Gengxin City's Black Market

Gengxin City's black market was held in an abandoned mine pit in the south of the city.

While Nan Feng ate breakfast, he heard two blacksmiths at the next table talking. One said, "Tonight's the fifteenth, same place." The other said, "There aren't many goods, so we'll have to get there early to claim a spot."

He made a note of the mine pit in the south of the city. Ye Lingling sat across from him and glanced up at him, but didn't ask.

The two parted outside the inn that evening. Ye Lingling went to an apothecary, while Nan Feng said he would look around some more.

Nan Feng headed south. Once he left the main part of the city, people grew fewer and the lights sparser.

Several unlit carriages stood outside the abandoned mine pit, and figures moved about at the entrance.

Inside the pit was a semisubterranean trading ground. Stone steps had been cut down along the pit wall, and the air smelled of ore and damp earth. The pit bottom was half the size of a training ground. A few oil lamps hung from the wooden beams overhead, casting a dim yellow light. Stalls lined the walls.

Nan Feng walked a circuit of the stalls. The black market had a greater variety of goods than the old materials market, including a few old weapons imbued with Spiritual Power.

He swept his senses over them through the tower. Most were ordinary.

He stopped at a stall around a bend in the pit wall. Its owner was a gaunt old man, with a blackened piece of old cloth spread out before him. More than a dozen battered books and several scrolls lay on it.

Nan Feng squatted down and browsed. At the very bottom, his fingers touched a booklet bound with coarse hemp thread. Its cover had worn away.

He opened it and read two lines on the first page. His heart skipped a beat.

The handwriting was in the same style as the notes in the underground stone chamber in Nuoding City. The calculation steps missing from the chamber were all here.

"How much for this?"

The old man opened one eye halfway and glanced at it.

"That battered booklet? Fifty copper coins, and it's yours."

Nan Feng counted out the coins, tucked the booklet inside his clothes, and got up to leave.

He had just straightened when a commotion broke out at the far end of the mine pit. Someone shouted, and something heavy struck the stone wall with a dull thud.

Nan Feng looked toward the sound. In the darkness beyond the oil lamps' reach, three figures surrounded a purple-haired figure.

The three were burly, plainly hired thugs who did physical work. The person they surrounded was more than half a head shorter, with a very faint layer of pale green light between her hands.

"Hand it over, purple-haired girl."

One thug reached for her shoulder. The purple-haired figure stepped aside to dodge him. She moved quickly, but her footing was unsteady.

Nan Feng frowned.

He recognized the green light. Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison, the Dugu Family's trademark.

He looked at the pendant in her hand. The cyan light in the crack at the base of the tower flickered, more urgently than it had when he touched the Cold Iron Core.

Old Huai's voice emerged.

"A girl from the Dugu Family. Poison attribute. Someone drugged her, and she can't muster her Soul Power."

Nan Feng tucked the booklet securely away and walked over. As he drew closer, he saw their cultivation clearly: three Soul Elders, just over level thirty.

Dugu Yan had her back against the pit wall. Her face was pale, her lips purple, and she clutched the pendant. Green poisonous light leaked between her fingers, far fainter than normal Jade Phosphorous Serpent Poison.

She froze for a moment when she saw Nan Feng approaching. Confusion flickered in her eyes for an instant, then she recognized him. Her mouth opened, but no sound came out.

"Three grown men surrounding one girl. Aren't you ashamed?"

Nan Feng stopped a few steps away. The leader glanced back at him, a disdainful smile on his face.

"Where did this little brat come from? Get lost."

Nan Feng wasted no words. He circulated his Soul Power, and a cyan tower shadow sprang out from beneath his feet. It covered a small area, but its suppressive force was immensely heavy.

All three thugs stiffened at once. One Soul Elder circulated his Soul Power, trying to break free. Tower Suppression had been reinforced twice; it wasn't something a Soul Elder could escape. He failed to break free, and his expression changed.

Nan Feng seized the moment and rushed in, drawing his short cudgel and striking the outside of the nearest man's knee.

The man's leg buckled, and he dropped to one knee. The cudgel swept across the back of his neck, and he fell facedown.

The second man had just turned when Nan Feng seized him by the chest with his left hand. Nan Feng swung the iron hammer out from behind his waist and smashed it into the man's wrist.

The sound of wrist bones shifting rang out. The man screamed and let go of his iron staff.

The third Soul Elder broke out of Tower Suppression's range and drove his fist toward Nan Feng's face.

Nan Feng didn't retreat. He stepped half a pace forward with his left foot and activated Tower Suppression again, casting the tower's shadow over his opponent's head.

The fist was forced off course halfway through its swing, brushing past his ear. Nan Feng drove his knee into the man's abdomen, making him grunt and double over. The short cudgel swept up from below, struck his jaw, and knocked him to the ground.

In less than ten breaths, all three men were lying on the ground.

The others in the mine pit had long since backed away. Nan Feng withdrew Tower Suppression, wiped his short cudgel on his sleeve, and tucked it behind his waist.

Dugu Yan was still leaning against the pit wall. Her complexion had improved somewhat, but her lips were purple. The green light was returning bit by bit.

"What are you doing in Gengxin City?"

