Mountain wind mixed with ice shards, lashing against Chen Ping’s face with biting cruelty.

The path ahead had vanished under a sheet of white, crunching softly with every step.

Chen Ping lowered his head, burying his chin in his collar as he pushed through the blizzard. Luck was not on his side today; he had barely stepped out the door when the heavens opened. The snow fell in curtains, reducing visibility to a mere few paces.

Fortunately, this wasn’t his first trip to the Marketplace. The route was etched into his memory.

Icy wind poured down his neck, but before it could touch his skin, the Qi circulating within him surged. It dissolved the chill instantly. A warm current flowed beneath his flesh, isolating him from the winter fury.

It was like carrying a furnace inside his chest. No matter how fierce the storm, the cold could not penetrate his bones.

Chen Ping sighed internally. The divide between Immortal and Mortal was absolute.

The outline of the Marketplace emerged from the swirling white, a hub of noise defying the weather.

Chen Ping slipped through the entrance, dissolving into the stream of bodies. He moved with a slow, deliberate cadence. His eyes swept over the stalls and shops with practiced indifference, but his ears were sifting through the noise, hunting for the specific frequency of commerce.

This was his third visit. He had the market prices memorized.

Low-grade Qi Gathering Pills held firm at ten Spirit Stones apiece. The price rarely fluctuated by more than a few crystals. They were the hard currency of the cultivation world—the highest cost-performance ratio for generic improvement. Even impoverished cultivators would grit their teeth and bleed their savings to buy them.

Chen Ping wanted to buy them directly.

But he did the math. With his current consumption rate, buying a dozen pills would be a drop in the ocean. It wouldn’t change his fate.

He had to spend his Spirit Stones more wisely. He had to leverage his assets.

He touched the pouch at his waist. Fifty Low-grade Spirit Nourishing Pills. This was his capital.

Usually, these sold for three to four Spirit Stones per pill, depending on purity.

He walked past the Dharma Artifact shops.

A Tier 1 Low-grade offensive or defensive artifact cost around ten Spirit Stones. Auxiliary tools—like Alchemy Furnaces or forging sets—were double or triple that, ranging from twenty to thirty.

As for Tier 1 Mid-grade artifacts? They started at fifty Spirit Stones. Unaffordable.

Chen Ping’s goals for this trip were surgical.

First: Anonymity. He needed a Tier 1 Low-grade mask capable of blocking Divine Sense. Avoiding the prying eyes of mid-to-late Qi Condensation cultivators was essential for survival. He estimated this would cost twenty Spirit Stones.

Second: Insurance. He needed Talismans.

Offensive types like the “Fireball Talisman” or “Ice Spike Talisman” cost two Spirit Stones. Defensive ones like the “Earth Shield Talisman” cost four. They were single-use, but they activated instantly—a crucial second life for a low-level cultivator.

This was a priority.

Everything else would depend on his remaining funds.

Chen Ping found a vacant spot near the center of the Marketplace, where the foot traffic was dense.

He spread out a piece of gray cloth.

He placed five small jade vials in a row. Each contained ten round, pale-green Spirit Nourishing Pills.

He didn’t shout. He didn’t hawk his wares. He simply placed a small wooden sign in front of the vials. The characters were crude and unadorned:

[Spirit Nourishing Pills: 3 Spirit Stones, 20 Crystals per pill.]

Standard shops sold these for four Spirit Stones. He was undercutting them by eighty crystals per unit.

For the bottom-feeders who split every Spirit Stone in half just to survive, that margin was everything.

A customer stopped almost immediately. He picked up a vial, poured out a pill, sniffed the medicinal fragrance, and frowned.

“Three stones and ten crystals. Deal?”

Chen Ping shook his head. His voice was hoarse, deliberately roughened to mask his age.

“Fixed price.”

The quality spoke for itself. Soon, a crowd gathered. A price of 3.2 Spirit Stones was rare in this Marketplace.

