Absolute Anomalies

He Lingxiu stepped into the teleportation array and into the light.

It was as though she had passed through a door. Her next step led into darkness.

The land shrouded in darkness was a scorched wasteland.

Countless remnants of low shrubs stood amid the burnt earth. At the instant some terrifying flame had utterly incinerated them, its astonishing heat had also melted their ashes, condensing them into twisted crystals of every shape.

Many black crows perched upon these charred crystals. Yet whenever cultivators approached, stirred by the fluctuations of spiritual energy around them, the crows immediately turned into distorted clusters of light and vanished. But once the cultivators disappeared, amid strange, grating noises, the crows would return to the branches of those shrub remnants.

This was the Scorched Wood Wilds.

The battlefield ruins of ancient cultivators.

After many cultivators of the Lesser Jade Continent discovered these ruins, they had swarmed here. Over the following two hundred years or so, they had uncovered countless fragments of magical treasures within the ruins, and even some spirit medicines that still retained their potency.

Nearby trade had even given rise to a free market here.

That market had evolved into the present-day Scorched Wood Market.

Among all the markets of the Lesser Jade Continent, Scorched Wood Market was one of the least renowned.

Because it was of little use to the overwhelming majority of cultivators on the Lesser Jade Continent.

There were no proper magical treasure trading houses here, nor was it a distribution hub for artifact-refining or pill-refining materials. There were no exceptional artifact workshops, magical treasure repair shops, and certainly no formidable alchemists stationed here.

Yet existence had its reasons.

Scorched Wood Market offered business that most markets did not.

It provided certain obscure bounty transactions.

The bounties included assassinations targeting certain cultivators and the seizure of particular cultivation resources, many of those specific goods originating from the Chaos Lands.

There were headhunting assignments targeting certain heretical cultivators, but it also accepted headhunting assignments from heretical cultivators against cultivators of orthodox immortal sects. At the same time, so long as one paid a sufficient price, it could shelter heretical cultivators hunted by immortal sects and help them flee.

Beyond that, Scorched Wood Market had thirteen teleportation arrays that could directly reach the fringes of certain Chaos Domains.

A kaleidoscope of dangerous businesses had spawned all manner of markets, while turning this place into a gathering ground for hunters, thieves, fugitives, and gold seekers. The enormous volume of trade—business that the orthodox immortal sects regarded as underground—along with its uncertain profits and the complexity of its clients, had also made Jiaomu Market one of the few free markets on the Lesser Jade Continent not secretly controlled by those supreme sects.

To the well-behaved children who cultivated step by step within orthodox immortal sects, cultivators who dared to frequent Scorched Wood Market and profit from its transactions were true desperadoes.

Then what about Workshop Masters who had already claimed a share of business within Scorched Wood Market?

In the eyes of those well-behaved children, they had to be devils who lived by gnawing on blood and rotten flesh.

When the distinctive glow of the teleportation array faded from around He Lingxiu, her figure and appearance had already changed markedly.

Her body seemed to have been stretched slightly by some invisible force, while her flesh had also become fuller.

Her features had grown far older, making her resemble a woman in her thirties. Yet her face had also been lengthened, making it appear somewhat narrow in comparison to her current body.

Harsh, with a distinctive hint of ruthlessness and shrewdness—such was the first impression she gave any cultivator who saw her now.

Words such as childish innocence, immaturity, and youthfulness could not possibly be applied to her now.

When she crossed the vast scorched earth and entered Scorched Wood Market, appearing in the sight of cultivators along the way, a nearly imperceptible trace of fear surfaced in the eyes of most. Many even lowered their heads and deliberately put more distance between themselves and her.

Business in Scorched Wood Market was highly uncertain. Even some Workshop Masters within it could very well become people who had to disappear in a given transaction. Thus, every market building here conformed to the laws of this place. No Workshop Master would spend vast quantities of spiritual sand building an enterprise meant to endure for a century, so the architecture of the market was even more haphazard than that of markets frequented by ordinary mortals.

Scorched wood gathered on the spot and the hides of certain demonic beasts made up most of the market stalls here.

Abandoned markets lay scattered throughout, forming maze-like alleyways.

He Lingxiu moved casually through the alleys steeped in the stench of rot and entered a market stall.

Several cultivators in black robes respectfully ushered her into a quiet room, then left her alone within it.

She sat before a table made of scorched wood. With a flick of her fingers, dozens of black crows appeared above the table, wheeling in circles and forming a black whirlwind over its surface.

The black whirlwind vanished after several breaths, leaving behind a black jade talisman.

This black jade talisman was likewise covered in crow patterns, as though a flock of crows were flying across a frigid black river.

But when several faint glimmers appeared between her fingers, the instant they landed upon the black jade talisman, a string of ancient cryptic script appeared across it.

The moment she saw that ancient script, the expression on He Lingxiu's face instantly became wonderfully vivid.

"Impressive."

She could not help shaking her head as she spoke.

Just as she had said in her conversation with her Third Uncle-Master, Wang Li and Lü Shenliang of the Profound Heaven Sect—the two disciples from the lone peak—were absolute anomalies.

She had even felt that Qi Jianzhu and the other four, even if they joined forces, might not necessarily be a match for Wang Li alone.

But the truth proved that this senior sister and junior brother pair were even more remarkable than she had imagined.

From what she had known before, this pair had entered the Chaos Domains many times over the past decade or so. Many of the items they brought back to sell were unique to the Chaos Domains.

Looking across the entire Lesser Jade Continent, being able to repeatedly enter the Chaos Domains to seek cultivation resources over the past decade or so was already enough to look down upon the vast majority of groups at the same level.

But this senior sister and junior brother pair had done far more than merely enter the Chaos Domains several times!

According to the information she had received, their exploration of the Chaos Domains had been anything but a mere taste.

Over the past decade or so, they had entered the Chaos Domains at least thirty times.

And that was only what could be inferred from the intelligence presently in hand.

He Lingxiu's intuition told her there had been far more than that.

But even if it had only been thirty times, entering the Chaos Domains at least twice a year and still being alive and well to this day—what did that signify?

Moreover, the most unexpected and fascinating part of this report was that this pair of Profound Heaven Sect disciples had dealings with Scorched Wood Market.

The records on this item showed that in certain Scorched Wood Market businesses related to the Chaos Domains, this pair of Profound Heaven Sect disciples were even the most experienced guides in certain special regions.

The ancient cryptic script on the black jade talisman continued to flow.

After she finished reading the section concerning these two Profound Heaven Sect disciples and moved on to what followed, the teasing and astonished look on her face swiftly vanished, and her expression suddenly became incomparably grave.