I hopped off the woman’s head. She was also in Foundation Establishment but wore purple robes that were much more sophisticated than what I was currently wearing. I had to admit that the clothes in this part of the world were very pretty. It made me wonder if the Manhua version of the original story had suddenly switched artists at one point.

“I demand an apology!”

Ah, this classic situation. “I think you should demand your apology from the teleportation array. It’s the reason I appeared on top of your head.”

She stared at me, mouth slightly open.

Of course, she couldn’t say anything. I was right, after all. Well, as far as she knew. I was certain the platform had safety enchantments like that.

“Then I demand you pay to clean my dress!”

“My feet are less dirty than your head. But if you’d like your clothes cleaned...”

With a hand gesture, I used the cleaning technique on her. Her hair turned from dark brown to violet and her tan skin tone became paler, like my technique had peeled off a layer of her skin. As if she’d previously concealed them with makeup, a few freckles showed up on her cheeks. Either that or she was more dirty than I’d suspected.

image [https://i.imgur.com/Mcb9NBj.jpeg]

Oh. Shit. If I wanted to remain hidden, I should curb my instincts to clean everything around me. Looks could change, but getting rid of unconscious habits was difficult.

Then again, I couldn’t stop using it altogether. Maybe I just needed to get more specific with how I used it to hide the fact that I was me. Really narrow it down. I might even be able to improve the technique!

The woman’s eyes burned with fury. Her face turned red, and a vein bulged on her forehead.

She must be another strange person who couldn’t appreciate cleanliness. Or was it my cleaning technique that was too powerful? But Little Spring only complained about it a little, and I used it on him all the time, so it was probably fine.

“You ruined everything!”

What did I ruin exactly? A bad dye job and a terrible tan?

She tried to pressure me with her energy, but I was at the peak of my realm while she was only in the middle.

She must have been overwhelmed with anger because she pulled out a whip without caring about our power difference and cracked the tip toward my heart. Her Qi extended beyond the weapon in a violet beam. I casually sidestepped it. The energy flew into the side of a Qi Condensation pedestrian’s side, causing him to collapse.

Ah, shit. I hadn’t meant for that to happen. I hoped he hadn’t died.

Apparently, she had no conscience because she ignored the guy she could have slaughtered and kept attacking me, aiming for my head, heart, or dantian. She wasn’t even trying to find out my weak points. Fortunately, the crowd scattered after that poor man fell, making it easier for me to choose locations to dodge to where more bystanders wouldn’t get hit.

As I sidestepped another of her attacks, I brought my guitar out from the space and wrapped the strap around my neck. This would be a good test of my combination of Four Arts and Sword Qi.

She looked at my instrument and sneered. “What is that? Some kind of poor imitation of a pipa?”

“Only if you believe that all stringed instruments are poor imitations of each other.”

She sent a whip strike toward my new guitar. To avoid more unintended casualties, I plucked a chord and used Any Object is My Sword to slice apart the energy from her whip attack with my sword Qi. The energies perfectly canceled each other out just as I’d planned.

“Shouldn’t we move off the teleportation platform if we’re going to fight?”

She must not have given a fuck because she kept trying to whip me like I’d murdered her family or something. One strike even passed by my cheek.

“How about you calm down and I can play you a little Stairway?” Technically, it was a song inspired by the infamous rock song and arranged by the clever Fairy Winter Medley.

The original had lyrics that spoke of the duality of words which helped make it the perfect base for a song that confused the listener down to their soul. It really snuck up on a person if they weren’t careful.

I canceled out another few attacks. Then I inserted my spiritual energy into my instrument in a certain pattern and started playing the first chords, then, as I continued the song, I sent several blades of sword Qi at her obvious weak points. Her eyes widened, and she pulled out a jade gourd. Instead of my sword Qi slicing her in half, the gourd cracked. Her face paled. Then her free hand began to form incantation gestures. I wasn’t sure what technique she was about to use, but I had a feeling it would be big and destructive, so I increased the intensity of the song. Her hand began to move slower.

I shot ten small blades of sword Qi at her, expecting her to dodge most of them. All ten of my blades hit her in vital spots and she collapsed, very dead.

Oh, shit. She’d been so confused by my music that she didn’t even bother to dodge.

I’d really sent her to heaven.

I mean, she was trying to kill me over some clothes I cleaned for her, so I didn’t feel too bad, but I hadn’t intended to kill her outright. This combination of Rock and sword Qi was unexpectedly too powerful. Or, the people on this continent were weak.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

I also didn’t feel great about this situation because the original version of that song was written in the 1970s, coming out of the anti-war movement. I was pretty positive Mr. Plant would be appalled if he saw how I’d used a song inspired by his original. Fortunately, he didn’t exist in this violence-fucked universe. People here had to fight to survive. Peace could only exist here if you were strong to demand it.

I would still use this combination again. But it needed a name. Maybe Sharp Metal? No. I could come up with something better. It was missing something important. Like my name.

Whatever. I’d figure it out later.

I played the song to a close and realized that everyone who hadn’t fled was staring at me in a daze.

I looked down at the violet-haired woman. I hoped she hadn’t been too important in this area. The last thing I needed was a whole clan after my ass. Of course, there was no sense in letting her things go to waste. Just like I always did with people who tried to kill me, I grabbed her spatial ring off her finger and stashed her storage bag in the space.

What luck. I needed a new ring since I couldn’t use my original one in this disguise. Earlier I moved everything in my ring to a bunch of the cheap bags I’d looted off all those assassins that attacked me.

Now that I thought about it, I hadn’t paid for a storage bag since I time-traveled.

I put her body in her old ring. It would be unsanitary to just let it decompose in the middle of a city. I could bury her later.

