Ancient Cultivator Abode

If he had coveted the opportunities within the cultivation abode and rashly entered it, he would truly have been a dragon entering shallow waters—very likely to stumble and perish inside.

His near brush with being schemed against this time had not been due to carelessness, but because he had never expected these people to be so cunning.

They drew maps to sell, yet each time sold only incomplete maps containing half the route. Invisibly, those fragmented maps became all the more believable.

Veteran cultivators who had wandered the Immortal Cultivation world for decades and possessed abundant experience might have been able to see through their scheme. But young cultivators who had only recently left their lineages would likely fall for this trick if they were not careful.

"Ninth Layer of Qi Refining, and he even has a defensive artifact."

Seeing Chen Nianzhi block his flying sword, the leading cultivator revealed a trace of greed.

Most Ninth Layer of Qi Refining cultivators did not possess a Tier 1 High-grade defensive artifact. Such a treasure was exceedingly rare.

Over the years, he had murdered and robbed treasures from more than a dozen greenhorns, yet he had never encountered something like this. Thinking of it, he hurriedly called to the other two.

"Attack together. Hold nothing back."

In an instant, several artifacts came flying at him in succession.

Chen Nianzhi reacted swiftly and immediately activated his artifacts to meet their assault.

Of the three, the leading man was at the Eighth Layer of Qi Refining. Besides a flying sword, he wielded a ruler. Both were Tier 1 High-grade artifacts, and he posed the greatest threat among them.

The flying sword was a wood-attributed artifact and not particularly lethal, but the three-inch crimson radiance released by the ruler was already capable of threatening the shield light raised by the small azure shield.

Chen Nianzhi did not dare let this magic treasure continue attacking. He simply moved about while activating the Green Leaf Sword, locking it in a deadly struggle with the ruler.

The tall, thin man was only at the Seventh Layer of Qi Refining, but he possessed a set of Mother-and-Child Flying Knives. One mother knife and nine child knives—once activated, they became ten streaks of blade light that shot out at lightning speed, impossible to guard against.

The last person appeared rather young and seemed to be a descendant of the leading man. He was only at the Middle Stage of Qi Refining and was not much to fear.

Once the battle began, Chen Nianzhi discovered that the tall, thin man was actually the most troublesome of the three.

That set of Mother-and-Child Flying Knives moved as swiftly as thunder. Each blade light was not terribly powerful on its own, but under their unceasing bombardment, even the small azure shield would struggle to hold.

With no other choice, Chen Nianzhi could only keep dodging while using the Golden Light Blade to entangle the Mother-and-Child Flying Knives.

"This can't go on."

After knocking the Mother-and-Child Flying Knives away once more, Chen Nianzhi frowned slightly as he watched them sweep back at him like starlight.

As the saying went, a defense maintained too long would surely fail. Chen Nianzhi was not someone who would passively endure attacks without striking back. In an instant, he drove the Golden Light Blade straight toward the tall, thin man.

The man's expression changed. He could no longer spare any thought for attacking Chen Nianzhi and hurriedly summoned the Mother-and-Child Flying Knives back to tangle with the Golden Light Blade.

At that very instant, Chen Nianzhi's gaze turned cold as he unleashed his trump card.

The Scarlet Iron Saber Blank became a streak of blade light and slashed forward. In the flash between lightning and flint, it split the tall, thin man's mana shield apart and cleaved him in two with a single stroke.

"Second Uncle!"

"Second Brother!"

In an instant, the other two went pale with horror and immediately fled in separate directions.

But at this point, how could Chen Nianzhi possibly leave future trouble behind? He caught up to the leading man at once.

To end the fight swiftly and prevent the other man from escaping, Chen Nianzhi disregarded the expenditure of true qi and activated the Scarlet Iron Saber Blank again, severely damaging the man's flying sword and ruler with a single strike.

He then activated the Golden Radiance Heart-Locking Needles, piercing the man's spell shield and driving them into his Dantian.

