John Bennett looked around on both sides, while Emily seemed a bit bored. Tongzhou Prefecture was a major city in Wei County, far more prosperous than this small town—what was there to see here?

At that moment, John Bennett suddenly noticed something and walked straight to a shop selling secret caskets.

These so-called secret caskets were also a major feature of the Great Jianghu World.

In the Great Jianghu World, martial arts flourished, but ten thousand years ago, it had gone through a great catastrophe, bringing about natural disasters that destroyed countless martial sects in the apocalypse.

Before the catastrophe began, a grandmaster of formations invented something called a secret casket, used to store the sect’s treasures, scriptures, and other items, to prevent them from being damaged during the disasters.

The core of the secret casket lay in its formation, which could reinforce and seal the casket, greatly enhancing its effect. Unfortunately, this technique has now been lost.

As for the material of the secret casket, it was arbitrary—gold and iron, stone, or even wood could be used. In any case, the stronger the material, the more power the formation could exert.

The size and shape of the secret casket were also arbitrary, since the formation was always the same. The size and shape depended entirely on what the sect intended to store in it when it was made.

So after the ancient catastrophe, survivors excavated countless sect ruins and found a large number of such secret caskets.

Some people opened secret caskets and found peerless martial arts; others found rare treasures.

Of course, not all secret caskets contained treasures—most were empty or filled with useless items.

The empty secret caskets were those prepared in advance by the sects, with the formation already inscribed, ready to be used at any time. Outwardly, they were basically indistinguishable from those that contained items.

Some secret caskets contained things of great sentimental value to martial artists, but of little actual worth—like a sword used by a powerful figure in their youth, or a handkerchief given by a loved one.

Thus, the contents of secret caskets could be good or bad, and because of the special nature of the formation, no one in the current Jianghu could investigate what was inside from the outside. So buying a secret casket depended entirely on one’s experience and luck.

Experienced people could analyze the origin and possible contents of a secret casket from its material, size, shape, and even decorative patterns. Of course, most people still relied on luck.

The shop selling secret caskets in this small town was tiny, with only a dozen or so small caskets on the table, all of different shapes and materials. The only thing they had in common was that they all looked very cheap, made from ordinary gold, iron, and stone, which was why they were being sold in a small town like Yuanbao Town.

John Bennett asked the shopkeeper, “Is yours the only shop in Yuanbao Town that sells secret caskets?”

The shopkeeper didn’t even look up, just lazily nodded and said, “Of course, I’m the only one. Even the worst secret casket costs at least ten taels of silver. Ninety-nine percent of the Jianghu people passing through Yuanbao Town are just bodyguards for hire—a bunch of paupers! They can’t even earn ten taels of silver on a job, so how could they be willing to gamble ten taels on luck?”

At this point, the shopkeeper looked up and saw John Bennett dressed in fine silk, accompanied by a maid and servants. A fawning smile appeared on his fat face as he said, “Those paupers can’t afford secret caskets, but a young master like you certainly can. All these caskets were found a year ago in the ruins of the Southern Barbarian Mountains. The prices are absolutely fair and reasonable.”

Hearing this, a glint of sharpness flashed in John Bennett’s eyes.

If he remembered correctly, around this time, a servant-born fellow in Yuanbao Town bought an ordinary secret casket, only to find inside it a supreme martial technique.

Relying on that technique, the man swept through the Jianghu, made a great name for himself, and even established a sizable sect of his own, becoming a founder and grandmaster.

John Bennett had just arrived in this world, and what he urgently needed now was a martial technique powerful enough.

His The Bennett Family, being a great clan in Tongzhou Prefecture, naturally had its own martial inheritance, called “Vast Sea Heart Method.” Once mastered, it provided a solid foundation and inner strength as vast as the sea.

But as a concubine’s son, John Bennett had never been valued since childhood. He had no access to pills or other resources, nor guidance from elders in the clan. So after many years of cultivation, he had barely managed to get started with this technique, and his martial arts level was pitifully low—he hadn’t even reached the Blood Condensation Realm.

To enter the path of martial arts, the first step was to go through the three stages of body refinement.

The first stage of body refinement was to temper the muscles and bones, known as the Tempering Body Realm—refining the body to make the muscles and bones strong and the strength extraordinary.

Ninety-nine percent of martial artists in the Jianghu were at the Tempering Body Realm, as it was the simplest stage. Some people didn’t even practice internal arts; just by training some basic external hard skills, they could reach the Tempering Body Realm.

Above the Tempering Body Realm was the Blood Condensation Realm, which worked from the outside in. After tempering the muscles and bones, one would refine their own vital energy and blood, making it thick and dense—eventually, as heavy as lead and mercury. Only then was one considered to have mastered the Blood Condensation Realm.