Shen Jietian left the East Market with a deep furrow between his brows, his analytical mind working furiously.
The staggering price discrepancies he had just witnessed refused to leave his thoughts.
It defied all standard market logic.
It was the exact same grade of Moonleaf Grass, harvested within the exact same regional boundaries, and traded within the exact same city limits on the very same morning-yet it commanded three wildly different prices.
The cultivation world was truly a bizarre, structurally inefficient environment.
Every single inhabitant desperately chased spirit stones, bleeding and dying for a fraction of wealth, yet absolutely nobody seemed interested in investing the minor effort required to know what their commodities were actually worth.
They were operating completely in the dark, entirely at the mercy of greedy middlemen.
A loud, hollow growl from his abdomen abruptly shattered his internal monologue.
Shen Jietian looked down, letting out a soft sigh as his stomach protested once more.
He had spent the entire morning wandering relentlessly through the vast stone thoroughfares of the city, cross-referencing pill dispensaries, scanning technique repositories, and logging the micro-transactions of market stalls.
While his hard-won spirit stones remained untouched inside his storage pouch, his physical feet were exhausted, and his energy reserves were depleted.
Casting his eyes across the paved street, his gaze landed on a weather-beaten wooden sign swaying gently in the morning breeze.
Fragrant Leaf Tea House.
The rich, slightly bitter aroma of roasted tea leaves drifted invitingly through the open doorway, acting as a balm to his senses.
Shen Jietian hesitated at the threshold, calculating the expense, before letting out a wry chuckle.
A single pot of ordinary, low-grade tea cost a baseline of three pieces of Spirit Sand.
It wasn’t an extortionate sum, but it also wasn’t cheap; it was just the exact amount of daily resource expenditure to make a destitute loose cultivator think twice before stepping inside.
After a brief internal struggle between his pragmatic frugality and his physical fatigue, he adjusted his robes and stepped through the entrance.
A massive wall of ambient noise immediately slammed into his ears.
The interior of the tea house was completely packed, the humid air thick with the chaotic energy of the lower cultivation community.
Nearly every single wooden table in the main hall was occupied by a dense crowd of patrons.
The demographics were incredibly varied: some wore rugged hunter’s gear heavily stained with the dried, dark blood of spiritual beasts; some rested their calloused hands-on woven herb baskets; others possessed the sharp, calculating eyes of traveling merchant agents; and a select few even wore the clean, unified robes of minor local sects.
A small army of waiters moved nimbly between the tables, expertly carrying steaming iron pots and cheap plates of spiritual snacks while the building buzzed with an endless stream of overlapping conversations.
The sheer volume of the crowd almost made Shen Jietian turn around to seek a quieter alley, but his sharp eyes quickly scanned the room, locating a solitary empty seat at a crowded table situated in a far corner.
Without bothering to ask for permission-a formality rarely observed among low-tier vagrants, he walked over and slid onto the bench.
The surrounding cultivators merely glanced at his coarse garments for a fraction of a second before completely disregarding his presence, returning to their private discussions.
A harried waiter materialized before him moments later, wiping the table with a stained cloth.
“One pot of the house blend, Senior?”
Shen Jietian offered a reluctant nod, reaching into his pouch.
The waiter grinned knowingly, extending a hand.
“That will be three pieces of Spirit Sand.”
It felt like a painful amount to part with for a simple rest stop, but Shen Jietian paid the fee without outward complaint.
The steaming pot arrived shortly after, and he quietly poured himself a cup of the amber liquid.
He took a cautious sip, confirming his suspicions; the tea was thoroughly average, stripped of almost all spiritual properties, serving merely to wash the dust from his throat.
Suddenly, a loud, infuriated voice erupted from the neighboring table, drawing his attention.
“Two spirit stones!
Can you believe the sheer audacity?!”
A thin, exhausted herb gatherer slammed his porcelain cup violently onto the wooden tabletop, causing the tea to splash over the rim.
