Chapter 158: Setting Off
Seaside City, White Cloud Inn.
This wasn't a particularly large inn, and just like the majority of the inn in the city, it catered to both mortals and cultivators.
Of course, the vast majority of cultivators who stayed in inns like this didn't possess particularly lofty cultivation bases, and as a safety precaution, they would often disguise themselves as mortals. In reality, this was kind of an unspoken rule. After all, if a mortal were to learn that why were living next door to an almighty cultivator, then they most likely wouldn't even be able to fall asleep at night.
On this day, the White Cloud Inn was much busier than usual. Starting from several days ago, someone had reserved the entire inn, and all of the original employees had been temporarily kicked out. At the moment, everyone in the inn was extremely busy.
The entire inn, from the front hall to the backyard, was laden with large crates that were filled with all types of goods.
There were also a series of horse-beast-drawn carriages that were also laden with all types of goods outside the inn, and these were the most common form of transportation on the Primordial Wave Continent.
A slightly rotund middle-aged man was pacing back and forth, instructing his subordinates to load the crates of goods from the beast-drawn carriages onto a white flying ark in the yard.
Despite how busy he was, a faint smile would occasionally appear on his face.
As the regional manager of the Chengquan Trading House, one of the three biggest trading houses of the Northern Glacial Immortal Region, he had purchased a batch of several types of rare spirit materials unique to this area during the past 100 years.
Due to how dangerous this continent was, as long as he could transport these goods safely to Bright Hill City in the central region of the continent, he would immediately be able to sell everything for several times the price he had purchased it for.
The only downside to all of this was that among these goods, there was a large batch of spirit materials with very stringent freshness requirements, so they had to be kept alive. Hence, they couldn't be stored in storage treasures and could only be transported using this flying ark.
The only concern that he had now was the safety of the return journey.
This wasn't his first time traversing across this continent, so he knew that it was a very perilous trip. Recently, there had been a rather frequent occurrence of the trading house running into unforeseen perils all over the continent, resulting in the demise of even some Spatial Tempering Stage elders, so he didn't dare to get complacent.
He was only a Deity Transformation cultivator, and even though there were many elders and guest elders in the trading house, only two of them were at the Body Integration Stage. Hence, after some extensive thought, he decided to hire Body Integration cultivators at a steep cost to accompany them on this journey from the Immortal Outlet.
Right at this moment, a streak of azure light descended in front of the inn before fading to reveal a dark-skinned man with a coarse beard, and it was none other than Han Li in his disguised form.
The rotund middle-aged man turned to Han Li upon sensing his arrival, and his immediately widened as he detected Han Li's cultivation base.
A bright smile appeared on his face as he hurriedly emerged from the inn, then cupped his fist in salute as he asked, "I presume you must've taken on my escort mission, Senior. May I know your name?"
"My name is Liu Shi. You must be Fellow Daoist Kou, right?" Han Li asked.
"That would be me."
The rotund man turned and invited Han Li into the inn, then instructed one of his subordinates to bring Han Li a cup of spirit tea.
After taking a seat across from Han Li, the man hesitated momentarily, then said, "This might be a little rude of me to ask, but may I please see your immortal token, Senior Liu?"
Han Li did as he was requested, flipping a hand over to produce his immortal token before handing it to the man.
The man inspected the token for a moment, and after verifying that it did indeed belong to Han Li, the smile on his face widened even further as he said, "We'll be counting on you, Senior. We're not setting off until two days from now, so in the meantime, you can rest in one of the rooms in the inn."
Han Li nodded in response, and the rotund man immediately instructed one of his subordinates to take Han Li to one of the rooms on the second floor.
Han Li set up an array in the room, then sat down with his legs crossed on the bed and flipped a hand over to produce a stack of thick books.
These were introductory books to the Primordial Wave Continent that he had purchased in the city earlier, and this was the perfect time to be reading them.
Two days passed by in the blink of an eye.
Late that night, a white flying ark was hovering in the air above the inn, and all of the goods had already been loaded onto the ark.
On the deck of the ark, there were around a dozen cultivators standing at the bow and the stern, and Han Li was one of them.
All of these cultivators belonged to the same trading house that the rotund man worked for, and aside from a pair of Body Integration cultivators, the rest of them all possessed rather lowly cultivation bases.
At this moment, Han Li was standing on one side of the deck, and he was taking a furtive glance at the other side with a peculiar look in his eyes.
Standing near the bow of the ark was a gorgeous woman in a long red dress.
Through his observation, he had determined that this was the very same woman who had recently been teleported out of the Black Wind Sea with him, but at this moment, she was wearing a red veil over her face that concealed her features.
Han Li had previously been unable to detect her cultivation base, but at the moment, her aura indicated that she was an early-Body Integration cultivator.
However, due to the fact that he was in disguise, the woman didn't seem to have identified him.
The commencement of the journey was imminent, and the man with the Kou surname was feeling rather uneasy as he cupped his fist in a salute to everyone. "I'll be counting on all of you for this trip."
Han Li and the others all nodded in response.
The rotund man took a glance at Han Li and the woman in the red dress, and he was feeling slightly more reassured. With a sweep his sleeve, countless white spirit patterns instantly appeared on the flying ark, and a vast expanse of white mist was also released to encompass the entire ark.
From the outside, the flying ark appeared to be no different from a cloud drifting through the sky, so it was very well-concealed.
