Alchemist, an Unexpected Encounter on the Road

After leaving the Hundred Artifacts Pavilion, Li Yunjing headed to the shantytown in Xunxian Town.

He arrived at Zhang Hongzhi's residence.

Zhang Hongzhi wasn't there.

Only Zhang Hongzhi's grandson, Zhang Yuan, was at home.

Li Yunjing told Zhang Yuan that the Luozhen Sect would hold a Foundation Establishment banquet the day after tomorrow, on the ninth day of the twelfth month.

Li Yunjing asked Zhang Yuan to pass a message to Zhang Hongzhi:

The Luozhen Sect invited Zhang Hongzhi to attend the Foundation Establishment banquet.

After passing on the message, Li Yunjing left the shantytown.

Then Li Yunjing used Wind-Riding Escape

and visited the encampments of four sects in succession.

He informed each of them about the Luozhen Sect's Foundation Establishment banquet and invited them to attend.

All the sects gave affirmative replies.

After all, they had been on good terms with the Luozhen Sect in the past.

Now that the Luozhen Sect was rising again, it was good news for these sects as well.

After inviting the sects,

Li Yunjing found a place to rest

and sat in meditation to restore his Law Power.

"There was one more person I needed to invite."

Li Yunjing had intended to return to the Luozhen Sect, but he suddenly remembered there was someone else.

His name was Ding Qifeng, a good friend of Li Yunjing's master, Nangong Chengyu.

Besides that, he was also an alchemist.

It was precisely because of this that Nangong Chengyu had befriended Ding Qifeng.

In Li Yunjing's memories,

Ding Qifeng often came to the Luozhen Sect to discuss the Dao and exchange insights on alchemy with his master.

Nangong Chengyu had even told Li Yunjing

that Ding Qifeng intended to join the Luozhen Sect.

But after Nangong Chengyu died, the plan fell through, and Ding Qifeng rarely visited the Luozhen Sect anymore.

Even so, Li Yunjing had a good impression of Ding Qifeng.

Moreover, Ding Qifeng was a second-grade alchemist.

Li Yunjing planned to go and invite Ding Qifeng this time,

first, to reestablish ties between the Luozhen Sect and Ding Qifeng,

and while he was at it, Li Yunjing also had some questions about alchemy he wanted to ask Ding Qifeng.

Second, Li Yunjing planned to bring up the old matter again.

He wanted to see whether Ding Qifeng still intended to join the Luozhen Sect.

This was a second-grade alchemist with a wealth of experience.

And he was a rogue cultivator.

Such an opportunity was hard to come by.

Having restored his Law Power, Li Yunjing got his bearings.

Then he used Wind-Riding Escape and headed toward Ding Qifeng's location.

After traveling for nearly a quarter of an hour, Li Yunjing's Divine Sense suddenly detected that something was amiss.

A little over eight hundred paces ahead and to the right, a group of cultivators was fighting.

But that distance was at the very limit of Li Yunjing's Divine Sense.

Li Yunjing advanced another hundred or so paces.

His Divine Sense picked up a fuller picture.

Based on what his Divine Sense detected, the scene of the fight automatically took shape in Li Yunjing's mind.

There were two groups of cultivators, one of them dressed in matching clothes.

They looked like disciples of some lineage or sect.

The other group looked thoroughly disreputable.

Their robes were all different, and not only were they loose and baggy,

they were also filthy and disheveled, some even riddled with holes.

Both groups consisted entirely of Qi Refining cultivators.

The strongest were only at late Qi Refining.

None of them noticed Li Yunjing observing them.

Li Yunjing hadn't wanted to meddle and had planned to take a detour.

But then he suddenly noticed that the disreputable cultivators struck with extreme ruthlessness.

Their fighting style was unorthodox, too.

They stood in stark contrast to the other group.

These people were rogue cultivators, and not ordinary ones.

Seeing how they traded injury for injury,

Li Yunjing suspected they were bandit cultivators.

At the sight of bandit cultivators, Li Yunjing suddenly felt wide awake.

After all, wiping out a band of bandit cultivators could earn him considerable merit and rewards from the Immortal Alliance.

More importantly, they were all at Qi Refining, with no one at Foundation Establishment.

As a Foundation Establishment cultivator, Li Yunjing could handle them with ease.

After observing for a while and confirming that this was the whole group,

Li Yunjing immediately stopped concealing his Divine Sense.

In an instant, the Divine Sense of the Foundation Establishment Realm descended from the heavens.

The cultivators, whose cultivation was only at Qi Refining, were all frightened into quails.

"The wind's turned! Run!"

A late Qi Refining cultivator wielding a broadsword shouted.

Forcibly suppressing the fear in his heart, he fled at top speed.

