5: Chapter 5: Remnants of the Foundation Establishment Pill Recipe, Ghost Market

Early the next morning.

The herb garden was still blanketed in a thin mist, and Qi Yang carried a hoe and went down to work early as usual.

When the sun was high in the sky, the outer Sect exploded into an uproar.

"Have you heard? Deacon Wang is missing!"

"It is said that he went to drink in the market last night and didn't come back all night. People from the Law Enforcement Hall found traces of a fight on the path behind the mountain!"

A few passing Outer Sect Disciples were gossiping outside the herb garden.

Qi Yang was squatting in the field weeding. Hearing this, his movements paused for a moment, then he pretended not to hear and continued working.

Not long after, three Law Enforcement Hall Disciples dressed in black fitted garments arrived aggressively at the herb garden.

The one leading them was a youth at the Qi Condensation Seventh Layer with eyes as sharp as a falcon's.

"Qi Yang! Come out and answer!"

Qi Yang quickly dropped his hoe, hunched his waist, and pretended to greet them with a face full of terror.

"Deacon, this old man is here!"

The leading youth disgustedly covered his nose and took half a step back.

"Did Deacon Wang come looking for you last night?"

Qi Yang shook his head repeatedly.

"No, my lord! Deacon Wang said yesterday afternoon that he wanted to collect this old man's Spirit Stone. This old man didn't gather enough, so he cursed a couple of times and left, never coming to the herb garden again."

The youth stared at Qi Yang for a while.

Under Qi Yang's deliberate concealment, in the youth's eyes at this moment, Qi Yang was merely an old fellow at the Qi Condensation Third Layer with one foot in the grave. Even if given ten packs of courage, he wouldn't dare kill anyone.

"Bad luck."

The youth waved his hand and turned to say to his companions behind him: "The scene retains the gloomy and cold Aura of the bone-eroding heart-corroding flower, and the methods are clean and neat. It's eighty percent the work of those money-grubbing, lawless wandering evil cultivators. Let's go back and report the truth to close the case."

The three turned and left, not wanting to stay in this rundown herb garden for even a second longer.

Qi Yang let out a long sigh of relief and wiped away the non-existent cold sweat on his forehead with a mud-stained sleeve.

Inside the West Wing Room, Su Qinghan leaned against the window, hearing the conversation outside crystal clear.

A trace of gratification flashed through her eyes.

That mad dog was dead?

Truly, he who commits many injustices will bring about his own destruction!

She didn't think much of it, only assuming that Deacon Wang Hu had usually offended people and met his retribution.

She closed her eyes again and continued to circulate her Cultivation Technique to heal her injuries.

Late at night, in the underground secret room.

Qi Yang sat cross-legged on the bronze stone platform and took out Deacon Wang Hu's Storage Pouch.

Forcibly erasing the weak spiritual power imprint on it, he poured out everything inside.

Clatter.

A pile of Low-Grade Spirit Stones tumbled to the ground.

Qi Yang counted them, totaling three hundred twenty pieces.

"Poor ghost."

Qi Yang curled his lips.

As a dignified outer Sect deacon, with just this little bit of wealth, it wasn't even enough for the money he made selling a century-old Spirit Medicine.

Besides Spirit Stones, there were also a few sets of spare clothes and a few bottles of the most inferior Qi-Returning Pills.

Qi Yang casually brushed aside these sundries.

Suddenly, his gaze lingered on two things.

A yellowed, tattered sheepskin scroll.

A palm-sized black fragment.

Qi Yang first picked up the sheepskin scroll, glanced at it twice, and his breathing suddenly became rapid.

foundation establishment pill Incomplete Pill Formula!

The most sought-after strategic-level Pill Formula in the Cultivation World!

Although this Pill Formula was missing a third and lacked refining methods, it clearly recorded the names of seven or eight principal Spirit Medicines!

As long as he knew the names, found the seeds, and relied on the black gourd, he could endlessly force-ripen the Materials for the foundation establishment pill!

Qi Yang carefully tucked the incomplete formula close to his body.

Then, he picked up the black fragment.

The material of the fragment was neither metal nor wood, and it felt freezing cold to the touch. There were no patterns on the surface, looking just like a common broken piece of iron found everywhere.

The moment he grasped the fragment.

Hum...

The black gourd that had always been stored close to his body suddenly emitted a faint vibration.

Qi Yang's pupils constricted, and he quickly pulled out the black gourd.

He saw that the profound spiritual patterns on the surface of the gourd actually lit up with a trace of faint green light, producing a marvelous resonance with the black fragment.

The freezing cold Aura on the fragment was being absorbed bit by bit by the black gourd!

Qi Yang was wild with joy.

He had always had no clue about the origin of the black gourd, yet this fragment could actually trigger a reaction from it? This was definitely an unimaginably great treasure!

He did not rashly test it.

According to the Law of Dao of Staying Low-Key, things that couldn't be figured out should be hidden first and never easily exposed.

Qi Yang found a jade box that isolated Auras, packed the fragment inside, and buried it deep under the floor tiles in the furthest corner of the secret room.

Half a month later.

The spiritual rice in the herb garden ushered in a harvest.

