The appointed time for the transaction had passed.

Wang Ba watched Cultivator Yan hurry away, disappearing into the crowd. As the man’s figure vanished, Wang Ba’s mood plummeted like a stone dropped down a well.

Yan had called it “hearsay.”

But rumors didn’t spring from nothing. Given Yan’s grave expression and the urgency of his bulk purchase, Wang Ba ran a quick mental calculation.

Probability of a Sect Conscription: Eighty to ninety percent.

Risk Level: Critical.

“I need to find Yu Changchun,” Wang Ba muttered to himself.

Over the past three years, as Wang Ba’s supply of Spirit Poultry became rock-steady, Yu Changchun’s cultivation had also advanced to a crucial stage.

The last time Wang Ba saw him, Yu Changchun had been a nightmare made flesh—or rather, a nightmare made bone. His face had been stripped away, the skin and muscle refined into the skeletal structure beneath. Only his eyeballs remained, rolling wetly in naked sockets.

It was a sight that could freeze the blood in a man’s veins.

Because of this horrific transformation, Yu Changchun had mastered a disguise spell. To the casual observer, his features now appeared simply blurred, like a face seen through frosted glass.

Wang Ba had intended to keep his distance. But a conscription order was a matter of life and death. He had no choice but to call in a favor.

Mind made up, he navigated the winding paths to the office of Manager Hao, the administrator of the rental districts.

“Fellow Daoist Wang?” Manager Hao looked up, surprised. “Rent isn’t due today. What brings you to my humble abode?”

Manager Hao oversaw the Stone Cave Dwellings, the Wood Tower Dwellings, and the premium Spirit Water Courtyards. Since Wang Ba was punctual with his payments—and generous with his tips—he had built a solid rapport with the man.

Wang Ba smiled warmly, cupping his hands in greeting. “I merely wished to pay my respects—and perhaps a bit of advance rent—to you, Manager.”

As he spoke, he deftly slid a small pouch of Spirit Stones across the desk.

Manager Hao weighed the pouch in his palm. The weight was pleasing. His smile widened. “It seems Fellow Daoist Wang is finally looking to move up in the world.”

Wang Ba chuckled, waving a hand dismissively as if it were a whim, before handing over one hundred and twenty Spirit Stones.

Thanks to the competition from the newly built residences in the West Garden Market, the rent for the Spirit Water Courtyards had dipped slightly. It was a buyer’s market.

Transaction complete, Manager Hao led Wang Ba to a secluded courtyard. As they approached, the layout struck Wang Ba as vaguely familiar.

“A lucky coincidence,” Manager Hao said, unlocking the gate. “This courtyard was vacated just days ago. The previous tenant was a Senior Brother from the Mystic Maiden Path. He left behind several formations to aid in cultivation. You just need to slot in some Spirit Stones to activate them. Consider it a bargain.”

Wang Ba thanked him profusely, playing the part of the grateful junior. Internally, however, his mind was racing.

Mystic Maiden Path…

It seemed Lin Yu had indeed been taken in as a disciple by someone from that faction. The location and the timing fit perfectly.

He hadn’t seen Lin Yu in quite some time. He wondered briefly how her cultivation was progressing. Had she officially become an inner sect disciple?

Probability analysis: Her speed is likely far inferior to mine.

Wang Ba wasn’t being arrogant; he was looking at the data. When he hit a bottleneck, he didn’t meditate for months; he burned his Lifespan to brute-force through it.

The rest of the time, he simply refined Spiritual Power.

He didn’t need to practice control. He didn’t need to spend grueling hours compressing his energy.

Between the ambient Spiritual Qi of the Wood Tower Dwelling and his unlimited diet of Spirit Poultry and Spirit Turtles, his Spiritual Power had advanced by leaps and bounds.

Three years. That was all it took to rocket from the third layer of Qi Refining to the eighth.

However, the law of diminishing returns had finally kicked in.

Upon reaching the eighth layer, the volume of Spiritual Qi required to Breakthrough had skyrocketed. The Wood Tower Dwelling was no longer sufficient. Worse, the Low Grade Spirit Poultry and Turtles provided negligible gains.

He could switch to Middle Grade stock, of course. But over the last three years, he had eaten through his reserves. The few remaining Middle Grade beasts were strictly for breeding.

Aside from Qi cultivation, he had remained disciplined in visualizing the Yin Spirit.

