Chapter 48: Return

The old shopkeeper’s body lay in the bushes. Before long, it would be devoured by monsters, leaving no trace for anyone to discover.

Li Zhen had abandoned any thoughts of changing his identity. With the old shopkeeper dead, he anticipated complications ahead. Best not to sell any more spirit artifacts.

Making up his mind, he turned back towards the market.

Upon returning to his log cabin, he set aside the martial fighter armor to recharge while taking out the old shopkeeper’s bag of holding.

Inside, he immediately spotted a green leaf-shaped flying magical device—the very one the old shopkeeper had used to chase him down earlier.

A smile played on his lips; who wouldn’t covet their own flying magical device? When he first saw Gu Zhun’s paper crane, his heart had been racing with envy.

He decided to name this new acquisition ‘Green Jade Flying Leaf’. A mid-grade tier-1 magical item, suitable at least until the late stages of Qi Refinement cultivation.

Putting away the Green Jade Flying Leaf for later refinement, he continued sifting through the contents.

“These are the two inferior-tier magical items I sold to the Treasure Pavilion!” He recognized them as the exact pieces he had previously handed over.

Though Li Zhen was unfamiliar with the Treasure Pavilion’s operations, as a seasoned merchant, he shouldn’t have kept two magical artifacts sold to the pavilion in his personal storage pouch.

The Treasure Pavilion had its own secure location for storing spiritual items; otherwise, his pouch wouldn’t have contained so few valuable objects.

Li Zhen couldn’t understand why the old shopkeeper would carry these two low-grade magical artifacts personally. Unfamiliar with this world, he failed to grasp their significance.

However, considering how the old shopkeeper suddenly attacked him but refrained from killing, opting instead to capture him, Li Zhen suspected that there might be something unusual about those sold artifacts.

His suspicion proved correct. Despite the inferior quality of the artifacts—made from scarce materials and inscribed with basic runes—one aspect piqued the old shopkeeper’s interest immensely.

What intrigued the old shopkeeper was the exquisite craftsmanship of the Xian Kingdom’s magical artifacts.

While examining the two items, the old shopkeeper noticed this detail. Although not an artificer himself, his discerning eye had appraised countless magical artifacts over the years, granting him profound knowledge in the field.

Setting aside the performance of these two low-grade tier-one magical devices, let alone the artificing technique used to create them with minimal materials—merely crafting a single low-grade tier-one magical device using so little material was nothing short of miraculous.

Had any ordinary artificer attempted this feat, they would have needed at least three times as much raw material.

The old shopkeeper believed that if he could capture Li Zhen and uncover the secret behind refining such magical devices, it would bring immense profit to the Lin Clan through this knowledge alone.

Naturally, the old shopkeeper had his own faction within the Lin Clan. Before capturing Li Zhen and obtaining results, he kept this matter secret from everyone else.

He even stored both low-grade magical devices sold by Li Zhen in his personal storage pouch to prevent others from learning about them.

This selfishness inadvertently shielded Li Zhen from full exposure to the Lin Clan.

Li Zhen then retrieved another flying sword from his storage bag—a mid-grade tier-one blade—and inscribed the word ‘Changkong’ on its hilt.

“This is simply too wasteful!” He shook his head involuntarily as he gazed upon the mid-grade tier-one flying sword in his hand.

This was his first encounter with a flying sword from this world. While he possessed a mid-grade tier-1 flying sword himself, the materials used in the Skysoaring Sword were unlike anything he had ever seen—truly extravagant.

Only his custom-made high-grade tier-1 flying sword could even begin to compare, though “begin” was being generous. The Skysoaring Sword’s materials were remarkably superior.

Mass-produced flying swords typically used minimal spirit materials outside of the blade edge and inscribed runes, opting instead for synthetic substitutes elsewhere.

Even custom-order swords adhered to principles of frugality during their forging process.

In contrast, the entire Skysoaring Sword was crafted from mid-grade tier-1 artificing material without exception—not even the hilt’s ornamentation spared any lesser substance.

Li Zhen had previously engaged in combat using a high-grade tier-1 flying sword, which caused his martial fighter armor to consume a staggering 5% of its spiritual energy reserve with each strike.

This experience taught him that unless his personal spiritual energy reached a certain threshold, it would be unwise to wield high-grade magical artifacts due to their excessive drain on one’s power reserves.

