Qian Shanyi sprinted over to her rope spear, picked it up, and spun over to face the vortex in the sky. She reached back for a throw, but stopped. A pair of legs was going through the portal.
Soon the legs resolved into a man, their feet supported on two clouds of red dragonflies. He was wearing long, white robes, his long black hair pinned on top of his head into a complex shape. He was holding a golden sphere in his hands, and was absorbed in fiddling with it as he slowly descended, not paying any attention to his surroundings.
Wang Yonghao?
Even though he had his back to her, Qian Shanyi recognised the man. She hefted the spear in her hand, considering going for the kill with a precise throw. Her thoughts raced.
Wang Yonghao being here made no sense. Sure, he beat her up, but there should have been absolutely no way for him to escape unscathed from the city swarming with cultivators. He should have been caught, and beaten up even worse than her.
A fight between two cultivators, even ones of a very low realm, would inevitably be seriously destructive. Because of this, the laws around cultivators were very strict: whenever someone got into a fight in public, all sides would be apprehended, and the instigator dealt with with utmost prejudice. The administration of every large city retained “spirit chasers” - special cultivators trained in breaking up fights, as well as tracking and capturing cultivators for this express purpose.
If two cultivators wanted to duel, they could go into a forest, deep into the mountains, or to a specially protected training area within a sect: this way, the damage would be contained. Many sects would rent out these areas, so it was quite easy to find an area where you could fight to your heart’s content.
Of course, if a cultivator was strong enough, they could avoid punishment by simply beating up people sent after them, but this was easier said than done. For one, if a city couldn’t deal with the problem, they would notify the Imperial administration, and no single man could fight the Empire. For another, even in the smallest cities, most of the spirit chasers were at least in the foundation building stage.
Qian Shanyi grew up in the Golden Rabbit Bay city: an important trading port at the delta of the Golden Snake river, with a population in the hundreds of thousands. It was a rich city, and so many spirit chasers of the Golden Rabbit Bay were in the middle or high foundation building stage. On top of that, the city was an administrative center for the Empire, and their presence was naturally much larger than normal.
Qian Shanyi focused on Wang Yonghao’s back in the air. Yep, just as she remembered, he was definitely in the high refinement stage - not even peak refinement stage. Clearly, there should have been absolutely no way for him to escape: even a half-blind foundation building stage cultivator would have no trouble tracking down this little frog.
Was he suppressing his power?
The more time a cultivator spent cultivating, the more they would clear various blockages and impurities from their meridians. This, in turn, made the flow of their spiritual energy through the 40 000 spiritual pores on their skin more stable. Stability of spiritual energy flow was thus used as a general measure of how far along on the road of cultivation someone was, because of how easy it was to observe, and because clearing of the meridians proceeded at a fairly consistent rate. As a broad measure, the refinement stage was usually split into four substages: low, middle, high and peak, depending on the various signs about the flow of spiritual energy.
Of course, these were only broad categories. Cultivators did not just clear their meridians: they also strengthened their muscles and constitution, acquired skills with the sword, learned various techniques, expanded and unblocked their dantians, and so on. But because all these things would proceed in parallel, the flow of spiritual energy remained a decent measure of a cultivator’s power, and so it was relied on by most sects and cultivation treatises in the world of cultivation.
By observing this flow, you could make a guess at how dangerous the other cultivator was to fight. Of course, this was nothing but an imprecise guess: special techniques, the quality of spiritual energy recirculation, as well as artifacts and talismans would all play a role in determining a cultivator’s real combat power. Furthermore, cultivators could deliberately “suppress their power” by masking the flow of spiritual energy through their skin by forcibly constricting their spiritual pores, though this took some amount of effort and concentration.
The more you knew about a cultivator, the more precise your estimation would be, but it would remain a guess. Ultimately the only way to know for sure was to try to kill them, and either succeed or fail.
Based on the flow of his spiritual energy, Wang Yonghao was definitely in the high refinement stage. She had also fought him before: he was very good, maybe even as strong as a peak refinement stage cultivator, but not beyond the realm of possibility. Normally, if she were to fight someone like that after suddenly nailing them with a spear, she was sure she could win the fight.
