037: Going Down the Mountain-Better a Fellow Daoist Dies Than Me

Once the hundred-day period was up.

Chen Dengming left Lüoshan City early that morning. The only person there to see him off was Xu Wei, her eyes red and full of reluctance.

But Chen Dengming didn't know that, deep within the Luo Family estate, Lüo Bing and Xi'er were also watching him leave from afar.

"His cultivation seems to have improved a little lately. I'd say he's not far from breaking through to Qi Cultivation Third Level. He's probably practiced the Life-Damaging Seedling Pulling Technique again."

Lüo Bing stood on the roof ridge, her hands behind her back as she spoke coolly.

"Eldest Miss, with talent like his, why doesn't he think about living a few more decades? What's the point of all this struggling?"

Xi'er asked, puzzled. "If I didn't know he came up from Nanxun Kingdom, I'd think he had some deep-seated grudge to avenge."

Lüo Bing shook her head. "Everyone has their own ambitions. Perhaps three years from now, neither of us will ever see him again."

"Should we drive Xu Wei out, then?" Xi'er ventured.

"Let her stay for three years," Lüo Bing said. "She's already become a cultivator, and I won't go back on my word. Perhaps in three years, our Luo Family will have to move as well. This time, between us and the Luo Family..."

Xi'er pouted. "Eldest Miss, she did come from that sort of place of pleasure. You're just too kindhearted. And with your engagement now... I'm afraid that after we leave, the others in the family will start gossiping about her, maybe even target and bully her. Her life may not be easy."

Lüo Bing replied calmly, "They chose their own path. I only gave them an opportunity. How they walk it, and whether the road is smooth, is up to them."

With that, she turned and flew away from the roof ridge.

"Go back. This is far enough. Focus on your cultivation while you're with the Luo Family."

At the exit of the verdant mountain city, Chen Dengming stood with his travel bundle on his back and smiled as he said goodbye to Xu Wei.

Xu Wei stood quietly and gave a soft "Mm," then lowered her head and said in a quiet voice, "Big Brother Chen, don't worry. I'll work hard and cultivate while I'm with the Luo Family. I hope I can be of help to you someday."

Chen Dengming was taken aback, then felt a warm glow in his heart.

When he'd decided to leave Xu Wei with the Luo Family, his main reason had been to have her deal with the trouble. But he'd also wanted someone he could trust in a cultivation family like the Luo Family. It could give him a way back in the future.

Now it seemed Xu Wei understood what he had in mind.

"Are you sure you don't want the Spirit Stones? Eldest Miss Lüo rewarded me with over a hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones. It's more than I could ever use."

Chen Dengming raised the bundle in his hand.

Xu Wei shook her head. "The Luo Family has abundant spiritual energy, and it's safe here. It's enough for my cultivation, and I don't need to buy any artifacts. I don't need Spirit Stones. The conditions for your cultivation out there aren't as good, and you need to buy artifacts, too. A hundred Spirit Stones might not even be enough.

"We women are like water. We can flow around any obstacle, and everything will work out."

By the time she finished, she had already made up her mind. She would find a chance to save up some money, so that if Big Brother Chen needed it someday, she could help him.

"Then I'm off. Until we meet again!"

Chen Dengming laughed loudly and sprang away with a burst of lightness skills.

When Xu Wei looked in the direction of his voice, Chen Dengming was already speeding away like a gale, vanishing among the trees.

Better to gaze at each other from afar than cling to each other and drown together.

She understood Chen Dengming's pursuit of the Dao and immortality. She didn't want to chase an empty, soulless immortality and become a mere tool of cultivation, either. But if she wanted a Dao Companion, they would have to keep up with each other's pace and stay by each other's side.

Otherwise, all that awaited them years later was more sorrow. That only strengthened her resolve to cultivate harder and struggle to keep up with him.

Though she didn't understand why Eldest Miss Lüo had so little faith in Chen Dengming, always saying that his time was running out.

