Who Let Him Cultivate？

Chapter 18: The Demon Bird

Lu Yang’s grasp of the Cultivation world was, at best, fragmented. Before joining the Dao Seeking Sect, his entire education had come from the exaggerated tales of roadside storytellers. While his theoretical knowledge had expanded at a terrifying rate over the past year, not a single ancient tome or jade slip he’d studied bothered to mention *how to disembark from a Flying Boat*.

What kind of author would waste ink on such mundane details?

When it came to the practical realities of living in the Cultivation world, he was still woefully behind someone like Tao Yaoye, who had been steeped in the traditions of a cultivator family since birth.

He knew only that the Flying Boats were the exclusive property of the Falling Coin Chamber of Commerce, and that the standard method of disembarkation was simply… jumping. The exact mechanics of said jump remained a mystery.

Every year, the Flying Boats raked in mountains of wealth, yet for the Falling Coin Chamber of Commerce, this was nothing more than a trivial side venture.

The Falling Coin Chamber of Commerce was the undisputed mercantile titan of the Central Continent. Backed by unfathomable powers, their vaults held countless mythical treasures. For enough Spirit Stones, one could purchase items that existed only in whispered legends—relics of ancient Buddhist kingdoms, sacred bones from the Demon Domain, or even the Dao Fruit of a true Immortal.

Should anyone dare to default on a debt to the Chamber, or harbor the foolish illusion of stealing from them, the sudden, traceless vanishing of several supreme Cultivation experts served as a grim warning to the world.

Legend spoke of a supreme Cultivation expert known as the King of Thieves. An Expert in the Dao of Space, plundering another’s storage ring was as effortless to him as reaching into his own pocket. Distance was a meaningless concept; with a single stride, he could cross thousands of miles, stepping from the westernmost edge of the Central Continent to its frozen northern peaks.

He had even successfully pickpocketed mighty figures at the Tribulation Transcendence stage.

In the underworld, there was an ironclad, unwritten law: *Never steal from the Falling Coin Chamber of Commerce.*

Initially, the King of Thieves honored this ancestral precept, keeping a wide berth from the Chamber’s affairs. But as his infamy swelled—as alliances of legendary masters hunted him across the realms without so much as grazing the hem of his robes—hubris took root. He began to view these so-called supreme experts as nothing more than mediocrities. Believing he had surpassed the very progenitor of thieves, he discarded the rigid rules of his forebears.

In a fit of arrogance, he broadcasted his intent to the world: he would plunder a supreme treasure from the Falling Coin Chamber of Commerce that very night.

The world held its breath. Spectators assumed that either the King of Thieves’ spatial arts were so profound he would spirit the treasure away in absolute silence, or an earth-shattering battle would erupt within the Chamber’s walls as he clashed with their hidden leviathans.

No one expected that absolutely nothing would happen. The night passed in total silence. From that moment on, the King of Thieves vanished from the face of the earth, never to be seen again.

Lu Yang’s internal crisis was mercifully brief. When the time came to jump, the other passengers were far too preoccupied to pay him any mind.

One by one, the cultivators unfurled elegant paper umbrellas and stepped off the deck, drifting down into the abyss like falling blossoms.

Lu Yang and Tao Yaoye moved to the edge. High above the earth, the strangers with their paper umbrellas shrank into distant, graceful specks. Lu Yang, however, lacked such elegance. He gripped the cord strapped to his chest and yanked.

With a deafening *BANG*, a massive, mundane parachute violently deployed, blooming like an obnoxious cloud against the high-altitude winds. It was spectacularly conspicuous.

Under normal circumstances, dangling tens of thousands of feet in the air would have sent Lu Yang into a cold sweat, his inner ear rebelling against the sheer drop. But right now, the crippling fear of heights couldn’t even pierce his consciousness.

The sheer, unadulterated embarrassment was far too overpowering.

Mercifully, the passengers were scattered to the winds. Only Lu Yang and Tao Yaoye were bound for Taiping Township.

The moment their boots touched the soil of Taiping Township, the local Township Head rushed out to offer a fervent welcome, acting as though he had divined their exact time of arrival.

“Immortal Elders! You have finally graced us with your presence. The manner in which you descended from the Flying Boat was truly… extraordinary.”

Lu Yang opened his mouth, then wisely snapped it shut, deciding not to ask how the man knew exactly when to look up.

