Kill and Burn for a Golden Belt

"Haah, haah."

Chen Zhuo panted hard. Only when the sword-light faded did he come to his senses. He darted forward and gathered up the Black Net.

It was the Magical Artifact the Sinister Old Man had just used.

Chen Zhuo did not know how to use it, but he put it away all the same.

This was the first time Chen Zhuo had killed anyone, yet he felt nothing particularly unusual. If anything, he was a little excited. He could still hear his own heartbeat.

Capitalist society devoured people without spitting out their bones; in the feudal past, human lives were as cheap as grass.

That held true here and in the Immortal Estate.

Without the will to kill decisively, he would never survive!

There was nothing more to say. It was just the cold wind blowing through Fallen Valley.

The Immortal Estate World was much the same.

The Immortal Estate explicitly forbade killing and severely punished violators. Cultivators were equal before the law, whether they were at Qi Refinement or Nascent Soul. Even a Nascent Soul cultivator slaughtering a Qi Refinement cultivator was a serious crime.

But that was easy enough to say. Did the Immortal Estate itself believe it?

Could Nascent Soul and Qi Refinement really be the same? If a Nascent Soul or Golden Core cultivator killed a Qi Refinement cultivator, the Immortal Estate...

No, the Immortal Estate's Law Enforcement Cultivators would certainly come down hard and make the killer pay a hefty fine in Spirit Coins.

That money went straight into the Immortal Estate's treasury.

The Immortal Estate only intervened in fights between cultivators of the same realm.

Still, whatever else one said, order in the Immortal Estate World was quite good.

At the very least, killing had to be done quietly. And because there was a fine to pay, many cultivators could not be bothered to kill lower-ranked cultivators and risk damaging their Immortal Dao Potential.

To a Golden Core or Nascent Soul cultivator, even one Spirit Coin's worth of Immortal Dao Potential was too precious to waste!

The Spirit Pearl World was different. There, the strong preyed on the weak, and people came to blows at first sight, killing for treasure.

It had certainly taught Chen Zhuo what kind of world this was.

Chen Zhuo stepped forward calmly and took the Storage Bag hanging from the Sinister Old Man's waist, marveling to himself.

Well, would you look at that—a Storage Bag!

Now this was good stuff!

"This thing sells for a thousand Spirit Coins. Five of them would be enough to buy an inferior Spiritual Root!"

Chen Zhuo was secretly delighted. Kill and burn, and you earned yourself a golden belt!

Because the Immortal Estate had spent years waging war against other planes, the materials used for spatial Magical Treasures like Storage Bags had all gone toward making weapons that could break through worlds.

They were scarce strategic resources under strict control, so Storage Bag prices had soared and stayed high.

A Storage Bag like this would sell for at least a thousand Spirit Coins on the market.

Chen Zhuo gave its contents and space a quick sweep with his Divine Sense, then promptly stuffed the Leopard's corpse inside. He left at once, traveled a few hundred meters south, activated the World-Breaking Pearl, and vanished.

The Immortal Estate World.

The moment Chen Zhuo returned, he took stock of his spoils.

He had been brimming with anticipation, but one glance left him sorely disappointed.

The Storage Bag held only three or four glowing stones, a few sets of clothes, and several books.

Chen Zhuo glanced through the books. One was a map, and another was a cultivation manual, probably for the old man's own use.

"Sigh. That figures. The rotten old man had sunk so low he had to go out hunting monsters. Of course he didn't have much money."

Chen Zhuo sighed, took out a glowing stone, and examined it curiously. "So this is a Spirit Stone?"

A Spirit Stone. A real Spirit Stone!

Not some cold number displayed on a jade screen, but the genuine article!

At the latest official exchange rate, one Spirit Stone was worth ten Spirit Coins. On the Black Market, it could probably fetch thirteen or so.

The old man might have been poor by the standards of the Ancient Immortal Realm, but those three and a half Spirit Stones and the Storage Bag alone had made Chen Zhuo a fortune!

And that was without counting the Magical Artifact and the intact Demon Beast corpse!

Still, that Magical Artifact could not even penetrate the Golden Armor Talisman's defenses. It really was the most basic entry-level kind; the Artifact Refining College would probably treat it as scrap metal.

