Qingyun Sect.
At the foot of Small Bamboo Peak.
Ye Xuan rubbed his throbbing temples.
After quite a while,
he finally recovered from the immense flood of information.
This system was absolutely hopeless at naming things.
What did it mean, Low-tier Artifact Forging Technique?
If this thing got out,
wouldn't those fire-playing fools from Fenxiang Valley be so ashamed they'd all jump into a volcano?
This was a whole different level.
Ye Xuan glanced down at the Fine Iron Flying Sword beneath his feet.
The ride that had once seemed pretty decent now looked wrong in every way.
Its structure was flimsy.
Its spiritual energy conductivity was abysmally low.
It had so many impurities, it looked like a honeycomb briquette full of holes.
"Garbage."
Ye Xuan curled his lip, resisting the urge to immediately take the wretched sword apart and reforge it.
No.
This was the back mountain of Small Bamboo Peak.
Even if he was at the foot of the mountain,
any commotion or flash of fire would bring that old woman Shuiyue rushing down.
Then forget about forging anything—he might end up rendered into a human-fat candle.
Time to get out of here.
Ye Xuan stepped back onto the flying sword he despised and rose into the air, wobbling all over the place.
He flew just above the treetops.
The goal was to keep a low profile.
Heyang City.
The most prosperous place within a hundred miles.
It couldn't compare to the international metropolises of his previous life, but it had a quaint, old-world charm all its own.
The streets were wide.
People thronged everywhere.
The calls of street vendors rose and fell, filling the air with the bustle of everyday life.
Ye Xuan turned into an imposing-looking restaurant.
Shanhaiyuan.
It was Heyang City's signature establishment.
Whether they were officials and nobles or passing cultivators, everyone liked to stop by.
There was only one reason.
The food!
Their braised catfish in particular
was simply exquisite.
"Waiter!"
"One braised catfish, and a few of your specialties!"
Ye Xuan found a corner seat by the window.
"Coming right up!"
"Just a moment, sir!"
The waiter called back as he hurried off.
While he waited for the food,
Ye Xuan poured himself a cup of tea.
His eyes were on the view outside, but his mind had long since wandered off into the clouds.
His fingers tapped a steady rhythm on the table.
He was reviewing things.
Reviewing his current situation.
Over the past six months,
he had mostly kept to Great Bamboo Peak and rarely gone out, but he had still gained quite a bit.
First,
when he checked in six months ago, Ye Xuan had obtained Low-tier Alchemy Mastery.
Like the Artifact Forging Technique he'd received today, it was a monster disguised as something "low-tier."
Alchemy in the Zhu Xian World mostly involved simply mixing plant ash and other ingredients. Whether a pill formed was largely a matter of luck.
But the alchemy mastery from the system focused on purification, extraction, and fusion.
It could squeeze two hundred percent of the medicinal effects out of an ordinary herb!
And it didn't even require precious thousand-year-old Spiritual Medicine.
Even roadside weeds could be turned into pills that increased spiritual energy, as long as he used the right methods.
If he let this technique out, it would set off a storm of bloodshed throughout the Cultivation World.
But that brought him to the problem.
Ye Xuan smiled wryly and took a sip of tea.
No matter how amazing your skills were, they were useless if you had nothing to work with.
The past six months at Great Bamboo Peak had been downright frustrating.
He had all this ability but didn't dare use it.
For one thing, Great Bamboo Peak didn't have many people, and everyone saw each other all the time.
His master, Tian Buyi, in particular, might look like a chubby rich man, but he was sharp as a tack.
If Ye Xuan suddenly pulled out a huge pile of pills, how would he explain it?
Found them?
An old man in a dream taught him?
That sort of excuse might fool a three-year-old, but Tian Buyi?
That was asking for a beating.
For another, and most importantly, he had no materials.
Alchemy required herbs!
Though Great Bamboo Peak was vast and sparsely populated, it had nothing worthwhile.
