Without Qin Yuan’s Spirit Qi rippling out.
Without his aura being detected.
Without his body even being seen.
It truly was like being brushed past by a slight gust of wind.
Strange enough to notice.
Too weak to care about.
Because nobody could sense him, they dismissed the feeling.
That was the terrifying part.
If someone saw a blur, they would react.
If someone sensed killing intent, they would defend.
If someone felt Spirit Qi, they would investigate.
But a breeze?
Who guarded against wind?
Qin Yuan left the building.
Then the district.
Then the outer city road.
A few random 8th layer Spirit Opening cultivators walked past him, laughing loudly about the beast gathering and arguing over whether treasure was really involved.
One of them suddenly stopped and rubbed his neck.
“Damn. Did something pass us?”
His friend snorted. “Your courage leaving your body, maybe.”
“Shut up. I’m serious.”
“You’re always serious right before embarrassing yourself.”
The man clicked his tongue, looked around once, then kept walking.
Qin Yuan did not slow down.
He moved through Jadefall City like wind slipping between buildings.
Spirit-energy buses hummed through the roads. Flying sword lanes streaked overhead. Mana-screen billboards flashed warnings about unauthorized wilderness travel, followed immediately by advertisements for beast-resistant insurance plans.
Jadefall City was still functioning.
Of course it was.
A beast gathering had appeared outside the city.
Experts were moving.
People might die.
But shops were open.
Buses were running.
Pill stores were raising prices.
Training chambers were selling “emergency breakthrough packages.”
That was civilization.
Fear, law, profit, and ambition all walking beside each other.
Qin Yuan reached the city exit.
The security formations scanned people one by one.
Cultivators left in groups.
Wizards passed through separate mana-check lanes.
Body Warriors were forced through heavier pressure gates that measured their flesh-force output.
Nobody stopped Qin Yuan.
Because nobody properly saw him.
A Spirit Master near the exit suddenly narrowed his eyes.
For half a breath, his gaze shifted toward Qin Yuan’s direction.
Qin Yuan’s body tilted with the wind.
His breath thinned.
His presence scattered.
The Spirit Master frowned.
A disciple beside him asked, “Master?”
The Spirit Master stared at the empty road.
Then shook his head.
“Nothing. I thought someone moved.”
“Someone strong?”
“No.” The Spirit Master’s frown deepened slightly. “That’s why it was strange.”
But by then, Qin Yuan was already outside the city.
Only after he passed the outer suppression boundary did he allow his speed to rise.
The world stretched.
Trees blurred.
Road stones passed beneath his feet like flowing water.
Every step was silent.
Every breath was controlled.
Windless Sky Veil Art hid his presence.
Flash Meridian Burst sharpened his acceleration.
Reed-Bending Evasion made his body flexible enough to shift direction without breaking rhythm.
Silent Movement and Breath Control erased the traces.
Wind Flow Perception told him where the air wanted to go.
Multi-Art Integration joined everything together.
This was the greatest advantage Qin Yuan had gained.
Not one art.
Not one talent.
The fact that he could combine arts seamlessly.
That alone made his stealth prowess rise to a completely different level.
Naturally, the greatest advantage was still speed.
With all of his speed talents stacked together, Qin Yuan wondered just how far his maximum speed could go if he truly pushed everything.
But he did not test it yet.
Not here.
Not with experts gathering.
Not when the wilderness itself felt wrong.
As he moved, he sensed the usual average people heading in the same direction.
Low-level Spirit Opening cultivators.
Mana Opening Wizards.
Body Opening Warriors.
Most of them carried excitement and fear in equal amounts.
They were not worth noting.
Some talked too loudly.
Some tried to act calm.
Some gripped their weapons like holding them tighter would make them live longer.
Qin Yuan passed them all.
The ones worth noting were farther ahead.
Spirit Masters.
Arcane Masters.
Body Masters.
These terrifying experts felt like they could break anything in their path.
Their auras were dense and heavy, even when suppressed.
A Spirit Master’s presence was like a sharpened mountain.
