Worries

It was already late autumn.

The weather had grown a little chilly.

In the morning, you could even see white frost on the dry weeds.

Among the mountain forests,

the lush leaves of many trees had already turned yellow. When the wind blew, they rustled down from the branches, covering the whole ground.

Shen Changchuan had returned to Dawan Village several days earlier.

While he was away,

nothing untoward had happened in Dawan Village. Everything was fine.

The worst-case scenario had not come to pass,

and Shen Changchuan had breathed a sigh of relief.

During the few days he spent resting after his return, he had also brought the Breath-Concealing Technique to 100%, fully mastering it.

This was not because his talent and comprehension were extraordinary,

allowing him to master the Breath-Concealing Technique in just a few days.

Rather, it was the result of his efforts a month earlier, when he had ventured into the mountains in search of the cave-dwelling ruins.

At the beginning, as he followed the map on his way, he had been attacked again and again by all sorts of snakes, insects, rats, and ants, not to mention wild beasts and Demon Beasts.

Even though he had used the Spirit Eye Technique to scout ahead, anticipate danger, and avoid it, all manner of trouble had still kept coming.

At the time, he had guessed it was because he had done nothing to conceal his aura. In the mountains, he was practically as conspicuous as lice on a bald head, plainly visible to all the animals and Demon Beasts. That was why trouble had kept finding him.

So Shen Changchuan had taken out the True Explanation of Spells, compiled by the Four Evils of He Mountain, from his Storage Bag and learned one of the spells in it, called the Breath-Concealing Technique.

As he traveled, he had used the spell to conceal his aura as much as possible.

After that, things had unfolded just as he had expected.

With the Breath-Concealing Technique in use,

to the wild beasts, Demon Beasts, and other living creatures he passed, he had been almost like a moving stone or piece of wood.

He had barely encountered any more attacks.

That was also why,

after reaching his destination,

Shen Changchuan had been able to stay in the dense forest for days, secretly observing the habits of the Gale Falcon,

while remaining so well hidden that it never noticed him.

Perhaps it was the experience he had gained during that time

that had made his understanding of this spell advance by leaps and bounds.

"Putting knowledge into practice might be a shortcut to mastering spells, too."

Thinking back on his journey through the mountains,

and on how he had fully mastered the Breath-Concealing Technique in just a few days, Shen Changchuan had gained some new insights into spell cultivation.

Deep inside, a seed had also been planted.

But Shen Changchuan had no time to ponder over these things.

The day had arrived for him to set out for Wu Family Market with the heads of the other six villages, as they had agreed.

Early that morning,

the cultivators from the six villages, each dozens or even hundreds of miles away, had already organized their people and brought three to five carriages apiece, loaded with goods, to gather at Dawan Village.

All told, their caravan had more than a dozen carriages and over a hundred people.

Most of the goods loaded onto their carriages were Spirit Grain.

The grain was packed in boxes made of cheap white jade, lined inside and out with woven stalks of Spirit Grain Crop to protect it from bumps along the way and keep the spiritual energy within from dissipating.

Among the heads of the six villages,

Fan, Song, Miao, and Tao were small cultivation clans with lineages stretching back nearly a hundred years. They made their living from the Spirit Fields their ancestors had painstakingly reclaimed, preserving their families' cultivation lineages.

The Li Clan had been established by outsiders who moved in several decades ago. Their village was said to have been bought from a destitute cultivator.

The last village was different. Its master was named Guo Cheng, and no one knew his origins.

About a decade earlier, Guo Cheng had arrived at desolate Old Mountain Village, where not a thing grew, and discovered a spring with an extremely faint spiritual aura in the brush-covered mountains. From that, he had founded the village.

Old Mountain Village had not been named Guo Family Village after Guo Cheng's surname.

That was because Guo Cheng had established a faction in Old Mountain Village called the Old Mountain Temple.

It was said that Guo Cheng was determined to seek immortality and attain the Dao. He wanted to found a sect and recruit those with affinity as disciples, rather than pass his faction down through family bloodlines. Thus, the Old Mountain Temple had come into being.