The flying ark set off, flying over the night sky at a decent pace.
"Regarding our journey, this is the arrangement that I propose: the two of you and the two elders of our trading house will be split up into two groups, with one group protecting the ark while the other group rests, and we'll swap over once every half a month. What do you all think?" the rotund man asked.
"I'm happy to follow your lead," Han Li replied with a nod, while the woman in the red dress also nodded in silence.
The other two were both elders of the trading house, so they naturally had no objections, either.
"Alright, in that case, the elders of our trading house will look after the ark for this first half-month. I'll be counting on you," the rotund man said to the two other Body Integration cultivators.
The two of them offered no response as they sat down onto the ark, one at the bow, and one at the stern.
Meanwhile, Han Li and the woman in the red dress were arranged rooms to stay in on the ark.
The room was quite spacious, completely with a guest hall and a bedroom, and there was also a small secret chamber.
With a wave of his hand, several dozen streaks of azure light flew out of Han Li's sleeve, landing around the room to form an azure light barrier.
After that, he arrived in the secret chamber before taking a seat with his legs crossed.
There was still half a month until he had to relieve the other two Body Integration cultivators from their posts, and he had to make full use of this time.
After a moment of contemplation, he raised a hand, and a ball of heavy water flew out of the True Water Pouch strapped to his waist before hovering in mid-air in front of him.
A serious look appeared on his face as he made a series of hand seals, and arcs of silver lightning sprang out of his palms before entering the ball of heavy water.
The ball of heavy water immediately began to swell and warp in an unstable manner, looking as if it were about to explode, but it was forcibly trapped within the azure light that Han Li was releasing out of his hands.
He flicked his fingers rapidly through the air to cast a series of incantation seals, and the silver lightning within the heavy water instantly became very tame, transforming into thin strands of silver lightning.
At the same time, the heavy water also began to settle down, and the two gradually integrated themselves with one another.
A long while later, the ball of heavy water was nowhere to be seen, having been replaced by a fist-sized black ball with silver lightning veins flashing on its surface. This was another ball of Heavy Water Veined Lightning.
At this point, Han Li had already become quite proficient in refining Heavy Water Veined Lightning, and he inspected the black ball for a moment before stowing it away.
Immediately thereafter, he drew another ball of heavy water out of his True Water Pouch, and silver lightning flashed from his hands once again to fuse with the heavy water...
The destructive power of the Heavy Water Veined Lightning was still rather lackluster, but given sufficient quantity, they could still pose a serious threat.
He didn't know what perils he was going to encounter in the journey ahead, so he had to prepare for the worst.
A month passed by in the blink of an eye, and Han Li was relieved of his post by the two trading house elders. Nothing of note had taken place during this time.
Inside his secret chamber, Han Li was seated with a rather weary look on his face, but his eyes were filled with elation.
He had already refined part of the heavy water he was carrying into Heavy Water Veined Lightning, and there were seven or eight balls of the lightning in total.
A single ball of veined lightning wasn't very useful, but given sufficient numbers, it could definitely prove to be quite a formidable force that even a late-True Immortal cultivator would have to be wary of.
With that in mind, Han Li stowed the black ball in his hand into his storage bracelet, then flipped a hand over to produce a pill. After swallowing the pill and meditating for a short while, all of the weariness in his eyes had completely faded.
He flipped a hand over to produce a black array plate, and it was none other than one of the Twin Starshift Plates.
He had just sent a crystal to the Black Wind Sea a month ago, and this was the day on which his Earthly Deity Avatar was supposed to send him the heavy water that it had refined.
He cast an incantation seal onto the array plate, which immediately began to buzz audibly while releasing a large expanse of black light.
Han Li cast another incantation seal onto the array plate, causing it to revolve on the spot and glow even more brightly.
However, the usual ball of heavy water didn't appear, and a befuddled look appeared on Han Li's face upon seeing this.
Could it be that something had happened to his Earthly Deity Avatar?
Right as he rose to his feet to take a closer look, a small ball of heavy water slowly appeared over the center of the array plate.
He heaved an internal sigh of relief upon seeing this, then sat down once again before stowing the ball of heavy water away with a wave of his hand.
The black array plate continued to revolve on the spot, and only after several more minutes had passed by did another small ball of heavy water appear.
This was not an encouraging sight for Han Li, and a contemplative look appeared on his face as he continued to scrutinize the array plate.
Judging from this situation, it seemed that nothing was wrong with his Earthly Deity Avatar, but there was a problem with this Twin Starshift Plate. For some reason, it was having much more difficulty transmitting heavy water than before.
With that in mind, he carefully inspected the array plate, but didn't discover anything amiss.
There were eight dark azure spirit stones embedded into the center of the array plate. These stones were called Starshift Stones, and they contained the power of space, and they acted as the energy source for treasures like the Twin Starshift Plates to function.
The eight Starshift Stones were giving off a faint glow, indicating that there was still sufficient spatial power within them, so theoretically speaking, the Twin Starshift Plate on the Earthly Deity Avatar's side should've been fine as well.
Why is this happening?
Han Li fell into deep thought with his brows tightly furrowed, and a short while later, he abruptly raised his head as a possibility occurred to him.
He had left the Black Wind Sea and was currently traveling eastward over the Primordial Wave Continent, so at the moment, he had to have been a vast distance away from his Earthly Deity Avatar. Could it be that there was an effective distance limit on the Twin Starshift Plates?
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