As for the guy she injured, his friends or family were already helping him. I tossed them a pill bottle with a healing dan inside. They nodded to me as I passed and quickly fed him the pill.

Fortunately, he hadn’t died. I would have felt like an asshole if he had. Frankly, I should have stopped the attack instead of dodging it since I wasn’t the kind of person who would kill bystanders if they got in my way like some Xianxia protagonists.

As I walked through the crowd, they started to wake up from their haze. I noticed that two of them were young cultivators from the Irrepressible Beast Blood Sect. They had stood in the shade of a tree where they could watch the teleportation platform. Likely for Little Spring and I.

When I saw the tall one lean over to the short guy I used the disguise technique, and adjusted my hearing to focus on their location.

“Did you see that?!”

I heard them clearly! The ability to adjust my body like this was incredible. I really could have used this in my past life for so many things.

“Of course, I did.”

“That cultivator just now was so powerful. Do you think she’s with a sect?”

“She felt more like a rogue cultivator. And she’s not someone we’re searching for.”

Muahahaha!

It was good to see my disguise was effective.

“That violet-haired girl looked like that malicious Ninth Plum Blossom we needed to watch out for. We’ll need to report her death to the sect.”

Ah! So she’d used cosmetics and dyes to change her appearance instead of a technique. Plum Blossom must have been hiding for some reason. She might have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for her own pride and bad temper. Also, my cleaning technique.

***

I entered the small city’s Alchemists’ Guild with no issue. The place had an old and rundown interior so I resisted the urge to scour everything in sight with my cleaning technique. I was pretty proud of my success.

It had no customers, so I was able to speak with the desk clerk immediately. I placed a jade pill bottle on the counter. “I’d like to exchange these for spirit stones.”

The clerk examined the pills. Since I had purposefully made these to be of a slightly lesser quality. I expected that they wouldn’t be too out of place in this backwater city. I could always use more low and mid-tier spirit stones.

The clerk opened the pill bottle and his eyes bulged. He placed the stopper back in.

What? Had I underestimated how Podunk this place was?

“May I see your guild token?”

Oh, right. I tossed the jade token onto the counter.

“No wonder these pills are so excellent. You’re a master alchemist.”

Apparently, I’d overestimated this area. I could work with that.

As he set the spirit stones on the counter, I said, “I also need access to your Immediate Message Wall.”

He paused, then looked sheepish. “That is a bit difficult.”

Oh, fuck. “Is it broken?” Maybe I could fix it in exchange for sending a few messages for free.

“No. Of course not. It’s just...” He glanced in the corner where the security guard stood, doing her best impression of a wall. Then he leaned in closer. “The thing is, it will cost you at least a high-tier spirit stone.”

What was this nonsense?! I mean, I knew it was expensive, but I thought it would still be in the mid-tier spirit stone range. Once I returned to my continent, I needed to find that Daoist Black Jade I made a deal with years ago and have him speed up his release of those information request tablets.

“Fine. I need to use it no matter what. Take me to it.”

He tapped his chin. “Well, even if the cost isn’t an issue, there is another problem.”

“And that is?”

“The wall isn’t…” he pointed to the floor, “here.”

Was this fucker serious? “The Immediate Message Wall that is used to communicate between guild locations isn’t in the guild building?”

He grimaced. “The owner of this branch is actually the city lord. He’s a powerful alchemist and an unbelievably impressive beast tamer.”

“That still doesn’t excuse the fact that the wall isn’t here.”

“It was stolen a few years back. After that incident, he put it inside his very secure palace.”

Frankly, that sounded suspicious and controlling as fuck. Even if it was safer there, he should have instead made the guild itself safe. And clean. The place looked too poor for an Alchemists’ Guild. If I compared it to the one in Verdant Hidden Cavern City where the Vine Plague happened, this place looked even worse. I didn’t know this could happen in a city this size.

It was possible that he was stealing from the guild. Either that or this place was so shitty that it wasn’t worth keeping up.

“Then how am I supposed to access the wall? Send a message to the City Lord through you?”

The security guard spoke up. “I’ll take your request to Lord Bountiful Tenacity. Please wait here, Master Alchemist?”

“Linlin.”

She bowed to me and left the guild. The clerk looked instantly relieved.

“Is the city lord a very controlling person?”

He smiled awkwardly. “He is a wonderful man.”

I leaned in. “I would believe you, but you made it a bit too obvious that you feel apprehensive with that guard around.” I mean, even I could see he was uncomfortable and while I was a genius, I didn’t always pick up on social cues. At least, according to the brat. I was positive I picked up on them pretty well when I was paying attention.

If the city lord was a reprehensible fucker, I needed to know before I came into contact with him. ::Come on, tell me the gossip. Just between you and me.::

His eyes sparkled. ::The thing is, people call him Lord Bountiful Avarice behind his back because of how he always gets what he wants. And he always wants more.::

::Has he been skimming off the top?::

His eyes bulged. ::From here? No! No, of course not.::

::But he did something, right?::

He hesitated. ::Well, it’s not like it’s a secret. He instituted a 15% tax on all pills sold through the guild. Which he can do as the city lord and owner.::

::Let me guess, people decided that they would rather deal with the unorthodox sect than a place where they’d be taxed unfairly.::

He winced. ::Business has been declining since the new tax began, but we’re still the Alchemists’ Guild. We trade in quality pills that even the unorthodox sect can’t match. Besides, they mostly sell poisons and antidotes.::

Little Spring’s voice interrupted what I was going to say next.

::Sister Lin! I’m just outside.::

::Good. I want you to pick up some supplies for me at the local Smithy and the Formation Guild. While you’re there, talk to the people nearby and listen in on any local gossip about the city lord.:: Being an adorable kid, he should be able to get more out of strangers than I could. His protagonist halo also might help.

::Of course! Just send me a list.::