Thanks to the steady consumption of Spirit Turtles, his Yin Spirit Abode was nearly brimming with droplets of Yin Spirit Power.

Currently, as an open cultivator, he had no need for disguise, so the power sat unused. Yet, Wang Ba felt no regret. His intuition whispered that the Yin Spirit Great Dream Scripture held secrets far deeper than simple camouflage. He just wasn’t strong enough to unlock them yet.

…

Once Manager Hao departed, Wang Ba locked the gate and performed a perimeter sweep.

“Courtyard” was a generous term. It was a compact space with three rooms.

Two of the rooms, as promised, were etched with formation lines. Wang Ba wasn’t an expert, but he recognized the patterns of a Spirit Gathering Formation and a Mind-Calming Formation.

Standard tools for efficient grinding.

Naturally, they were dormant. They needed money to run.

Wang Ba did not insert the Spirit Stones immediately. Paranoia was his first line of defense.

He reached into his robe and slapped two talismans onto his chest: a High Grade Armor Talisman and a High Grade Soul Defense Talisman. Both had been acquired from Cultivator Yan.

One for the body, one for the soul.

Still not feeling entirely secure, he tapped his beast bag.

A flash of light deposited a massive bird onto the patio.

“Cluck!”

Alpha-Thirteen glared at Wang Ba, its eyes burning with tyrannical violence. A split second later, the Spirit Beast Ring around its neck pulsed, and the bird’s gaze glazed over, forced into submission.

Wang Ba watched it, shaking his head inwardly.

Alpha-Thirteen was a powerhouse, rivaling a Qi Refining Level 10 cultivator in raw strength. But in terms of intelligence and temperament? It was a drooling idiot compared to the first generation.

Fatal Flaw: Low IQ. High Aggression.

Tactical Role: Ambush Predator.

Wang Ba didn’t need it to solve puzzles. He needed it to leap out of a bush and deliver a one-hit kill. Brains were optional.

With two layers of magical shielding and a psychopath chicken standing guard, Wang Ba finally felt safe enough to activate the room’s formations.

Hum.

The air shimmered as the arrays came to life. Wang Ba’s eyes widened.

“High Grade? Maybe even Top Grade?”

Lin Yu’s master was clearly not a simple character to leave such valuable arrays behind.

Pushing the thought aside, Wang Ba sat cross-legged and began to cycle his breathing.

Moments later, he snapped his eyes open, genuine shock on his face.

“The concentration… it’s absurd!”

“It’s easily seven or eight times denser than the Wood Tower Dwelling.”

He ran the numbers. “If I cultivate here, supplemented by a daily diet of Middle Grade Spirit Poultry and Turtles… I could hit the Eighth Layer Perfection in a year. Maybe less.”

It was a blistering pace.

And yet, Wang Ba frowned.

If the world were as peaceful as it had been for the last three years, he would be ecstatic. But Yan’s warning about the conscription hung over him like a blade.

He couldn’t sit still.

He abruptly stopped his cultivation and left the Spirit Water Courtyard. Slapping a Swift Travel Talisman on his leg, he blurred into motion, racing toward the core region of the old Eastern Sage Sect.

Above him, streaks of black light tore through the sky—cultivators flying on magical artifacts, looking down on the pedestrians below.

Wang Ba watched them with a calculating squint.

“I need a flying artifact,” he mused. “In a crisis, the air offers more escape vectors than the ground.”

For three years, he had been a hermit. He had poured every resource into his chickens and turtles, ignoring gear entirely.

Most cultivators bought their first artifact at the sixth layer. He was at the eighth and still running on his own two feet.

His hand unconsciously drifted to his ribs, feeling the hard lump of the invisible bead beneath his skin.

Even with his current Spiritual Power, the bead remained inert. It was a dead weight. He still couldn’t fathom why Zhao Feng had planted the thing on him.

Lost in thought, the landscape shifted.

The massive mountain gate of the sect loomed in the distance.

The peaks pierced the clouds; the palaces floated in the mist. The former glory of the Eastern Sage Sect had been seamlessly cannibalized by the Heavenly Gate Sect.

But as Wang Ba gazed up, he froze.

Deep within the swirling clouds above the sect, a massive purple spirit beast was thrashing. It made no sound that could be heard by the ear, but the air vibrated with its desperate, low roars of agony.