The unexpected eccentric light was a snow white glow that seems to illuminate the entire room for a brief moment. A chain reaction followed almost immediately before anyone could question what was going on. The magic items at the booth started shaking as if they were excited.

One of the hooded figure muttered something faintly in a female voice, “Impossible, he can activate a Seven-Circle spell from the Ancient Warring Era?”

With a wave of her hand, the tablet flew directly to her and disappeared into her storage ring. The abrupt mysterious beam of light naturally disappeared and the magical items at the booth stopped shaking. It was as if nothing happened at all.

“Are you perhaps interested in magic?” The other hooded figure spoke. A surprisingly charming female voice came from this mysterious person. Naturally some of the other people around came to see the source of the light and wondered what happened. The rest didn’t bother since the mysterious light contained no traces of Qi, they just assumed that it was a regular item displaying its strength and functionality.

“Ah yes.” Ryu replied.

“Place your hand on this orb.” The hooded figure said as she pulled out a metallic sphere.

Ryu complied and tried it out of curiosity. A series of circles formed on the fist-sized orb. A small gasp came from this hooded figure, Ryu had no idea what the circles on the orbs mean at all. The orb gave off a glow that clearly contained energy but the cultivators around couldn’t sense any Qi. This attracted the attention of other customers.

“Could you perhaps try out a few more things for me?” The hooded figure finally revealed herself. She was an old woman that had slight wrinkles over her face. A demeanor befitting of an accomplished scholar was exposed. An unknown pressure unlike anything Ryu had encountered before came down on him from nowhere. Before Ryu could react, the unknown pressure left like it never came. A gasp was heard from the crowd, they too had that eerie feeling wash over them.

“Tell me, what do you see?” The woman proceeded to take out a strange azure mirror with a polished surface. It looked like an ordinary mirror that had a glossy exterior to the bystanders that peered with curiosity.

“I see…” Ryu slowly spoke. Suddenly a huge boom followed by a shockwave in the air caught everyone off guard. Instantly Ryu turned around and saw a small figure fly through the air and about to crash land into the magicians’ stall. Just when the figure was about to make physical contact, his body stopped in mid-air completely.  Everyone present gulped. It wasn’t that suspending a person in mid-air was special or anything but no one could feel any traces of Qi been used! Was this ‘magic’?

“How dare you not apologize?” An angry shout followed.

“Apologize? You guys bought this item already. You can’t just beat people up because you regret it.” The figure that was sent flying earlier quickly jumped up and glared back at a group of large figures wearing huge strips of fur over their whole body. He was a young man that looked no older than twenty. His cultivation level was only early King Domain. This makes him perhaps the weakest person on the fifth flow of this market palace.

“You… don’t you know who I am? I am Fua Hong, the Fifth Rising Star! That piece of junk you sold me is a fake!” A burly man from the group sneered as he stood arrogantly in front of the young man. In his right hand contained an intimidating golden war axe with a fist-sized chip on one of the blades. Traces of Qi can be felt leaking out of the crack.

“Fua from the Hong Clan? I heard that he’s genius cultivator that reached Emperor Domain in less than fifteen hundred years. If it wasn’t for the Four Rising Stars, he would definitely be the youngest to reach Emperor Domain right now.” Someone on the side muttered.

“I don’t know any block heads like you. Sales are final in this place don’t you know that?” The young man said loudly, making himself heard. Ryu recognized him as the young salesman earlier who injected a trace of unknown Qi into a dagger to make a sale.

As expected Fua reacted instantly with Qi meant to harm the fearless young man. An imperious aura not visible to the naked eye came in waves aiming to pulverize anyone in its path. Unfortunately Ryu was right beside the youth and naturally had to defend himself. The simplest defense he could muster was using the nullification from the Sage Arts. After reaching late King Domain levels, Ryu’s strength can now slightly resist early Emperor Domain experts in a direct confrontation. Since Ryu has multiple Qi reservoirs, he is able to use quantity to fight quality. By burning more Qi than Fua, Ryu nullified his attack completely. To bystanders, they felt the waves of dreadful Qi wash over Ryu as if nothing happened. Naturally they thought that Ryu is wearing some kind of high tier armor which isn’t uncommon for someone who can reach the fifth floor of this market place.

