The Modern Martial Immortal

Chapter 280: Return

Eight hundred thousand.

After deducting the cost of the Flaming Fiend Heart and the Flowing Void Crystal, which they had only managed to secure after the bidding rose to two hundred thousand, they were left with 460,000 Pure Yang Grand Pills.

As the clouds drifted apart, Wang Que, the guardian envoy of East Sea Province, personally appeared on the mountain peak where Yaoguang and Li Hanqiu were staying.

"Daoist, here are the 460,000 Pure Yang Grand Pills. Please keep them safe." Wang Que directly handed over a treasured artifact used for storage.

Although this storage treasured artifact was not some top-tier treasure, it was still worth over a hundred Pure Yang Grand Pills. Yet this Void-Piercing Realm cultivator had casually given it away.

"Thank you so much." Li Hanqiu nodded.

"Now that this auction has ended, I will be hosting a small-scale Dao discussion among several Void-Piercing Realm cultivators who attended. Would you be interested in joining us?" Wang Que smiled as he extended the invitation.

"I’ve recently been cultivating a Dao technique and do not have much spare time. When the East Sea Immortal Market has something good again, I will come back for another visit. At that time, we can sit and discuss the Dao." Li Hanqiu gave the excuse he had already prepared.

Seeing this, Wang Que did not press him. "Very well. Then I shall wait here for your arrival."

Suddenly, a strand of psychic thought swept over them.

Wang Que listened, and his expression immediately darkened. "How outrageous. Something has happened, Daoist. I must excuse myself first."

After speaking, he did not even wait for Li Hanqiu’s reply. Ripples of space spread from his body, and in the next moment, he vanished directly from the mountain peak formed within this compressed space.

He had used the power of the void to perform void traversal and leave this place.

The urgency of the matter was obvious.

Because he had left in such haste, the ripples formed by his void traversal brushed across Li Hanqiu’s body and seemed to stir a resonance with the spatial power within him.

But with a light wave of his hand, Li Hanqiu dispersed both the spatial resonance and the ripples.

It was as though he had merely brushed away a bit of dust.

Yaoguang’s pupils constricted slightly at the sight. Was this a test?!

If those spatial ripples had swept over a Void-Piercing battle immortal, they absolutely would have caused that battle immortal’s Primordial Void to tremble slightly.

Even a slight tremor would have been enough to expose the truth of that person’s strength.

Fortunately, because of the stability granted by the World-Stabilizing Ring, Li Hanqiu’s Primordial Void had shown no abnormality at all, and the probe had been lightly defused.

"Let’s go," Li Hanqiu said without any visible emotion. Zhi Yun and Zhi Xue knelt to send them off, and Yaoguang and Li Hanqiu left the auction.

Once outside, they summoned the Void Disk, disguised as a spirit treasure, and flew out of the East Sea Immortal Market.

As soon as they were far enough, Li Hanqiu fully activated the Dao Artifact. Without releasing any Dao resonance, he directly performed a void traversal, vanishing from outside the East Sea Immortal Market amid a ripple of space.

After Yaoguang and Li Hanqiu disappeared, Wang Que, who had earlier been laughing and chatting with Li Hanqiu in the tower that hosted the auction, withdrew the divine ability he had been using to spy on them.

Where did this Void-Piercing Realm cultivator come from? He hid himself so thoroughly that I couldn’t detect the slightest flaw.

He then recalled the calm ease the other party had displayed while traversing the void...

That kind of refined control over space would make him a capable figure even among Void-Piercing Realm cultivators. To press further and offend such an expert over 460,000 Pure Yang Grand Pills wasn't worth the risk.

With that thought, he turned his attention back to the auction and resumed his role as the stabilizing pillar of this grand event.

***

The Void Disk continued traversing at high speed. After only a few jumps, it had already crossed millions of kilometers.

Considering the state of the Primordial Void and the fact that they still could not confirm whether any pursuers were following, Li Hanqiu put away the Void Disk, found a medium-to-large city with over a hundred thousand cultivators, and descended there. He rented a temporary cave dwelling as a place to stay.[1]

"Now all that’s left is to wait patiently." After reinforcing the cave dwelling's array, Yaoguang let out a breath.

Li Hanqiu nodded.

No matter how stable his Primordial Void was, he was ultimately only a Void-Piercing Realm battle immortal.

