The bustling avenues of Black Mist City remained as incredibly lively as ever, anchored by the relentless chaos of the immortal path.
Shrewd merchants shouted their daily promotions from crowded stalls, independent loose cultivators bargained fiercely over seasonal spirit herbs, and heavy transport caravans rolled rhythmically through the city gates while battered hunting squads returned from the peaks carrying fresh beast carcasses.
Yet, amidst this timeless human current, one man’s outward appearance had undergone a profound transformation.
Shen Jietian moved with a rapid, silent stride through the dense crowd.
The once-short hair he had sported upon his reincarnation now flowed loosely past his broad shoulders, meticulously tied behind his back with a simple, unadorned strip of cloth.
A rough, unkempt beard now fully covered his strong jawline, and his standard gray cultivator’s robe had faded long ago from intense weather exposure, its surface bearing several patches of different colored fabrics neatly sewn onto the sleeves and hem.
At a casual glance, he looked vastly less like an ordinary city broker and far more like a rugged outlaw who had spent entire years wandering the lawless margins of the wilderness.
Six full months had already elapsed since his successful breakthrough into the Fifth Layer of the Qi Refinement realm.
As he traversed the thoroughfare, his altered spiritual pressure caused lower-level gatherers to instinctively step aside to grant him passage.
Shen Jietian held several handwritten sheets of paper tightly within his calloused hand, his sharp eyes moving constantly to scan the lane.
His mind was running an intensive calculation script, systematically comparing, verifying, and logging the ambient market rumors.
If his long-term deductions were entirely accurate, the accumulated intelligence resting inside his palm possessed the structural weight to completely alter the commercial landscape of Black Mist City.
But before he could finalize his verdict, he desperately needed to confirm one final, chronological clue—a thread connected to an aging, highly unreliable drunkard.
Several dense commercial blocks later, Shen Jietian stepped into the most prosperous, high-end district of the city, and the ambient environment transformed instantaneously.
The wooden shacks of the slums completely vanished, replaced by towering stone architectures and wide, impeccably paved stone avenues.
Expensive spirit lamps illuminated the streets even during the brightest daylight hours, and the air was heavily saturated with the rich, sweet scent of premium burning incense.
Clan elders, wealthy merchant patriarchs, and successful loose cultivators moved fluidly in and out of luxurious establishments.
At the absolute center of this golden district stood a magnificent, multi-tiered structure known to every inhabitant: the Jade Moon Pavilion.
Its massive vermilion pillars gleamed brilliantly beneath the sun, intricate golden ornaments hung from every sweeping eave, and flowing curtains of fine spiritual silk fluttered gently in the mountain breeze.
The soft, elegant chords of stringed instruments could be heard echoing even from the street outside.
At the grand entrance stood two burly guards clad in matching iron armor, both firmly established at the late stage of the Qi Refinement realm, their sharp, aggressive gazes sweeping across the passersby.
Everyone in Black Mist City understood the true nature of the Jade Moon Pavilion.
People gathered within its walls for the premium spiritual wine, the transcendent music, the intricate dances, and the companionship—but most importantly, they came for the transmission of intelligence.
More lucrative secrets and forbidden commercial deals changed hands across those wine tables than in many official sect assemblies.
The pavilion’s daily revenue was among the most profitable in the entire city, yet absolutely nobody dared to cause a disturbance within its halls.
It wasn’t due to a lack of courage among the rogue community, but because everyone understood that multiple high-ranking, Foundation Establishment masters from the prominent clans stood firmly behind the establishment’s ledger.
Shen Jietian watched the entrance from the shadow of a decorative spirit tree, his mind analyzing the human nature before him.
He had witnessed countless independent loose cultivators spend entire hard-won fortunes within those walls in a single night.
After all, the vast majority of low-tier gatherers understood their own limitations; they possessed abysmal spirit roots and knew they would never realistically achieve the transcendent state of Foundation Establishment.
Most never even dared to dream of it.
For them, the lower layers of Qi Refinement marked the absolute ceiling of their mortal destinies.
Since the future was an uncrossable wall, their internal logic dictated a simple philosophy: why suffer for decades chasing an impossible dream?
Better to consume the wine, enjoy the fleeting beauty, and experience luxury while the flesh was functional.
Thus, the moment they returned from a successful, high-risk mountain hunt with a pocket full of spirit stones, they would march straight into the pavilion to drink, gamble, and laugh until their reserves ran dry, only to be coldly thrown out into the mud the moment their accounts hit zero.
