Crisis

Xia Dong looked at the piece of talisman ink, smooth and warm as jade, on his fingertip. Without hesitation, he fetched some clean water and gently dissolved it in the inkstone.

Once the blood ink had dissolved, its strange fragrance, which seemed to strike straight at the soul, grew even clearer. It had no trace of bloodiness; instead, it carried a peculiar spiritual quality.

He spread out a fresh sheet of blank spirit paper, stilled his mind, and dipped his talisman brush until it was saturated with the blood ink.

Brush down, strokes flowing, lines taking shape, the tip drawing to a close!

The whole process was seamless.

As he poured in the final thread of magical power, a burst of azure light erupted from the spirit paper, far brighter than when he had used demonic beast blood before.

The spiritual energy of heaven and earth around him surged into the paper, even stirring up a tiny whirlwind around the desk.

"What a powerful fluctuation of spiritual energy."

Xia Dong pinched the newly drawn "blood talisman" between his fingers, left the main room, and stepped into the courtyard.

With a thought, he activated the specially made Wind-Riding Talisman by channeling his magical power into it.

Whoosh!

A powerful gust instantly enveloped him.

Hovering in midair, he used the Crane Shadow Step and Wind-Riding Technique, carefully sensing the boost the talisman provided.

Only after a long while did the wind gradually die away. Xia Dong drifted lightly to the ground, shock flashing in his eyes.

"The wind is stronger, the burst of speed is quicker, and it even lasts longer... All things considered, this talisman is a full thirty percent more effective than a Wind-Riding Talisman drawn with ordinary demonic beast blood!"

The implications of that during a cultivator's duel or desperate escape were self-evident.

And this had been made using nothing more than the blood of a Bone Forging Realm martial artist at the peak of his cultivation. That meant the blood of a martial artist like him, tempered through a thousand trials, with qi and blood as dense as mercury, was far superior for making talisman ink to the most ordinary, cheapest low-grade demonic beast blood sold at the Marketplace.

Xia Dong couldn't help feeling a chill.

If a martial artist's blood could be made into talisman ink of such fine quality... then couldn't a martial artist's skin, tempered through a thousand trials and impervious to blades and spears, be specially tanned into excellent spirit paper? Couldn't a martial artist's tough bones and sinews be made into top-grade talisman brushes and magical artifacts?

Xia Dong suddenly felt a jolt of horror.

Perhaps the other side of this world was a bottomless slaughterhouse.

But after only a moment, Xia Dong let the thought go.

"Actually, it's nothing to make a fuss about."

He thought of the society he had lived in during his previous life. That world had no demons or ghosts, no cultivators who could fly through the sky or burrow underground, but at its core, wasn't it also about "devouring people"?

Those "beasts of burden" struggling at the bottom exhausted themselves and turned their hair white, yet even after they died, the algorithms and big data that seeped into every corner would "refine" every last bit of value from them, reducing them to a string of cold data in an immense machine of profit.

There was no difference between the two worlds.

What you couldn't see through was frightening. Once you saw through it, all you could do was strive to grow stronger. That was all.

Xia Dong turned and went back inside. He carefully gathered the blood ink left on the desk, then put it into his Storage Pouch along with the "blood talisman" he had drawn as a test.

He absolutely couldn't sell this stuff.

Xia Dong pushed the distracting thoughts from his mind and turned his attention to the other side of the desk.

There lay the ordinary Wind-Riding Talismans he had drawn earlier with regular demonic beast blood. He gathered them up and carefully wrapped them in coarse cloth.

More than a hundred low-grade talismans—this was no small windfall.

"It's time to go see little sister Wan'er."

Xia Dong had made up his mind.

It wouldn't be convenient for him to sell these talismans in large quantities at the Marketplace himself. He might attract envy and suspicion. Qin Wan, on the other hand, was in the Qixia Immortal Sect, with the cover of being an inner disciple. If he could slowly exchange the talismans for Spirit Stones and other cultivation resources through her connections, it would undoubtedly be the safest approach.

Qixia Immortal Sect, Lone Moon Peak.

Amid surging seas of clouds, Qin Wan sat alone in her quiet chamber, gazing at the Secret Treasury Jade Talisman glimmering faintly on the desk. Her lovely face was etched with deep exhaustion and worry.

Before entering seclusion, her master, True Person Lone Moon, had unexpectedly entrusted her—the newest and lowest-ranking disciple—with managing her lineage's "authority" within the sect and the keys to its daily resource allocations.

At first, Qin Wan had been so overwhelmed by the unexpected favor that she could hardly believe it, but she soon understood her master's intentions.

Most of the senior brothers and sisters under True Person Lone Moon were stuck at the bottleneck of the Late Qi Refining Realm, unable to advance even a step after years of effort.

In the current state of the world, their craving for Foundation Establishment Pills and high-grade cultivation resources had grown nearly insane.

If authority were handed to them, who knew? While True Person Lone Moon was in closed-door seclusion, they might use the opportunity to line their own pockets, or even turn on one another over those pitifully few resources.

Qin Wan was different. She had only just broken through to the Qi Refining Fourth Layer. Even if she had the nerve to "help herself" to resources, her cultivation was too low for her to make use of much.

More importantly, her senior brothers and sisters were watching her like hawks, creating an extremely delicate balance of power.

With danger at every turn, Qin Wan wouldn't dare overstep in the slightest.

Using the weak to keep the strong in check—this had been a brilliant move to maintain balance.

But Qin Wan had never imagined that her circumstances would become so dire.

The Qin Family had drawn the attention of the Unborn Cult.

For the past few years, drought and epidemics had ravaged the region, and the Unborn Cult had been expanding rapidly in secret throughout Linyuan Prefecture.

The Qin Family had considerable wealth and influence in the mortal world, but before a cult with such sinister methods, they were nothing.

The Unborn Cult had already laid several traps for the Qin Family in secret, using the silk and medicinal herb trades to keep a tight grip on the family's lifeline.

The message they sent was clear—they wanted Qin Wan to use her authority to sell the cultivation supplies in True Person Lone Moon's secret treasury to the Unborn Cult.

Qin Wan wasn't stupid.

If there wasn't a Unborn Cult spy among her fellow disciples, how could they possibly know that an insignificant little disciple like her held the keys to her master's secret treasury?

It was obvious that one of her dear senior brothers or sisters had colluded with the Unborn Cult, hoping to use them as a weapon to force her to comply.

After all, Qin Wan hadn't even mentioned this assignment to her family.

This was a huge problem.

If she couldn't withstand the pressure and boarded the Unborn Cult's pirate ship, there would be no way back.

But if she refused?

With her meager cultivation at the Qi Refining Fourth Layer and no connections to speak of, trying to shake off pressure from every side would be next to impossible.

And it was clear that some of her senior brothers and sisters had already begun isolating her, both openly and behind the scenes.

Qin Wan couldn't tell which one of them was the spy using the Unborn Cult to scheme against the Qin Family.

Perhaps all of them were?

In the face of the temptation of immortality and the Dao, the cruelty of the cultivation world far surpassed anything mortals could imagine.

Some cultivators, in their quest for even the slightest chance at the Dao, would even proclaim, "Whoever stands in the way of my ascension, be they Buddha, patriarch, or parent, I will kill them all."

For the sake of resources to establish a Foundation, plotting against a mortal family and a junior sister was nothing they would lose sleep over.