Dugu Yan enclosed the pendant in her palm and braced herself against the stone wall to stand straight.

"I came out to take care of something. Someone started watching me outside the city and slipped me a drug that suppresses Soul Power." Her voice was hoarse, but her proud edge remained. "Those three followed me for three days and picked a place like the black market, where nobody intervenes, to make their move."

"Can you move now?"

She tried taking two steps, but her legs were still weak. "I can't go far. The drug hasn't worn off."

She raised her eyes to him, unwillingness in her gaze. She turned her face away, her fingers picking at the stone wall. "Why are you here?"

"Passing through."

She fell silent for a few breaths, then suddenly raised the pendant and held it out to him.

"Do me a favor," she said, her tone decisive. "Take me to where I'm staying in the north of the city. What's inside this pendant is yours."

Nan Feng looked at the pendant. Its casing was silver, carved with a serpent pattern, and the Purple-Patterned Meteoric Iron inside gave off a faint glow under the oil lamps.

The cyan light in the crack at the base of the tower flickered again.

"Are you sure?"

Dugu Yan held the pendant out again, her hand trembling. "I, Dugu Yan, keep my word. Help me this once, and the ore is yours. You've been staring at it since just now. Don't think I didn't notice."

Nan Feng took the pendant and tucked it inside his clothes, then crouched down.

"Get on."

"What?"

"You can't walk, so I'll carry you out. We can't stay here long. Those three are lying there, and someone could come to investigate at any moment."

She bit her lip. Footsteps approached from deep in the mine pit.

She didn't make a fuss and climbed onto his back. She was lighter than he had expected.

Nan Feng carried her up the stone steps toward the pit entrance, gripping his short cudgel in his hand. Her chin rested beside his shoulder, and her breath brushed his neck, carrying the fishy scent of a snake and the bitterness of medicinal herbs.

The night wind rushed at them as they left the mine pit. He followed the dirt road from the south of the city toward the north, moonlight shining on the empty streets.

Dugu Yan was silent on his back for a while, then suddenly spoke.

"The suppressive force of that tower of yours is much heavier than an ordinary Soul Elder's."

"Mm."

"What level is your Soul Power?"

"Sixteen."

"You can produce that kind of force at level sixteen? What kind of Martial Soul is that tower of yours?"

She added another sentence herself. "Forget it. Pretend I didn't ask."

Nan Feng carried her across most of Gengxin City. In a quiet inn district in the north of the city, she pointed to a lit alley entrance where one of the inns stood.

He set her down. She pushed open the inn door and glanced back at him before entering. Her purple hair shone silvery white in the moonlight.

"That piece of Purple-Patterned Meteoric Iron goes well with the tower," she said. "I brought it out from the family. I originally wanted to find someone to forge it into a Hidden Weapon. But you need it more than I do."

"Why give it to me?"

She tilted her head. "When that tower came out while you were fighting, I had a very strange feeling. I can't quite describe it."

She went inside, and her voice came through before the door shut.

"Next time you see my grandfather, don't tell him I was drugged. It's embarrassing."

The door closed. Nan Feng stood in the alley, the moonlight bathing its entire length in silver.

He pried open the silver casing. Sealed inside was a thumb-sized piece of Purple-Patterned Meteoric Iron, purple-black all over, with fine, closely spaced silver patterns on its surface.

He put the meteoric iron away and walked back along the alley. A window on an upper floor of the inn opened a crack, and a flash of purple hair vanished.

Back at the inn, Nan Feng shut the door and held the Purple-Patterned Meteoric Iron in his palm.

It was lighter than the Cold Iron Core, and its Spiritual Power fluctuations were more active, stirring restlessly as if trying to burst outward.

He closed his eyes and sank into the depths of his soul. The tower sensed the meteoric iron's presence, and the markings on the third level at its base lit up for an instant.

That was the key to the Gate of Creation. The third level could only be pushed open at level forty, which was far too distant.

He put the meteoric iron into his bundle. Old Huai's voice drifted out of the crack at the base of the tower.

"Don't be in a hurry to use this yet. Once your Soul Power reaches level twenty and you push open the second-level door, you can take the Spiritual Power sealed within it and fuse with it to awaken Treasure-Appraising Spirit Light. For now, you can only rely on the tower itself to sense things."

"Leave that third-level door until level forty."

Nan Feng opened his eyes. The hammering had long since stopped.

He lay on the bed. The complete Compression Method he had bought at the black market, Dugu Yan's Purple-Patterned Meteoric Iron, and the possibility that someone else was behind those three thugs. He set these things in order, closed his eyes, and practiced his meditation method.

Soul Power circulated from his dantian along his meridians. The door to the first level at the base of the tower stood firm, reinforced by the two iron cores.

The light beneath the deep yellow, purple-tinged Soul Ring in his palm pulsed against his skin, rising and falling in response to the cyan light in the crack at the base of the tower.

His Soul Power was level sixteen. Four levels remained until level twenty.

He had gained enough. That piece of Purple-Patterned Meteoric Iron would open the third level in the future, and the Power of Creation could help him evolve his Martial Soul and help the people around him break through their limits.

The road was unfolding one step at a time.