Shen Jietian was currently waiting for one of those exact characters.
Time slowly trickled past under the afternoon sun.
Exactly half an incense sticks later, the heavy lacquered doors of the Jade Moon Pavilion were suddenly pushed open, and the two burly guards emerged, dragging a disheveled old man between them.
“Get your penniless frame out of our sight!” one guard barked hoarsely.
With a powerful heave, they lifted the old man and tossed him directly onto the hard cobblestones of the street.
Thud!
The old drunkard landed face-first in the dirt, sending a small cloud of dust flying into the air.
Several passing commoners immediately broke into loud, mocking laughter at the display.
The old gatherer sat up clumsily, brushing the dirt from his stained robes as he shook a trembling fist at the entrance, cursing loudly.
“You absolute, heartless bastards!
I was merely engaging in a profound philosophical discussion with Fairy Lian!
Could your greedy souls not allow me to rest my weary head in her lap for one solitary hour longer?!”
The lead guard let out a cold, dismissive snort, his hand resting on his saber hilt.
“Return when your pouch holds actual spirit stones.
The pavilion does not dispense charity to beggars.” The massive doors slammed shut with a heavy boom, sealing the luxury inside.
The old man continued to mutter a stream of low, bitter curses under his breath, stumbling to his feet.
“Heartless thieves…
took every single one of my hard-won spirit stones…
not a single shred of professional gratitude…”
However, the moment he noticed the two guards glaring at his form through the viewing slats of the gate, his physical courage vanished instantly, and he hurriedly lowered his voice to a faint mumble.
Straightening his sash with an awkward cough, the old drunkard limped away from the main avenue, turning into a quiet, secluded side alleyway.
Shen Jietian quietly adjusted his robes and followed his footsteps.
The narrow alley was completely silent, entirely bypassed by the wealthy crowds of the commercial district.
The old man was still muttering resentfully to himself when Shen Jietian stepped into the clearing behind him, his boots clicking softly against the stone.
“Greetings, Fellow Daoist,” Shen Jietian addressed him evenly.
The old drunkard froze rigidly, his shoulders locking before he slowly, mechanically turned around to face the intruder.
His bloodshot eyes narrowed into two sharp slits as he evaluated Shen Jietian’s rugged, outlaw-like appearance.
“Eh?” He extended a trembling, defensive finger toward the youth’s chest.
“Listen to me closely, little brother.
If you are currently looking for the individual who scammed your low-grade spirit stones in the market last week…
it was entirely the fault of my identical twin brother.
He is a truly wicked man.
Go hunt him down in the East District and leave my peaceful soul alone.”
Shen Jietian almost let out a cynical laugh right then and there.
Through his years of compiling street data, he knew with absolute certainty that this old rogue did not possess a twin brother.
The fraudulent excuse was so thoroughly famous across the East Market that half the city’s population utilized it as a standard script whenever an angry creditor came looking for repayment; the mythical twin brother would spontaneously manifest to absorb the blame.
“I am not here to collect a financial debt, Fellow Daoist.
I am here explicitly to purchase your memory regarding a specific geographic coordinate.”
The old drunkard immediately waved his calloused hand aggressively, turning his head away.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.
I know absolutely nothing.
I remember nothing.
My brain is ancient, and my memory pathways are completely decayed by wine.
Go cross-examine someone else.” He turned on his heel to exit the alley.
Shen Jietian didn’t move a muscle, his voice dropping to a calm, icy pitch.
“I am paying in spirit stones.”
The old man brought his boots to an instant, dead halt mid-stride.
His slouched posture straightened with absolute, fluid precision, the glassy, unfocused look in his eyes vanished in a fraction of a second, and his entire drunken demeanor evaporated into thin air.
A remarkably polite, professional merchant’s smile broke through his tangled beard as he spun back around.
“Greetings, Fellow Daoist!
Why on earth did your lips not lead with that specific parameter earlier?
Please, ask your questions; this old man’s mind is a veritable repository of regional knowledge.”
Shen Jietian inwardly admired the pure, unadulterated velocity of the behavioral transformation.
Not even a single breath of time had passed, yet the old rogue had completely shifted his paradigm the moment currency entered the equation.
Shen Jietian calmly unfolded one of the handwritten sheets of paper from his hand, displaying a rough, hand-drawn map of the western mountain sectors.
