A few days later.
It was still the bustling and complex gathering place.
It was still a crowd of mortals in simple clothes and cultivators devoid of immortal Qi.
Crowded closely together, one messy earthen house, hanging loft, and shack after another resembled all sorts of bizarre architectural styles pieced together at random.
Vegetable plots or medicine fields enclosed by faint spiritual-Qi formations could be seen at any time near the dilapidated, mottled streets.
Many cultivators were setting up stalls in the marketplace at the center of the gathering place.
The goods being sold were nothing more than some medicinal pills, talismans, and Daoist techniques; magical artifacts were extremely rarely seen.
Chen Dengming, who had quietly slipped into the gathering place with his hands tucked into his sleeves, walked this way and that with considerable vigilance, gradually approaching the vicinity of the marketplace.
No one came to inspect him at all.
The mortals and Xiantian practitioners he met along the road respectfully avoided him, respectfully addressing him as "Immortal Master", which made him feel somewhat unaccustomed to it.
Even when encountering some cultivators, they mostly just brushed past him, either glancing at him or nodding in greeting.
Chen Dengming gradually relaxed, the tight muscles in his back also loosening as he felt he had been far too nervous.
It seemed that not everyone cared about the wanted posters of Hutong Street after all.
This Hutong Street lacked all prestige!
He had intentionally let his beard grow for over three months without shaving it just to maintain a shred of mystery and avoid being recognized, yet he had walked in swaggering and nothing at all had happened.
Actually, thinking about it carefully, it was quite normal.
Aside from a small number of bounty cultivators who made a living off rewards, how would other normal people constantly pay attention to wanted targets?
Even if they took a glance, they would forget the moment they turned their heads.
Just like in his past life, portraits of wanted criminals were frequently circulated everywhere online with very tempting bounty amounts, yet how many people could genuinely remember them?
After all, he was previously just a mortal in the gathering place. Although his record of slaying cultivators was somewhat ferocious, over three months had passed. Letting a crowd of cultivators keep remembering to hunt down and capture him, a mere mortal, somehow felt like using a cannon to shoot a mosquito.
As time went on, the crowd of Hutong Street cultivators naturally stopped caring.
They eight-tenths assumed that this mortal had already died out in the wilderness. If Qian Yuan, the boss of Hutong Street, hadn't had his face stung a bit by the slap, the name on the bounty board wouldn't even exist anymore.
"How much for this Artifact Control Art?"
Chen Dengming walked boldly up to a stall, pointing at a book on it that was clearly a copied edition.
The three characters "Artifact Control Art" on the book referred to a technique that taught people how to pilot and manipulate magical artifacts after cultivation.
He currently had two magical artifacts on hand.
One was the magical artifact flying sword obtained from the short-lived male cultivator, fresh and hot off the press.
The other was the spindle-shaped magical artifact obtained after finishing off the old cultivator back then. That shuttle was still buried outside the gathering place and had not been dug up yet.
Because magical artifacts also required him to learn the Artifact Control Art before they could be manipulated, otherwise he wouldn't know how to pilot them even after refining them.
The stall-owning cultivator gave Chen Dengming a sizing-up look. Seeing him wearing a bamboo hat with a sloppy and ragged appearance, not looking like someone with money, he frowned and said, "One Low-grade Spirit Stone."
Chen Dengming looked toward the other Daoist techniques on the stall instead.
There was a First-grade Golden Spear Technique, which allowed the user to gather Gold Spiritual Energy to form a golden spear to attack enemies upon deployment.
Aside from that, there were only some medicinal pills of limited use to him. Among them were spiritual medicines for treating injuries, which could effectively and quickly expel spiritual energy from within the body.
This kind of pill was useful to Innate Martial Artists; if injured by a cultivator, the Innate True Qi was completely incapable of expelling the foreign spiritual energy, which easily invaded the heart meridians and ultimately led to a miserable death. Taking this kind of pill could eliminate that.
He wanted to keep his spirit stones for cultivation, and was not very willing to spend them.
Chen Dengming took out the book recording the Great Fireball Technique and said, "Use this Daoist technique in exchange for your Artifact Control Art and Golden Spear Technique, plus this bottle of Spirit-Expelling Pills and Pure Spirit Pills."
The old stall owner's expression changed. "You're opening a lion's maw here, aren't you?"
Chen Dengming directly opened the book for the Great Fireball Technique.
Feeling the spiritual-Qi fluctuations within the words, lines, and diagrams inside the book, the old man immediately shut his mouth and readily produced the commodities for trade.
The Great Fireball Technique in Chen Dengming's hand was traded to him by the red-robed female cultivator at the Ascension Convention back then.
That female cultivator possessed at least the cultivation of the Qi Cultivation Seventh Level.
For this type of Daoist technique to be recorded in a book for people to study, it was not as simple as merely copying handwriting and diagrams.
The creator also needed to infuse their own spiritual energy and comprehension while copying and tracing, so as to form a kind of spiritual charm that made it convenient for learners to quickly grasp and study it, even allowing them to master it on the first read.
Therefore, the higher the cultivation of the cultivator who wrote the Daoist manual, the more expensive its value. By the Foundation Establishment Realm, it was often no longer a manual, but a jade slip.
Such manuals generally lost all spiritual energy after being used a few times, greatly diminishing in value.
The Great Fireball Technique in Chen Dengming's hand had only been used once and could still be used twice, making it worth at least three Low-grade Spirit Stones.