But whenever she kept him company at night, she could feel his determination and confidence. That eased much of the worry in her heart.

"A hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones. If I don't buy any artifacts, that is quite a lot. With my current spiritual root and cultivation speed, it takes me two days to absorb one Low-grade Spirit Stone. It'll take me two hundred days to use them all."

On the mountain path, Chen Dengming clutched the somewhat heavy bundle and ran the numbers in his head, while staying alert to his surroundings.

Carrying a fortune made him nervous by instinct. He worried a bandit who called himself Black Wind Stronghold might suddenly leap out and rob him.

Before this, even though he'd been "forced" to kill four cultivators in a row, he'd only managed to accumulate seven Low-grade Spirit Stones.

Low-level cultivators were poor wretches with little savings. Otherwise, they wouldn't hunt down their peers over five Low-grade Spirit Stones.

Now that he'd successfully refined the Gu, Lüo Bing had rewarded him with a hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones in one go. He'd truly struck it rich.

That wealth was nothing to Lüo Bing, but to him, it could get a lot done.

Even if he extravagantly used Spirit Stones to cultivate, they'd last him a long time. The benefit of cultivating with Spirit Stones in hand was that he wouldn't need to work to draw in spiritual energy from the surrounding world. He could also use them to set up a Spirit Gathering Formation and speed up his cultivation.

That way, even in the Gathering Place, he could cultivate as quickly as he had with the Luo Family.

"I currently have two low-level artifacts. One is the flying shuttle from that fish-eating old man, and the other is the flying sword from the cultivator with a bounty on his head."

"I'll have to get rid of the flying shuttle. I can keep the flying sword for my own use. Then I'll spend another twenty or thirty Spirit Stones to have Master Hu make me a saber artifact, and buy a defensive artifact. That should about do it."

"I'll save the rest for cultivation. If I simply hold Spirit Stones while cultivating, I should be able to double my cultivation speed.

"If I set up a Spirit Gathering Formation, it'll increase my speed fourfold, but my spiritual energy consumption will also increase four or five times. A hundred Spirit Stones would be gone in less than two months."

After thinking it over, Chen Dengming decided it was better to play it safe.

In a place as chaotic as the Gathering Place, he shouldn't draw attention by setting up a Spirit Gathering Formation. Cultivating with Spirit Stones in hand would already be enough to make people jealous.

His feet barely touched the ground as he used his movement skill, Swift as the Wind and Lightning. He consumed very little spiritual energy, jumping from tree to tree. After going for nearly half an hour, he was already far from the Lüo Family Mountain City.

At last, there were no more trees to leap across.

The road ahead had grown flat and barren, with fewer and fewer lush trees.

He could clearly feel the spiritual energy thinning out. The farther ahead he went, the more spiritually barren the land became.

Chen Dengming glanced at the desolate mountain road in the distance, then toward the Gathering Place beyond it, and stopped to form a hand seal.

Buzz—

A flash of light, and a clear, cold sword-light shot out. Guided by the Artifact Control Art, it flew in front of him.

It was a flying sword about the size of his palm, twisted like a little snake.

"Grow!"

Chen Dengming called out, pouring in more spiritual energy.

In an instant, the snake-like flying sword blazed with light and steadily grew until it was about two feet long. Then it stopped; it couldn't grow any larger.

"A low-level artifact is still just a low-level artifact. When will I be able to buy a spirit boat and ride in a fine carriage?"

Chen Dengming shook his head and stepped onto it. The sword sank slightly.

He planted both feet on it, formed another hand seal, and continued feeding it spiritual energy. Guided by the Artifact Control Art, the flying sword began to rise. It stopped when it was about ten zhang above the ground.

The sensation was like grabbing your own hair and lifting yourself up by it.

The Artifact Control Art forged a connection between him and the flying sword out of spiritual energy, making it feel like part of his own body, moving wherever he directed it.

When he sent the sword the thought to fly, it felt as simple as raising his own arm.

