Entrusted with a Daoist Friend's Orphan at the Start

The waning moon looked fierce as a sword, and the cold wind smelled foul as blood.

The drizzle fell without end. Inside the cave mansion, Luo Fanchen pressed his side against the stone door, holding his breath with a sharp gaze while the sword in his hand trembled incessantly.

"Daoist Luo, it is me."

"Daoist Ling?"

His voice was weak. Luo Fanchen's shoulders tensed as the tip of his nose was enveloped by a rich, thick stench of blood.

He was currently only at the third level of Qi Refining, whereas the newcomer was a notorious Demonic Cultivator in the Flying Cloud Market named Ling Leng, who possessed the cultivation of the ninth level of Qi Refining.

"It is me. I ask that you please open the door, brother has something he must beg of you."

The voice came in fits and starts. After hesitating for a moment, Luo Fanchen gripped his sword tight and slowly pushed the door open.

It was not that he was soft-hearted. Given Ling Leng's cultivation, if the man truly harbored ill intentions, the stone door before him would be as useless as if it didn't exist.

The stone door slowly swung open, and Luo Fanchen's sword thrust straight toward the space between the other man's brows, stopping abruptly when it was just a hair's breadth away.

"Daoist Luo is still as cautious as ever."

Blood spilled from Ling Leng's nose and mouth, and the fist-sized penetration wound on his chest had nearly destroyed his internal organs, his Dantian cultivation already completely crippled.

The moment he saw Luo Fanchen, he seemed to lose his final thread of tension and collapsed limply in front of the mansion entrance.

"Daoist Ling, how did you end up hurt like this?"

Luo Fanchen's brow furrowed slightly. He quickly stepped forward to help Ling Leng up, hesitatingly fished a pale green medicinal pill out from his robes, but delayed in passing it to Ling Leng's lips. The latter gave a bitter, helpless laugh and spoke.

"My Heart Meridian is already destroyed, beyond the help of medicine. Please do not trouble yourself over it, Daoist Luo."

Ling Leng panted without stop, coughing up vast quantities of blood mixed with viscera onto his chest.

Luo Fanchen said nothing. This Demonic Cultivator's Heart Meridian had suffered a grievous wound; if not for the lingering attachments in his heart and a single breath of willpower he was holding onto, he would have already perished long ago.

"I regret not listening to what you said and going to fight for some Foundation Establishment fortune."

"Before the Dao Sects, people like us are no different from ants. Merely the slight aftermath of a spell battle was enough to take the lives of us rogue cultivators."

Luo Fanchen's vigilance did not fade. While supporting Ling Leng, the tip of his sword consistently maintained a distance of half an inch from the man's back.

The Five Great Mystic Sects and the Eight Great Daoist Sects were colossal entities seated upon the Eight Desolations Continent. In their eyes, rogue cultivators were nothing more than expendable consumables to be squeezed at will, and it was entirely commonplace to crush a few ants to relieve their boredom.

"You are the only one who returned?"

Ling Leng nodded slowly, and Luo Fanchen let out a soft sigh.

This time, the Grotto-Heaven Secret Realm had manifested, and rumor had it that there were Foundation Establishment fortunes inside, drawing rogue cultivators from all directions to gather.

Nearly half of the Qi Refining cultivators from the Flying Cloud Market had gone to contend for a single thread of fortune, yet they had been completely wiped out. Fortunately, he prided himself on self-awareness, allowing him to escape this disaster by a hair's breadth.

Ling Leng coughed violently, his trembling hand grasping Luo Fanchen's shoulder as he made a bitter, pleading request.

"Daoist Luo, I am a Demonic Cultivator and have no words in defense of the evil retribution I face, but I still have a daughter in the mortal world."

"These past years I have treated her poorly. Now that I am about to die, I cannot let her go, and I beg Daoist Luo to guide her in cultivation."

"Why me?"

Luo Fanchen wiped his sword, his narrowed eyes deep with meaning. He and this Demonic Cultivator were only acquaintances who nodded in passing.

"Daoist Luo is benevolent and still retains a heart of compassion for mortals. Across the vast Flying Cloud Market, you are the only one I can trust."

His voice came in fragments as Ling Leng shook his head and pleaded, his eyes wrapped in the aura of death.