Using it to exchange for the old man's several items meant the old man still made a small profit.
After finishing this transaction.
Chen Dengming strolled around the marketplace again, observing the market and searching for business opportunities, wanting to sell off the flying sword of the bounty cultivator he had taken down earlier, preferably exchanging it for a magical artifact in the shape of a broad saber to replace the fallen Dengming Blade.
Preferably the kind with a spiritual-Qi amplification formation engraved inside the blade body.
With a single slash of his blade, his blade Qi would surge by several zhang, while also conserving spiritual energy.
Yet in the end, he felt somewhat disappointed.
Small knives among magical artifacts could be found, but not a single broad saber.
Other decent magical artifacts were also available, such as a storage bag.
Regrettably, a storage bag with a half-zhang radius of space was worth twenty Low-grade Spirit Stones, and was being sold by a Qi Cultivation Third Level cultivator.
He was poor and couldn't afford it yet, so he could only watch with eager eyes.
"There's no need to buy it anyway. Only a half-zhang radius? What can it even do?..."
"Exactly, this Daoist friend speaks the truth. If you aren't buying, then I don't want to buy either."
"It's a hassle just to hide a person inside."
"True, true..."
Chen Dengming stood on the sidelines muttering, feeling just as envious as the other cultivators nearby, yet showing disdain on his face as he picked faults and made excuses with glib talk to find justifications for his poverty.
"If you're not buying, get lost!"
The stall-owning cultivator angrily rebuked and chased them away, and the crowd dispersed crestfallen.
Chen Dengming continued wandering around. Poverty ah, being this poor won't do. I don't want to hear any damn romantic love stories right now, nor do I want to sell fish; I just want to make money...
Yet after this bout of roaming, he gradually found a business opportunity exclusively belonging to him.
Although the items on display in this marketplace were numerous, they were nothing more than talismans, Daoist techniques, magical artifacts, and medicinal pills; gu poison was entirely absent.
Gu poison was good stuff—it was a treasure capable of defeating the strong with the weak and reversing the battle situation by catching opponents unawares. Once brought out, it would definitely generate a steady stream of clientele.
The crucial point was that, judging from the current situation, only he and Lüo Bing, the eldest young miss of the Luo Family, knew how to refine this stuff.
And a wealthy young lady like Lüo Bing would naturally not go out of her way to refine gu poison herself just to make money off a bunch of looked-down-upon rogue cultivators.
Therefore, as long as he wanted to run this business, he could monopolize it and make a huge fortune. By then, the resources required for his cultivation would no longer be in short supply.
Yet wanting to monopolize it relying solely on himself, a newly arrived Qi Cultivation First Layer minor cultivator, was obviously impossible; he still needed to borrow momentum.
Borrow momentum... The last time I borrowed momentum, it attracted the attention of Xu Ning, the master of the Golden Character Workshop. This time... it will require showing my own value even more, otherwise it's no different from courting self-immolation.
Chen Dengming pondered inwardly, feeling that deep and prudent consideration was still required.
He turned and wandered over to the bounty board near the rogue cultivator gathering place.
More than a dozen papers hung on this bounty board at the moment.
One of the papers depicted the image of a handsome young master—strikingly none other than himself. "Wanted: Chen Dengming, Xiantian strength. Anyone knowing his whereabouts, report to Hutong Street or bring him in dead or alive to receive one Low-grade Spirit Stone. Note: Those who falsely substitute and fraudulently claim the bounty will bear the consequences!"
Looking at the newly added line of notes at the bottom, Chen Dengming couldn't help shaking his head.
This bounty was merely for show; someone had likely exploited a loophole by casually taking the head of a mortal who looked very similar to him to claim the reward, only to be found out, which was why the note had been added.
His gaze suddenly fixed, landing on one of the wanted bounty papers.
He saw that the paper vividly portrayed the image of a emaciated man—unmistakably the cultivator on the hillside he had encountered in the wilderness earlier.
"Hutong Street wants Jiang Qiang, strength at the Qi Cultivation Second Level. Anyone knowing his whereabouts is rewarded with one Low-grade Spirit Stone; anyone bringing his head is rewarded with five Low-grade Spirit Stones."
No wonder that fellow was so vigilant earlier! Motherfucker, a life is only worth five Low-grade Spirit Stones, and those two short-lived ghosts chased after him with such enthusiasm. Still... it's a bit more expensive than my life, at least.
Chen Dengming shook his head inwardly, shifted his gaze away, and perused the bounty published by the Luo Family at the very top.
Although he had discovered Jiang Qiang's whereabouts, he would naturally not go to Hutong Street to report him in a self-inflicted trap.
Risks must either not be undertaken personally, or else left for major business operations.
"The Luo Family recruits unusual talents. As long as one can assist in refining the Golden Silkworm Gu, the reward is one hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones and one hundred days of residency rights in Lüo Family Mountain City."
Having finished reading the Luo Family's bounty, a flash of light crossed Chen Dengming's eyes.
Compared to when he overheard news from people over two months ago, the Luo Family had now added detailed reward items to the bounty, no longer making empty promises and clearly indicating an attitude of generous reward.
This made it appear much more sincere, and could also be considered a sign that this bit of fishing bore no malice.
However, the Luo Family was ultimately too powerful. Although he held some trust toward that Fairy Lüo, he still didn't dare to trust them completely without reservation; some insurance measures still had to be prepared in advance.
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