So even when he reached the middle stage of Qi Refining, he would still need to use mid-grade tier-1 flying swords, and Skysoaring Sword was indeed an excellent choice.

The better the material quality, the less likely it would be damaged during sword clashes with opponents.

“Another magical item that needs refinement!” It was a delightful yet troublesome predicament.

He then discovered several jade slips and placed them one by one before his forehead to examine their contents.

To him, the value of the information within most slips didn’t even match up to the worth of the slips themselves.

Only one particular slip caught his interest—it contained a body refinement technique called ‘Black Iron Body.’

From its description alone, Li Zhen could tell this Black Iron Body technique was foundational and simple, capable only of reaching peak body refinement at best.

There were subsequent techniques mentioned for Black Iron Body; the jade slip briefly referenced something called Bronze Body, which seemed to be intended for Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Finally, amidst his bag of holding, Li Zhen found what proved most crucial at this moment: three bags of spirit stones. Two were fully packed, each containing one hundred spirit stones, while the third held seventy-one, totaling two hundred seventy-one spirit stones altogether.

Upon seeing so many spirit stones, Li Zhen’s mood greatly improved; he would no longer need to worry about them.

He placed all the spirit stones into his Dragon Heart Space. Now, he had enough spirit stones for fifteen round trips.

After examining everything in the storage pouch, the remaining items were mostly everyday use objects.

Additionally, from the old shopkeeper, he obtained a piece of jade. Using his refining technique, he channeled a magical formula into it. A strange character appeared on the surface of this mid-grade first-rank black jade.

Li Zhen connected his mind with the jade and understood the meaning of the strange character.

Invisible Jade, this was the name of the mid-grade first-rank black jade item. Its function was to become invisible in darkness.

To use it, one needed to infuse spiritual energy into the jade. To maintain invisibility continuously, a constant supply of spiritual energy was required.

Li Zhen experimented briefly and found that activating the Invisible Jade required 5 points of spiritual energy, while maintaining invisibility consumed 1 point per minute.

The Invisible Jade was how the old shopkeeper could secretly follow Li Zhen. If not for Li Zhen’s heightened sensitivity towards mystical artifacts, the old shopkeeper might have been able to act against him undetected.

Li Zhen gazed at the ‘Invisible Jade’. His original plan had been to stay here for a few days, plant spirit rice in the spirit fields, then find an opportunity to return to the world of the Xian Nation.

But now, with a large quantity of spirit stones, he was filled with an urgent desire to return to the Xian Nation.

He didn’t yet know how anxious his parents were; if they went too long without any news from him, something might happen to them.

At this moment, he noticed that the charging of the martial fighter armor was complete. He took out a full spiritual energy block and replaced it with an empty one.

The full spiritual energy block he placed into the ‘Puyi Group Small Inverted Five Elements Array’, which he had acquired from the Demon-Worship Cult’s secret base.

The recent attack on Yunxi County had been carried out by none other than the Demon-Worship Cult.

Li Zhen dared not associate even slightly with the Demon-Worship Cult again. Even though he held the ‘Puyi Group Small Inverted Five Elements Array’ in his hands, he didn’t dare use it or sell it.

If the Demon-Worship Cult found out, endless retaliation would be waiting for him.

It wasn’t that he was cowardly; even Cheng He, with his bold demeanor, had been frightened to the point of wetting himself. Whether he survived or not remained uncertain, but even if he did, it was unlikely he’d dare be so conspicuous again.

Li Zhen activated the ‘Puyi Group Small Inverted Five Elements Array,’ its effect confined to the room alone.

The potency of the ‘Small Inverted Five Elements Array’ was sufficient to mask the fluctuations caused by his spatial ability when traversing through dimensions. This array effectively shielded him from the surveillance of Yunxi County’s protective barrier.

By reducing the array’s coverage area, Li Zhen significantly enhanced its effectiveness.

He waited patiently until both the martial fighter armor and the rune dart’s spiritual energy blocks were fully charged.

The rune dart’s spiritual energy block held less capacity, reaching full charge after only fifty shots worth of energy.

Activating the ‘Invisible Jade,’ Li Zhen recalled how he had arrived in this world cornered against a wall. He fervently hoped that upon reappearing, he wouldn’t find himself directly exposed to sunlight, as such would render his invisibility ineffective.