Hearing Xuan Qing's words, both men shook their heads.

Fatty Kui gave a wry grin. "I wish I did. But something like that costs more merit than I've ever earned."

Wu Shuan sighed in agreement. "Same here."

Han Yu remained quiet for a moment before speaking. "I only have two with me right now." He pointed to his wasit and showed the small pouches. "Even with these, we cannot hope to carry all the containers here. They will not fit."

He technically had three, but the third one contained all the materials for the Undying Life Charm which he had hidden away in the Tree Trunk back in the marsh as a safeguard.

The others fell silent again, their gazes drifting toward the towering shelves of books and jade slips stacked neatly in rows. Each shelf was brimming with knowledge preserved for centuries, perhaps millennia.

Senior Brother Duan finally spoke what all of them were thinking. "The pills are priceless, but they are not the true wealth of this place. The real treasure is the knowledge." He gestured toward the shelves.

"These books and documents… if they contain alchemical methods, formulas, and research from the ancient era, they will be far more valuable than even a hall filled with pills. Pills can be used up, but knowledge can create generations of new pills. That is what will strengthen the sect for centuries to come."

His words carried weight, and everyone nodded in agreement. None of them could dispute the logic.

"There is no way we can simply take the pills and leave the texts behind," Wu Shuan added, shaking his head. "If we did that, we would be throwing away the chance to elevate the entire sect. Our best alchemists could gain insights that would fuel countless cultivators in the future."

Han Yu tapped his notes thoughtfully. "Then the question becomes: what do we take first, and what do we leave for the sect to collect later?"

Fatty Kui scratched his chin, his eyes darting from one box to another. "We cannot possibly decide without looking at the books. Who knows what kind of rare formulas are written in there?

If we can pick out the most important, at least the sect will recover them even if something happens to this repository later."

Xuan Qing exhaled slowly, as though weighing something in her mind.

Finally, she said, "Before we make that decision, I believe we should contact the sect. The elders need to know what we have found. With their help, we can secure everything here. We should not risk losing this discovery due to our own lack of resources."

The others looked toward her, some hesitant.

Contacting the sect meant revealing their find fully, and it meant giving up a large portion of the treasure they could have claimed for themselves. But it also meant safety. If they tried to act greedy, they could end up losing everything, either to rival sects or to dangers hidden deeper within the repository.

Han Yu's mind churned.

He had known from the start that any great find would eventually have to be surrendered to the sect. Trying to hide something of this scale was impossible. Still, he could not help but think about how the Mist Eye Sect would react, and whether Meng Jueyan would be able to hold back her people from probing too deeply into this place.

"Contacting the sect may be the wisest course," Han Yu said at last, his tone steady. "We can only carry a fraction of this treasure, and it would be a waste to lose what we cannot take. But we should still check through the books and jade slips, so that at the very least we know what categories of knowledge are here. That way we can prioritize."

Everyone nodded in agreement. The decision, while not entirely satisfying, was logical.

Fatty Kui sighed but forced a smile. "Well, if we cannot carry it all, then we will at least make sure the sect owes us a mountain of merit."

"That is true," She Ming added. "If the sect rewards us properly, our cultivation paths will be smooth for years to come."

The tension eased slightly as the group came to terms with the reality of the situation.

Their excitement returned in subdued but steady waves. The pills had already brought them joy, but now the thought of uncovering ancient alchemical manuals brought an entirely different kind of anticipation.

Han Yu, meanwhile, sat back and looked once more at the sealed containers, his eyes gleaming faintly.

He knew very well that some of the things here could not be assessed without the tools of an alchemical laboratory. But rather than frustrate him, this filled him with a burning eagerness. Each unknown pill represented a puzzle, a possibility, and a potential breakthrough.

Knowledge that had been lost for countless generations was sitting before them, waiting to be unearthed.

And deep inside, Han Yu was more certain than ever: this was the chance he had been waiting for.

The disciples spread out across the massive chamber, lantern talismans flickering softly as they lit up shelves that had not seen human hands in countless generations.

The glow of qi-infused light revealed row upon row of ancient tomes, rolls of parchment sealed in lacquer tubes, and jade slips carefully arranged according to some forgotten archivist's system. Dust hung in the air, disturbed by their movements, yet the protective formations that lingered on the shelves had kept the texts from rotting away with time.

This task, unlike identifying pills, was something everyone could take part in.

While not all of them had Han Yu's depth of alchemical knowledge, every disciple of the Twin Leaf Peak Sect had been educated in the basics of alchemy. They could tell the difference between a rudimentary manual and something that reeked of high-level insight.

Their teachers had drilled into them that when faced with ancient texts, there was a simple rule: if you could not understand it, then it was probably valuable. And if reading it gave you a headache, then it was almost certainly profound.

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