Although the Old Mountain Temple had only been founded a little over a decade ago and possessed just three small, barren Spirit Fields, leaving it with hardly any Spirit Grain after paying its tribute,

it had a special skill for making charcoal. By selecting quality wood and using spring water and other materials, it could produce charcoal for assisting with alchemy and artifact forging.

It was worth a fair amount, and the temple was doing quite well.

More than half of the Old Mountain Temple's carriages were loaded with that specially made Refined Charcoal, clearly meant for trading at Wu Family Market.

Among the six leaders,

Guo Cheng was also the strongest, having reached the fourth level of the Qi Induction Realm.

The other five

were all around the third level of the Qi Induction Realm.

"Now that everyone's here, good. Let's go!"

Once everyone had gathered, Shen Changchuan appeared and swept his gaze over the crowd. Without wasting words, he immediately called for them to set off.

Everyone was taken aback.

The Li Clan's patriarch came to his senses and hurriedly stopped Shen Changchuan to ask,

"Wait, Young Master Shen. Are you the only one? Is no one else coming?"

"That's right. I have a Storage Bag, so I'm enough on my own. What's wrong?"

They knew about the incident in which he had slain the Four Evils of He Mountain. So Shen Changchuan had not hidden the Storage Bag he had taken as spoils; he had simply shown it to them, holding it up for all to see.

Speaking of which,

looking at these people with their carriages piled high with goods,

Shen Changchuan felt that the Storage Bag in his hands was especially precious.

He silently thanked the Four Evils of He Mountain for their generosity.

"That's not what I mean, Young Master Shen. This route is especially dangerous right now, with those rogue cultivators running rampant. Shouldn't we wait for more people before setting out together?"

The Li Clan's patriarch had good reason to be anxious.

In the past, they had also traveled to Wu Family Market alongside people from the Shen Clan of Dawan Village.

But back then, the one guarding Dawan Village had been Shen Shiying, whose cultivation was at least at the fifth level of the Qi Induction Realm!

With powerful methods from the Shen Clan, as well as the help of everyone else, he could even hold his own against an enemy at the sixth level of the Qi Induction Realm.

And if the rogue cultivators got ruthless but failed to kill every last one of them,

any survivor who escaped could take the news back to the Shen Clan, thousands of miles away.

That would spell trouble for them.

The fate of the Hu Clan of Dawan Village twenty years ago was still fresh in their minds.

So rogue cultivators had rarely dared to set their sights on them.

But what was this situation now?

A few months ago, this young man from the Shen Clan had invited them to see the bodies of the Four Evils of He Mountain.

Back then, he had revealed his cultivation, which had only been around the middle of the fourth level of the Qi Induction Realm.

And now, the aura he gave off

was hardly any different from before,

with little change at all.

If they ran into rogue cultivators, those people could crush them with their overwhelming cultivation, slaughter every last one of them, then dump their bodies in the wilderness for Demon Beasts to devour and erase every trace.

No matter how powerful the Shen Clan behind him was, they would have no way to avenge him!

The Li Clan's patriarch had nearly jumped out of his skin.

"Wait for someone? Who are we waiting for?"

"Well, Young Master Shen, perhaps you could have one of your elders accompany us?"

The Li Clan's patriarch ventured.

In his eyes, the best option would be to send along the Shen Clan senior who had dealt with the Four Evils of He Mountain.

"An elder? What elder? I'm the only one. Hurry up and let's go."

Shen Changchuan was simply bewildered.

He felt that the other man had misunderstood something.

But he could not be bothered to explain.

He had been looking forward to Wu Family Market for a long time and did not want to delay and miss the chance to go.

Once Shen Changchuan turned away,

the Li Clan's patriarch, Guo Cheng, and the heads of the other four clans all exchanged glances, worry written on their faces.

This—

the boy was young and rash, and stubbornly refused to listen to advice. What were they supposed to do now?!

The road to Wu Family Market

was not an easy one to travel!

Chapter two will be updated tonight. Something came up and delayed me. I'll try to get back on schedule afterward.