An Arcane Master’s mana fluctuation felt layered, complex, and dangerous, as if one thought could become twenty spells.
A Body Master’s pressure was simpler.
More direct.
Like standing in front of a moving wall and realizing the wall was angry.
These were leaders.
Experts who could look down on almost anyone in the lower realm.
But they were not the most terrifying.
Far beyond them, Qin Yuan sensed presences that made his instincts go quiet.
Origin-level Martial cultivators.
Origin-level Body Warriors.
Origin-level Wizards and Witches.
They did not need to release their full aura.
They did not need to show off.
Their very existence bent the atmosphere around them.
Even hidden, even distant, even restrained by caution and law, they felt different.
Like storm clouds pretending to be ordinary weather.
Qin Yuan did not stop.
He adjusted his path and continued silently.
Soon, Black-Green Hollow came into view.
The place was ugly.
Not naturally ugly.
Wrong ugly.
The land sank into a wide valley of dark stone, twisted roots, and stagnant green-black mist. Old formation pillars stood half-buried along the outer ridge, covered in moss and rusted talisman marks. Faint water sounds echoed from somewhere underground, but no visible river flowed nearby.
The sealed water veins.
Qin Yuan had read about places like this.
Old spiritual water routes that once fed cultivation sites, cities, sect gardens, or underground formations. If sealed properly, they became harmless. If disturbed, they could mutate the surrounding land.
Spirit Qi.
Mana.
Beast blood.
Ancient formations.
Rotting seals.
All of it mixing underground for years.
Sometimes centuries.
No wonder beasts were gathering.
There was already a massive crowd outside the threshold.
Various groups stood across the hollow.
Martial cultivators in sect robes.
Wizards and Witches in rune-lined coats.
Body Warriors wearing reinforced armor, beast-hide wraps, or simple training clothes that showed scarred muscle and thickened bones.
Some groups carried banners.
Some carried portable formations.
Some came with drones, spell tablets, beast cages, or pill carts.
Some looked like official teams.
Others looked like bandits wearing cleaner clothes.
Qin Yuan stopped near the edge of a broken stone ridge and hid inside the airflow.
His Spirit Sense spread carefully.
Not too wide.
Not too forceful.
Just enough.
The first thing he noticed was strange.
Many Opening experts, no matter whether they were 8th or 9th layer Spirit Opening, Mana Opening, or Body Opening, did not feel that threatening anymore.
Not harmless.
That would be arrogance.
But not threatening.
Truthfully, Qin Yuan felt as if he needed two moves.
No.
Not even that.
Simply one move.
One clean move to defeat or possibly kill most of them.
The thought appeared calmly.
He did not smile.
He did not inflate.
He simply recorded the fact.
His perception, killing technique, sword mastery, speed, and elemental integration had reached the point where ordinary higher-layer Opening experts had become vulnerable to him.
Realm mattered.
Foundation mattered.
But skill also mattered.
And Qin Yuan’s skill was growing too fast.
Of course, there were exceptions.
A few select Opening experts felt special.
Their auras were compressed.
Their breathing was steady.
Their weapons did not hang like decorations.
Their eyes moved like people who had survived real battles.
Those people were not easy kills.
The true danger came from the Spirit Masters, Arcane Masters, and Body Masters.
As for the Origin-level experts?
There was not even a point mentioning them.
Against them, Qin Yuan would not be fighting.
He would be dying.
Unless he never let them know he existed.
Qin Yuan observed the situation and quickly took note of the hierarchy.
On the surface, the groups seemed evenly gathered.
In reality, the strongest martial cultivators and Wizards stood at the forefront.
The Body Warriors stayed slightly behind them.
Not because they were weak.
A Body Master could tear apart most people here if close enough.
But the martial cultivators and Wizards clearly did not take Body Warriors as seriously unless they were already at a high level.
Some younger Body Warriors looked frustrated.
One huge young man with bronze skin and a heavy axe muttered, “They always do this. Put us behind like we’re walking shields.”
An older Body Warrior beside him did not react.
