32: Chapter 32 Imperial Palace Cultivators

Jin Kingdom Palace. The quiet room for the guarding Cultivators. The next day.

This independent palace was located in the northwest corner of the palace grounds, separated from the surrounding pavilions and towers by a high palace wall.

Everyone in the palace knew that an immortal master lived here, and ordinary palace maids and eunuchs never dared to approach.

The four walls of the underground quiet room were inlaid with the formation patterns of a Spirit Gathering Array, making it the place with the densest Spiritual Qi in the entire Jin Kingdom palace.

Of course, this density was relative—compared to the mountain gate of the Jinyang Sect, the concentration of Spiritual Qi here was not even one-tenth of that.

Sun Hao sat on a meditation cushion, holding the letter that had just been delivered.

He was under forty this year, with a thin face and slightly high cheekbones.

Among the Disciples of his generation, his Aptitude was not considered good; being able to Cultivate to Qi Refining Level 5 was already the result of years of desperate, hard cultivation.

There were two other people in the quiet room.

The burly middle-aged man sitting against the north wall was named Cao Xiong, at Qi Refining Level 9. He had the highest cultivation among the three and was also the person in charge of the guarding Cultivators in the Jin Kingdom.

The man sitting against the east wall with a cold expression, broad shoulders, and long arms was named Meng Tong, at Qi Refining Level 6.

"Zhao Xuancheng has gone missing." Sun Hao placed the letter on the small table between the three of them. "The letter says he was taken from his residence a few days ago, suspected to be the work of a Cultivator."

Cao Xiong didn't even lift his eyelids, continuing to sit with his eyes closed. "That trash, let him be missing. He ran back to the Mortal world to enjoy a few years of comfort, and his cultivation didn't improve in the slightest; what kind of Cultivator is he?"

Meng Tong took the letter, glanced at it twice, and tossed it back onto the small table. "With his Qi Refining Stage 2, he is much stronger compared to a Mortal, but among Cultivators, he is bottom-tier trash. Any Loose Cultivator at the Middle Stage of Qi Refining could take him down."

Sun Hao was silent for a moment.

In truth, he didn't think much of Zhao Xuancheng either.

Both of them had Low Grade Spiritual Roots; he had been stationed in the Jin Kingdom for four years, and apart from completing the collection tasks assigned by the Sect, he spent every day cooped up in the quiet room practicing Cultivation.

Although the Spiritual Qi was thin, it was better than nothing. Zhao Xuancheng, on the other hand, plunged into a life of drinking and debauchery as soon as he returned to the Mortal world, completely wasting his cultivation.

But there were some things he didn't say out loud.

All these years while guarding in the Jin Kingdom, the tributes from Zhao Chongyuan during holidays had never ceased.

Spirit Medicine, spirit materials, Spirit Stones—although none of them were precious items, their value lay in their consistency.

Over the past few years, the items sent by the Zhao family alone added up to the value of over a hundred Spirit Stones.

This was a favor. Cultivators were also people, and if you owed a favor, you had to repay it.

"That may be so." Sun Hao weighed his words. "Zhao Xuancheng is, after all, a Jinyang Sect Disciple, carrying the name of our Jinyang Sect. If a Sect Disciple is abducted within our jurisdiction and we don't react at all, it won't look good when word gets back to the Sect."

Cao Xiong opened his eyes to look at him, then closed them again.

Meng Tong didn't respond.

Sun Hao added, "Furthermore, someone who could take down Zhao Xuancheng without anyone noticing must be at least at the Middle Stage of Qi Refining. We must find out when such a person appeared within the Jin Kingdom territory."

These words made Meng Tong's brows twitch slightly.

What Sun Hao said was the truth. As guarding Cultivators of the Jin Kingdom, their duty was not only to collect resources for the Sect but also to ensure that no trouble occurred within this territory.

The existence of an unknown Cultivator was a variable in itself—what if they were targeting this year's tribute resources?

"What do you intend to do?" Cao Xiong's voice came from the meditation cushion, unhurried.

"First, find the person. If they are alive, I want to see them; if they are dead, I want to see the corpse." Sun Hao stood up and took a Magical Artifact from his Storage Pouch.

It was a bronze compass the size of a palm, with intricate tracking Restrictions carved onto its face.

This was issued by the Sect and was originally used to hunt down defecting Disciples; it required the aura of the person being tracked as a guide.

There were plenty of Zhao Xuancheng's personal items in the Marquis's residence.

Yesterday, when the messenger delivered the letter, Zhao Chongyuan had already prepared an undershirt he had worn and brought it along.

Sun Hao picked up a corner of the undershirt. It was a moon-white silk undershirt; the material was excellent, but having been washed many times, the edges were already frayed.

He wrapped the residual aura on it with a stream of Spiritual energy and injected it into the center of the compass.

The needle on the compass began to spin violently, emitting a faint humming sound.

After spinning a dozen times, it slowly stopped and pointed in one direction, remaining motionless.

Downstream of the Luo River.

Sun Hao walked out of the quiet room and flipped his hand to take out a pale golden Flying Sword from his Storage Pouch.

The sword was three feet long, with two Restrictions engraved on the blade.

He stepped onto the Flying Sword, urged it with his Spiritual energy, and the Flying Sword carried his figure across the sky above the palace, speeding toward the Luo River.

