The Thief

After breaking through to Black Iron and sharing his joy with family and friends—showing off to his heart's content—Huo Ling still had to return to the essence of life once the clamor died down.

Advancing to Black Iron had basically emptied his reserves. Not only were his magic stones gone, but even the credits awarded at the start of term had mostly been spent.

For the sustainable development of his future studies and cultivation, he still had to do the work that needed doing.

After paying the deposit at the school office, Huo Ling collected several hundred more Awakening Orbs. This was a way to earn magic stones without taking too great a risk.

Before school started, he could only manage fifty at a time. Now, he had gone all in and expanded the business.

Each time he traveled to the Spirit Realm, Huo Ling carried a chest of Awakening Orbs on his back. He did not dare bring too many, fearing he might encounter danger during teleportation and lose them.

After making several round trips, Huo Ling finally brought all several hundred Awakening Orbs to the Spirit Realm.

He rested in the abandoned building for a while. Once the night had passed, Huo Ling began to move.

First, he carried all the Awakening Orbs downstairs. Then he mixed dirt with water into a paste and tossed the Awakening Orbs into it, coating their smooth round surfaces in mud.

The mud was mixed with grass blades and stalks, so even after it dried, it would not easily fall off.

Once the outer layer of mud had dried, Huo Ling used Mage Hand to lift the chest full of Awakening Orbs and proceeded along streets he had scouted out as relatively safe.

He entered residential buildings, found dilapidated rooms, tossed the Awakening Orbs into corners, and buried them beneath garbage to keep other creatures from discovering them.

The Awakening Orbs were hidden beneath beds, in broken wardrobes, and amid rotten, disorderly heaps of trash.

If Huo Ling came to retrieve them himself, it would be fairly simple. All he needed to do was activate his spiritual power, and he could easily find them.

But for anyone else, or creatures of the Spirit Realm, they truly would not be easy to discover without paying close attention.

He spent two days avoiding buildings filled with too many walking corpses and placing all the Awakening Orbs.

Just after Huo Ling had finished placing the Awakening Orbs, on his way back, his intermittent spiritual power scans revealed something amiss.

On a side street, a scavenging party made up of dozens of goblins was searching back and forth among the ruined buildings.

Huo Ling hid atop the roof of a ruined building, carefully concealing his tracks. There were quite a few goblins, and his spiritual power scouting showed that they were led by a Black Iron goblin warrior.

One goblin carried a stone spear and swaggered into a room, poking here and there with the spear as he searched for anything useful.

An iron pot in the kitchen caught his attention, but it had long since rusted through from the ravages of time. The moment the goblin gripped it, the pot crumbled into rusty flakes.

The goblin shook his hand in irritation, then swept his stone spear sideways, smashing all the broken kitchenware in the kitchen.

The goblin laughed nastily before entering the room to continue searching.

That search made Huo Ling frown, because there was an Awakening Orb in the wardrobe of that room. It had only been placed there two days ago.

The goblin pushed open the rotten wooden door and strode into the room. The wooden bed inside had long rotted away, and the room was covered in a thick layer of dust.

Seeing that the wardrobe had not yet fallen apart, the goblin stepped forward to check whether there was anything useful inside.

After opening it, he discovered a round clump of dirt at the bottom, which immediately aroused his curiosity.

He reached out and picked up the round dirt clump. His grip tightened slightly, and he broke off a large piece of the mud shell covering it.

When the mud shell shattered, it revealed the transparent crystal sphere within. At the sight of it, the goblin nearly started drooling.

He hurriedly removed the rest of the mud shell. Looking at the intact, transparent crystal sphere, his eyes were filled with delight.

Elsewhere, Huo Ling, who had been watching the goblin through his spiritual power, could not help pressing a hand to his forehead. Just what he feared had come to pass.

Why was this goblin's hand so damned itchy? He had to pick up even a broken mud egg to have a look!

The goblin shouted and rushed out of the room. The noise quickly drew the attention of the other goblins, and in the end, the Awakening Orb was passed into the hands of the Black Iron hobgoblin leading the group.

Holding the Awakening Orb in his hands, the hobgoblin smiled as well. He had never seen anything so beautiful.

"Not bad! You did very well. You will be richly rewarded when we return!" The hobgoblin patted the scavenger goblin on the shoulder in praise.

"You all search harder too. See if there are any more treasures like this nearby!"

The other goblin scavengers stared greedily at the treasure. After receiving the hobgoblin's permission, they rushed into the nearby houses, scrambling to find more Awakening Orbs.

After spending most of the day searching, the goblins actually found two more Awakening Orbs. As the sky gradually darkened, the goblins finally packed up and left.

Damn it!

Only after the goblins had left did Huo Ling emerge from hiding and quickly retrieve all the nearby Awakening Orbs.

However, he did not return home immediately. Instead, he carefully followed the goblins, intending to find their lair.

Once he found their lair, there would be plenty he could do. If their strength was lacking, he could find a chance to take revenge later.

If the goblins were too strong, then he would keep well away for now and prevent any accidents.

The goblin scavengers moved at a leisurely pace while searching through trash, but they were much faster on the way back.

After crossing the abandoned streets, they finally returned to the goblin tribe hidden within this city of walking corpses.

But after taking one look at the tribe from afar, Huo Ling had no interest in looking again and hurriedly beat a retreat.

This goblin tribe had actually occupied an entire residential complex. At a glance, goblins packed the area in every direction—there were probably at least one or two thousand of them.

This made Huo Ling abandon the idea of taking revenge anytime soon. He would come back after making proper preparations.

In any case, the Awakening Orbs had all been placed. While the sun had yet to set, Huo Ling hurried back to his lair in the Spirit Realm.