“Two miserable spirit stones was all they offered me for a pristine bundle of Blood Coagulation Grass!”
His companion at the table merely rolled his eyes, taking a slow, indifferent sip from his own cup.
“You foolishly sold your harvest to the Li Herb Hall again, didn’t you?”
The gatherer spat on the floor, cursing fiercely.
“They have always been my primary buyer!
They’ve bought from my family for years!”
“And they have always systematically cheated you out of your hard work,” the second man countered calmly, setting his cup down with a sharp click.
He leaned across the table, his voice dropping to a low whisper that Shen Jietian’s refined senses caught easily.
“If you want true value, navigate your way to the Western part of East District.
Try the Green River Medicine Pavilion.
They are actively paying a baseline of five spirit stones per Grass today.”
The frustrated gatherer’s eyes instantly widened to the size of saucers, his anger instantly transforming into sheer shock.
“Five spirit stones?
Are you absolutely certain?”
“Five spirit stones, down to the last copper,” the companion affirmed.
The tactical impact of the statement was immediate.
Several nearby cultivators at adjoining tables immediately turned their heads toward the source of the noise, their ears perking up like hunting hounds.
One particularly pragmatic gatherer even reached into his robes, pulling out a small, ink-stained notebook to frantically log the coordinates.
The valuable piece of market data spread through the immediate section of the hall like a wildfire leaping across dry brush.
Within a matter of moments, three entirely separate tables had completely abandoned their previous topics to fiercely debate the current purchasing rates of regional herb dispensaries.
Shen Jietian watched the entire phenomenon unfold in absolute, calculating silence.
Interesting, his mind logged, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Very interesting indeed.
Before he could fully analyze the rapid transmission of market data, a sudden, violent commotion erupted near the front entrance of the tea house.
The heavy wooden doors were slammed open with immense force, bouncing off the stone frames.
A gasping, disheveled cultivator stumbled blindly inside, his coarse robes thoroughly covered in fresh, steaming crimson blood.
The chaotic roar of the main hall died down instantly, replaced by a deathly, expectant silence.
The wounded cultivator collapsed heavily into the nearest vacant chair, his hands trembling violently as he reached out and grabbed a stray teapot from a random table, drinking directly from the spout in a desperate gulp.
After several long breaths, an old hunter sitting nearby finally broke the tension, asking hoarsely, “What happened out there on the trade road, friend?”
The injured man let out a bitter, self-mocking laugh, his face completely devoid of colour as he wiped the blood from his chin.
“Brown Fang Bears,” he rasped, his voice shaking with residual terror.
A sharp, collective intake of breath rippled through the room.
Even Shen Jietian shifted his posture, his attention fully locked onto the survivor.
The Brown Fang Bear was a notoriously brutal spirit beast, possessing immense physical strength and a thick hide that could easily deflect standard low-grade weapons.
“The regional defense reports only logged a solitary, aging beast in that specific quadrant.”
The injured cultivator shook his head with absolute despair.
“Tell that to the remains of the morning merchant caravan.
There aren’t single wanderers anymore; there are three of them hunting in a synchronized pack now.”
The entire room instantly exploded into a chaotic vortex of frantic discussion and alarm.
“Three mature Brown Fang Bears operating together?
That’s completely impossible!” a loose cultivator shouted in disbelief.
“That area has always been rated as a low-risk harvesting zone!”
Nobody offered a definitive answer to the structural anomaly, and a heavy, suffocating silence settled back over the patrons for several long seconds as they parsed the lethal reality of the pass.
Then, someone quietly asked the most critical question:
“How many guards actually managed to survive the ambush?”
The bleeding cultivator slowly lowered his gaze to the floor, his voice barely audible.
“Six people.
The rest were crushed into paste.”
The hall became deathly quiet once more.
