Icefire Ruler: Seven Heavens! The Call of Taisui!

In Gu Qingfeng's eyes, the red garments worn by those Red Tears guards were all exceedingly loose.

They flapped their wide sleeves. If no one had announced their identities, Gu Qingfeng would have taken them for a flock of bat demons.

Still, he had to admit that this group's lightness skill was quite impressive. With several nimble rises and falls, they had closed in on this place.

Just then, those "bats" suddenly lined up in a row and shouted, "Red Tears Guard Skyhawk Corps welcomes the City Warden!"

Almost at the same time, a man dressed as a scholar in blue came racing this way, stepping on the heads of those "bat-men," moving at astonishing speed!

"Icefire Ruler: Seven Heavens!"

Half of the blue-clad scholar's body was cloaked in frost, the other half in blazing fire. With a lift of his left hand, the icy force around him transformed into a massive ruler of ice and smashed into the sea of flames.

With a boom, the roaring flames were nearly frozen solid.

The fire was cut off at once and could no longer spread.

"Awesome!"

"Lord City Warden is too powerful!"

Watching this scene, some of the onlookers, already high from taking quite a bit, could not help going into heat on the spot.

Even Gu Qingfeng could not help blurting out, "Holy shit!"

Never mind the power of that move, with ice and fire entwined—even its special effects alone were dazzling enough to be flashy as hell.

Starting from the third realm, the True Essence Realm, cultivators could already alter the properties of their true qi, such as turning it liquid.

That was something Gu Qingfeng could do.

But directly giving true qi the attributes of ice and fire, and with such extraordinary power at that—freezing flames with a single move was something Gu Qingfeng could not accomplish.

Was this man in the fourth realm, the Divine Sense Realm?

All he could say was that the man's entrance had been ridiculously pretentious, but he truly had some real skill.

The flames gradually died out, yet the crowd still did not disperse. They kept singing and kept dancing.

Because the smoke was still there!

Even the City Warden, who stood high above the masses in everyone else's eyes, was now puffing out clouds of smoke as he cursed, "Motherfucker, what the hell is Sun Sheng up to!"

"Tell that bastard to come over tomorrow and apologize to me in person!"

"Fuck!"

The City Warden possessed the air of a refined scholar, yet every word he uttered was a masterpiece of profanity as he gave instructions to a physician from Ghost Hand Apothecary.

Afterward, once he had smoked about enough, he prepared to leave.

"Red Tears Guard Skyhawk Corps, respectfully sees off the City Warden!"

The Red Tears guards leaped into the air again, stretching out their arms and linking themselves into a row, allowing the City Warden to step on their heads as he departed.

Amid the crowd, Gu Qingfeng stood there like a mere lackey and remarked, "He really knows how to put on a show."

He had to admit, this world was genuinely interesting. Those icy and fiery effects from that man's entrance and exit would probably cost the price of a "Glory Collection" skin in some games from his previous life.

As a great hero with a promising future, he would have effects this flashy someday too.

No, his would be even cooler and more dazzling!

And this so-called City Warden truly had the right to act so grand.

He was the left and right arm of Xi Yunlei, the City Lord, responsible for the safety of all Red Tears City. Put simply, he was the captain of the city's security force; put grandly, he was a major figure who wielded great authority and bore the safety of the entire city on his shoulders.

The night had grown deep, but tonight's festivities continued.

If it had merely been an ordinary fire, it could never have caused such a huge commotion. Yet the place that had burned was Immortal Leaf Hall.

Ghost Hand Apothecary had caused such an enormous disturbance that it should have been punished severely, yet the City Warden had remained rather courteous toward it.

First, Ghost Hand Apothecary was a major taxpayer in the outer city, paying no small sum each month in rent and security fees. Second, the Ghost Physician Ghosthand was famed far and wide, with peerless medical skill. He was also a rare and influential figure, so naturally his beloved disciple, Sun Sheng, had status as well and shared some friendship with the City Warden, Yu Qiling.

With favors going back and forth, it naturally became a matter of punishing oneself with three cups of wine.

Ghost Hand Apothecary did not lack silver, but Immortal Leaf Hall burning down was no trivial matter.