The young man frowned. “Senior, you’re not mad?”
The older man looked at the front lines, then said, “Let them stand closer to whatever comes out first.”
The young man paused.
Then slowly nodded.
“That’s… actually fair.”
The older Body Warrior snorted. “Anger is expensive. Use it after someone pays you.”
Qin Yuan’s eyes moved on.
He also saw two or three mixed Martial and Body dual cultivators.
At first glance, they looked impressive.
Their Spirit Qi and flesh-force moved together, giving them stronger pressure than average Opening cultivators.
But their realms were only around the 7th layer.
Their foundations were weak.
Stronger than average.
Nothing noteworthy.
Dual cultivation sounded powerful.
But without resources, guidance, and compatibility, it could easily become two mediocre paths instead of one strong path.
Then Qin Yuan saw familiar faces.
Han Ziyue had come.
The arrogant boy from the day Qin Yuan joined the association stood with people from his sect and the Han Family. His robe was cleaner than most, his chin slightly raised, and his eyes carried the same natural contempt he seemed to wear like perfume.
Beside him stood several Iron Reed Spear Sect disciples.
One of them laughed loudly. “Ziyue, you think there’s really treasure inside?”
Han Ziyue folded his arms.
“There is always something when beasts gather like this. Either treasure, bloodline source, or old inheritance. The question is whether trash has the right to touch it.”
A nearby rogue cultivator heard that and glared.
Han Ziyue glanced at him.
“What? Did I describe you accurately?”
The rogue cultivator’s face darkened, but one look at the Han Family experts behind Han Ziyue made him swallow his anger.
Qin Yuan ignored him.
Another group drew his attention.
Someone who looked like Lin Xiaowan had arrived with the Lin Family.
For a moment, Qin Yuan thought it was her.
Then he rejected that idea.
The woman’s aura was far stronger.
Peak 9th layer Spirit Opening.
Her face resembled Lin Xiaowan’s, but her eyes were sharper and colder. Her posture was elegant but guarded, as if kindness had been trained out of her and replaced with family duty.
An elder sister?
Cousin?
The woman was speaking to a Lin Family elder.
“We should not enter too deeply,” she said. “This gathering is abnormal. The number of Master-level beasts already exceeds what the leak mentioned.”
The elder frowned. “You sound afraid, Xiaoran.”
“Good,” the woman replied. “Fear is useful when everyone else gets stupid.”
The elder’s expression stiffened.
Some younger Lin Family members tried very hard not to laugh.
Qin Yuan mentally recorded the name.
Lin Xiaoran.
Probably related to Lin Xiaowan.
Then his gaze shifted again.
The Qin Family had also arrived.
Qin Tianze stood among them, wearing a clean wizard robe with wind-rune patterns along the sleeves. His floating silver spell tablet hovered near his shoulder, runes blinking softly across its surface.
He looked confident.
Proud.
Slightly irritated.
But he was not at the center.
The center belonged to a young woman standing a few steps ahead of him.
Qin Yuelan.
Her aura was not loud.
It did not need to be.
4th layer Spirit Master.
High Earthen Spiritual Root.
Already accepted as a candidate disciple by Clearbell Eastern Origin Academy.
She stood with calm authority, and even the higher-layer Spirit Masters in the Qin Family treated her words seriously.
Qin Tianze had weight.
Qin Yuelan had command.
That difference was obvious.
A Qin Family elder asked, “Yuelan, should Tianze remain with the rear group?”
Qin Tianze’s face changed slightly.
“Sister, I can handle myself.”
Qin Yuelan did not even turn fully toward him.
“This place has Origin-level experts, Master-level beasts, and unknown underground fluctuations. Your talent does not make your bones harder than death.”
Qin Tianze frowned. “I’m already an Arcane Master.”
“And still younger than your arrogance thinks you are.”
Several Qin Family members went silent.
Qin Tianze’s jaw tightened.
Qin Yuelan finally looked at him.
Her voice was calm.
“You are useful alive. Do not make me explain the same thing twice.”
Qin Tianze looked away.
“…Fine.”