The late autumn wind whistled past his ears, and below him were layers of palace roofs and chessboard-like streets. He had no mind to look at the scenery.

Zhao Xuancheng's Qi Refining Stage 2 was a bit useless, but he was, at any rate, a proper Cultivator.

Being taken from his residence without making any noise meant that either the other party's cultivation was far higher than his, or they had used some special means.

Regardless of the situation, it meant that this person was not easy to deal with.

Several hours later, Sun Hao landed on a river beach.

The compass needle no longer pointed into the distance here but began to spin in circles—this indicated that the target's aura was nearby and that it had lost its direction of movement.

He looked around.

The river beach was overgrown with withered yellow reeds, and the Luo River shimmered with muddy light under the setting sun.

A few water birds were startled from the reed thicket and flew away, flapping their wings. Then he saw that abandoned River God Temple.

The temple gate was long gone, and only two pitch-black holes remained in the door frame.

The setting sun shone obliquely through the broken roof, dyeing the weeds and rubble inside the temple orange-red.

Sun Hao put away the compass and walked into the temple gate.

There was some grayish-white powder on the ground.

The powder was mixed among the weeds and soil, and most of it had been blown away by the wind, but the remaining amount was enough to identify.

He crouched down and picked up a pinch of the powder with his fingers.

The moment his fingertips touched it, his expression changed.

This was not ordinary bone ash. There was no flesh or blood component in the bone ash—it wasn't burned away; it was drained away.

All the essence in the flesh and blood had been squeezed out completely, leaving only the calcareous powder.

Moreover, there was a trace of extremely faint Spiritual energy fluctuation remaining in the powder, cold and overbearing.

Sun Hao stood up and carefully collected the bone ash into a jade bottle. Then he spread out his Divine Sense, scanning the ground of the ruined temple inch by inch.

A few tiny bone fragments were embedded in the cracks of the blue bricks; those were from when the kneecaps shattered. There were also a few very shallow drag marks on the ground—left behind when someone was dragged into the temple.

His expression became increasingly grave.

The person who killed Zhao Xuancheng had methods so seasoned they were unsettling.

It was not a frontal kill, but rather subduing first and then absorbing—the kneecaps were shattered to prevent escape, and the essence blood and Spiritual energy were sucked dry to practice some kind of Cultivation Technique.

A Demonic Path Cultivation Technique.

A chill ran up Sun Hao's back.

He recalled the demonic Cultivator methods recorded in the Sect's classics—using the absorption of others' essence blood and Spiritual energy to improve one's own cultivation, overbearing and vicious.

Although Zhao Xuancheng was trash, his Qi Refining Stage 2 cultivation was, after all, real.

To be able to take him from the Marquis's residence, subdue and drain him in the ruined temple, and do so with methods so clean and efficient that no extra traces were left—this level of strength was at least at the Middle Stage of Qi Refining, and they were proficient in some kind of Demonic Path Cultivation Technique.

A demonic Cultivator had appeared within the Jin Kingdom territory.

A real Cultivator who practiced a Demonic Technique.

Sun Hao stuffed the jade bottle back into his Storage Pouch and stepped onto his Flying Sword.

The Flying Sword streaked a pale golden trajectory through the twilight, speeding toward the palace.

He flew faster than when he came, and his expression was much graver than when he came.

He had to tell his Senior Brothers about this.

Meanwhile, in a cave ninety miles downstream of the Luo River, Jiang Yan sat cross-legged on a large rock.

Laid out in front of him were a few items rummaged from Zhao Xuancheng's Storage Pouch—a bundle of fiery red flame rabbit fur, four long and thin rabbit bones, and a small piece of pale yellow bone glue.

He picked up the rabbit fur and twisted it. The hair was thick, hard, and straight, and fire-attribute Spiritual Qi flowed slowly through the hair marrow; it was just right for making a brush tip.

In his previous life, Jiang Yan was only a Rank 1 Talisman Master and could not make talismans in the Void Realm, so he needed to craft a talisman brush.

Pale cyan spiritual fire surged from his palm. First, he refined the bone glue to filter out the Impurities, then spliced and fused the four rabbit bones into a brush handle, preserving the natural spiral patterns on the surface of the bone material.

After the brush handle was formed, he used his Spiritual energy to evenly punch sixteen micro-holes in the handle to serve as ink-guiding channels.

Then came the brush tip—the rabbit fur was divided into three layers: large, medium, and small bristles. After soaking in the bone glue liquid, they were implanted one by one into the end of the brush handle; the large bristles flared outward in a ring, the medium bristles clung to the inside, and the small bristles gathered to form a sharp point.

Finally, he used the remaining large bristles to weave a reinforcing ring at the connection point to prevent the tip from splaying.

He engraved three Restrictions: the Spirit Gathering Restriction borrowed the natural spiral patterns as a circuit, the ink-guiding Restriction was engraved into the micro-hole channels, and the stabilization Restriction locked the root of the brush tip.

The instant the three layers of Restrictions were activated, a dark red light surged from the root of the brush handle to the tip, receding after moving back and forth three times.

Jiang Yan held the talisman brush in his palm to examine it. It was seven inches long, dark red all over, and the brush tip was sharp and full, with the fiery red rabbit fur glowing faintly in the dimness.

Rank 1 Low Grade, barely enough to use.