Three Court Appraisers Return

In the blink of an eye, ten days had passed.

Only three days remained until the Treasure Fair began.

During this time, Chen Shaojun's days had been exceedingly leisurely. Every day, he practiced martial arts, cultivated, appraised treasures, collected rewards...

His gains had been quite abundant.

In terms of martial arts,

as early as seven days ago, he had officially broken through, reaching the Body Tempering Realm, Ninth Layer—the realm of Inner Sight.

Not only had his blood-qi strength increased greatly, but through Inner Sight, he could also "see" the skin, flesh, bones, and meridians within his body, allowing him to temper his physical body with even greater precision.

Even places that the Tiger Demon Body-Tempering Fist had previously failed to reach could now be continuously tempered and strengthened by using Inner Sight to control his force.

His cultivation of the Tai Shang Perception Scripture had also progressed markedly.

The Arcane Power within his body had now grown to over three hundred strands. With his Arcane Power abundant, casting all kinds of spells had become as easy as waving an arm. Even when using the Divine Gaze Technique, he could do so with ease. Unless he encountered a treasure with Killing Intent shrouding its crown or greater, he should no longer have to worry about insufficient Arcane Power.

Instead, the gains from appraising treasures left him somewhat disappointed.

Over these ten days, he appraised three to five treasures each day, and although he received rewards every time,

the treasures were almost all Mortal Grade, Low-Tier. Only occasionally were there Mortal Grade, Mid-Tier or High-Tier items. As for treasures of the Dharma Grade, there had been only one or two in total.

Thus, the rewards he received were relatively ordinary.

Even though, in the eyes of many people, these rewards were things they could only dream of.

A dozen or so Blood-Qi Pills, five or six Spirit-Communing Pills, three or four Essence Pills. Aside from those, there were abilities such as eagle taming, horse training, fish finding, and weaving—things that sounded impressive but were of no use to him.

The only thing that truly interested him was a technique called Face-Shifting Technique.

This Face-Shifting Technique was essentially an alternative form of makeup. It could use all manner of materials to alter one's appearance and conceal one's identity.

Yet it was more ingenious than ordinary makeup because it also involved muscle control. By changing the shape of the facial muscles, it could make one's appearance undergo an earth-shaking transformation.

Generally speaking, unless someone had recognized the person from the very beginning, it was nearly impossible to identify the true identity of someone who had used the Face-Shifting Technique.

"Fortunately, I was also rewarded with several martial arts during this period.

The Dragon Roar Ironcloth Body Shield should be more sophisticated than the Ironcloth Body Shield from the Iron Wire Fist School. It is a top-tier Outer Tempering martial art. After practicing it, my skin's defensive strength has increased by more than double.

Then there is the Single-Stroke Penetrating Fist. It is a method for training force, and it has greatly improved my control over my force.

There is the Blood-Refining Saber Art, the Lesser Celestial Circuit Sword Art, and another free-hand art called the Eight-Pounce Free-Hand Art. Unfortunately, it has only one move. Still, this free-hand art seems to have some hidden depth. If all eight moves were complete, its power should be considerable."

As Chen Shaojun reviewed the martial arts he had acquired during this period, he still felt rather delighted.

After all, most of these martial arts could be put to use, and they happened to make up for his lack of combat strength.

At the very least, when fighting someone of the same level, he would not be left completely unable to fight back simply because he lacked methods for facing an enemy.

Of course, Chen Shaojun had not truly fought any martial artist yet, so he genuinely did not know what level his strength belonged to.

It was probably rather weak.

After all, among the five realms of martial arts, the Body Tempering Realm was merely the lowest level. Above it lay the Qi Sea Realm, and beyond that, the Innate Realm...

"Three Court Appraisers have returned."

That day, just as Chen Shaojun entered the pawnshop, news reached him.

Immediately afterward, more information entered his ears.

"I heard that Three Court Appraisers suffered a great calamity this time.

Not only did he encounter a ghost, he was even struck by lightning?"

"Struck by lightning?

How many bad deeds must he have done?"

"Who knows?

But I saw Three Court Appraisers just now. What a spirited and high-spirited man he used to be! Now, not only was he gaunt as a skeleton, but a large patch of his hair had turned white. He looked at least ten years older."

"That was only inevitable.

After encountering a ghost, who would not fall seriously ill afterward?

Three Court Appraisers had more than half his vitality sucked away by the ghost. It was already fortunate that he survived.

Not to mention that he was struck by lightning in the middle of it all. He had nearly lost half his life.

Still, they say that injuries to the muscles and bones take a hundred days to heal. His condition was far more serious than damaged muscles and bones, so why had he returned so quickly?"

"What else could it be? He ran out of money.

I heard that Three Court Appraisers spent a huge sum to destroy that ghost."

"How much?"

"At least this much..."

The speaker held up five fingers.

At once, everyone sucked in a breath of cold air.

Five fingers naturally could not mean five taels of silver, nor merely fifty taels. It most likely meant five hundred taels.

For appraisal apprentices, who earned only a little over a thousand copper coins after working hard for an entire month—not even one tael of silver—that was absolutely an astronomical sum.

Chen Shaojun secretly clicked his tongue as well. No wonder so many people had embarked upon the path of wicked cultivation. The money truly came too easily.

As long as one summoned a little ghost and caused trouble for three to five days, the victim would immediately come crying to one's door, begging for help. After doing that two or three times, would one not have gathered all the medicinal ingredients for the Dragon-Tiger Vitality Pill?

One had to know that, in Chen Shaojun's treasure-appraisal memories, there had truly been quite a few people who did such things. For example, Zhang Yan, the owner of the Blood-Baleful Pennant, had been extremely practiced at it.

Even when he had appraised the Alms-Gathering Golden Bowl early on, the images had shown that old monk Fangyuan, in order to build a temple of his own, had used this very method to scheme against a wealthy local family.

Although afterward, the old monk copied out the repentance scriptures several times and recited Amitabha hundreds of times before the Buddha statues, whenever midnight dreams returned and he looked upon Fangyuan Temple rising from the ground, that old face of his had always been suffused with a smile.

However, Chen Shaojun was even more curious about the expert from Clear Spring Daoist Temple who had taken action, so he asked, "Do you know who that expert was?"

"Clear Spring Daoist Temple's Five-Powers Daoist.

They say he is the school master's junior brother, and his methods are unfathomable."

The man gave that reply, but he could not say anything more.

After all, that man and they belonged to entirely different worlds.

"Clear Spring Daoist Temple's Five-Powers Daoist?"

Chen Shaojun silently committed the name to memory.

It was not because he wanted revenge. Fundamentally, there was no real enmity between them. He was simply curious.

He also secretly warned himself not to grow too pleased with himself just because he had mastered one or two spells.

After all, Shengjing City contained far too many experts. Compared to true masters, his methods still fell far short.

Three Court Appraisers' return had almost no effect on the pawnshop apprentices.

The man seemed to have forgotten about asking Chen Shaojun to help appraise treasures. Even when he saw him, he did not bring it up.

Zhang Ke, on the other hand, immediately went over to Three Court Appraisers' side. His desire to curry favor was plain for all to see.

Chen Shaojun could only silently offer his blessings.

He hoped Zhang Ke could free himself soon.

Last time, it had only been a ghost. Next time, who knew what it would be.

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