The problem was that the individual pieces did not fit into a coherent picture.
If Wang Yonghao was a loose cultivator, how did he find this massive treasury, and why did he remain a loose cultivator? Any sect in the world would accept him with open arms if he were to bring a world fragment like this to their doors. If he was really in a high refinement stage, how did he escape from the city? Was he a part of some secret power that helped get him out? But if so, why was this world fragment so undeveloped? Was he possessed by the spirit of some nascent soul old monster, who also gave him the world fragment? But again, why would this world fragment be so undeveloped?
It didn’t make sense, which meant that she was missing something. Something major. Something that could make her lose the fight along with her life.
Should she risk it?
Her thoughts ran quickly: Wang Yonghao was still over twenty meters above the ground, but he was descending at a rapid pace. She needed to make her decision now.
Qian Shanyi gritted her teeth and put her spear down. She couldn’t, not like this. Not when she had other options.
It was time for plan C.
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Wang Yonghao’s heart ached in a mixture of curiosity and dread as he descended down onto the ground. He had once again found some kind of strange ruin, and who knew how much he would need to suffer to get out. And this was only a couple days after being run off from that nice city, too…
He had really hoped that this time he could stay in the city for more than a couple weeks, but it was not to be.
The golden sphere he was clutching was made from many different circular fragments that could slide against one another, and glowing lines would light up on its surface when they were put in special positions against one another. He figured it was some kind of fancy box, but maybe it was actually a keystone for some formation, or perhaps an energy core of an ancient weapon.
Well, whatever. He was here for the fly-whisk, not the sphere. He’d figure it out eventually.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As he touched down on the ground, a female voice suddenly called out from behind him.
“So, you finally deigned to visit. Took you long enough,” it said.
He jumped up, startled out of his thoughts. The sphere flew up and he struggled to catch it, but only managed to send it further away from himself into the grass. He turned around in shock - who else could be here?
He saw a woman with long black hair, lounging around on top of a large pillow. She was holding a sword and a bottle of wine, looking for all the world as if she had just been playing in a mahjong parlor. The air in between them was foggy, and her skin was covered in grime and dirt, but even through all that he could tell that her face and figure were those of a jade beauty.
“What? Who are you? What are you doing here?” he blurted out.
“Cultivating. What else?” she answered, motioning with her bottle of wine.
A drop of sweat slid down his forehead. This was his biggest secret, and he did his absolute best to keep it away from people - the one time he tried otherwise taught him well enough. And now someone managed to not only find it, but get inside.
“I meant, how did you get inside?” he asked.
The woman’s spiritual energy made her seem to be in the middle refinement stage. An obvious trap - if she got inside, she had to be some kind of old monster.
“Am I supposed to tell you that?”, she raised an eyebrow.
He scowled. Was she making fun of him?
“How did you get inside my inner world?” he demanded.
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Through superhuman force of will, Qian Shanyi managed to keep her eyebrow from twitching. She really wanted to kill this lucky bastard.
An inner world was a legendary type of world fragments that attached itself to the soul of a cultivator. They were rumored to have all sorts of properties, from being used as natural cosmic rings, to allowing the cultivator to travel through the void, to bringing mythical demon beasts into existence.
The key term was “rumored”. Whereas world fragments were very rare, but known for being used by the largest sects, Qian Shanyi had never even heard of anyone possessing an inner world.
Until now, apparently. She supposed that explained some things.
“Hm, don’t you know that knowledge is the most expensive commodity in the world of cultivation?” she sighed theatrically, keeping her voice level. “How could I simply tell you what you don’t already know? I’d be suffering a loss.”
Scowl on Wang Yonghao’s face deepened, and she raised her hand placatingly.
“How about this - a trade,” she said, “An answer for an answer. I know quite a bit about you, but there are still some things that are unclear.”
She was going to try negotiating, but she had nothing to negotiate with. Worse still, she was swimming in ignorance about crucial aspects of her situation. If a worse starting position existed, she could hardly imagine it.
