The moment the trading fair ended, Andy packed up everything he owned and slipped quietly out of Liuyun Market, the place he had called home for over seven years.
He still wore the black-veiled cloak and the Hundred-Plume Boots. The scale armor vest was on underneath, pressed close to his body—thin enough that a grey robe over the top concealed it completely.
His pace looked unhurried, almost leisurely, yet his speed was anything but slow. In under two days and two nights, he had covered more than eight hundred li. The entire way, he kept his spiritual sense extended outward, monitoring every shift and rustle in his surroundings.
Since his cultivation had surged forward, Andy had noticed his spiritual sense growing markedly stronger. He could now project it in a radius of roughly five hundred meters, taking in every movement, every blade of grass within that range with perfect clarity. Beyond that distance the sensitivity faded, but if a cultivator entered within a thousand meters of him, he would still detect them with ease.
Right now, his spiritual sense was picking up two cultivators standing motionless not far ahead.
His instinct was to go around them—avoid contact with other cultivators entirely. But these two happened to be positioned directly on his only viable route. A detour would cost him a significant amount of time.
After a moment's thought, Andy decided to walk straight through. From the spiritual fluctuations he was sensing, neither of them seemed particularly powerful. As long as he stayed cautious, it should be safe enough.
A short while later, at the entrance to a narrow mountain valley, he caught sight of the pair. Both were at the seventh or eighth layer of Qi Refinement. One was a rough-featured middle-aged man with a full beard, and the other was a young man in white whose face was so pale it looked almost bloodless, as though he had been ill for a long time.
The two spotted Andy as well. After a quick read of his spiritual fluctuations, their expressions diverged—the bearded man looked mostly surprised, while the pale-faced youth's eyes lit up. The youth glanced at the bearded man, who blinked, then quickly managed a smile of his own. Together they approached Andy and offered deep bows. Andy returned the gesture with a shallow nod.
The pale-faced youth spoke first: "Are you planning to pass through White Cloud Valley and out of the Liuyun range, fellow cultivator?"
"I am. Is there a problem? Has something changed in the valley?" Seeing that neither of them had particularly high cultivation, Andy answered openly.
The pale-faced youth and the bearded man exchanged a look, then the bearded man spoke in a thick, nasal voice: "My companion and I are also heading into the valley. We were wondering whether we might travel together. I've heard it isn't entirely safe in there—there's strength in numbers. What do you say?"
They had clearly noticed Andy's high cultivation and wanted to ride on his coattails through a stretch of dangerous terrain.
"No need," Andy said flatly. "I'm used to traveling alone. I don't care for company." He strode past them into the valley without looking back.
"Fellow cultivator, wait—if you would just—" The pale-faced youth tried to say more, but Andy was already gone, moving far too quickly for further conversation.
This was the third or fourth group of cultivators who had tried to recruit him into a traveling party. Without knowing their backgrounds or intentions, Andy had no desire to add unknown risks to his journey.
White Cloud Valley turned out to be far less dangerous than the two cultivators had implied. Andy passed through with extreme caution and didn't encounter a single other cultivator. Two or three shichen later, he was through the valley and nearly out of the Liuyun range entirely.
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Once clear of the mountains, he would effectively be in the mortal world, where the odds of encountering another cultivator were low and the danger lower still.
At this point, Andy's spiritual sense picked up two more cultivators ahead—and these seemed to be of even lower cultivation.
Two or three minutes later, Andy had closed to within a hundred-odd meters of the pair and stopped. For Qi Refinement cultivators, this was a safe distance—close enough to gauge each other's cultivation through spiritual fluctuations, but too far for a magical artifact to reach with any real accuracy. At the Qi Refinement stage, the proportion of spiritual sense consumed by artifact control was enormous, making it extremely difficult to manipulate an artifact with any precision beyond seventy or eighty meters from one's body. Even at close range, a Qi Refinement cultivator's spiritual sense could typically handle only one or two artifacts at most. Otherwise, Andy could simply have bought a pile of mid- and low-grade artifacts and hurled them all at an opponent. It was precisely because of this limitation that cultivators prized quality over quantity in their artifacts.
Andy was puzzled. The two cultivators before him were a beautiful young woman at the third layer of Qi Refinement and a dark-faced man who appeared to be at the second layer. What were such low-level cultivators doing out here near the trading fair? And both had conspicuous bulges at their waists—clearly storage pouches. Weren't they worried about attracting the wrong kind of attention?
The two low-level cultivators saw Andy approaching and hastily clasped their fists in greeting. The dark-faced man called out: "Might we ask where you're headed, fellow cultivator? Would you consider traveling with us?"
"No need. I prefer to travel alone. I don't care for company." Andy refused coldly and walked past them.
"Please wait, fellow cultivator—" The young woman tried to say something more, but Andy cut her off with a wave of his hand.
Seemingly embarrassed by the blunt rejection, the young woman's cheeks reddened slightly, and her clasped hands dropped to her front. The dark-faced man wore an awkward, self-deprecating smile, his hands rubbing unconsciously against the sides of his thighs.
Andy hadn't relaxed his guard for a moment. Every one of these minute gestures registered clearly.
Without warning, the dark-faced man flung his hand toward Andy. A streak of golden light shot forward with a piercing whistle, closing the distance in the blink of an eye.
Andy had been ready. The instant the dark-faced man's hand came up, Andy's left hand rose almost simultaneously. A small blackish shield no bigger than a palm appeared before him, then expanded rapidly to a full meter across. A dim, dark radiance emanated from its surface, shielding Andy behind it. The golden light struck the dark barrier a heartbeat later. A blinding flash erupted where the two forces met, but the golden light could not advance another inch.
In that same instant, the spiritual auras of both the young woman and the dark-faced man surged. They were not low-level Qi Refinement cultivators at all—they were high-stage. The dark-faced man was at the eleventh layer of Qi Refinement, and the woman had reached the twelfth. They had somehow used an unknown technique to completely mask their true cultivation, and Andy had not detected a single flaw.
The dark-faced man's ambush with his Gold Thread Spear had failed, and he and Andy's Dark Raven Shield were locked in a stalemate. The young woman, meanwhile, showed no urgency to join the fight. Instead she sat down cross-legged on the spot, her hands flowing through a rapid succession of gestures while she murmured cryptic incantations under her breath.
Seeing that the Dark Raven Shield had blocked the ambush with ease, Andy allowed himself a small measure of relief. His right hand slapped two Earth Armor Talismans onto his body, adding two layers of deep yellow protective barriers inside the dark radiance.
After his initial attack failed, the dark-faced man didn't seem rushed either. He simply kept driving his Gold Thread Spear at Andy from every conceivable angle. The young woman finally made her move—she tapped her waist, and with a flash of yellow light, a square, seal-shaped artifact flew out. She began pouring spiritual power into it with reckless intensity. Under her infusion, the jade seal grew at alarming speed, expanding to two or three meters across in just a few breaths and still growing.
Andy had never seen a seal-type artifact before, but judging by the spiritual energy radiating from it, a direct hit would overwhelm even his Dark Raven Shield. He hastily sent out his bronze ring—keeping the Dark Raven Shield engaged against the Gold Thread Spear with one hand while directing the now two-chi-long ring at the young woman with the other.
He could see clearly that their trump card was the seal artifact the woman was controlling. Right now, she was pouring everything she had into it—this was the perfect moment to strike at her.
But with a dull clang, a golden shield materialized in front of the young woman, blocking the bronze ring. The dark-faced man had moved to protect her just in time.