Farewell, Fellow Daoist

Outside Yuan Magnetic Valley on Severing Cloud Mountain.

Luo Chen lowered his spirit cloud, concealed himself, and quietly watched the man sitting cross-legged in the valley.

"It's him!"

"It really is Miao Wen!"

Miao Wen was an Outer Sect Elder of the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect and had once overseen the daily affairs of the Jade Cauldron Sword Pavilion in Great River Market.

In that remote but sprawling Marketplace, his cultivation might not have been the highest, but his status was unique.

Even Mi Shuhua and Zhou Qing, whose cultivation surpassed his, had made a point of currying favor with him because of it.

But now...

The man who had once kept himself immaculately groomed and carried himself with such grace was disheveled and dressed in rags. Nothing about him suggested the bearing of a Jade Cauldron Sword Cultivator.

His Woven Golden Cloud Shoes were in tatters, exposing blackened toes.

Apart from the Sword Sect emblem, his Dharma Robe had scarcely a scrap of intact cloth left.

Mud covered his face, and flecks of flesh and blood clung to the corners of his mouth.

Anyone who saw him like this would take him for a wild man.

Who would imagine that he had once been a Foundation Establishment True Cultivator, basking in the flattery and reverence of the tens of thousands of rogue cultivators in Great River Market?

Luo Chen studied him carefully, then gave a soft exclamation.

"His cultivation?"

Foundation Establishment First Layer!

And it seemed to be falling still.

Luo Chen remembered clearly that Miao Wen had not been at the First Layer.

He had been around the beginning of Foundation Establishment Third Layer, one level below Mi Shuhua, but still among the few notable powerhouses in Great River Market back then.

Forty years had passed. No matter