It was as if she was playing cards with her life at stake, only she had no cards to play, and didn’t even know all the rules of the game. On the other hand, the other side had been playing this game for years, and had a full hand. Even if she was the best player in the world, how could she hope to win by following the rules?
The only way out was bluffing.
She already figured out that whomever was controlling this world fragment, they weren’t watching her closely - otherwise, it made no sense for them to let her roam around so freely. At the very least, once she started cutting into the spool of Silvered Demon Moth Silk, they should have stopped her. This relative obscurity gave her something to bluff with, but Wang Yonghao really opened her options when he said he didn’t know who she was.
She didn’t know jack shit about Wang Yonghao, but the more smoke and mirrors she put in the air, the better her position would seem, as all the same worries about not knowing who Wang Yonghao was would now work in her favor.
Wang Yonghao grit his teeth. “Fine. You first - how did you get here?“
“Why should I go first?” she immediately asked, pushing her luck.
“Because I asked first.”
“That hardly matters, this isn’t a race,” she laughed. “You came to me to make a trade, and I agreed. Clearly you want to know my information. Do you think you could find out some other way?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “So do you. You said things were unclear.”
She raised her eyebrow in return. “Do I look like I am in a hurry? I could simply continue to follow after you and observe from the sidelines - everything will become clear in time. How long do you think I’ve been doing this? The only reason I am even considering a trade is because of my good nature, and because I am lazy.”
She couldn’t even get out of this world fragment, let alone follow after someone with an inner world, but she wasn’t about to say that. Her stomach seemed set to rumble, and she pushed spiritual energy into it, forcibly suppressing the urge.
They locked eyes. Qian Shanyi kept her face relaxed, with a light smile playing on her lips. Finally, Wang Yonghao sighed, rubbing his eyes.
“Fine. What do you want to know?” he said.
“How did you escape?” she said.
He laughed weirdly, frowning slightly. “Escape what? You’d have to be more specific.”
Finding out new information was another gamble, as a wrong question could easily blow her cover. Until she knew more, she could only ask vague questions, and hope he would give her something she could use.
What she wanted to know was how he escaped from the Golden Rabbit Bay’s spirit chasers, but she could not ask that directly. It was possible that he was linked to the Empire, and didn’t need to escape. In fact, it was entirely possible he was still in the city, as his inner world could no doubt be opened anywhere.
“The last one, obviously,” she rolled her eyes, sticking to her guns. “I couldn’t see it myself.”
He laughed and ruffled his hair. “Oh, well… I honestly can’t remember that well, because I was kinda drunk at the time. I think I got into a fight? Then there was some kind of explosion, and I think I just ran. At some point I got into a forest, fell into a hole, and I think I must have landed on a teleportation formation because when I awoke I was deep underground, inside of an abandoned secret realm.“
She nodded, projecting confidence she desperately needed. Who just finds an entrance to a secret realm in the middle of a forest?
“Now, your turn.” he said, his face hardening. ”How did you get inside?”
“You brought me here.”
“What?!” he exclaimed in shock.
“Yeah, opened the entrance and everything,” she nodded.
“Why would I do that?!”
“Wait for your turn before asking more questions,” she smiled smugly. “This secret realm - tell me about it. Have you found an exit yet?”
Wang Yonghao shook his head. “No, but I’ll get it eventually. It’s not my first time. There was a wide sea of poison gas, and I figured I could clear it with this fly whisk I have here somewhere - ”
He looked around the world fragment, and exclaimed in shock again.
“Wait - where is everything?!”
“Is that your next question?”
He turned back to her, and scowled. “No. Tell me why I would let you inside my inner world.”
“Oh, I have no idea.”
“What?!”
“How should I know? I didn’t read your mind.”
His face was growing red, and Qian Shanyi laughed. Serves him right.
“Fine, fine, I won’t count it as your turn. Ask something else.”
Wang Yonghao threw his hands up. “Who are you? I’ve never even met you before, how could I just let you into my inner world? This makes no sense!“
“Oh, so that’s what you want to know,” she nodded, “Well, that’s easy enough to answer, I suppose. Who do you think I am?”