Sitting in his isolated corner, Shen Jietian’s analytical mind immediately noticed a fascinating psychological variable: every single person present in the tea house had instantly, perfectly memorized the exact geographic coordinates of the danger zone.
Nobody needed to write the information down, and nobody needed to cross-reference a guild manual.
A piece of raw information that could actively save a cultivator’s life from absolute destruction naturally possessed a transmission velocity that bypassed all conventional barriers.
It spread because it had to.
The heavy, fearful calm did not last for very long.
The front doors clicked open once more, and a burly, stern-faced merchant patriarch entered the establishment, carrying a thick stack of freshly inked papers in his calloused hand.
Several independent mercenary cultivators immediately stood up from their benches, their eyes gleaming with anticipation, but the wealthy merchant completely ignored their presence.
He strode with absolute focus directly toward the large wooden notice board anchored to the central pillar of the hall, taking a heavy iron nail and slamming a fresh paper sheet onto the wood.
The surrounding crowd instantly surged forward like a breaking wave, completely discarding their professional decorum.
Shen Jietian blinked in mild astonishment; for a brief microsecond, he genuinely believed a rare, unblemished spirit treasure had spontaneously manifested in the room.
People were actively pushing and shoving against one another just to catch a glimpse of the text, one low-level cultivator nearly losing his footing entirely in the crush.
“What’s the parameters?!” a voice shouted from the back of the fray.
The merchant patriarch turned around slowly, his voice booming with authority.
“A high-priority escort mission.”
The announcement caused the excitement in the crowd to spike exponentially.
Shen Jietian stood up from his bench, gliding closer to the edge of the gathering to read the notice over a taller hunter’s shoulder.
The text written across the paper was remarkably simple and direct:
Merchant Caravan Escort Urgently Required.
Destination: Iron Mountain Crossing.
Reward: Fifteen Low-Grade Spirit Stones.
Requirement: Qi Refinement Middle Stage (Layer 4) or Above.
A low, appreciative whistle resonated from the cultivator beside Shen Jietian.
Fifteen solid spirit stones was an immense, respectable amount of hard currency for an independent guard—real capital that could easily fund several months of premium alchemical resources.
However, as the initial thrill faded, the grim reality of the destination set in.
Iron Mountain Crossing was notorious throughout the province for its absolute lawlessness, acting as a premier ambush point for ruthless rogue cultivators and territorial monsters.
Everyone in Black Mist City understood the statistical risks involved.
A scarred cultivator standing right next to Shen Jietian let out a dry, cynical snort, muttering under his breath, “Fifteen stones…
the merchant guild is basically paying desperate fools to march straight into their own funerals.”
His companion nodded in grim agreement, adjusting the hilt of his saber.
“True, but at least they are being remarkably honest about the premium price of our lives this time around.”
Despite the obvious, fatal high-risk parameters of the contract, several desperate cultivators immediately stepped forward to sign their names onto the registry sheet, completely driven by their extreme lack of resources.
Shen Jietian silently backed away from the crowd, returning to his corner.
Desperation was a truly terrifying, powerful motivator in this world; it forced rational men to willingly gamble their lives for a handful of stones.
As he settled back onto his wooden bench, a sudden burst of rough, unbridled laughter erupted from a large table situated on the opposite side of the hall.
Four independent cultivators were aggressively playing a game of spiritual cards.
One of them violently threw his hand down onto the stained wood, his face contorting in frustration.
“Damn it all!
My luck is completely garbage today!”
The winner of the round swept the minor stakes into his sleeves, laughing boisterously.
“You’ve lost three consecutive rounds, Brother Mao.
Your spiritual perception must be completely clogged.”
The loser glared at him fiercely, crossing his arms.
“You think losing a few coppers is a tragedy?
At least I didn’t get systematically beaten half to death like the young master of the aristocratic Lu Clan did last night.”
The mention of the high-ranking Lu Clan instantly captured the undivided attention of every single ear within radius.
