Six mythical races. Six mythical creatures. Six of them.

Yang Qing wasn’t too sure whether the six meant six individuals, or whether the races they belonged to were also included in the leadership and history of the Treasure Coin Palace. The accounts he had read were never clear on that distinction, though a few hinted it was likely to be individuals rather than entire races.

But did it matter? Did it really matter whether it was an entire race or an individual? In Yang Qing’s eyes, it didn’t, because both realities carried the same terrifying weight, born out of the fact that six powerful races, whether as entire races or as individuals, had teamed up and formed an organization.

That lineup was sufficient to terrify anyone, likely even other mythical races.

Just a single one of them was terrifying enough on their own, let alone six of them working together, supported by an equally monstrous treasure in the Origin Treasure Gourd Jade Tree.

If that was what it took to produce an Ancestral Dragon Spiritual Vein through external interference, it was no wonder the feat had never been replicated.

Where were you going to find six mythical race members in the current era, especially when sighting even one was hard enough, and the one you did find looked like Yang Shitong? If someone like that was who you were relying on, you were better off handling the matter yourself than depending on such a roguish, obese, and ill-tempered bird.

But even assuming that by some heaven-defying luck you did manage to find the elusive mythical race members, all six of them at that, it still wouldn’t guarantee success at forming the Ancestral Dragon Spiritual Vein, because of the other half of the equation.

The Origin Treasure Gourd Jade Tree had never been cited since the fall of the Treasure Coin Palace. Not even a single leaf had ever been recorded as being owned by anyone. Yes, cultivators and their organizations, by and large, liked to hide things for one reason or another, with security being the greater reason, or having a trump card of sorts. As such, the more precious something was, the more likely they were to do everything to maintain secrecy around it, including hiding it even from their own members or kin, with knowledge of said item kept to only a few key members of the organization.

Given how dangerous and greedy the world was, it was a good habit to maintain. But!

There was a level a treasure could reach where keeping it secret became impossible, or rather, where there would be no point in keeping it secret at all. Take the Ten Thousand Dao Jade Leaf Tree, for example, and the Jade Leaf Empire and Academy by and large.

Given how wondrous the tree was, keeping it secret would have proved to be as much trouble as trying to collect water with a bucket full of holes. One way or another, people would know. They may not know the exact workings and nature of it, but they would know deep within the Jade Leaf Empire, there had to be a wondrous treasure, because there would be clear signs alluding to it, like its Longevity, for one.

In a world where sects, clans, kingdoms, empires, pavilions, halls, and manors were dropping like flies every single day and being replaced with the same ease, only for the same cycle to repeat itself over and over again, if you found an organization that had been around for ten thousand years, cultivators were sure to get suspicious of how it had managed to remain standing for all that time. And that suspicion would only grow deeper the longer those years stretched.

How has this sect been around for thirty thousand years? Surely they must have something to rely on was what most cultivators would think. If the answer was that the sect was relying on a powerhouse, they would wonder: how many powerhouses did they have? What was their strength? How did they gain it? How had they been continuously sustaining it?

It didn’t matter whether the sect was a reclusive one or an active one. As long as they had been around for a certain period of time, they were sure to be observed closely by countless eyes looking to find the answer behind the why of their survival. And yes, the sect may have been able to hide certain core secrets, but crumbs would still slip out, because there were a lot of motivated Mao Yunrus in the cultivation world willing to go to any lengths to uncover a mystery.

All treasures had abnormalities around them that drew attention, and the more special the treasure, the more extreme the abnormality. Take the Jade Leaf Empire, which, outside of the Dragon Meadow and Odyssey Horizon Guild, could be considered one of the oldest organizations present today. They were even older than the Two Holy Lands, with rumors suggesting they had been around for no less than five hundred thousand years.

Now, if the presence of the Ten Thousand Dao Jade Leaf Tree had not been publicly known, those years alone would have sold them out as being in possession of something special. You don’t survive five hundred thousand years without having something very special to rely on.

So what about the Origin Treasure Gourd Jade Tree? This was a tree rumored to have birthed Saint Grade treasures in the thousands. If an organization had something like that, could they truly have kept it secret? Yang Qing’s answer was most definitely not.

There would have been glaring signs. You could hide the fact that you had the tree, but you couldn’t hide the effects the tree had on you.

As such, given the present environment and what could be seen, the Origin Treasure Gourd Jade Tree was unlikely to have an owner. And if it did, then that owner was unlikely to be anywhere on the continent, or they had hidden themselves in the deepest recesses of the void, or some place no cultivator dared venture.

But how many places fit that criteria? The Bestial Churning Sea was dangerous, so dangerous that Domain experts could die on its shores, and yet there was no shortage of cultivators going there every day. Not to mention, they dared venture even into the most dangerous core regions of its depths.

Was the same not true of the Millionsfold Treasure Ocean? It was even more dangerous than the Bestial Churning Sea, capable of claiming the lives of not only Domain experts but Soul Formation Realm experts too, and yet cultivators went in droves to its waters.

The void was arguably the most horrifying place of all, and yet even there, without fail, cultivators still dared venture.

So as things stood, there were actually very few places where you could hide the Origin Treasure Gourd Jade Tree. Though that didn’t mean it was impossible.