The dying sun glowed like blood, casting its slanting rays over Black Sand Island's jagged cliffs.
The island was a first-rank high-grade vassal island under Eight Serpent Island, covered in scorched volcanic rock, with spirit herbs growing only sparsely;
The great lineages thought it beneath their notice, but the scattered deposits of first-tier black fire rock made it a place where rogue cultivators clustered together to scrape by.
Many rogue cultivators rented crude cave abodes, eking out a living by mining first-tier black fire rock and hunting demon beasts.
Halfway up the mountainside on the island's eastern end, inside a crude cave abode built from blocks of bluestone, a fish-oil lamp with a bean-sized flame illuminated the mottled talisman traces on the walls.
On a stone meditation cushion sat a middle-aged rogue cultivator in gray cloth robes, his complexion sallow and waxen, his legs crossed.
His surname was Wang, his given name Shisan. With cultivation at the sixth layer of Qi Refining, he was nothing outstanding on this island.
But his rudimentary talisman-making skills allowed him to just barely feed himself.
When he ran short of medicinal pills, he would also work himself to the bone mining ore, take odd jobs in the market ward, or hunt demon beasts to earn some low-grade spirit stones.
He had rented this cave abode for ten spirit stones a year and struggled bitterly for over twenty years, usually having to weigh his options again and again before even buying a few Qi Gathering Pills.
The forces subordinate to the Eight Serpent Sect had claimed all the good places, fencing off every stretch of land rich in spiritual energy;
If rogue cultivators wanted a good place to cultivate, they had to pay spirit stones.
"Whew-cultivation is hard, and being a rogue cultivator is harder