A Void-Piercing Realm battle immortal cultivated qi alone, without cultivating the body or psychic thought. As a result, his psychic thought strength was somewhat inferior to Yaoguang’s, let alone enough to determine whether a true Void-Piercing Realm cultivator was pursuing them.

Under those circumstances, the only option was to use the most straightforward method and continue waiting.

"At the end of the day, it's only an eight-hundred-thousand Pure Yang Grand Pill gain. And the one receiving that gain is a Void-Piercing Realm cultivator. The chances of us being targeted shouldn’t be high," Yaoguang said.

"That’s true. To us, eight hundred thousand Pure Yang Grand Pills is an astronomical sum. But to true Void-Piercing Realm cultivators, so long as they have some assets, earning that much in one or two years is not difficult." Li Hanqiu smiled and nodded.

Their stay in this city was merely a precaution.

"Speaking of it, I would have been satisfied if that supreme divine ability had sold for six hundred thousand in the first place. At the time, I just wanted you to agree, but I never expected you to ask for eight hundred thousand and for the East Sea Immortal Market to actually accept. That really was a pleasant surprise." Yaoguang smiled.

"We could not have agreed to six hundred thousand. If we had, we would have been in trouble." Li Hanqiu’s tone turned serious.

"Hmm?" Yaoguang’s expression sharpened.

"This is North Sea Star, not the Great Cangwu World. No matter the circumstances, if you reveal even the slightest weakness, no one will think you are magnanimous or benevolent. They will only think you are easy to bully, easy to manipulate. Then, even if there was no trouble immediately, trouble would appear later." Li Hanqiu’s tone grew heavier.

Hearing this, Yaoguang gradually understood.

For the East Sea Immortal Market, the difference between six hundred thousand and eight hundred thousand was not the real issue.

At whatever price they agreed upon, that supreme divine ability would have ended up in the East Sea Immortal Market’s hands.

If it ended up worthless to them, then so be it. But if it did not, then the East Sea Immortal Market would effectively have taken a supreme divine ability for free.

It was a deal where they profited no matter what. They were already taking the greater benefit.

If, at that point, Li Hanqiu had not displayed a firm attitude, the East Sea Immortal Market would absolutely have labeled him as timid, weak, and easy to exploit.

Once your weakness was exposed, it did not matter whether you were truly a Void-Piercing Realm cultivator or not. They would exploit you first and think later.

If the exploitation failed, then so what? You were weak anyway, and they had the Great Shang Immortal Dynasty behind them. As long as they gave you a way out afterward, they would lose nothing.

But if the exploitation succeeded, that was hundreds of thousands of Pure Yang Grand Pills! Perhaps even more!

No one’s Pure Yang Pills came free. If they could casually gain one or two years’ worth of extra profit, why would they not do it?

At that thought, a cold sweat broke out across Yaoguang’s back.

He had still been thinking too highly of people. Even in what had appeared to be such a smooth transaction, there had been so much hidden beneath the surface.

"So when Wang Que personally delivered the Pure Yang Grand Pills and tested us, he had already started entertaining that idea, hadn’t he?" Yaoguang said.

"Exactly. You’re kind and generous, so if they don’t bully you, who will they bully? Still, this was within our expectations. If someone suddenly puts a supreme divine ability up for auction, anyone would find that suspicious." Li Hanqiu nodded.

Yaoguang fell silent.

The environment of the North Sea Star really did make one feel as though one were treading on thin ice.

Even a minor sign of weakness, if displayed at the wrong moment, could lead to unexpected disaster.

***

For the next month, Li Hanqiu and Yaoguang remained in this city under the rule of the Great Shang Immortal Dynasty, not acting rashly.

During that time, they saw low-level cultivators exploiting mortals, gangs exploiting low-level cultivators, great families exploiting low-level cultivators, and the city lord's residence exploiting the local families.

Every force, every cultivator, lived on the edge of exploiting others while being exploited by someone above them.

Mortals, low-level cultivators, gang cultivators, family cultivators, government cultivators...

No one relaxed. No one was spared.

In such an oppressive environment, the smallest disruption in a person’s life could lead to collapse.

And cultivators were beings who wielded power. In the end, they vented their resentment and unwillingness through violence.