Luo Fanchen lived in seclusion and led a quiet life of detached cultivation. Although his cultivation was slightly weak, he had never once engaged in acts of murder and pillaging, making him an absolute anomaly among rogue cultivators.

Luo Fanchen's gaze flickered, and he remained silent for a long time.

"This younger brother's heart is willing, but his strength falls short."

Luo Fanchen was on the verge of refusing without a second thought. Due to issues regarding his background, he had lived in seclusion for nearly ten years without stepping beyond a radius of a hundred miles.

Furthermore, Ling Leng had made quite a few enemies on ordinary days, and he had no desire whatsoever to wade into those murky waters of trouble.

"Daoist friend. My daughter's aptitude for cultivation is superior, possessing a Superior-Grade Spiritual Root. If you are willing to guide her cultivation, when the Ascension Immortal Assembly arrives hereafter and she enters the Dao Sect, you will certainly receive generous rewards."

"Superior-Grade Spiritual Root?"

Luo Fanchen was slightly startled. A Superior-Grade Spiritual Root, even placed within the Eight Great Daoist Sects, was still a rare and precious seed for cultivation.

"This Storage Bag contains the fortune I obtained by risking my life. I bestow it to Daoist Luo as compensation."

With great effort, Ling Leng fished a Storage Bag stained through with blood from his robes, placed it tremblingly into Luo Fanchen's hands, and his pupils dilated as he breathed his last right then and there.

The blood in his palm gradually grew cold, and Luo Fanchen's eyes held a complex mix of emotions.

The Demonic Cultivator whose fierce reputation echoed throughout the Flying Cloud Market had died a miserable death right before his eyes in the blink of an eye. Rogue cultivators truly had nothing to lean on, their lives as cheap as ants.

Luo Fanchen pressed his lips together in a soft sigh, executed a few spell techniques to clear away the bloodstains, and buried Ling Leng right where he fell before finally finding the leisure to inspect the Storage Bag.

Fifteen Spirit Stones, over fifty strands of Spirit Dust—roughly amounting to five Spirit Stones or so—a Low-Grade Flying Sword, and two bottles of First-Tier Low-Grade Qi-Gathering Pills sufficient to sustain a Qi Refining cultivator's practice.

Standing right in the center was a cyan jade brocade box, its exterior shrouded in a thin mist and radiating a faint blue spiritual light.

Luo Fanchen merely took a couple of sniffs before feeling his mind clear and his ears grow sharp, his pupils instantly expanding ever so slightly.

"It's Water Dragonwood."

It was one of the water-element Foundation Establishment Treasures, the main ingredient in Foundation-Building Pills. Taken directly, it could also increase the success rate of Foundation Establishment for cultivators with water-type Spirit Roots by ten percent.

The Eight Great Daoist Sects released no more than a dozen Foundation Establishment treasures each year. This one was worth over three hundred Spirit Stones—priceless, even when it had a price.

"Fellow Daoist Ling, you really are a man of great fortune."

Luo Fanchen's breathing quickened. He held the jade box as if it were a scorching-hot potato, glancing around for a long while before finally taking it in his hands to admire. He couldn't bear to put it down.

As expected of a Demonic Cultivator who'd made his way through plunder and slaughter—his savings were far beyond Luo Fanchen's reach. Apart from the Foundation Establishment Treasure, the remaining cultivation resources were enough to spare him several years of toil.

It was a shame that one wrong step had left both his opportunity and his daughter in the hands of an outsider.

"But this restriction is a bit of a bother."

Luo Fanchen clicked his tongue and ran his fingers over the intricate formation markings on the jade box. The restriction wasn't particularly powerful; even he could force his way through it, but doing so might damage the treasure inside.

It seemed Ling Leng had left this as a safeguard. To obtain the Foundation Establishment Treasure, one of his direct descendants would have to release the spell personally.

"A Superior-Grade Spiritual Root, huh?"

Luo Fanchen clicked his tongue, his heart already stirring.

After awakening his past-life memories as a child and realizing he had transmigrated, he'd smoothly passed the test for a Spirit Root. He'd thought himself supremely talented, and believed the Daoist texts he'd copied in his previous life would let him dominate the age and suppress all its prodigies.

But his beautiful fantasy had collided with a merciless reality.

He had only a Five-Element False Spiritual Root, the very lowest grade. He could barely sense spiritual energy. After twenty years of unceasing cultivation, he'd reached only the third level of Qi Refining.

