Chapter 38: Chapter 38: Jade Pendant
During the battle, the three Loose Cultivators up ahead had stopped and were looking back.
Seeing that the battle was over, the leader of the Loose Cultivators walked over.
He was in his thirties, not short, with a rugged face. His nose was slightly crooked, as if it had been broken and never set right.
He walked up to He Shou and clasped his hands. His tone was clearly grateful, but his words were direct.
"Thank you for saving us. If you hadn’t intervened, the three of us would have met our end here today."
"It was nothing." He Shou wiped the blood from his blade. "How did you run into the Crow Claw Gang?"
The Loose Cultivator gave a wry smile.
"The three of us came from the south, heading to Qinghe Marketplace to resupply. We ran into those four on the way."
"We couldn’t beat them, so we had to run. Old Zhou got hurt and couldn’t keep up. If you hadn’t shown up when you did..."
The Loose Cultivator paused, clasping his hands again.
He Shou nodded, not pressing the matter further.
It took some time to clean up the battlefield. The three bandit cultivators were searched from head to toe.
Between the three of them, they found several dozen Spirit Stones and a few bottles of medicinal pills. He Shou took a look; some were common types of pills, but others he didn’t recognize.
There were a few Magical Artifacts, including the leader’s narrow-bladed short saber.
There were no storage bags; clearly, these weren’t particularly wealthy bandit cultivators.
There were some odds and ends, though. A few Talismans, two vials of wound medicine, a small bag of ore fragments, a coil of rope, and some other miscellaneous trinkets.
Li Yuan squatted, his fingers sifting through the items one by one.
His hand landed on a cloth pouch. It wasn’t large and was wrapped in Oil Paper, making it bulge.
Li Yuan unwrapped the Oil Paper. Inside were a few ore fragments and a Jade Pendant.
The Jade Pendant was about half the size of his palm. It had an ordinary, grayish-white design and a slightly worn surface.
Its appearance reminded Li Yuan of Zhao Wu’s Jade Pendant; the style was identical, right down to the details.
The moment his finger touched it, the panel appeared.
[Detected Equippable Item: Breath-Concealing Jade Pendant (Intact)]
[Entry Preview: Aura Concealment (Green)—Passively suppresses the user’s aura fluctuations, lowering the probability of detection. Significantly obscures the user from perception techniques of the same or lower rank, with some interference against High Tier perception.]
[Permanence Condition Preview: While in a state of Aura Concealment, successfully evade detection from a Cultivator one major realm higher.]
’Green.’
Li Yuan’s finger paused on the Jade Pendant for a second, but his expression remained unchanged.
’Aura Concealment. Passively suppresses aura fluctuations, lowering the chance of being discovered.’
Without changing his expression, Li Yuan closed the Jade Pendant in his palm and placed it back into the cloth pouch with the ore fragments.
He Shou walked over and gathered all the looted items together.
The leader of the three Loose Cultivators also sidled up, his eyes scanning the pile of spoils on the ground.
"Brother."
The Loose Cultivator rubbed his hands together, choosing his words carefully. "About the items on these bandit cultivators... we did help wear down their Spiritual Power..."
He Shou glanced up at the man, then over at Li Yuan. Seeing Li Yuan nod, he said,
"You were the victims. It’s only right that you get a share."
"Thank you, Brother! We’ll just take some Spirit Stones and Healing Elixirs."
He Shou squatted and roughly divided the spoils.
Li Yuan took the Jade Pendant from the cloth pouch and set it in front of himself.
"I’ll take this."
He Shou glanced over. It was a grayish-white Jade Pendant with an ordinary design and a worn surface.
"Fine."
He Shou took it for a look, then nodded. No one else objected.
Li Yuan tucked the Jade Pendant into his sleeve, his fingers lightly tracing its edge through the fabric of his cuff.
Li Yuan checked the remaining materials and items, but none had an entry. Therefore, he only took Spirit Stones. Since he had contributed the most, he received forty-eight Spirit Stones in total, which was almost the entire lot.
The Loose Cultivators helped their injured companion and departed first, heading toward the marketplace.
He Shou led his four men to continue the patrol, but their pace quickened significantly. The run-in with the bandit cultivators had put them behind schedule.
The rest of the patrol route passed quietly.
The Spirit Detecting Disc’s sensory range showed no anomalies. Occasionally, the faint fluctuations of a mundane beast or two would flicker past.
At dusk, the five of them returned to their post.
Upon returning to the post at dusk, everyone went their separate ways.
Li Yuan returned to his room, shut the door, and sat on the edge of his bed.
He took the Breath-Concealing Jade Pendant from his sleeve, placed it on his knee, and studied it for a moment.
It was made of grayish-white jade, its corners worn smooth and its patterns faded. It was nearly identical in style to the one Zhao Wu had.
’Zhao Wu’s Jade Pendant had a blue entry.’
’This one has a green entry.’
’Two such Jade Pendants, appearing in the hands of two different people. One was on Zhao Wu, who was scouting the marketplace’s defenses. The other was in the hands of a Crow Claw Gang bandit cultivator.’
