Locating the Address

Shen Shiying departed.

He left having handed over one hundred spirit stones.

The reason it was spirit stones was that Shen Changchuan, after making inquiries, learned that if one were to simply hand over one thousand catties of spirit grain, a five-percent transport loss fee would be incurred.

If one simply handed over spirit stones, only one hundred would suffice.

This regulation was not specifically aimed at Shen Changchuan.

It had been the rule all along.

After all, while a place like Dawan Village was manageable, for those places with hundreds of acres of spirit fields, handing over tens of thousands of catties of spirit grain each season would require several storage bags just to hold it all.

During this process, one also had to pay attention to the quality, as well as the subsequent issues of storage and preservation.

It was truly too troublesome.

It was better to just take the spirit stones and be done with it.

Precisely because of this, the five-percent transport fee for handing over spirit grain had long since become a conventional rule.

Regarding this, Shen Changchuan very decisively chose to pay the one hundred spirit stones.

This consumed the majority of the spirit stones he had seized from the Four Evils of He Mountain.

He had already looked into the market.

According to the going rate, unless there was a natural or man-made disaster, the price of spirit grain generally hovered around one spirit stone for every ten catties, and even if there were fluctuations, they would not be significant.

In any case, after this, he intended to make a trip to Wu Family Market to sell off the majority of his stock, keeping only what he needed for his own consumption.

With a storage bag on hand, transporting two thousand catties of spirit grain would not be a problem.

He might as well save those five spirit stones.

And this only made Shen Shiying more certain that Shen Changchuan had suffered heavy losses this time.

He must have been unable to scrape together enough spirit grain, forcing him to spend his capital of spirit stones to make up for the shortfall in his tax payment.

Seeing their "enemy" suffer misfortune, the father and son felt a sense of satisfaction and left with their spirits high.

Shen Changchuan did not care about this at all.

On the contrary, he was perfectly content.

Before he could extract enough wealth from Dawan Village and convert it into the strength required for self-preservation, the later the specific details regarding the output of Dawan Village's spirit fields were exposed, the better.

After all, one should never flaunt one's wealth!

After Shen Shiying left, Shen Changchuan began to plan his next steps.

Although the juicy gossip about Shen Han in Tiannan City was quite attractive, it clearly had little to do with Shen Changchuan.

He merely gloated in his heart that the overbearing and jealous First Madam deserved it, then cast the matter to the back of his mind.

Tiannan City was too far away, and the whirlpools within it were currently unrelated to him.

The most important thing right now was to prioritize increasing his own strength.

After all, there was still the potential threat of the Gale Falcon's revenge in the near future.

"According to what others have said, the time for the Qing City merchant caravan to arrive at Wu Family Market and open for business is basically one month from now."

"One month is enough."

Shen Changchuan calculated in his heart, his eyes flickering slightly.

He recalled the token engraved with the character "Elephant" inside his storage bag.

Back when he learned from Zhao Hangao the causes and consequences of the destruction of the Hu Clan, the previous owners of Dawan Village twenty years ago, Shen Changchuan had also obtained the map to the cave dwelling ruins of the Out-of-Body stage from the other party's own mouth.

At that time, however, his strength was only at the fourth level of Qi Induction.

He could not yet say he was capable of easily dealing with the dangers lurking within the mountain forests.

Therefore, although Shen Changchuan had been very eager to go and take a look, his characteristically steady nature ultimately led him to suppress the urge.

Until now.

He had already reached the fifth level of Qi Induction.

At the same time, he had mastered several new spell techniques.

Compared to before, his strength had improved significantly.

His battle with the Gale Falcon had also proven his capabilities.

"It is time!"

In that instant, Shen Changchuan made his decision.

However, for the next few days, Shen Changchuan had to remain where he was for a while longer before he could set off.

He could not depart immediately.

This was because the leaders of several nearby villages had all arrived one after another to deliver the Spirit Grain harvested this season as tribute.

The spirit fields of the six villages were not extensive, totaling only about four or five mu altogether.

Nevertheless, the total amount of Spirit Grain delivered added up to about three hundred jin.

For these good people who had come to deliver wealth, Shen Changchuan naturally had to appear and receive them one by one to cultivate goodwill.

At the same time, he took the opportunity to agree upon a date to travel to Wu Family Market together.

Only after seeing off the cultivator from the final village and concluding this interlude was Shen Changchuan able to continue with his treasure-hunting plan.

He made a rough estimate; it would take at least ten days or more to reach the location marked on the map provided by Zhao Hangao.

This was because Shen Changchuan did not fully trust Zhao Hangao.

Even though he had forced Zhao Hangao to watch as his family and friends were slaughtered by the Four Evils of He Mountain, causing his century-old foundation to be buried in a single day and thereby breaking his mental defenses, which allowed him to extract these secrets—

And even though Zhao Hangao had eventually died in prison, his spirit broken and having taken his own life—

Who could be certain that Zhao Hangao had not become mentally twisted before his death, wishing to drag someone down with him and using himself as bait to bury some massive trap within the map?

Keeping a backup plan when trusting others was never a mistake.

Therefore, from the very beginning, Shen Changchuan had prepared a plan to remain vigilant at all times after entering the mountains, preferably keeping his Spirit Eye Technique active to scout the situation before proceeding.

The ten-plus days were a buffer he had set aside for this very reason.

Of course, to avoid missing the time when the merchant caravan opened for business at Wu Family Market, Shen Changchuan had also decided from the start that if he had not found it within fifteen days, he would turn back regardless.

With his rough plan in place, Shen Changchuan prepared to set off.

However, before that, he still needed to make arrangements for the situations in Dawan Village and Zhao Family Village.

After all, he would be away for more than half a month, and the defenses of Dawan Village would be left quite empty.

He notified Han Qinhu, briefly explaining that he was about to enter the mountains for a period of time, and made arrangements for the direction of affairs for the next half month or so.

He even prepared contingency plans for the possibility of Dawan Village being attacked by demonic beasts or rogue cultivators while he was away.

After that, he placed the majority of the Spirit Grain into his storage bag to carry with him, so as to avoid the worst-case scenario of his home being raided while he was gone.

Having completed all his preparations, Shen Changchuan departed from Dawan Village, following the map provided by Zhao Hangao into the mountain forest.

More than ten days later, the dense, impenetrable forest was filled with towering ancient trees that reached for the sky, their thick, interlocking canopies blocking out the sunlight and casting the woods into a perpetual gloom.

Shen Changchuan walked cautiously through the thicket, his feet sinking into soft, rotting leaves that emitted a foul stench, sending centipedes, spiders, and other small insects scurrying away with every step.

Dense ferns grew in thick clusters all around him.

The air was heavy with moisture, and colorful mushrooms sprouted everywhere from the roots and trunks of the trees.

Every so often, Shen Changchuan would stop to cast the Spirit Eye Technique to survey his surroundings.

Whenever his internal mana reserves dropped below thirty percent, he would immediately halt to meditate, refining his energy to restore his condition.

Stopping and starting in this manner, he encountered several attacks from demonic beasts along the way, all of which he managed to evade or even successfully counter-kill.

Until this day, when Shen Changchuan had just emerged from the dense forest and arrived at a hill, he took the map from his robes and compared it to the surrounding terrain.

"Almost there, it's somewhere in this vicinity!"

Clutching the map, a look of joy finally appeared on the weary face of Shen Changchuan.