Three Years to Establish a Prefecture

"All right, all right. You two are both of the righteous path; don't let others laugh at you," Jian Aotian, the leader of One Sword Sect, advised Xu Tianhua and Fang Weiyi.

"Now that the Heavenly Palace left behind by the Primordial Great Emperor has appeared, this is a great event that shakes heaven and earth. It's impossible for any one faction to swallow it whole. I suggest we set rules and take the treasures together. What do you think?" Yu Fangfei, the supreme elder of Jade Brilliance Sect, proposed. She was a woman with a jade-like face and vermilion lips, as radiant as peach and plum blossoms. Her brows and eyes held spring, and she was born with the face of a peach-blossom beauty. Her exquisite, curving body was full of bewitching charm, but anyone who thought this woman was loose would be gravely mistaken. In her youth, she had roamed the world and killed who knew how many lecherous men who coveted her beauty, earning the nickname Jade Rakshasa. She could be called someone whose hands were drenched in blood.

Everyone nodded repeatedly at her suggestion. Seeing that all the sects agreed, Xu Tianhua of the God Sect also knew that a lone palm could not clap. Unless he wanted to make an enemy of the whole world, the God Sect could no longer swallow this huge cake, so he had no choice but to nod in agreement.

No matter how they divided it, at this moment Wang Ding saw that the people in the sky seemed to have reconciled, so he quietly packed up a few belongings, left his cave dwelling, and headed out of the mountains.

"The Primordial Great Emperor's treasure... Though I don't know who he was, with my tiny bit of cultivation, there's definitely no chance. One slip and I might lose my life. Better to leave as quickly as possible." Wang Ding carefully and swiftly left this stretch of mountains.

"I can't go back to the cave dwelling. If they decide to clear the area, I'll probably be the fish in the moat caught by the flames at the city gate. In Zhang Teng's memories, a thousand li outside these mountains, there's a small Rogue Cultivator market jointly established by some minor clans, small sects, and Rogue Cultivators. It's very suitable for low-level cultivators from Qi Refining to Qi Transformation. I should go take a look there." Once Wang Ding made his decision, he hurried toward that market.

Three days later, Yong City. This was a city of cultivators, with countless shops standing in rows throughout the city. On the streets, there were even countless stalls, and endless streams of cultivators came and went. The sounds of haggling rose without pause.

At this moment, Wang Ding had a bundle on his back and wore a grayish-blue Daoist robe as he wandered the streets, carefully observing the various people there, learning about this unfamiliar world—what they were doing, how they did it—absorbing useful common knowledge.

Most of the people on the street were at the same level as him, cultivators in the Meridian Opening stage. Most stalls bought and sold materials, while a minority dealt in pills, talismans, medicinal herb seeds, beast eggs, and so on. Among them, pills that increased cultivation were hot commodities; basically, every time they appeared, they were immediately snapped up in a frenzy. For example, one bottle of Qi-Boosting Pills cost ten low-grade spirit stones. Each bottle contained five pills, and every five pills could increase one drop of essence.

One had to know that after stepping into the Qi Transformation realm, if one wanted to enter the Innate realm, one had to accumulate at least forty-nine drops of essence before there was a chance of refining a mouthful of Innate true qi. Each drop of essence required a year of effort to condense, and that was under the condition of sufficient nourishment. If one could only meet the body's daily consumption, who knew how long it would take to condense enough essence?

Cultivators who entered the Meridian Opening realm only had a lifespan of one hundred and fifty years. Just condensing essence would take several decades. One had to know that the earlier one entered the Innate realm, the greater the chance of going further in the future. If one only entered the Innate realm at seventy or eighty years old, there was no future to speak of. Thus, pills became hot commodities.

"Right now I'm utterly penniless, and I can't even guarantee food. Since I've just entered Meridian Opening, it's still fine for now, but if things stay like this after some time, I'm afraid even the only drop of essence in my body will be consumed. That won't do. Looks like I still have to think of a way." Thinking of his current unfavorable situation, Wang Ding could not help furrowing his brows.

"Right now, I still have three spirit stones, a copy of the Beginner Talisman Guide left by the old Daoist, a set of talisman-making tools, and a low-grade artifact, the Vajra Tower. What I need now is a means of making a living. The Vajra Tower is useless to me, so I'll sell it first and buy some talisman materials. At least I should solve the problem of survival before talking about anything else." After Wang Ding settled on a plan in his heart, he walked toward a shop with a fairly good reputation here.

Suddenly, a burst of discussion drifted over from both sides of the street.

