"That Sea Tower Beast is vicious! Look, it's spitting water again!"
"What are the Merchant Association's guards even good for? Flying around it like a swarm of flies. Stop standing around watching and get in there!"
"So timid. Utterly useless..."
At that moment, Lu Xing stood upstairs with several friends he had temporarily teamed up with, watching the battle in the distance.
Their loft offered an excellent vantage point. Although it was nighttime, cultivators had exceptional eyesight, and the drifting lights emitted by the surrounding Grand Array made the scene across from them easy to see.
These rogue cultivators all harbored some delight in others' misfortune. After all, the Merchant Association was not one of their own, nor did it share its usual earnings with them.
Seeing its people suffer, they offered neither sympathy nor help, but instead enjoyed the spectacle.
Some even looked faintly restless, as though weighing the advantages and disadvantages of a certain decision.
Suddenly, Lu Xing looked up in surprise. "Seniors, you're back."
"Lu Xing, you've seen that ancient book. Tell me, is this the Orchid of the Secluded Valley?"
Li Ling descended from the sky, took out the box, and opened it.
Everyone peered over curiously, but the exquisite treasure box appeared empty, leaving them baffled.
Lu Xing said instinctively, "There's nothing inside... Senior, did you take an empty box?"
But the moment those words left his mouth, his expression shifted. "No, wait. There seems to be something there!"
"Something? Why can't we see it?"
"Exactly. There's clearly nothing here."
The other cultivators looked puzzled at Lu Xing's words.
Neither their eyes nor their spiritual consciousness detected anything, so they assumed he was talking nonsense.
"You can't see this?" Li Ling asked without betraying his thoughts. "That really is strange."
He looked into the box.