So for the past six months, Ye Xuan had been like a beggar sitting atop a mountain of gold.
Second,
today he'd obtained the Low-tier Artifact Forging Technique.
Just like Low-tier Alchemy Mastery,
the Low-tier Artifact Forging Technique was powerful, but it also needed materials to be of any use.
So
the situation was clear.
He already had the skills.
His most urgent task now was to gather resources.
"Resources..."
Ye Xuan murmured to himself.
Alchemy required large quantities of herbs.
Even ordinary medicinal ingredients could bring about a qualitative change through sheer quantity.
And artifact forging went without saying.
He couldn't make powerful magical treasures without powerful spiritual materials.
Where could he find them?
Several places flashed through Ye Xuan's mind.
Ten Thousand Bat Cave?
That was where Blood Dripping Cave was located.
There had to be good stuff there. It had been Old Man Black Heart's lair, and even the scraps left behind would be enough to feed him for ages.
But that place was also a meat grinder.
Never mind how difficult the bloodsucking bats were to deal with.
The demonic cultivators lurking there—the remnants of the Blood Refining Hall—would be more than enough to give him trouble.
He was going there to make a fortune, not to get himself killed.
Pass.
Western Death Marsh?
It had the Heavenly Emperor's Treasury, Divine Medicine, and the Divine Beast Yellow Bird.
But that was even more ridiculous.
Even Shangqing Realm experts would come away battered from that place.
With his little Yuqing Realm body, he'd probably be knocked out by the poisonous fumes before he even saw the mud.
Also pass.
Ye Xuan rubbed his brow, feeling a headache coming on.
It was like holding a ten-billion-dollar check but having nowhere to cash it.
"System, open the panel."
Ye Xuan silently called out in his mind.
A translucent screen, visible only to him, appeared before his eyes.
[Host: Ye Xuan] [Race: Human Race (Innate Dao Body)] [Realm: Yuqing Realm, Fifth Layer (Tai Chi Xuan Qing Dao)] [Technique: Tai Chi Xuan Qing Dao] [Skills: Low-tier Alchemy Mastery, Low-tier Artifact Forging Technique] [Treasure: Fine Iron Flying Sword (Garbage quality, recommended for destruction)] [Items: None] [Current Check-In Location: Tianyuan Mountain (Not Checked In)]
Seeing the system's evaluation under Treasures,
Ye Xuan's mouth twitched.
Garbage quality...
Oh, how impressive of you.
Soon,
Ye Xuan's eyes moved down to the last line of the panel.
Tianyuan Mountain.
That was the system's next designated check-in location.
Since there was no time limit, he could take his time getting there.
The important question was, what kind of place was Tianyuan Mountain?
Ye Xuan closed his eyes and frantically searched through his mental library.
Back at Great Bamboo Peak, he'd read all sorts of obscure books about geography in the Scripture Depository.
A moment later,
Ye Xuan's eyes snapped open, a glint flashing in them.
He remembered!
Tianyuan Mountain!
It was in the northern part of the Central Plains, more than three thousand miles from Heyang City.
It wasn't a famous mountain, and its spiritual energy wasn't particularly rich, so no major sect had claimed it.
But for that very reason, it had become a paradise for rogue cultivators!
A mixed crowd from all walks of life.
They said there was a huge underground market there, where people traded in all sorts of goods that couldn't see the light of day or that the major sects didn't care for.
Rogue cultivators might be poor, but there were a lot of them, and they knew how to get things done.
They often found all sorts of strange ores and herbs in remote mountains and forests.
But because they didn't know what they were worth, or didn't have the ability to process them, they often sold them for next to nothing.
Wasn't this place practically made for him?
With Low-tier Alchemy Mastery and the Low-tier Artifact Forging Technique, he could turn all sorts of things into treasures!
Once he got there,
he could check in and make a killing as a middleman!
Buy raw materials cheap, turn them into pills and magical treasures, then sell them for a hefty profit...
Perfect!
Before you continue