A specific valley quadrant was clearly demarcated with a bold dot of red alchemical ink.
“You have hunted and gathered low-grade materials within this specific wilderness region frequently over the past decade, correct?”
The old hunter glanced down at the lines, his eyes sharpening as he recognized the terrain.
He offered a slow nod.
“Sometimes, when the local boundaries are stable.”
Shen Jietian tapped his finger firmly against the red ink coordinate.
“Exactly three months ago, during the mid-autumn cycle, you returned from an expedition in this sector, marched straight into the Jade Moon Pavilion, and loudly told several drinking companions about a highly unusual, bizarre phenomenon you witnessed near the crags.
I want the exact details of that observation.”
The old man’s brow furrowed tightly, his hand coming up to scratch at his matted beard as he feigned a look of intense mental strain.
“Hmmm…
that specific timeline is remarkably foggy…
Hmmm…
yes, I think a minor thread of the memory remains…
but it is incredibly taxing on my mental focus.”
He locked his calculating eyes onto Shen Jietian’s face.
“Fifty spirit stones, flat.
For a premier piece of wilderness intelligence.”
Shen Jietian didn’t utter a single word of protest.
He simply refolded the map with a smooth, fluid motion, tucked it back into his breast pocket, turned around on his heel, and began walking out of the alleyway with an unhurried, steady stride.
The old rogue blinked in absolute, dumbfounded shock.
Witnessing the absolute collapse of the negotiation within a fraction of a second, his financial greed was instantly swallowed by sheer panic, and he frantically scurried after the youth’s retreating back.
“Wait!
Wait, little brother!
Hold your steps!
Intelligence is a valuable commodity that requires mutual balancing!
Fifty stones is merely a standard opening baseline among cultivators!”
Shen Jietian continued moving toward the avenue, his voice completely detached.
“I would rather remain in ignorance.
The capital cost exceeds the value of the lead.”
The old man gritted his teeth, his heart bleeding as he slashed his own margins.
“Forty spirit stones!”
No response.
The youth’s pace didn’t slow by a single millimeter.
“Thirty stones!”
Still absolute silence from the broker.
“Twenty stones, down to the last fragment!”
Shen Jietian’s boots continued to click rhythmically against the stone.
The old drunkard looked as though he might genuinely burst into tears of pure frustration, his voice cracking as he reached his absolute bottom line.
“Ten stones!
Ten solid low-grade spirit stones!
I cannot go a single fragment lower or the ancestors will curse my cauldron!”
Shen Jietian finally brought his footsteps to a smooth halt, turning his body around.
The old rogue let out a long, defeated sigh, slouching his shoulders in absolute structural submission.
“You information dealers are all nothing short of predatory demons operating under the sun.”
Shen Jietian offered a faint, calm smile.
“Ten low-grade spirit stones.
Not a single fragment more.”
The old man pointed an angry, calloused finger at his face.
“My foundational report is worth infinitely more than a measly ten stones, kid! New chapters come out on novelping.com first.
You are exploiting an elder!”
Shen Jietian merely shrugged his shoulders with complete indifference.
“If you refuse the ledger, I can simply track down and interview the three low-level gatherers who shared your wine table that exact night.
They will gladly liquidate your drunken boasting for a single jar of spiritual brew.”
The old hunter instantly surrendered, his remaining leverage completely obliterated by the youth’s logic.
“…Fine, you win.” He cleared his throat, his expression turning serious as he began to lay out the data.
“I understand that specific valley quadrant perfectly.
I have harvested Crimson-Ear Rabbits along those rocky crags for nearly twenty years.” Shen Jietian listened with absolute, quiet focus, his mind logging every single syllable.
The old man scratched his head, his brow furrowing as he dug into his deeper records.
“Actually…
if I run the historical timeline through my mind, I witnessed a highly similar anomaly in that exact same coordinate three full years ago.”
Shen Jietian’s eyes narrowed into two sharp slits, his internal analysis instantly locking onto the date.
Three years ago…
“Detail exactly what your eyes registered three years ago,” he commanded softly.
“A sudden, blinding flash of blood-red light,” the old hunter stated, his rough voice dropping to a hushed, ominous pitch.
“A strange, unnatural crimson light that seemed to cleave through the fog.
It appeared for a brief second, vibrating the ambient air, and then completely vanished into the brush.
