"Ahhh, it's Gu Yue Fairy! She's so beautiful, so beautiful!"
In Dujin City, a long-distance air harbor in western Wufu, a crowd of cultivators had been packed outside a warehouse belonging to the Puji Trading Company, waiting in line for ages.
It was noon near the end of midsummer. The blazing sun scorched the earth, its searing light seeming hot enough to melt the paving bricks.
Although cultivators possessed magic power and did not fear heat or cold, most of these were young people with low cultivation. Their meager magic power was scarcely better than none at all.
Among them were local common folk of roughly the same age, all red-faced and drenched in sweat beneath the sun.
Soon, however, excited cheers rose from the front of the line.
Under everyone's envious, ravenous gazes, a short, stout low-level cultivator hurried away, clutching an exquisitely printed, disc-shaped jade slip.
The fleeting glimpse of its design revealed a peerless beauty, so exquisite she hardly seemed to belong to the mortal world.
The foremost of the Seven Peerless Beauties, Gu Yue Yu'er!
"What are all those people crowding around for? Don't they find it unbearably hot under this blazing sun?"
While the crowd waited in line, several rogue cultivators who looked like demon hunters passed the street corner and cast curious glances their way.
In the underworld of the day, demon hunters who worked alone were becoming increasingly rare. Most rogue cultivators had joined locally organized branches of the Demon Hunter Association or corresponding Pioneering Teams, advancing into the wilderness through specialized organizations to hunt demons and all manner of demon beasts on a large scale.
Still, the remnants of the old era were deeply rooted. A mere twenty years was only just enough for a generation to grow up, and these professions