Target

"Eh? That's strange. I clearly remember there being one. Why can't I find it?"

He carefully searched through the Spatial Bags one by one. There were three of them. Aside from the slightly larger one that had originally belonged to Dean, which held one and a half cubic meters, the other two each held one cubic meter.

They did not seem to have much capacity, but the miscellaneous odds and ends inside were still quite complicated and jumbled. After being rummaged through by someone who had no idea how to organize things, they looked even more like they had been chewed by a dog.

After sweeping through them several times, Xuan Ye finally confirmed that he had indeed been mistaken. He had taken the Sand Magic Core produced in the Desert of the Dead for an Earth Magic Core. After all, before he had finished reading those relevant books, he himself could not tell the difference between sand and earth magic cores. The thought gave him quite a headache.

The so-called sand element was not a separate element. It was actually just a branch of the earth element, and it could support most of the things Earth Magic Cores could do.

For certain designated purposes, Sand Magic Cores even had more effective benefits, such as making Quicksand Art scrolls or preparing Baptismal Potions for condensing an Inner Mansion Core for physical professions. After all, Baptismal Potions had no elemental requirements and only needed pure power. However, they were of no practical use to Xuan Ye at present.

Having already stepped into the Professional Rank and condensed a Professional Core within his Perception Inner Palace, Xuan Ye's most important goal now was to confirm his path and complete his profession's determination!

Naturally, this meant considering the ritual materials for opening the Earth Star Palace. Since he had already condensed an Inner Mansion Core, opening a Star Palace would be even more difficult for him, and the materials required for the ritual would also be more troublesome to obtain.

Normally, when a top-tier apprentice prepared to advance and open a Star Palace, using a derived Sand Magic Core to open the Earth Star Palace was perfectly acceptable. Its success rate was no different from that of a pure Earth Magic Core. The only thing to consider was that, after successfully breaking through, they would have to spend more effort purifying the core.

But this was not enough for someone seeking to change to a Special Profession. Pure elemental Magic Cores of earth, fire, wind, water, light, or darkness had to be used, and there was also a whole basketful of supplementary materials.

He did have a pure elemental Magic Core in his possession—a light-element one. It seemed to have belonged to that ill-fated Paladin lady, and its price was even higher than that of a pure Earth Magic Core. Unfortunately, it was useless to him now.

Although his goal was to surpass the Barrier Master profession, the knowledge related to the Eyes of Lawbreaking that he had learned earlier reminded Xuan Ye to start with the Barrier Master path. He would treat the Earth Star Palace as the first Star Palace he opened, then extend it by condensing the cores of other Star Palaces.

As for the ritual, with his current half-baked magical attainments and the assistance of the Soul Database, he should barely be able to set it up himself. But there was no way to conjure the materials out of thin air.

Given his current location, there was no doubt that even if he went out to hunt monsters and happened to obtain a Magic Core, it would still be a Sand Magic Core. If he continued northwest, he would reach the Riftwind Plains, which seemed to mainly produce wind-element Magic Cores as well.

The only way to obtain an Earth Magic Core in the short term was to go to Stanrosai City and try his luck. As the largest Human Race settlement nearby and the only city, it ought to have traveling merchants bringing goods unavailable locally for trade.

The trouble on his person was what left him somewhat conflicted.

The Kende Family was Stanrose's third-largest force and second-largest family. The entire family had seven—er, now eight—Professional Rank Experts. Its patriarch was a Professional Peak Expert once hailed as the number-one genius in the entire city, and he also possessed fairly practical Bloodline Power. By now, he had certainly obtained the Talent Rune provided by his own family.

With Xuan Ye's current strength, if he were discovered, the consequences would probably be rather bad.

Through his battle with Ye Man, Xuan Ye clearly understood that if the other party did not know his abilities, then relying on a sneak attack and the element of surprise, he had a fairly good chance of taking down a Three-Star Professional Expert. This was especially true now that he had inscribed five Bright Eyes Runes!

Although they did not improve his absolute strength, the stability innate to all Runes had been increased fivefold, giving him far greater control over his own power.

He was already a half-baked part-time Ranger, and finer control over his power would bring an obvious improvement in strength. His techniques were also easier to unleash, not to mention that the Bright Eyes Runes themselves provided extreme enhancement to his dynamic vision, along with the still-undetermined enhancement from his Bloodline Power.

However, all of this depended on successfully launching a sneak attack—and on them not knowing his abilities!

Otherwise, once the opponent figured out his methods, facing a Three-Star Expert who had condensed three Inner Mansion Cores and undergone three massive improvements to his physical constitution would leave him at an absolute disadvantage in hard power such as strength and speed. It would truly be dangerous.

Not to mention that the Kende Family also had that patriarchal big boss, along with plenty of other Professional Rank Experts under his command.

Somewhat conflicted, he rubbed his head, where his hair had grown back. Feeling its dog-chewed texture, he came back to his senses. Why was he thinking so much? A little disguise should be enough. With his hair left this messy and untrimmed, he looked like a completely different person.

In the eyes of the Kend Family, he had only ever been a minor character. They would never mobilize the entire family to search for him. He was really thinking too highly of himself. Unless they knew about his current progress, who would care about a little fish that had slipped through the net?

With his current strength, he would rank among the top fifty in Stanrose—or, no, probably within the top thirty. As long as he was a little more careful, that would be enough for him to complete the exchange for the materials.

As for the money to buy the materials, the cash and materials on these people were already enough, and besides...

He also needed to go see the families of the deceased members of Luo Luoji's Scavenger Squad.

Even the original owner's father—if he got the chance, he ought to consider making inquiries about him.

It was just that, relatively speaking, since he had never interacted with him, Xuan Ye's feelings for Luo Luoji and the others were still deeper than those for this "father" he had never met.

After making his decision, he remained seated cross-legged on the ground. Without making the slightest movement, he merely exhaled a deep breath of stale air. A gentle breeze immediately swept out and raced toward the rocks blocking the cave entrance.

Mage's Hand

It was the most common and practical low-level spell. Its spell-model structure consisted of only three magic-pattern bytes, so even an apprentice could master it with ease. It was one of the few spells he knew. Experts never pushed doors open with their hands! He was, after all, an expert ranked within Stanrose's top thirty. What difference was there between lacking the bearing of an expert and being a slacker?

Er, then the rock merely shook once before stopping again. It refused to move no matter how hard he strained, until his face wrinkled into a knot.

All right, using a precision spell meant for handling spellcasting and experimental materials to move bricks—failing to push it was only normal...

Thanks to Ruan Tang, lhh857, and the reader who goes by Such-and-Such for the rewards.

Also, because of the new-book period and the new-book rankings, I need to control the update speed. Due to reasons such as the chapters being relatively long, there may occasionally be only one update during the new-book period. I hope everyone can forgive me when that happens. It's all because I miscalculated the word count when updating before. Wipes away tears...