After getting used to the feeling for a moment in midair, Chen Dengming began flying low to the ground.

A fierce wind rushed into his face, and his speed gradually increased, whipping his clothes into the air.

A short while later.

He'd flown only seven or eight li before Chen Dengming decided to bring the flying sword down.

For him, flying on a sword still consumed far too much spiritual energy.

That short trip alone had cost him thirty percent of his spiritual energy.

Traveling with lightness skills was a little slower over long distances, but it saved spiritual energy, and it wasn't much slower overall.

He'd tried it before. At present, the fastest he could fly on a sword was equivalent to about 120 kilometers per hour.

He could match or even exceed that speed with lightness skills over short distances, but over long distances, there was no comparison.

But he still didn't have enough spiritual energy, and the artifact wasn't good enough. It didn't even have a shield function, so accidents could easily happen.

He crossed a mountain peak and was about to pick a broad, level stretch of ground to land on.

But as soon as the flying sword swept past, he heard the sounds of a fierce battle.

He immediately crouched down on the hillside and peered over it.

To his surprise, two groups of cultivators were fighting. The cultivators dressed in black robes clearly had the upper hand.

"Are these people from Iron Forest Hall, the force backed by the Zhu Family?"

Chen Dengming's heart skipped a beat. He immediately ducked even lower, crouching among the bushes and peeking out like a nosy bystander who wanted nothing to do with the "Martial World's brawls."

The two major cultivation families around the Gathering Place, the Zhu Family and the Luo Family, had once been sworn enemies. They'd clashed plenty of times over the years.

But in recent years, after the Luo Family had allied with the Luo Family through marriage, the Zhu Family had kept quiet. The forces it backed in the Gathering Place, Iron Forest Hall and Flower Rain Gate, had also kept a low profile. Why were they acting like they'd swallowed gunpowder this time?

"What happened? Things aren't peaceful. Could it be related to Lüo Bing's engagement? Did the Zhu Family hear the news this quickly and bare its fangs?"

Chen Dengming watched secretly for barely a dozen breaths before the fight ended.

One of the Iron Forest Hall cultivators had a powerful spiritual aura, probably Qi Cultivation Third Level. He quickly led his people off with the spoils, leaving three cultivators' corpses on the ground.

Chen Dengming lay low for a little longer. Once he was sure the group had gone far away, he suddenly sensed spiritual energy moving in the woods across from him.

It seemed someone else had been hiding there to avoid Iron Forest Hall. Now, like him, they were preparing to come out.

He immediately mounted the flying sword and prepared to leave.

But just then—

A figure suddenly staggered out of the woods across from him. Right after, a fireball BOOMED into the ground not far from the figure's feet.

RUMBLE!

The violent boom and shockwave sent the figure flying half a zhang, crashing heavily to the ground and spitting out a mouthful of blood.

"Fellow Daoist, save me!"

The figure coughed up blood and raised a hand toward Chen Dengming, shouting.

Chen Dengming: "..."

Save your sister!

So you saw my sword-light and immediately ran over to beg me for help?

People said that when you saw injustice on the road, you should draw your blade to help. But how was he supposed to know whether you were in the right?

At that moment, another cultivator in yellow rushed out of the woods across from him. When he saw Chen Dengming in midair, his expression darkened. He hadn't expected to run into yet another passerby after just avoiding the Iron Forest Hall cultivators.

Chen Dengming found the yellow-clad figure somewhat familiar. His spiritual aura was about the same as Chen Dengming's own.

But right now, he couldn't afford to worry about that. He cupped his hands toward the yellow-clad cultivator. "I'll be on my way, and you can get back to fighting! No need to go easy on my account."

With that, he didn't dare turn the flying sword around and show his back. He simply urged it to retreat.

Better a fellow Daoist dies than me. I'm out!

Seeing this, the blood-spitting cultivator gave up all hope and shouted hoarsely, "Fellow Daoist! Save me! We know each other, and I've got a finished Spirit Seizing Array Disk!"