The Bronze Gate Between Two Worlds (Please Vote with Monthly and Recommendation Tickets)

Da Yin Continent, Red Cloud Sect Market.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

After a burst of hurried footsteps came an even more frantic knocking at the door.

"Chen Wang! Chen Wang!"

A rough male voice called out, carrying a trace of stiffness.

"Coming!"

A young man answered. He threw on a worn Daoist robe and hurried to the door. When he opened it, a middle-aged man stood outside, his face somewhat pale.

"Chen Wang, do you still have any Spirit Talismans? Give me some, quickly. I'll pay you back another day."

The middle-aged man spoke anxiously.

Chen Wang shook his head. "No. I just traded them for some Spirit Rice during the day."

The middle-aged man was unwilling to give up. "You really have none left?"

Chen Wang asked, "Of course not. Are you going to look for those vixens again?"

A fervent gleam surfaced in the middle-aged man's eyes. "There's an opportunity. A Cultivator Tomb was discovered in the mountains. I'm going to take a gamble."

Chen Wang frowned. He felt that the middle-aged man's gaze was somewhat manic at the moment, unlike his usual self.

Unable to borrow any Spirit Talismans from Chen Wang, the middle-aged man hurried off to the next house.

Chen Wang watched his retreating figure, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

Nine out of ten Cultivator Tombs are traps. Brother Xu is an old cultivator, so why is he so fired up this time?

He shook his head and returned to his room.

It had already been half a year since he had transmigrated into this Cultivation World. He had become a Rogue Cultivator in a Market under the Red Cloud Sect's jurisdiction. Having absorbed the original owner's memories, he more or less understood the mentality of the Rogue Cultivators in this world.

Life was difficult for most low-level cultivators. They could only struggle to survive. A cultivator like him at Qi Refining Stage 3 was at the very bottom of the barrel.

Unlike bamboo farmers who grew bamboo or fish farmers who raised fish, he was a horse farmer.

His daily work had originally been raising horses for an expert at Qi Refining Stage 9.

They were a special kind of Demon Beast, with azure scales beneath their hooves and bodies twice the size of ordinary horses. They could serve as transportation or be eaten. Every day, from around nine in the morning until nine at night, he had to walk the Scale Horses to ensure they got enough exercise. After deducting the cost of basic cultivation resources such as Spirit Rice and Demon Beast Meat, then paying rent, the Spirit Stones he earned each month barely left him with a tiny amount.

"I never expected that after dying from grinding myself to death in a 996 schedule in my previous life, I still couldn't escape it after coming to the Cultivation World."

Thinking of this, Chen Wang felt extremely conflicted.

Worst of all, the Qi Refining Stage 9 expert who had often delayed paying him Spirit Stones last month had been backstabbed during a spell battle. This world was extremely dangerous, and death was commonplace.

Although living under the Red Cloud Sect Market offered some protection, if you insisted on courting death yourself, no one could help you.

His former boss had been backstabbed, and his property had been seized as well.

Chen Wang now faced an extremely severe problem.

—He was unemployed!

Here, becoming a bamboo farmer or a fish farmer was not so easy either. Every radish had its own pit, and everyone fought fiercely for survival.

Thus, Chen Wang's already impoverished life had been dealt another blow. Fortunately, the original owner had learned some talisman-making methods, so he could barely scrape by selling talismans.

He took out a set of tools, calmed his mind, and began drawing talismans, spiritual power flowing into the tip of his brush.

At last, he completed a Wind Riding Talisman.

"Phew!"

Chen Wang let out a long breath.

Talisman drawing was his livelihood skill. The pressure of survival in the Cultivation World was too great; without this skill, he likely would have been unable to keep going long ago. As for the middle-aged man who had come earlier, Chen Wang had no particular friendship with him. The man liked seeking out Female Cultivators who practiced Bewitching Arts in the Market.

He also liked pills that made people float as though immortal, gambling, and borrowing money. His character was questionable. He was merely stronger than Chen Wang, around Qi Refining Stage 5 or Qi Refining Stage 6. He also had a wife, but the two often broke into arguments and even came to blows.

The next day,

Chen Wang tucked the Wind Riding Talismans he had drawn overnight into his clothes and went to the Market to trade them.

Markets under the Red Cloud Sect's jurisdiction were places where cultivators traded with one another. The usual currency was Spirit Stones. One Mid-Grade Spirit Stone was equal to one hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, though Chen Wang had never seen a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone.

A Wind Riding Talisman was worth one Low-Grade Spirit Stone. That sounded decent at first, but the Talisman Paper for drawing Wind Riding Talismans was expensive, and the ink used was special spiritual ink. All of those were consumables.

Combined with the high failure rate of talisman drawing, even though Chen Wang concentrated fully every time, he could only barely supplement his household expenses.