A small number, those with courage, perished together with their oppressors.

But most of them simply swung their blades at those weaker than themselves.

In just one month, and only from what Yaoguang sensed when his psychic thought swept across the city, six cultivator families had been exterminated, there had been two gang wars, and two families had fought until both sides were bloodied over a small amount of resources.

As for the ruling class of the city, the city lord's residence, they scarcely cared.

As long as the annual taxes were collected, and as long as there were no large-scale, indiscriminate massacres, the deaths of ten or eight cultivators in a month meant nothing.

As for those below the Foundation Building Realm, they had never been counted by the great powers at all.

***

"It’s been a month. If anyone could have caught up to us, they would have done so already. Let’s return to the sect," Li Hanqiu said.

Then he seemed to notice Yaoguang’s drifting psychic thought. "What are you looking at?"

"A Unity Realm cultivator borrowed eighty Primordial Treasured Pills from the Money Gang in order to save the yearly rent of five Primordial Treasured Pills for a cave dwelling. He used the money to reserve one in a batch of cave dwellings still under construction. But the contractor ran off before the work was finished. When the Money Gang came to collect the debt, that cultivator asked the authorities to uphold justice. The city guard then imprisoned him for disturbing city order and fined him. Right now, the guards are arresting people and confiscating their property..." Yaoguang replied.

Li Hanqiu glanced over. "If your abilities are insufficient, yet you attempt what lies beyond them, that is already one wrong move. To place your hopes in others is to make a second mistake. He failed to understand that in this world, the only one you can truly rely on is yourself."

After saying that, he let out a sigh. "Let’s go. The law of the jungle is simply the environment of the North Sea Star. We have no power to change it."

Yaoguang nodded and withdrew his psychic thought.

The two set off again toward the Nine Heavens Sect.

On the way, they remained as vigilant as before. Thus, by the time they finally saw the Nine Heavens Sect, another half month had passed.

Though they had been gone for nearly two months, they had made all the necessary arrangements before leaving and taken care of matters large and small. As a result, the Nine Heavens Sect had remained peaceful throughout their absence.

"Good." Li Hanqiu let out a long breath.

"Next, it’s time for the Nine Heavens Sect to soar." A smile appeared on Yaoguang’s face.

Li Hanqiu nodded.

The two secretly returned to the sect and summoned a small number of people, including Li Qingshan.

Other than those few, no one even knew they had left.

Seeing Li Hanqiu and Yaoguang return, Li Qingshan, who had stayed behind to guard the sect, also let out a relieved breath.

"Alright. On the way back, Yaoguang and I already discussed how to allocate the Pure Yang Grand Pills," Li Hanqiu said. "This divine ability was contributed by Yaoguang, so four hundred thousand belong to him. Of the remaining sixty thousand, thirty thousand will be supplied to the sect’s higher-ups to help them advance to the Core Formation Realm and even the Heavenly Fire Realm as quickly as possible. Another twenty thousand will be used to cultivate the twenty-four true disciple seeds we selected. The last ten thousand will be exchanged in batches for twelve million Primordial Treasured Pills, to be distributed more evenly."

"We’ll do exactly as you and Perfected Master Yaoguang have said." Li Qingshan agreed at once.

Those sect higher-ups were going to divide thirty thousand Pure Yang Grand Pills among themselves!

Thirty thousand! The Cloud Sword Sect’s annual income had only been a little over sixty.

True, that was because they had only recently driven out the Dark Light Sect and still retained the framework of a Radiant Sun Golden Core Realm force, not yet fully transforming into a Blazing White Golden Core Realm one. But even so, it showed just how precious Pure Yang Grand Pills were.

Thirty thousand... The entire Cloud Sword Sect would have had to save for five hundred years without eating or drinking to accumulate that much.

And now, those resources from five hundred years were being poured directly into cultivators whose highest level was only at the Core Formation Realm

The changes that would bring to the entire Nine Heavens Sect were already easy to imagine.

"You should go as well," Li Hanqiu said to Yaoguang. "Now that the resources are in place, I’ll be waiting to see what sort of surprise you bring us when this seclusion ends."

Yaoguang smiled and gave Li Hanqiu a fist-and-palm salute. "Perfected Lord, then you should prepare yourself mentally."

1. Cave dwellings are legendary residences of immortals. ☜