A Superior-Grade Spiritual Root could absorb spiritual energy more than ten times as fast as his.

"Fellow Daoist Ling, leave your daughter to me. Go in peace."

The next day, Luo Fanchen lit three sticks of incense before the mound where Ling Leng was buried. He carefully copied the formation markings on the brocade box, tucked his fifteen Spirit Stones into his Storage Bag with great care, then dug deep into the earth to hide his belongings. Only after that did he take out an old talisman.

It was a Spirit-Riding Talisman, a low-grade talisman. One Spirit Stone could buy thirty of them, and each could carry a cultivator through the air for an hour.

As a Demonic Cultivator, Ling Leng had inevitably killed and set fires, leaving him with plenty of enemies. He'd thoughtfully placed his daughter in a mortal town called Cloudmist City, outside Flying Cloud Market.

Luo Fanchen planned to bring her back, then head to Flying Cloud Market and make his way there. The market was protected by a Spirit-Gathering Formation, and its spiritual energy was far denser than that of his residence. Now that he had some Spirit Stones, he could afford to rent a cave abode, making cultivation twice as effective.

When Luo Fanchen appeared again in Cloudmist City, he found himself in a cramped, sealed prison.

The space was dim and airless, the stench of rotting mud and stagnant water lingering beneath his nose. Luo Fanchen pinched it shut. Before him, a jailer in a faded official's uniform grinned obsequiously.

"Im-Immortal Master, this vicious girl is the one you're looking for."

The old jailer's face was all smiles as he led Luo Fanchen deeper into the prison. Candlelight flickered; through its murky glow, Luo Fanchen finally saw the girl he'd come for.

"So you're Ling Moxue, who killed your mother and relatives, then slaughtered more than twenty members of your clan in a single night?"

Chains clanked. A small figure stood there, filthy and disheveled, her wrists and ankles chafed raw by the shackles. The heavy collar around her neck forced her head down.

Ling Moxue's breathing was faint. She didn't speak. Only when Luo Fanchen approached did she suddenly lunge at his throat, trying to bite him. Her bloodshot eyes were venomous as a demon's, but the chains held her fast.

"Like father, like daughter. She really is a born killer."

Luo Fanchen smiled and lifted Ling Moxue's chin, forcing her to face him.

She was exactly eighteen by her bone age, yet malnutrition had left her far shorter and thinner than others her age.

Her small face was sallow, and lank, yellow hair hung over her cheeks. A distinct smear of dark-red blood stained her cracked lips. Her almond-shaped eyes seemed ready to devour anyone who met them; the venom in them even moved Luo Fanchen a little. She was fine material for a Demonic Cultivator.

Who the hell leaves someone an eighteen-year-old to raise?

Luo Fanchen sighed inwardly. The girl was already past the best age to begin cultivating. Even with a Superior-Grade Spiritual Root, she'd find it difficult to join a Dao Sect.

A growl rumbled in Ling Moxue's throat. Like a wildcat arching its back in alarm, she bristled and furiously bit at Luo Fanchen's palm. She gnawed until her lips and teeth were smeared scarlet, yet couldn't leave a single tooth mark.

"Let's get acquainted. My name is Luo Fanchen. Your father, Ling Leng, entrusted you to me, and I've come to take you away."

At the mention of Ling Leng, Ling Moxue froze for a moment, seeming to regain a sliver of reason. Her almond-shaped eyes turned red as she glared stubbornly at Ling Leng's name, her small face contorting with tension.

Luo Fanchen's brows drew together. She bit down harder on the back of his hand. Afraid she'd break her teeth, he was about to knock her unconscious when intricate black characters appeared before the girl.

[Eight Desolations Record of the Demoness]

[The Eight Wastes have suffered under the Dao Sects for far too long. The Demoness has fallen into the mortal world. Win the Demoness's admiration and guide her onto the right path to receive a heaven-bestowed opportunity from the Eight Wastes.]

[The greater her admiration, the richer the reward.]

[Current Demoness available for binding: Ling Moxue (Innate Sword Bone)]

[Special effect upon binding—Karmic Bond: After binding, when the Demoness cultivates, one-fifth of her cultivation will be returned to the one chosen by fate.]

[Bind?]

Luo Fanchen froze. His breathing gradually quickened as his trembling finger slowly moved toward the binding option.