That was because it was the apothecary's most important source of income—there was not even a second contender.

Seeing that such a major incident had occurred, the physician who had just helped put out the fire was about to hold the duty physician accountable and seek out Manager Sun Sheng to explain the situation, when...

He saw the corpses inside the shop and immediately revealed an expression of utter terror. Still singing and dancing, he ran away!

Even Manager Sun Sheng was dead. That meant the sky had fallen for the apothecary.

This was not a problem he could solve!

The revelry in the outer city continued. All that could be said was that Immortal Leaf was truly potent—not only could it get people high, it could keep them high.

But Gu Qingfeng did not remain immersed in the joy.

Human joys and sorrows were not shared. Right now, he only found them noisy.

Because at this moment, the effects of the Red Taisui Cinnamon Pill should have taken hold.

He found a relatively secluded place and sat down cross-legged.

Within Gu Qingfeng's consciousness, it felt as though an inch of light had appeared three inches behind his brow.

That inch of light hovered there, somewhere between illusion and reality.

"What is that?"

He could not help recalling the Red Taisui Cinnamon Pill's description. It said the pill could rapidly strengthen one's soul and greatly benefit mental power.

Could this be the manifestation of his soul?

He then recalled the description of the fourth realm, the Divine Sense Realm. Once true essence resonated intensely with the primordial qi of heaven and earth, it would reshape a cultivator's sea of consciousness and rapidly strengthen mental power.

At that point, mental power could be used to control true essence attached to tools such as flying swords and talismans, achieving unfathomable methods like "wherever the mind reaches, the flying sword kills." One could even use mental power to cultivate a Dharma form, its might terrifying to behold.

Gu Qingfeng's true essence could not yet produce a powerful resonance with the primordial qi of heaven and earth. He was clearly still some distance from the fourth realm's ability to kill with flying swords through mental power and condense a Dharma form.

Yet his soul and mental power had undeniably grown much stronger.

That was equivalent to laying the groundwork for the potential of the fourth realm in advance.

All that could be said was that this heretical pill was truly wicked—truly fast. While you were still in the third realm, it was already supplementing abilities from the fourth.

Was that not like learning to run and already laying the groundwork for flying later on?

Even if he still could not materialize his mental power, condense a Dharma form, or kill with a flying sword, the benefits of his strengthened soul and mental power were already beginning to emerge.

With a wave of Gu Qingfeng's hand, the true essence spilling from his fingers instantly transformed into thread after thread of fine filaments.

If one counted closely, one would find eighteen strands of true essence as fine as ox hair, each one perfectly even.

With his strengthened soul and mental power, he could now control the true essence throughout his body with far greater precision.

It could be said that among those of the same realm, very few could manipulate true essence with greater ease and freedom than he could!

Gu Qingfeng extended his fingers again. Under the control of his mental power, the leaking true essence immediately carved a rose the size of a fingernail into the ground. At the flower's rice-grain-sized center, it even engraved the six words, "The Funeral of a Rose."

Just as he was feeling quite pleased with this "rice-grain character carving" effect, a soft call suddenly reached his ears.

"Return."

"O wandering soul, return."

The call had no syllables, no intonation. It did not even sound human at all, yet it could point him toward a direction.

Gu Qingfeng looked into the night in that direction and knew that Taisui was calling him.

If not for the reversal without cost, he might already have been so bewitched by that voice that his soul turned upside down, unable to stop himself from rushing toward it as though racing to meet true love, merging with the legendary Taisui.

Fortunately, he was a genius.

Then Gu Qingfeng snapped his fingers, and the voice vanished as well.

The festive night quickly passed.

Even though such a horrific massacre had occurred at the apothecary, with signs that the entire household had been wiped out, Gu Qingfeng and quite a few other test subjects still did not leave.

Because they had yet to receive the rest of their payment for testing medicine.

Anyone willing to test medicine was surely desperately short of funds. How could they willingly leave without getting their silver?

A group of them stood outside like laborers demanding unpaid wages.

Naturally, Gu Qingfeng was among them.

Besides the fact that he had not received his silver either, as the culprit behind this case, he genuinely wanted to watch the excitement at the crime scene.

And the excitement came soon enough!