The youth didn’t fare as well, he buckled down at first and spat out blood but once Ryu started his nullification, the burden lessened for him. Fua stood there with a dumbfounded expression, how could his superior Emperor Domain aura not faze the youths who were a whole domain lower than him? Seeing that two King Domain cultivators were able to resist the pressure from his aura fueled his rage even more. A translucent brown aura seeped out of his skin and it looked like Fua was about to strike them with a real blow now.

“Why don’t you stop there Fua?” A carefree voice rang out. Only a few experts noticed that someone had stepped in during the last moment and restrained Fua. Ryu smiled, it was Wu-Ming.

It took Fua a moment to realize that someone’s hand was on his left shoulder, preventing him from doing much. When he noticed who it was, his face turned a shade redder. Wu-Ming was one of the person he hated most. If it weren’t for the Four Rising Stars, he would be a well-known genius on the Heaven Continent but he’s constantly overshadowed by the four freaks that kept creating legends of their own over the recent years

“Do you want our clans to go to war?” Fua threatened with a growl. Although he was a thousand years older than Wu-Ming, their cultivations were roughly the same. His clan, the Slaughtering Hyenas, is archenemies with the Golden Lion clan for centuries. Coupled by the fact that Wu-Ming’s recent achievements are breaking the equilibrium between the two clans just deepens the enmity.

“Go to war? Surely you jest, I’m just paying respect to senior Fua.” Wu-Ming kept smiling as he released his shoulder and gave a loud slap to his back. “He’s my good brother, I hope you don’t make things difficult for us.”

Fua glared at them but after the direct contact with Wu-Ming, he lost the confidence to fight him head on. Something about Wu-Ming’s overbearing aura that’s in the same domain as his frightened him. It’s as if Wu-Ming’s Qi was much more concentrated and dominant. Suddenly the youth stuck his tongue out and shouted with a powerful voice that echoed around the room, “Guards! Guards! This man here is trying to kill me!”

Before Fua could rationalize the unexpected action, streaks of azure lights arrived in front of him. They were the guards from the Miyamoto clan! Each one of them were only in the King Domain but no one dared to disrespect them. The crowd quickly walked away from Fua’s group, it only took a second for them to be isolated from the rest.

“What’s going on here?” A cold voice boomed out from the head guard, disturbance in their land was a grave crime. The guards were previously patrolling at the outer edges of the room since they didn’t think anyone was audacious enough to create a scene on the fifth floor.

Fua didn’t dare to anger the guards but he couldn’t tolerate the injustice from his purchase. Pointing his finger at the youth, Fua politely explained to the guards that he bought a battle axe for a whopping seventy million gold coins a few days ago from this youth only to have it break during a spar! The battle axe must have been a fake, he was scammed!

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“Ridiculous, I did not force you to buy it. If you can’t even distinguish superior items from regular items, you should call yourself the fifth dumbass not the fifth rising star.” The youth rebutted without fear. Inside he knew that the Miyamoto clan wouldn’t let anything happen to him. First of all twenty percent of his profit already went to them and secondly, the clan would lose a lot of face if they can’t reinforce the no fighting policy inside their own territory in front of so many experts. Also an expert like Wu-Ming unexpectedly came and shielded him from Fua. Granted he did it for Ryu but the youth didn’t mind.

Before Fua could speak the guard spoke in the same cold voice earlier, “I have heard all I needed to hear. Regardless of the reason, you chose to purchase that item in your own free will. If there’s any more disturbance from you, anyone related to you will be banned from our land!”

Fua’s eyes nearly popped out of his own socket, seventy million gold coins could fund a small city for years. It was an exorbitant sum for any individual. If he doesn’t get that amount back from this youth now, he might never get the chance again. He was already the laughingstock of his own clan after this blunder. What he thought was a mighty axe that suited him turned out to be a piece of junk that he didn’t even get to use for the Thousand Swords Graveyard tournament.

Fua’s group members had to wrest him away from where he stood so he can’t accidentally offend the Miyamoto clan guards. Giving a death glare at the youth, Fua secretly gave an order to have him followed along with Ryu who is Wu-Ming’s good brother apparently.

While this commotion was going on, no one noticed that the pair of magicians had disappeared along with their booth. They reappeared outside the of the market fortress and inside a closely guarded room within the majestic floating castle outside. The room was filled with countless candles and a third magician was sitting on the floor on top of a strange symbol that encompasses the whole room. It was slow but the symbol was definitely rotating and the flames from the candles were all pointing towards him.