’It’s unlikely to be a coincidence.’
Li Yuan put the Jade Pendant away without equipping it. The breath-concealing entry wasn’t very useful to him at the moment, and its permanence condition was quite harsh: a mere Qi Refining Cultivator like himself would have to evade detection from a Foundation Establishment Cultivator.
Just then, there were two knocks on the door.
Li Yuan rose and unlatched the door. He Shou stood outside, a palm-sized cloth pouch in his hand.
"Deputy Li, a word."
"Come in."
He Shou slipped into the room, closing the door behind him. He didn’t sit, but leaned against the wall and placed the cloth pouch on the table.
"That bandit leader from today was a wanted member of the Crow Claw Gang."
Li Yuan nodded, waiting for him to continue.
He Shou didn’t beat around the bush.
"Killing a wanted bandit cultivator is a meritorious deed, and the higher-ups take note of it. But you aren’t an official member of the guard, so you can only receive Contribution Points and Spirit Stones as a reward. You can’t get promoted."
He Shou tapped the table twice with his knuckles.
"I’m a deputy captain, just one step away from captain. If the credit for killing this leader goes to me, I might just be able to take that step."
Li Yuan looked at He Shou but said nothing.
He Shou pushed the cloth pouch on the table toward him.
"Open it."
Li Yuan opened the cloth pouch. Inside was a Magical Artifact.
It was a copper tube, about half a foot long and tapered at both ends. Its body was covered in dense Spirit Patterns, and a mung-bean-sized Fire Crystal Stone was embedded in the middle. The entire artifact was a dark red color and felt slightly warm to the touch.
The moment his finger touched it, the panel appeared.
[Detected Equippable Item: Flame Snake Tube (Intact)]
[Entry Preview: Precision (White)—Increases the accuracy of ranged Magic and ranged Magical Artifact attacks. Accelerates proficiency gain for ranged Magic.]
[Permanence Condition Preview: Hit a target and deal damage with a ranged attack 100 times (0/100).]
[Current Equipment Slot is Full (2/2). Replace currently equipped item?]
’A white entry. Precision—it increases accuracy and accelerates proficiency gain.’
"I got this from a Loose Cultivator back when I was hunting Demon Beasts in the mountains. Never had a use for it myself."
"You can infuse it with Mana to fire a swift bolt of Fire Spiritual Power."
He Shou’s voice was calm and his tone was frank.
"The credit for me, the Magical Artifact for you. How about it?"
Li Yuan turned the copper tube over in his hands, not answering right away.
’The credit for killing a wanted bandit cultivator was indeed significant, but He Shou was right—I’m not on the official guard roster, so I’m not eligible for promotion. No matter how great the achievement, it would only be converted into Contribution Points and Spirit Stones for me.’
’I have other ways to earn Contribution Points and Spirit Stones, but Magical Artifacts with entries are hard to come by.’
"Deal."
Li Yuan tucked the Flame Snake Tube into his sleeve.
The tension on He Shou’s face eased, and he clasped his hands.
"Excellent. I’ll handle the report when I get back. You don’t have to worry about a thing."
He Shou turned and left. After the door closed, his footsteps faded into the distance.
Li Yuan sat back down on the edge of his bed. He took the Flame Snake Tube from his sleeve and turned it over in his palm.
The copper tube had a slight weight to it. The Spirit Patterns felt faintly hot under his fingertips. The craftsmanship wasn’t refined, but the construction was solid. The Fire Crystal Stone was set firmly; it didn’t look like a piece of junk that would fall apart.
’A white entry, Precision. The permanence condition is to hit a target and deal damage one hundred times.’
’We run into Demon Beasts fairly often during patrols, so accumulating hits won’t be difficult.’
’But my equipment slots are full. I’ll equip it when I need it.’
Li Yuan put the Flame Snake Tube away, sat down cross-legged, and began to circulate the Spirit-Introducing Skill.
Spiritual Qi surged in from all directions. Filtered, it became pure and free of impurities as it circulated rapidly through his meridians. The spiritual power condensation effect was still active, making every wisp of Spiritual Qi that entered his Dantian even more solid.
The Spiritual Power in his Dantian was already quite abundant.
After this period of accumulation, he was on the cusp of the Qi Refining Fifth Level. The total volume of his Spiritual Power was nearing the upper limit of the Qi Refining Fourth Level. The depths of his Dantian were like a pool filled to the brim; any new Spiritual Qi he absorbed would just circle his meridians once before finding it had nowhere to settle.
But unlike when he was at the peak of the Qi Refining Third Level, he didn’t feel stifled this time.
The Spiritual Qi filtration had removed all impurities, leaving his Spiritual Power exceptionally pure.
Combined with the effect of spiritual power condensation, his Spiritual Power density was already a cut above others of the same rank. The effective capacity of his Dantian had increased by thirty percent. This meant that even at the peak of the Qi Refining Fourth Level, the Spiritual Power in Li Yuan’s Dantian was far more substantial than an ordinary Cultivator’s.
At the same time, the accelerated meridian circulation was also increasing his cultivation speed.
All that was missing was that final push.
