in hand, he has no interest in them.
"You need to get me out of here," the girl speaks, grabbing Brax's attention once again.