The hesitation vanished. People began shoving Spirit Stones at him, afraid the stock would evaporate.

“Give me five!”

“I want three!”

The sound of haggling was drowned out by the frenzy of purchase. In less than an Incense Stick’s Time, the fifty pills were gone.

Chen Ping silently swept up his empty vials and the gray cloth.

Inside his inner pocket, he now carried one hundred and sixty Spirit Stones. For a cultivator at the 1st Level of Qi Condensation, this was a massive fortune.

He didn’t linger. He vanished into the crowd, executing his shopping list with cold efficiency.

First stop: A shop specializing in miscellaneous Dharma Artifacts.

Under the shopkeeper’s ingratiating smile, Chen Ping dropped twenty-five Spirit Stones. He walked out with a metal mask shaped like a green-faced, fanged demon.

The mask was cold and heavy. He injected a trace of Qi and strapped it on. It suctioned to his face instantly, releasing a faint energy fluctuation that scrambled his aura. To any observer, he was just a generic cultivator at the 1st Level of Qi Condensation.

He glanced in a mirror. A sinister, terrifying ghost stared back. Good.

Next: Knowledge.

He visited several bookstores, spending twenty Spirit Stones for the “Marrow Cleansing Pill” formula and thirty for the “Qi Gathering Pill” formula.

The ingredients for these were common, but the jade slips were expensive because they contained the detailed “Fire Control” techniques and refining insights of predecessors. He wasn’t just buying instructions; he was buying the failures of others so he wouldn’t have to repeat them.

He checked the cultivation manuals but found only basic Low-grade Yellow-rank trash. His Evergreen Art was Mid-grade Yellow-rank. There was no need to downgrade.

Third stop: Hardware.

He entered a second-hand artifact shop. After a bout of aggressive haggling, he spent twenty-two Spirit Stones on a semi-new bronze Alchemy Furnace.

It had a few scratches, but the walls were thick and the structure sound. His old furnace was damaged and prone to “Furnace Explosion”—a risk he could no longer take.

Fourth stop: Raw Materials.

He went to the herb stalls. Relying on his knowledge of pharmacology, he bypassed the premium goods and intentionally bought the “trash”—herbs that were wilted, damaged, or ugly.

“Bitter Wormwood Root” and “Stone Marrow Flower” for the Marrow Cleansing Pills.

“Spirit Gathering Grass” and “Condensing Spirit Flower” for the Qi Gathering Pills.

He spent twelve Spirit Stones to buy enough ingredients for three batches of each. The poor visual quality didn’t matter. Once planted in the Black Earth of his Jade Pendant, they would be reborn.

Mask, formulas, furnace, herbs.

He had spent one hundred and nine Spirit Stones.

Chen Ping frowned at his deflating money pouch. Wealth came hard and vanished like smoke.

He gripped the remaining fifty-one Spirit Stones. Now for the most important part.

Survival.

He moved to the combat stalls.

He bought ten Tier 1 Low-grade “Fireball Talismans” (20 Spirit Stones). Overwhelming firepower.

He bought two Tier 1 Low-grade “Earth Shield Talismans” (8 Spirit Stones). A second life.

He bought a “Green Wood Shield” Dharma Artifact (12 Spirit Stones). A palm-sized disk that projected a defensive light barrier.

He bought a “Black Iron Sword” (10 Spirit Stones). A foot-long blade that shimmered with a cold, killing light.

He had one Spirit Stone left.

He used it to buy information.

He purchased the location of the sect’s Black Market.

With the Black Market accessible, he could acquire resources that the official sect channels would never provide. His growth speed would accelerate drastically.

One hundred and sixty Spirit Stones. Gone.

In exchange: A mask, formulas, a furnace, herbs, talismans, artifacts, and intel.

Chen Ping walked back into the snow. He was penniless, but he was no longer prey. He had armed himself for a complete metamorphosis.