Beyond three hundred miles from Shengyuan Academy, Heaven Gate’s fifty-plus members passed quietly. The journey was uneventful, with any spirit beasts they encountered scared off by their sheer numbers.
Aside from a few unrelated ordinary disciples early on, they didn’t run into any stronger factions within the three hundred miles. After all, the area beyond was vast, and with over a thousand disciples scattered, chance meetings were rare.
Most were also eager to leave this zone quickly.
Of course, aside from the factions opposed to Heaven Gate, other groups and disciples didn’t dare provoke such a formidable force.
As they travelled two or three hundred miles outward, Lin Xiao and the others noticed an increasing number of spirit beasts in the mountains.
To avoid trouble, Lin Xiao ordered Heaven Gate’s members not to engage, letting the beasts flee in panic.
After all, plenty of people were gunning for Heaven Gate. They weren’t far enough out yet, and too much commotion could draw the Martial Alliance, Moon Gate, Sword Alliance, Qing Alliance, and Mo Alliance to gang up on them—a real headache.
“Actually, with our group, hunting spirit beasts wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Ling Hu said during the march, grinning wryly.
“With so many people, the spirit cores would get split too thin,” Hu Yue shook her head, clearly disagreeing.
Lin Xiao stayed silent, shaking his head. He valued the training more. Group beast hunting would defeat the purpose unless they were specifically after spirit cores.
But they didn’t urgently need that many cores right now.
“Roar!”
Just then, a beastly bellow echoed from afar. Lin Xiao frowned, quickly looking ahead.
“Roar!” “Boom!” “Boom!” “Boom!” …
The sounds kept coming. Ahead, trees toppled in waves. Lin Xiao waved a hand, and the fifty-plus disciples tensed, drawing swords and knives, ready for a fight.
With their numbers, whatever dared charge at them head-on was likely no weakling.
Boom! Boom!
A hundred yards out, two bloodied figures burst into view, fleeing toward them, followed by a massive snake dozens of yards long barreling through.
The pair—a man and a woman. The young man looked seventeen or eighteen, the woman in her early twenties. Her dishevelled hair was streaked with blood, hinting at a brutal fight.
Even in her battered state, the woman’s delicate beauty shone through.
Spotting Lin Xiao’s large group ahead, their faces lit up with relief. They exchanged a glance, then bolted toward Lin Xiao’s party, stopping a few yards away.
“Please, save us!” the young woman pleaded, cupping her hands. The young man mirrored her gesture, casting wary looks back at the charging python.
“A third-tier high-level spirit beast?” Lin Xiao’s gaze locked onto the rampaging snake.
“Roar!” In a blink, before more could be said, the python closed in.
“Crackle! Crackle! Crackle!”
At that moment, a flood of Heavenly Martial auras erupted like a torrent, whipping up a gust that swept forward.
Feeling this, the young pair gaped in shock. All fifty-plus of them were at the Heavenly Martial Realm?
This lineup was downright terrifying!
Even the python seemed to sense the overwhelming force. It screeched to a halt, glanced up ahead, then spun around and fled in a panic.
“Hey, we finally meet a big one, and we don’t fight? What a waste!” Ling Hu rubbed his fists, battle lust surging.
“A third-tier high-level spirit core’s worth a lot!” Hu Yue added, looking hopefully at Lin Xiao.
But Lin Xiao shook his head. A single third-tier high-level core wasn’t worth much to him. There’d be plenty of chances to hunt cores later.
Seeing him decline, Ling Hu, Hu Yue, and the Heaven Gate disciples sighed inwardly. Still, they had to admit—Lin Xiao might be brash, but he was cautious when it mattered.
The young woman, realising Lin Xiao was the leader, quickly cupped her hands again, “Thank you all for saving us! Without you, we’d have died here today!”
The young man beside her also clasped his fists, eyeing the group with a hint of wariness.
“What happened?” Lin Xiao asked, sizing them up casually.
The woman hurriedly explained, “We’re from the Qing family of Blackwind City. I’m Qing Yun, and this is my younger brother, Qing Feng. We came to hunt spirit beasts but ran into a third-tier high-level python. It chased us for a hundred miles.”
“Oh?”
Lin Xiao raised an eyebrow, intrigued. The young man was at the sixth level of Heavenly Martial, the woman at the seventh. At their ages, their talent rivalled Shengyuan Academy’s disciples.
Surviving a hundred-mile chase by a third-tier python meant their strength was solid too.
Shengyuan Academy was a hub of geniuses, but these two from Blackwind City matched that level. Clearly, Blackwind City was no ordinary place.
“What’s Blackwind City?” Lin Xiao asked, curious.
“Blackwind City’s a few thousand miles from here, a free-trading hub in the Chaos Lands. People there collect spirit beasts and trade Martial King essence pills. You can also swap spirit cores or Martial King essence pills for other goods,” Qing Yun explained simply.
“Martial King essence pills?” Lin Xiao blinked, surprised.
Martial King essence pills were fourth-tier primary pills, refined from spirit cores using a special energy-infused material called sky-turning stone. They converted into vast amounts of heaven-and-earth vital energy, enough to fuel a Martial King’s cultivation.
Hence the name.
At the Martial King realm, cultivation and breakthroughs demanded immense vital energy. The natural energy in the world was too sparse to rely on, so pills condensing that energy were essential.
Martial King essence pills were just that.
A fourth-tier vital energy pill, they had no side effects—equivalent to absorbing natural vital energy.
They weren’t exactly rare, but nor were they common.
First, only a fourth-tier primary spirit controller could refine them. Second, they required sky-turning stone.
Without that material, no amount of cores or skill could produce them.
That’s why even the Lanlan Empire, with a fifth-tier spirit controller like Ye Fenghua, lacked Martial King essence pills.
Seeing Lin Xiao’s surprise, Qing Yun mistook it for ignorance and clarified, “Martial King essence pills, as the name suggests, are vital energy pills for Martial Kings’ cultivation. They’re fourth-tier primary pills, very precious—a hard currency in the Chaos Lands.”
“They’re pricey too. Ten third-tier high-level spirit cores, fifty mid-level ones, or two hundred fifty low-level ones to trade for one.”
Lin Xiao didn’t need her to explain. He knew Martial King essence pills were a hard currency—not just in the Chaos Lands, but deep in the continent too, though higher-tier pills like Martial Sovereign or Martial Lord essence pills existed.
“If they’re hard currency in the Chaos Lands, there must be sky-turning stone there. Finding a sky-turning stone mine would make a fortune!” Lin Xiao mused inwardly.