The card game was completely forgotten as the remaining players leaned in, their eyes burning with intense curiosity.
“So the widespread rumors flying through the commercial district are actually authentic?
The young noble was truly ambushed?”
The losing card player grinned widely, enjoying his sudden position as the center of attention.
“My paternal cousin works as a low-level guard within the secondary compound of the Lu estate.
He personally witnessed the medical attendants carrying the young master back through the gates dawn.
He explicitly stated the boy had at least three broken ribs and his primary meridians were severely disrupted by a heavy palm strike.”
A cultivator at the table frowned deeply, parsing the political implications.
“Who on earth possessed the raw courage and the combat strength to intentionally injure a scion of the Lu Clan within city limits?”
The informant simply spread his hands wide, a smug look on his face.
“Absolutely nobody knows.
That open-ended answer only served to ignite the collective imagination of the entire tea house.
For the next ten minutes, a massive avalanche of wild theories and speculative analyses filled the air.
Elite professional assassins hired by rival merchant syndicates, hidden enemies seeking vengeance for ancestral slights, jealous lovers operating from the great sects—every single explanation put forth sounded infinitely more ridiculous and theatrical than the last.
Shen Jietian couldn’t help but let out a quiet smile as he watched them bicker.
It was a universal truth of human nature: no matter the laws of the universe, and no matter the presence of magic or technology, basic social gossip remained completely undefeated.
The heavy front doors clicked open once again, drawing a few casual glances.
This time around, a gray-haired, disheveled old man stumbled blindly inside the establishment.
His face was intensely red from heavy alcohol consumption, his low-grade cultivation robes were thoroughly stained with grease, and he was clearly completely inebriated.
The old vagrant slammed his frame down onto a nearby vacant table, immediately banging his fist against the wood to demand more wine from the waiters—not the standard tea, but cheap, burning mortal wine.
A loose cultivator sitting nearby let out a mocking laugh, shaking his head.
“Old Man Lu, you are going to successfully drink your fragile liver into absolute nonexistence one of these days.”
The drunkard let out a loud, disdainful snort, waving his hand aggressively.
“What do you know, you ignorant brat?
I won’t die before I successfully uncover the secrets of the ancient mountain inheritance!”
A collective, long groan rippled through half the room.
Apparently, this wasn’t the first, second, or even the tenth time the old man had spouted such drunken nonsense to the patrons.
“Oh great, what legendary immortal inheritance have your alcohol-soaked brains discovered this time around, Old Man?” a hunter asked mockingly.
The inebriated old man leaned forward dramatically, his voice dropping to a theatrical whisper that echoed through the immediate silence.
“A brilliant, blood-red pillar of light…
I saw it with my own two eyes.
It flashed for a fraction of a second deep inside the forbidden crags of the western mountain peaks.”
A passing cultivator waved his hand dismissively, completely refusing to engage.
“Another phantom inheritance rumor?
Last month you swore you found a Golden Core tomb behind the valley.”
The old man slammed his palm violently against the table, his bloodshot eyes widening in anger.
“It isn’t a standard tomb, you blind fools!
It’s something immensely powerful that has been buried beneath the earth for centuries!
The seal is decaying!”
The vast majority of the patrons simply ignored his shouting, returning to their private meals while a few low-level gatherers laughed openly at his madness.
The fluid conversation of the tea house quickly migrated elsewhere, completely discarding the old man’s testimony.
Only Shen Jietian’s analytical mind carefully processed the data point, logging it into his memory files.
A sudden, brief flash of red light…
deep within the forbidden sectors of the western peaks.
It was a classic indicator of a breaking formation array.
It was highly interesting, and worth keeping an eye on.
The entire ambient atmosphere of the establishment underwent a radical, chilling transformation when another solitary man quietly crossed the threshold.
Unlike the boisterous vagrants filling the hall, this newcomer carried a heavy, elongated bundle wrapped tightly in a coarse, dark cloth.