"Ah—"

With his Dantian shattered, the man cried out miserably. He turned to Chen Nianzhi with terror in his eyes and hurriedly begged for mercy.

"My Dantian is destroyed. From this day onward, I am nothing but a cripple. Please, spare my life."

"Those who kill shall be killed!"

Chen Nianzhi's gaze was icy. The Green Leaf Sword became a streak of sword light and swept past, sending the man's head rolling to the ground.

Two of the three rogue cultivators had been slain, and the last one did not escape death either. He was beheaded by Chen Nianzhi not long after fleeing.

After the battle ended, Chen Nianzhi collected the three Storage Bags, then used a Fireball Technique to destroy the corpses and erase all traces. Only then did he let out a breath.

"Huff."

The battle had seemed easy, but Chen Nianzhi knew that he had relied on the advantage of his artifacts.

Two of his three opponents were veteran cultivators who had cultivated for decades. Without the Scarlet Iron Saber Blank, even if he could have won, it certainly would not have been so effortless.

This world was simply that realistic. A superior magic treasure or Divine Ability could often raise a person's combat strength by a tremendous margin.

Of course, this was also because Chen Nianzhi had tempered his body with Hongmeng Purple Qi for many years. The strength and resilience of his meridians far surpassed those of ordinary people, and the amount of true qi he could unleash in an instant was also far greater than that of cultivators at the same level.

An ordinary Ninth Layer of Qi Refining cultivator would already be at the limit while controlling three Tier 1 High-grade artifacts at once. There would be no possibility of having any strength left to activate the Scarlet Iron Saber Blank.

Had they not seen how Han Mo needed to use Natal Essence Blood to activate the Blood-Refining Demon Saber? Though that saber's power had diminished somewhat now, it remained extremely extraordinary.

By Chen Nianzhi's estimation, an ordinary Ninth Layer of Qi Refining cultivator would likely need to mobilize all his true qi just to activate this saber embryo, leaving him with no energy to use other artifacts or spells.

Suppressing those thoughts, Chen Nianzhi swallowed several pills and spent half a day recovering himself to roughly seventy or eighty percent of his peak condition. Only then did he step forward to investigate the cultivation abode.

Perhaps because the three men had already been executed, the formation no longer had anyone controlling it and lacked the ability to attack people on its own. Chen Nianzhi tested it several times with his artifacts and was not attacked, so he finally stepped inside.

"It is actually a Second-Order Spirit Vein."

The moment he entered, Chen Nianzhi discovered that the spiritual energy within this cultivation abode was exceptionally dense, far surpassing that of Spirit Isle Lake.

As he ventured deeper into the Spirit Vein, he grew increasingly fearful in retrospect. This had clearly once been the cultivation abode of a senior cultivator. Not only was the Spirit Vein as high as Tier 2 Low-grade, but it also contained a Tier 2 High-grade Soul-Burning Separation Fire Formation.

This formation consisted of seven Formation Flags and could release Tier 2 Heaven-Scorching Separation Fire. Once trapped inside, even Foundation Establishment Cultivators would be burned to ashes, much less a mere Qi Refining Cultivator like him.

"If I'm not mistaken, these three must have stumbled upon this cultivation abode by chance and started this business of fishing for victims and killing them."

"Over the years, who knew how many people had died miserably and unjustly beneath this formation."

Chen Nianzhi looked at the formation within the cultivation abode and could not help sighing.

What he discovered next confirmed that his guess had been correct. Within the cultivation abode, he found many identity plaques belonging to low-level cultivators, most of them from the younger generation of major Immortal Cultivation Families.

During this process, he also learned the identity of the former owner of this cultivation abode through some of the ruins left within it.

The former owner of this cultivation abode had been a rogue cultivator named Yang Yuanqing at the Foundation Establishment Middle Stage. In Yu Commandery a hundred years ago, he had been considered a figure of great renown.