At the time, my mind assumed a rare, unblemished spirit treasure had spontaneously broken its seal, so I spent half a day meticulously searching every single crevice and rock face in the quadrant.
But I yielded absolutely nothing.
Wasted half a day of hunting time; I could have spent those hours comfortably consuming wine in the pavilion.”
Shen Jietian silently bypassed the old man’s complaints, his mind filtering out the noise to focus on the core data.
“Continue to the recent sighting.”
The old rogue nodded, his expression growing distinctly uneasy.
“Then, exactly three months ago, during the mid-autumn cycle, I was tracking a large burrow of Crimson-Ear Rabbits near the base of the forbidden crags.”
“Their pelts are fetching high prices from the talisman workshops this season, so I was highly alert.
Suddenly, without a single breath of warning, the exact same blood-red light erupted right in front of my face.”
Shen Jietian leaned forward slightly, his posture tightening.
“Right in front of your face?
At what specific distance?”
“No more than fifty paces away,” the old man affirmed, a shiver running through his frame.
“And this time around, the anomaly was vastly different from the first flash.
I couldn’t see through the core of the luminescence; it looked like…
a physical crack of raw red light hovering in mid-air, tearing through the mist like a wound.”
“Furthermore, it remained stable, vibrating against the natural space for several minutes instead of vanishing instantly.
When it eventually dissolved, I forced my courage and searched the terrain again.
Physically, there was still nothing left behind on the dirt—no treasures, no ores, and no ruins.”
“But your spiritual perception registered a shift,” Shen Jietian deduced, his eyes fixed on the man’s pupils.
“Yes!
I am absolutely certain I wasn’t imagining things or suffering from wine-illusions,” the old hunter stated fiercely, pointing a finger at the ground.
“Because the moment that red tear manifested, the ambient worldly Qi in the immediate quadrant underwent a radical, violent transformation.
It became completely chaotic, boiling with an unstable, ancient elemental pressure that nearly disrupted my internal meridians.”
“And the aftermath?”
“The erratic spiritual fluctuations lasted for only a brief hour, slowly radiating outward before eventually calming back down to the baseline atmosphere of the peak.”
The old man reached out, his calloused finger tracing a highly specific rocky ledge on the hand-drawn map.
“Right here.
Against the blind side of the eastern crag face.”
Shen Jietian’s pupils contracted violently to the size of needle pins as his mind instantly cross-referenced the coordinate with his master ledger.
The precise location matched a highly confidential report he had extracted from a dying caravan scout months prior—a log detailing an invisible structural distortion that had spontaneously crushed three transport wagons without leaving a single beast mark.
The jigsaw pieces were officially beginning to align with absolute mathematical precision.
The sudden, brief price fluctuations of earth-attribute talismans, the localized migration of low-grade beast packs away from the western peaks, the drunken rumors of the tea houses, and now the unvarnished testimony of this veteran hunter—everything pointed to a singular, monumental conclusion.
The old man finished his disclosure, extending an eager, open palm across the space.
Shen Jietian maintained his composure, reached into his storage pouch, and counted out exactly ten low-grade spirit stones, dropping them into the old man’s hand.
The very moment the cold metal stones touched his skin, the old rogue didn’t utter a single word of thanks.
He spun around on his heel and erupted into a full-blown sprint, his physical velocity easily rivaling that of a panicked spirit rabbit.
He fled out of the alleyway, heading directly back toward the grand entrance of the Jade Moon Pavilion.
Shen Jietian watched his rapidly disappearing figure fade into the distant crowds of the commercial district, slowly shaking his head in mild amusement.
“Some human beings truly never possess the capacity to learn from their ledgers.”
The old gatherer would undoubtedly hand those ten hard-won stones back to the pavilion merchants before the stars emerged, chasing the fleeting lap of Fairy Lian once more.
But Shen Jietian completely discarded the drunkard from his thoughts.
His sharp gaze shifted slowly away from the bustling city streets, turning to look through the clear afternoon air toward the distant, mist-shrouded peaks of the Black Mist Mountains rising majestically against the western horizon.
The cool mountain wind brushed against his worn, patched robe, and the handwritten papers in his hand rustled softly in the breeze.
The final, critical clue had officially fallen into place within his matrix.
Whatever ancient formation, hidden domain, or world-shaking variable had been buried beneath those rocky peaks for centuries…
it was no longer a mere abstract rumor circulating among the destitute vagrants of the slums.
End of Chapter 23
I’m a reader trying to become a writer.
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