“Junior sisters, for what purpose did you disrupt my training for.” A voice belonging to a child spoke out. The two elderly woman were facing his back, kneeling on the ground.

“Elder brother, we met a young man that was able to activate the stone tablet from the Ancient Warring Era!” One of the magicians explained.

“Really? The ancient stone tablet was activated?”

“Yes and from the looks of it, it was a Seven-Circle spell formula! However, we were not able to record it in time.” She answered his next question before he asked.

“Why did you not bring him back with you?” He spoke as he turned around. A young boy with blond hair and green eyes was revealed.

“That’s the thing… I tried, we activated the Recall Blink spell but for some reason he did not transport with us!” One of the female magicians replied. Little did Ryu know that his Sage Arts managed to nullify the magicians’ movement spell that would have taken him away.

“Oh?” The elder brother paused for a minute before speaking. “Either he has a rare protective treasure or he’s a supreme expert in disguise…”

“I don’t believe he’s an expert in magic, it appears as if he doesn’t know the basics at all. His aptitude is extraordinary though. He managed to activate all six circles on the testing orb.”

“I agree, he looked just as surprised as us when he activated the stone tablet.”

“The testing stone you hold only measures up to six circles! Perhaps his potential is even higher than that. Could he have the genes of our ancient ancestors? That must be why he was able to activate the tablet!” The child exclaimed after giving it some thought. “Track him down immediately, we have to seize him.”

“Yes elder brother, we’ll try. All we know is that he is related to Wu-Ming, one of the so called Four Rising Stars on this continent.” The female magicians bowed and left the room.

Back in the market fortress Ryu was stupefied to see that the magicians disappeared into the thin air. He didn’t even sense how they left.

“Thanks for saving my life, I’m Zenos! Here’s my contact if you ever need a favor from me.” The youth introduced himself enthusiastically to Wu-Ming and Ryu. One thin sheet that appeared to be a flattened crystalized object was given to each of them.

“This is?” Ryu said with a confused look.

“Oh this is the latest crystal communicator that’s all the rage! It’s so much better than the old fat models right?” Zenos explained. Ryu eyes widened as he looked at the thin crystalized object that was much smaller and lighter than the voice crystals he carries. Before he could reject it, Zenos disappeared into the crowd. Wu-Ming didn’t mind and just pocketed the slick new voice crystal into his storage.

[Note: Zenos is from the prestigious Blood Clan of the Dark Continent, arrived in Heaven Continent at the end of Chapter 61]

The pair left the Market Fortress and Wu-Ming begged Ryu to come to his clan before they part. Since it’ll be another day before the opening of the Thousand Swords Graveyard, Ryu had no reason to reject. He needed to follow a major power in anyways if he hopes to enter the inner sectors.

“What is the Ancient Warring Era?” Ryu asked as he remembered one of the magicians muttering it.

“Oh? I’m not too sure myself. It’s a mythological time eons ago when legends suggest that the continents were one whole piece. A terrible struggle for supremacy broke out that resulted in the creation of the continents.” Wu-Ming explained.

Alexis said something similar Ryu thought to himself.

“There are many myths about it. Some say that even Gods were involved in that war. Some say it was an evil organization that plotted world domination instigated the whole thing. Some believe it was a war between divine beasts and mankind. Some believe it to be the work of the ancestors of the Dark Continent. One thing is for sure, our ancestors back then were much stronger than the current experts around now.”

“Oh?”

“Well it’s mostly ancient texts and stories passed down between clans stating the boundless strength and fabulous glory that our ancestors had. Some old artifacts which contains unimaginable power and knowledge supports that claim. You heard of the Divine Beast Schools right? The schools where the Immortal Phoenix Master and the Drunken Master come from. Rumor has it that they were founded based on an old martial manual from the Ancient Warring Era! Heck some say that the famous Fiend Tower was built when our ancestors were at their peak during the Ancient Warring Era. Which makes sense, the makers of that tower surely has unfathomable power.” Wu-Ming explained.

“Oh my god!” A huge commotion rang out through the crowd around the pair. Hysterical screams followed by mass panic ensued.

“The heir of Slaughtering Hyenas has been murdered!”

“The genius Emperor Domain expert, Fua Hong, is dead!”

“What happened? How did he die in broad daylight?”