“I am Lu Yang, and this is Tao Yaoye. We are disciples of the Dao Seeking Sect,” he said, shifting to a professional tone. “The mission dossier’s description of the Demon Beast was rather sparse. Please, Township Head, apprise us of the details.”

The Township Head blinked. He had prepared a lavish welcoming banquet, fully intending to ply these upper-echelon envoys with fine wine and local specialties before daring to ask for their labor—the standard bureaucratic dance. To see them so ruthlessly efficient filled him with sudden joy. *Truly worthy of an immortal sect,* he praised inwardly.

Tao Yaoye’s gaze swept over the Township Head. Late Qi Refining stage. His early foundation was a mess of poorly consolidated spiritual energy, riddled with impurities. He had absolutely no hope of ever reaching Foundation Establishment. A thoroughly unremarkable cultivator.

At the mention of the Demon Beast, the Township Head’s face crumpled into a mask of bitter distress. Taiping Township was already an isolated backwater, but with rumors of a monstrous bird spreading, even the most desperate traveling merchants refused to come within leagues of the place.

He had petitioned Quhe County for aid, but the county was severely understaffed. Noting that the beast hadn’t actually killed anyone, the bureaucrats told him to wait until they could spare the manpower.

That “wait” had dragged on for twenty agonizing days.

“It began roughly twenty days ago,” the Township Head recounted, his voice tight. “Tailor Feng came sprinting down the street, screaming at the top of his lungs that a massive, man-eating monster had invaded his shop.”

“The neighborhood was thrown into chaos. A man-eating beast is a catastrophic threat. We only have about thirty cultivators in the entire township, and as the one with the highest cultivation, the burden fell to me. Tailor Feng led a mob of terrified neighbors to my door.”

“Knowing that preparation is the difference between life and death, I interrogated him first. I asked, ‘You claim this beast eats men. Who exactly did it eat?'”

The distinction was critical. Humans were the spiritual apex of all living things, born with open heart apertures. Once a Demon Beast tasted human flesh, the intoxicating flavor would hook them forever. They would eat a second, a third, eventually slaughtering entire regions.

“Tailor Feng admitted he didn’t actually *know* who it had eaten. But he insisted that because the monster could speak human words, it *must* have consumed human flesh to gain the ability.”

It was a common, ignorant folk myth that eating humans granted monsters the power of speech and human form. The reality of Cultivation was far more grueling; to speak human tongues, a beast had to painstakingly refine the horizontal bone in its throat, a feat requiring at least the late Qi Refining stage.

“Feng said the beast was a riot of colors. At first, he thought a mundane bird had simply wandered in from the woods. It perched right behind him, utterly motionless, watching him stitch garments. Then, without warning, it spoke. Feng nearly jumped out of his skin and fled the shop.”

“Realizing Feng was too hysterical to be useful, I ordered the crowd to hang back while I stealthily approached the shop alone. That was when I saw it.”

“Its plumage was blindingly vibrant, shimmering with an unnatural luster, and the feathers around its eyes were a piercing, bloody red. It was no ordinary creature. What mundane bird would dare flaunt such ostentatious colors?”

“The beast looked right at me and demanded, *’Who are you? Where is Zhang Guanjia?’* Its tone was sharp, almost frantic.”

“I was completely baffled. Zhang Guanjia is a local cultivator here—a mere third layer Qi Refining novice with painfully average skills. How on earth had he entangled himself with a Demon Beast?”

“I forced my muscles to relax, keeping my hands visible to show I wasn’t a threat. I bowed and asked politely, ‘May I ask what business the Demon King has with Zhang Guanjia?'”

“The bird ignored me entirely. It simply beat its wings and vanished from the tailor’s shop.”

“Since that day, it has been circling Taiping Township. It raids our fields for grain and babbles in human tongues. It hasn’t harmed a soul, but try telling that to the mortal villagers. They are terrified. We’ve spent the last three weeks walking on eggshells, paralyzed by the fear that it might suddenly snap and devour us all.”

“Have you engaged it in combat? What is its level of strength?” Lu Yang asked, his tone analytical.

The Township Head shook his head grimly. “It spends its days high in the clouds, appearing and vanishing like a ghost. It’s nearly impossible to track.”

“More importantly, I couldn’t sense its cultivation base. That means it is, at the very least, at the seventh layer of Qi Refining—equal to me. Since it hasn’t shown outright hostility, I feared that a rash attack on my part would only enrage it and bring doom upon the township.”

Lu Yang nodded slowly. The Township Head’s caution was perfectly logical.