Chapter 230: Boss Fang Might Have Gotten on a Black Car (2/3)

"The seagulls groan before the storm approaches,──groaning, darting above the sea, trying to hide their dread of the tempest deep within the abyss of the waters."

"Clusters of dark clouds burn like blue flames upon the bottomless sea. The ocean seizes the lightning's sword-gleam, extinguishing them within its own chasms. The shadows of these lightning bolts, resembling fiery serpents, writhe and float across the sea, vanishing in a flash."

Perhaps such was the scene that unfolded before his eyes.

"This kind of weather is truly no fine day for a journey..." Standing at the edge of a mid-sized spiritual vessel was a youth with somewhat disheveled hair. He was not tall, standing around one hundred and sixty centimeters, peering out past the hull with narrowed eyes and a craned neck.

Anyone looking at him could discern the profound melancholy written across his countenance.

"Yesterday was still a vast expanse of clear, sunny skies, yet today we run into this wretched weather...!" A young man, considerably taller and broader than the average person and clad in a slate-blue robe, stood at the vessel's edge right beside the short youth, appearing utterly unremarkable in every way.

"Eh?" The short youth found it rather strange. "Mister Fang, wasn't the weather exactly like this yesterday too?"

"Come to think of it, the vessel's owner is truly benevolent. To think we could board such a spiritual vessel at so cheap a price..." the youth muttered to himself.

This Mister Fang was the only acquaintance he possessed aboard this vessel; after all, they were both ordinary folk traveling from small, remote locales toward the grand cities where cultivators congregated.

Naturally, ordinary people capable of boarding a spiritual vessel still possessed a modicum of cultivation. Take Zou Mo, for instance; after being tested and found to possess the talent to become a cultivator, he had been sent onto this vessel by his uncle, who had saved up some wealth over the years, to seek instruction in the distant Morning Star Sea—the ocean where cultivators gathered.

"Ah..." Fang Qi gazed at the oppressive, blackening sky and offered a casual murmur of assent. Yesterday, of course, had not been like this weather... Yesterday he had still been soaring through the skies and plunging into the earth with his shop companions, veteran drivers locked in a fierce contest against veteran drivers. Who could have foreseen that upon bidding farewell to his companions, he would be cast into this wretched place in the blink of an eye.

"Right, I've heard that in that Morning Star Sea place, cultivators are as numerous as dogs. Is it truly that prosperous?" Fang Qi felt thoroughly vexed as well. After carousing for a whole day, he had finally initiated the random teleportation, only to be cast into a minor kingdom where cultivators and even decent martial artists were few and far between.

Open a shop? If he didn't lower his prices, it was estimated that only factions on the tier of a sovereign lord could afford to play. Thus, he simply made some inquiries and caught a passing, hitchhiked spiritual vessel that was said to have stopped over, fleeing the region.

Cheap and convenient; only an idiot wouldn't take it.

"Hush—!" Hearing Fang Qi speak in such a manner, Zou Mo's face turned completely pale. He cast a wary glance around, and seeing no one, only then did he speak in fear and trepidation, "To speak thusly, if heard by the master cultivators, it will mean lives lost!"

"Furthermore..." Fang Qi paid no heed to his words and pointed toward the front. "That city called whatever-it-is, isn't it supposed to be due east? Hasn't the heading veered a bit?"

"Has it?!" Zou Mo looked ahead and scratched his head, saying with a touch of speechlessness, "Mister Fang, it's not as though you know the way..."

"Fair enough." Fang Qi turned to walk back into the cabin. "Then I shall go rest first."

"Bah!" Just then, a burly man wearing a short tunic approached from the opposite direction, stepping out from the cabin. Catching Fang Qi looking over, his scarred eyes flared with a fierce glare. "What are you looking at! Believe it or not, I'll gouge your eyeballs out!"

Fang Qi furrowed his brows. This fellow seemed to reside in the room right next to his?

...

The Wuwei Daoist Alliance, Artifact Refining Chamber.

"Observe, everyone." Jun Yangzi held a white wolf-head piece in his hand, explaining the fruits of their research to the gathered crowd. "The Spirit Gathering skill—I do not know what comes to your minds when you behold such an object, but what this old man thinks of is something I believe many present have heard of: the Jade Talisman."

"Ordinary paper talismans, once created, can mostly unleash but a single technique before the talisman itself incinerates," Jun Yangzi said. "But Jade Talismans are different; they can store multiple techniques. Can such a method of storage, then, be applied directly onto equipment..."

Jun Yangzi pointed to the wolf-head in his hand and said, "This is where the technology encompassed within is more advanced than ours. Once we thoroughly research and comprehend these matters, our talismans in the future may break free from the constraints of base materials like jade and leather, and be directly affixed onto weapons and robes. Whether in casting or carrying, it will be far more convenient, making it impossible for enemies to guard against!"

"Presently, the only thing that is somewhat difficult to engrave is the enchantment that carries the skill," Jun Yangzi remarked. "Like this wolf-head cap, the affix that increases the level of elemental spells is named 'Nature'. However, regarding the engraving... there are many engraving materials that our Wuwei Daoist Alliance lacks."

"If we were to find substitute materials and replicate it once, this old man possesses the confidence. But if we are to infer further from this and synthesize the spells of the major sects into runic affixes, we fear we still have a very long road to travel!"

"Brother Jun Yangzi!" Duan Buyi of the Liuyun Daoist Palace spoke up. "This is already sufficient! In my view, what urgently needs addressing now is the issue of harmony between the enchantments and our spiritual artifacts. Once this problem is resolved, setting aside the prefixes achieved through engraving for a moment, the suffix enchantments can be added to nearly every one of our spiritual artifacts! That is the true crux!"

...

According to local legend, within the Morning Star Sea, whenever night descended and the viscous sea breeze blew in a moon-gauze mist, that City of Mist—which had only half-survived the flames of war from long ago, teeming with chaos and disorder—would reveal its true form.

Concealed within were various existences that could not be tolerated by the world.

Fang Qi lay upon his bed, somewhat listlessly fiddling with his communication jade. In this place, it seemed even the communication jade could not connect back.

"Where on earth has this transported me?" Fang Qi gazed rather boredly out through the translucent, glazed window as the sky gradually turned bleak and dark.

Fang Qi watched the distant sky outside the window slowly reveal one or two stars, as a wisp of night mist, light and thin as white gauze, drifted past the window.

"Mist is rising?" Fang Qi, who had been sitting cross-legged, rose from the bed.

"This isn't the spiritual vessel to Black Flood Dragon City! I want to disembark!" Fang Qi suddenly heard a shout from next door, immediately followed by a succession of violent crashing sounds.

"What the devil...?" Fang Qi put on his boots and stepped down from the bed. Before he could even exit the door, he beheld a stream of bloody water flowing in along the crack of the door.

Opening the door, he saw the burly man in the short tunic being dragged away. A cultivator whose countenance was considerably whiter than an ordinary person's, resembling a dead man's face, glanced toward Fang Qi's direction. "If you don't wish to be like him, get back inside."

The atmosphere possessed a somewhat inexplicably eerie quality.

Fang Qi: "..."

"What is it?" Seeing that Fang Qi did not move, the two cultivators turned their heads and bodies around to look back.

"..." Fang Qi opened his mouth and said, "No, I just wanted to ask, where exactly is this spiritual vessel heading?"

"Half-Side City," the cultivator replied with a trace of impatience.

"What city?" Fang Qi didn't care about whatever-it-was city, asking another question, "Are there many people there? Is the population dense? How is the consumption level?"

The pale-faced cultivator: "...!!??"