How could Li Yunjing possibly let him escape?

His Foundation Establishment Divine Sense transformed directly into a giant hand and seized the man in an iron grip.

Immediately afterward, Li Yunjing formed hand seals with both hands.

A fiery red arcane light suddenly appeared.

As Li Yunjing's thoughts shifted,

the arcane light shot forward.

It soon reached the battlefield and turned into thin ropes that bound the group of cultivators.

Shortly afterward, Li Yunjing showed himself.

When the cultivators he had rescued saw him, they all looked at him gratefully.

A fair-faced late Qi Refining cultivator walked over.

"Thank you for intervening and saving us, Senior. We are outer disciples of the Departing Maple Sect. My name is Xu Taihong."

Li Yunjing was surprised. "Oh? What a coincidence. I am the sect master of the Luozhen Sect. I happened to meet your Sect Master Su not long ago."

The Departing Maple Sect disciples were all surprised to hear this.

But they soon grew happy.

They were well aware

of the relationship the Luozhen Sect and the Departing Maple Sect had once shared.

Now that the Luozhen Sect's master had saved them,

they wouldn't have to worry about what came next.

"Do you know where these people came from?" Li Yunjing asked.

Xu Taihong shook his head. "They're bandit cultivators who've taken up residence at Purple Bamboo Pool."

"Taken up residence at Purple Bamboo Pool?" Li Yunjing was surprised.

Purple Bamboo Pool wasn't far from Xunxian Town.

It lay only a few dozen li south of the town.

Since a grove of first-grade purple bamboo grew around Purple Bamboo Pool,

cultivators often visited to cut the bamboo and sell it for Spirit Stones.

If bandit cultivators had taken up residence there,

people would have known about it long ago.

"I thought it was strange too," Xu Taihong said, "but that man himself said where they came from."

Xu Taihong pointed at the late Qi Refining bandit cultivator Li Yunjing had restrained with his Divine Sense.

Li Yunjing nodded and walked over to the bandit cultivator.

He looked down at the bandit cultivator lying prone on the ground.

"I'll ask, and you'll answer," Li Yunjing said.

"Where did you come from, what are you after, and did you have anything to do with what happened on Seven Ingenuities Mountain?"

Li Yunjing controlled his Divine Sense and released the man's mouth.

The man immediately spoke. "Senior, Senior, spare me, please spare me. I have elders above me and children below me at home, and they all depend on me alone..."

Li Yunjing's face remained expressionless. "Answer my questions."

"Senior, Senior, please spare me..."

Seeing this, Li Yunjing used his Divine Sense to seal the man's mouth again.

He then seized a mid-stage Qi Refining bandit cultivator.

"Can you answer my questions?"

Li Yunjing asked, staring at the bandit cultivator.

The bandit cultivator's eyes were filled with fear. He stood there as stiff as a wooden chicken, as if he hadn't heard Li Yunjing at all.

Li Yunjing seized the remaining bandit cultivators one by one and questioned them as well.

In the end, he failed to get anything out of them.

These bandit cultivators seemed as though they had only just taken up the trade.

Their states of mind were nothing like those of seasoned old hands.

Only the late Qi Refining cultivator seemed like an old hand.

Although he pretended to be panic-stricken, Li Yunjing could tell he was doing it deliberately.

The man was unwilling to talk, so Li Yunjing couldn't be bothered to ask anymore.

Although Li Yunjing could use soul searching,

as a member of the Immortal Alliance,

he couldn't use such a method on his own without permission.

Li Yunjing took out the Immortal Alliance Token.

Wang Qianxue had given it to him when he emerged from seclusion.

Li Yunjing could use the Immortal Alliance Token to contact the Xunxian Town Immortal Alliance.

Li Yunjing planned to hand these bandit cultivators over to the Xunxian Town Immortal Alliance.

The Xunxian Town Immortal Alliance had plenty of ways to make these fellows talk.

Li Yunjing channeled Law Power into the Immortal Alliance Token to activate it, then sent a message through it.

He gave his location and described what he had encountered, requesting that the Immortal Alliance send people to deal with it.

Afterward, Li Yunjing sat down where he was and waited quietly.

Xu Taihong and the other Departing Maple Sect disciples did the same.

Once the Immortal Alliance's reinforcements arrived, they could also rely on them to leave.

For now, it was better to stay by Li Yunjing's side, where they felt much safer.

Before long, Li Yunjing sensed someone approaching.

A flying ship sped through the sky and came to a stop in midair.

Immediately afterward, a streak of rainbow light flew out from the ship ahead of the others.

In the blink of an eye, it landed before Li Yunjing.

The rainbow light faded, revealing someone Li Yunjing had met before.

Huo Junrui.