Su Qinghan's injuries had mostly recovered. She still kept her doors closed and Cultivated desperately.

In the underground secret room, Qi Yang fell into deep thought as he looked at the two ginsengs in the jade box before him that were blood-red all over and radiated rich Spiritual Qi.

A three-hundred-year-old Blood Jade Ginseng.

This was a top-grade item he had force-ripened with the black gourd spending half a month.

The Spirit Medicine seeds on the incomplete formula of the foundation establishment pill could simply not be obtained in the outer Sect of the Xuantian Sect; he had to go to the Ghost Market.

Moreover, he was currently only at the Qi Condensation Fourth Layer, and his means were too singular. He urgently needed a Magical Artifact for self-defense.

A hundred miles away from the Xuantian Sect, there was a lawless zone called the Ghost Market.

It was a mixed bag of dragons and fish, where evil cultivators, Loose Cultivators, and Sect scum gathered. Killing people and seizing treasures was the norm.

But this also meant that only there could he buy what he needed and safely launder top-grade Spirit Medicine.

Qi Yang stood up, his whole body's bones emitting a burst of crackling noises.

Bone-Shrinking Art.

His originally hunched body forcibly grew two inches taller, his muscles contracted, and his entire person became even more shriveled and thin.

He changed into a spacious black robe and put on a human skin mask with a gloomy and sinister face.

To make it realistic, he also slapped a First-Grade Low-Grade Corpse Qi Talisman onto his body.

A faint smell of rotting corpses immediately permeated the air.

At this moment, Qi Yang was the spitting image of an old evil cultivator who dealt with corpses year-round.

He used the pseudonym Daoist Mu.

Late at night, Qi Yang pasted on a divine mobility talisman and turned into a black shadow, silently leaving the Xuantian Sect.

Two hours later, Qi Yang stood before a valley shrouded in dense fog.

The entrance of the Ghost Market.

After paying an admission fee of one Low-Grade Spirit Stone, Qi Yang walked into the valley.

The light inside the valley was dim, and both sides were lined with street stalls.

The stall owners all used bamboo hats or masks to conceal their faces, remaining completely silent.

Transactions relied entirely on discernment, and no responsibility was taken once leaving the counter.

Qi Yang was not in a hurry to make a move. Instead, like a ghost, he wandered among the various stalls.

He strolled for a full hour, thoroughly figuring out the terrain and stalls, before stopping in front of a stall selling Magical Artifacts.

"How much for this black turtle shield?"

Qi Yang lowered his voice. His voice was hoarse and harsh, exuding a chilly gloom.

The stall owner was a fat man who didn't even lift his eyelids.

"A First-Grade Upper-Grade defensive Magical Artifact, capable of blocking a full-strength blow from the Qi Condensation 8th Layer. Two hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, or equivalent Spirit Medicine."

Without a word, Qi Yang slid a jade box out from his sleeve and pushed it over.

The fat man casually opened a crack.

The next second, he gasped and slammed the jade box shut.

"A three-hundred-year-old Blood Jade Ginseng?!"

The fat man's eyes changed, and his tone gained a bit of dread.

"Senior, this ginseng is worth at least three hundred Spirit Stones. My shield, it's yours for this."

Qi Yang put away the black turtle shield, had the fat man give him one hundred Spirit Stones in change, and turned to leave.

During the next half hour, Qi Yang changed to three different areas and used another Blood Jade Ginseng to exchange for a large amount of rare Spirit Medicine seeds, as well as ten First-Grade Intermediate Thunder Fire Talismans.

With defense, trump cards, and seeds secured, Qi Yang left without a shred of nostalgia, walking straight towards the exit of the Ghost Market.

However, the instant Qi Yang stepped out of the dense fog of the Ghost Market, his acute perception sensed that three faint streams of Killing Intent had appeared behind him.

Two at the Qi Condensation 5th Layer, one... Qi Condensation Seventh Layer!

The face beneath Qi Yang's mask remained expressionless.

Wealth stirs people's hearts.

Although he traded in batches and deliberately disguised his Aura, the three-hundred-year-old Blood Jade Ginseng was too eye-catching. In this dog-eat-dog Ghost Market, being targeted by robber cultivators was only a matter of time.

He did not panic, nor did he turn around and run towards the Xuantian Sect.

The road back to the Xuantian Sect was too flat and open. Once surrounded and tightly entangled by these three people, his cultivation at the Qi Condensation Fourth Layer would make it impossible for him to escape.

Fighting head-on, he didn't even have a ten percent chance of winning.

Qi Yang pivoted his feet, directly deviating from the main road back to the Sect, and plunged headfirst into a desolate, overgrown path.

This road led to a valley dozens of miles away.

There, grayish-white miasma lingered year-round, known by the Loose Cultivators as the Misty Forest.

Poisonous insects were everywhere inside, and even sunlight couldn't penetrate it. It was a natural place for killing people and seizing treasures.

The first rule of the Dao of Staying Low-Key was never to let oneself fall into a desperate situation with no way out.

For decades, Qi Yang had wandered around like an invisible person, long since figuring out the terrain within a radius of a hundred miles.

He had come to this Misty Forest no fewer than dozens of times and had even set up some means inside long ago.