The very microsecond his frame stepped into the light, several seasoned beast hunters instantly recognized his features, their tensed expressions shifting immediately into a complex mixture of profound respect, instinctual fear, and intense curiosity.
The man was a notorious, independent bounty hunter operating in the region.
He strode through the tables with an icy, detached aura, walking straight toward the central service counter.
Without uttering a single, solitary word, he unhitched the heavy bundle from his shoulder and dropped it casually onto the wood.
The impact was heavy, and as the loose knots of the cloth unraveled, a round object rolled smoothly out onto the surface.
It was a freshly severed human head, the eyes still frozen wide in a mask of pure terror.
Several low-level cultivators nearly choked violently on their tea, their faces turning pale as they instinctively pushed their benches back.
The icy bounty hunter calmly reached into his robes, pulled out a wrinkled piece of parchment containing an official magistrate bounty notice, and placed it flat beside the gruesome trophy.
His voice was completely devoid of emotion as he uttered a singular word: “Collected.”
The entire tea house erupted into a frenzy of low whispers and frantic movement.
People carefully rushed closer to inspect the features of the deceased outlaw, questions flying through the air from every direction as they tried to deduce which dangerous criminal had finally met his end.
The cold bounty hunter completely refused to answer a single query, standing perfectly still like a stone statue as he waited for his hard currency.
A terrified tea house servant immediately ran out the back door, sprinting toward the central city office to summon the magistrate registry officials.
Even Shen Jietian found himself staring intently at the severed head, a deep trace of gravity settling over his mind.
This was the unvarnished, brutal reality of the cultivation world he occupied—a dangerous place where the boundary between life and death was paper-thin.
One single moment people were casually debating the market prices of tea leaves, and the very next moment, a severed human head was resting on a table right beside their cups.
Hours bled into one another without Shen Jietian even noticing the passage of time.
The low-grade tea inside his iron pot had long since turned completely stone-cold, yet he remained firmly seated in his isolated corner, entirely undisturbed.
He sat there silently listening, logging data, watching the crowd, and deeply thinking.
All around him, in a continuous, unyielding stream, invaluable raw information was flowing constantly through the air of the hall: changing market prices, active danger zones in the wilderness, sect political gossip, premium hiring contracts, monster pack sightings, ancient treasure rumors, and high-value outlaws.
Every single wooden table in the establishment contained something structurally useful; every single casual conversation contained a fragment of genuine market value.
Yet, as he watched the speakers pay their tabs and exit the building, he realized a catastrophic flaw in the system: the moment the individuals left the premises, the valuable information left the room right along with them.
Tomorrow morning, the vast majority of these crucial data points would be completely forgotten by the distracted crowd.
Next week, absolutely nobody would remember half of the life-saving warnings that had been shouted across the tables today.
A strange, electrifying sensation suddenly bloomed within the depths of Shen Jietian’s chest as his dual-world awareness fully aligned.
Back on modern Earth, information was treated as the ultimate, highly structured commodity—it was systematically organized, digitally recorded, meticulously sorted, and instantly shared across optimization networks to generate immense capital.
Here, in this primitive, might-makes-right Azure Cloud World, valuable information merely drifted through the city streets like formless smoke—spontaneously appearing, rapidly disappearing, and never, ever staying anchored in one centralized repository for long.
Shen Jietian slowly swept his eyes across the buzzing expanse of the tea house, a revolutionary light burning deep within his pupils.
For the very first time since his breakthrough, he wasn’t looking at a room full of terrifying, high-risk cultivators.
He was looking at an absolute goldmine of untamed, monopolizable structural opportunities.
And that profound, game-changing realization remained permanently anchored within his re-forged soul long after he stepped out of the Fragrant Leaf Tea House.
End of Chapter 12
I’m a reader trying to become a writer.
If you have any suggestions on how I can improve the story, please let me know.
Thanks for reading!