"Old Wang, did you know? A treasure left by an ancient Great Emperor suddenly appeared in the Floating Cloud Mountain Range. The nine righteous sects, the seven demonic paths, the three demon-god sects, and the ten greatest Rogue Cultivators under heaven all went there, wanting to take out the treasure. In the end, they didn't even see the palace gates before they were blasted out by the great array outside the palace."

"I know. I heard that great array is the Pure Yang Innate Formless Illusion Array, a supreme array that cannot be broken unless one is a Primordial Unity Golden Immortal."

Wang Ding was drawn over. He saw two young cultivators setting up stalls there while chatting with each other. The people around them had all been attracted over, and Wang Ding also stopped and walked over. Seeing the people nearby look over with curious expressions, the two could not help becoming pleased with themselves. One of them stood up, planted his hands on his hips, and said, "It's not that I'm bragging, but the son of the relative of the neighbor of the friend of my aunt's son specializes in delivering medicinal herbs to outer disciples of the God Sect. That's how he got this news. It's said that after the various sects suffered a great defeat and returned, they joined together and spent a huge price to invite the supreme elder of Heavenly Mystery Altar, Master Tianjizi, who is said to have already reached the Heavenly Immortal realm, to calculate what exactly was going on and why the Primordial Great Emperor's Heavenly Palace had emerged yet could not be entered." Do you know what was going on? The Daoist deliberately left them hanging.

"Hurry up and say it! Why are you keeping us in suspense?"

"Exactly, exactly! Hurry up and say it!"

Seeing the Daoist stop speaking, the people around him immediately started clamoring.

Seeing everyone's anxious appearance, the Daoist struck a pose, then continued, "After Senior Tianjizi performed his divination, the workings of heaven revealed that although the Heavenly Palace has appeared, its treasures cannot be taken out right now. It must wait until the seventh day of the seventh month three years from now, the day of yin year, yin month, yin day, and yin hour that occurs only once in ten thousand years. At that time, the yang energy between heaven and earth will reach its lowest point, and the might of the Pure Yang Innate Formless Illusion Array outside the Heavenly Palace will drop to its absolute limit. By then, the great array's power will be only one ten-thousandth of its full strength, and only then will there be a chance to break the array."

"Three years from now, if I can enter the Qi Refining stage, I wouldn't mind going to try my luck. As for now, I'd better solve the problem of food and warmth first."

Wang Ding left the crowd and continued walking toward the shop. Arriving at the entrance of a shop named Treasury Pavilion, he saw a shop assistant lying bored over the counter, watching the passing cultivators and yawning from time to time.

Seeing Wang Ding walk through the door, the assistant sized him up, then said arrogantly, "Go, go, go. Where did a poor wretch like you come from? You're not welcome here."

Wang Ding glanced at him and said calmly, "Call your shopkeeper out. I have business."

"What business? I can make the decision," the assistant said, his face full of disdain.

Wang Ding did not get angry either. It was not worth it to get angry with a snob. He then took off his backpack and set it on the counter. With a bang, the sound startled the assistant.

The assistant came back to his senses and was about to start cursing, but a voice suddenly came and interrupted him. "What's going on? Why such a loud noise?"

When the assistant heard it, he knew the shopkeeper had arrived. He immediately ran to the shopkeeper's side and, like a villain suing first, said, "Shopkeeper, who knows where this poor wretch came from? He brought some shabby bundle into our shop to act wild. You must teach him a proper lesson."

The assistant held a grudge against Wang Ding for startling him and immediately complained viciously to the shopkeeper, wanting to ruin Wang Ding. This shop had backing, and those who caused trouble here never came to a good end.

Wang Ding did not speak either, only calmly looked at the shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper was not so easy to fool. Seeing Wang Ding's calm expression, neither anxious nor impatient, he immediately knew what was going on.

He knew that this assistant usually relied on Treasury Pavilion's reputation to strut around outside, and he had warned him once before. He had not expected that now, the man would actually openly frame a customer.

His face immediately darkened, and he apologized to Wang Ding. "Brother, please forgive us. It is my lax discipline that has neglected an honored guest. Here, I offer you my apology."

After saying that, he turned to the already dumbfounded assistant and said, "Starting today, you are no longer a clerk of my Treasury Pavilion. Leave."

As soon as the assistant heard this, he knew things were bad. He immediately knelt and begged the shopkeeper, saying he would never dare do it again and pleading for him to take back the order.

But seeing that the shopkeeper remained unmoved, he knew begging was useless. He could only crawl up in dejection, glare at Wang Ding with a venomous gaze, and leave Treasury Pavilion.

Seeing the assistant leave, the shopkeeper then said to Wang Ding, "I've let you witness a joke, brother. My surname is Zhang. May I ask your honored surname, and what are you looking for this time?"