This was the daily life of an ordinary cultivator.

Good pills, magic artifacts, and cultivation arts were priced so high that they drove people to despair.

Even barely sustaining one's life was already extremely difficult.

Even so, when Chen Wang had been a horse farmer, he had not dared take a single day off. He had worked diligently and conscientiously.

"Chen Wang, it's been so long. Why haven't you come to play with your big sister?"

A seductive Female Cultivator dressed in scanty clothing leaned against the doorway and laughed softly.

These were the Female Cultivators in the Pleasure House of the Market under the Red Cloud Sect's jurisdiction.

"Next time. Definitely next time," Chen Wang said with a smile.

After transmigrating, he had come once to see what it was like. Though the original owner had been poor as dirt, he had at least held a proper job. If he gritted his teeth, he could still come here to impart the Dao and teach its calling.

That Female Cultivator had a slender, graceful figure. Perhaps due to cultivation, her skin was smooth and tender. She was skilled in Bewitching Arts and knew very well how to serve people. The experience had been excellent.

But Chen Wang now had the heart but lacked the strength. After buying some basic Spirit Rice, low-grade Talisman Paper, and spiritual ink, all his money had already been spent.

At that moment,

Chen Wang noticed that many unfamiliar faces had recently appeared in the Market under the Red Cloud Sect's jurisdiction.

Each wore a longsword at their waist and carried themselves with extraordinary bearing. Seeing this, Chen Wang could not help becoming wary.

The Red Cloud Sect was powerful, and several other sects stood nearby. There had never been any major conflicts between them, though. As a bottom-feeding shrimp among the forces under the Red Cloud Sect's jurisdiction, even if Big Shots fought over territory, it should have had nothing to do with him. But precisely because he was such a small shrimp, even the slightest disturbance could leave people like them dead without a burial place.

The Market's sphere of influence was relatively safe, but outside it, corpses and skeletons often lay by the roadside. It was extremely dangerous. Thus, Chen Wang could only hope that he was overthinking things.

After returning to his shabby residence, Chen Wang cooked the Spirit Rice. Aside from a bowl of plain rice, there was not even a single vegetable.

However, after eating the Spirit Rice, his lower abdomen felt warm, as though a current of heat had arisen within it. Chen Wang hurriedly began cultivating his cultivation art.

The cultivation art he practiced was the "Red Cloud Qi Refining Art." Just hearing the name made it sound like a common, mass-market technique.

After circulating it through a heavenly cycle and refining the spiritual energy within the Spirit Rice,

the faint spiritual energy in his Qi Sea finally increased by a trace. At last, I can clearly sense my progress.

Chen Wang thought to himself.

Without consuming Spirit Rice, given his aptitude, he could barely sense any change in the spiritual energy within his Qi Sea while cultivating the Red Cloud Qi Refining Art.

A wisp of flame emerged from his fingertip, then became a fist-sized fireball that flickered with light.

Fireball Technique.

It was one of the basic spells mastered at Qi Refining Stage 3. Its power was fairly decent, but in the Red Cloud Sect Market, where everyone cultivated, it was not worth mentioning.

After night fell, Chen Wang heard a noisy commotion outside. When he went out, he discovered that the middle-aged man who had come to borrow Spirit Talismans earlier had actually died!

"Xu Yuan died horribly! I heard he was afflicted by something evil."

"He went to that Cultivator Tomb outside and got tangled up with something unclean. I saw him this morning, and he was already acting crazed, saying strange things."

The crowd pointed and whispered nearby, their attitudes exceedingly indifferent.

In this cruel Cultivation World, excess sympathy could sometimes be fatal.

A beautiful, tall Female Cultivator stood watch beside Xu Yuan's corpse. Dressed all in plain white, with tear tracks on her face, she was Xu Yuan's wife—the only person present who showed any trace of grief.

Chen Wang sighed and returned to his residence. This truly was a cruel and cold world.

He changed into another set of clothes, picked up a bundle, and visualized his Divine Sense. A Bronze Gate appeared in his mind.

With a thought, he gently pushed it open.

In an instant, he arrived in another world...

Everything between heaven and earth was gray. Only steel-framed skyscrapers remained, half-buried in sand.

Wrecks of various cars lay scattered about. Disorderly sheets of iron had been welded onto rusted steel frames that had decayed beyond recognition. Before an abandoned skyscraper stood a Wooden Token marked with a string of Chinese characters, English words, and the portrait of a brawny bare-chested man with a tiger's head, cradling a Submachine Gun in his arms.

Chen Wang appeared in an exceptionally clean room, with a warm, soft bed and gentle lighting. It was utterly different from the abandoned city outside.

There was also plenty of clean water in the room.

That was right—he had transmigrated once again!

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