But Chen Zhuo did not mind. He could not afford one of the Immortal Estate's fine Magical Artifacts anyway, so this would do for now.

As for the Demon Beast corpse...

Chen Zhuo decided to roast it and eat it.

The Demon Beast had only been at the First Layer of Qi Refining, but its flesh had also been nourished by the Spiritual Qi of heaven and earth, leaving it plump and juicy. It was excellent nourishment.

For cultivators like Chen Zhuo, who had not yet reached the fourth layer of Qi Refinement and were still in the Body Tempering stage, it was especially nourishing!

If he bought this at the market, a pound would have to cost twenty or thirty Spirit Coins, surely?

With that thought, Chen Zhuo cut off two or three pounds of meat and started roasting it.

His cooking was simple, but the ingredients were good enough to make Chen Zhuo, who had rarely eaten anything fine, feel thoroughly satisfied.

"This Leopard meat really is nourishing!"

A single bite made Chen Zhuo's eyes light up. He felt his blood and qi surging and his strength growing!

He could not help eating a few more bites as he considered his situation.

Before he died, the Sinister Old Man had called himself a "cultivator from Cloudford Market" and claimed he was hunting monsters here with several friends.

It was probably a bluff, but Chen Zhuo did not dare let down his guard.

What if the old man really did have accomplices nearby?

Chen Zhuo had just killed someone. The other man had attacked first, but he had been a fourth-layer Qi Refinement cultivator. Who knew whether he had friends, family, or fellow disciples?

And from the old man's words, Chen Zhuo guessed that Cloudford Market was a gathering place for cultivators, perhaps a Market or a sect's base.

"I can't take the risk."

Chewing the Leopard meat, Chen Zhuo weighed his options. "I'll stay out of the Spirit Pearl World for the next ten days or so and let things blow over. I can go back once enough time has passed."

The Spirit Pearl World was rich in Spiritual Qi, and Cultivation there was far more efficient than in the Immortal Estate, but staying alive mattered more.

If the Sinister Old Man really had friends nearby, barging back in would be walking straight into their net.

So Chen Zhuo decided to lie low and cultivate in the Immortal Estate World for ten days or half a month before returning to see how things stood.

After polishing off the Leopard meat, Chen Zhuo spent a short while regulating his breath, then opened his Spirit Message Jade Slip to check his upcoming classes.

In five days, the Spiritual Root Implantation Class would hold one of its few in-person lessons.

It would be Chen Zhuo's first in-person lesson since enrolling. Though he was only in the Spiritual Root Value Enrollment Class, it was still an official course at Taiqing City Alchemy Vocational and Technical College, taken alongside students from the regular classes.

The in-person lesson was free too, and better than an online class because he could meet a real teacher. At heart, though, it was a vocational course, not a cultivation class.

At the Alchemy Vocational and Technical College, alchemy naturally came first and cultivation second.

No one expected vocational college students to shoulder cultivation duties. Reaching Foundation Establishment would already make one a favored child of heaven. The main goal was to train advanced Alchemy Practitioners and the like for specific roles.

These days, alchemy, Artifact Refining, talisman making, and similar work were handled by production lines. A dozen or so Qi Refinement cultivators who understood the basic principles were enough to get a line running.

But production-line products merely met the standard. Fine pieces still required hands-on work.

That was why vocational colleges still needed to exist.

Advancing from vocational college to university required a cultivation-level assessment, but anyone with notable skill in alchemy could also enter the Taiqing University Spiritual Elixir College for further study.

Either way, the in-person lesson was essential.

Judging by the sinister old man's reaction, even defective talismans from the Immortal Estate were in high demand over there.

So Chen Zhuo had all the more reason to take this vocational course seriously!

Being a middleman between two worlds—now that sounded promising!

But first, he needed to search online for a guide to controlling low-level Magical Artifacts so he could put the Black Net to use.

To the elite, the thing might be worthless trash.

To Chen Zhuo, it was already a decent treasure.

Once he had gotten enough use out of it, he could even sell it to the Tiaotiao secondhand Magical Artifact recycling platform and earn a couple of Spirit Stones.