Seated cross-legged in a corner of the stone chamber, Yise reached into the storage pouch at his waist. Since he was cultivating anyway, he intended to use every elixir pill he had except the Foundation Establishment Pill. Most were low-grade, but there were quite a few of them—a testament to how many Cultivators the butcher from the Jeong Empire and the demonic practitioners had killed.

Yise took the pills one after another. Then, abruptly, his hand stopped. Some left so much residue that they were only causing excessive pill toxins and impure energy to accumulate.

'These are actually getting in the way.'

He gave up on them without hesitation, selecting only the seventh-grade pills among the low-grade ones—those with a luminous sheen and no off odors—and resumed taking them. Judging by that standard, over seventy percent were useless.

Driven by a burning thirst, Yise quietly slipped a hand into the spiritual-herb pouch. Out came the orange flower he had dug up first. Anyone could see it was an extraordinary spiritual herb. A faint radiance flowed through each leaf vein, and strands of dense spiritual energy rose from its roots.

Honestly, it seemed a waste to give it back. He understood Daemudo's noble intentions, but how much difference could one flower possibly make in the grand scheme of things?

In that case... couldn't he just eat it?

Surely one exception wouldn't hurt...?

No amount of staring would tell him what the flower was. He had read every book in the training compound, and even after coming to the main mountain, he had spared no spirit stones on informational texts. Yet this spiritual herb was unfamiliar even to him. If it was this obscure, the cultivation world probably had no known pill recipe for it either. Rather than mixing it with all sorts of ingredients in the name of pill refining, eating it as it was would likely be more effective.

Once the thought occurred to him, his mind kept circling back to it.

'... Might as well eat it before I die.'

His mind made up, Yise muttered a few words.

If Heaven sent down a heavenly tribulation for violating Principle, he would simply take it. He had been told his constitution would make his heavenly tribulations as severe as they could be anyway. He might as well violate Principle now and then. At least that would make it feel less unfair.

Yise picked up the orange flower by its stem. He brushed the soil clinging to its roots away with his palm, then stuffed the whole thing into his mouth, roots and all. Reverently, he chewed.

That was when it happened. Spiritual energy flooded down his gullet and into his spiritual meridians in an instant. The surge dwarfed anything a mid-grade Qi-Condensing Pill could produce. Pure, weighty, and overwhelmingly abundant, spiritual energy crashed through his meridians like a tidal wave.

'... Wait a second.'

Instinctively, Yise struggled to spread the rampaging spiritual energy throughout his meridians. He felt as though they would have been torn to shreds on the spot had his body not reached Great Attainment. Even after being tempered through Replacing Bones, Spirit Forging and Shedding the Mortal Frame, Remaking the Body, his body could barely withstand the torrent.

It took a long time for the spiritual energy to circulate through his meridians and blend with his internal reserves. Sweat poured off him, carrying a rank stench. Having endured the influx without even being able to breathe properly, Yise slowly eased his breathing. The flow of spiritual energy subsided, and his spiritual meridians grew deeper still.

'... What is this?'

For a moment, Yise was dumbfounded. The stench came from impure energy and residual pill toxins. A single spiritual herb... had flushed out all the impure energy and pill toxins accumulated from consuming those low-grade pills.

And that was not all. It had left energy behind, which was now drifting leisurely through his body. By his reckoning, it was sure to linger for a while, protecting him from pill residue.

'... How sweet.'

Fortuitous encounters were sweet indeed. Had he died without eating it, he doubted he could have rested in peace. His dying words would probably have been, "Give me back my spiritual herb, you bastards!"

For the first time since he had begun cultivating, his spiritual energy exceeded his Demonic Energy in quantity. He needed only a little more spiritual energy to reach Foundation Establishment—one or two mid-grade Qi-Condensing Pills would suffice.

His Demonic Energy was far from lacking either, thanks to killing four tenth-star demonic practitioners and devouring their corpses. Once outside the secret realm, hunting two or three first-rank demonic beasts or tenth-star demonic practitioners would give him enough to reach Foundation Establishment.

'... So this is why everyone goes on about secret realms.'

Yise could not help marveling. He had also acquired a virtually incalculable amount of resources. Forget three years—within a month or two of leaving the secret realm, he could attempt Foundation Establishment. Now he understood firsthand why a secret realm was both a land of death and a land of opportunity.

He stowed his remaining spiritual elixirs in his storage pouch and settled into meditation.

How much time had passed?

The spiritual pressure enveloping Yise rippled once.

'... Is it time already?'

He slowly raised his eyelids. The air inside the stone chamber was vibrating faintly. This vibration was different from the one he had felt when first trapped here. He sensed something moving outside, rather than within.

It felt as though only a few days had passed since he began cultivating, but the peculiar comfort of it made him lose track of time. Cultivation was rather like deep sleep. The deeper he sank into it, the less he could tell how much time had passed. His mind grew tranquil, his senses seeming to float in a haze.

Before Yise could uncross his legs, his body began to fade. Its outline grew fainter, turning transparent as though he had become a spirit body. Starting at his toes and fingertips, he scattered into faint motes of light.

The force was irresistible. Yise drew a short breath. Before he could complete a thought, his entire body became a strand of light and shot through the stone chamber's ceiling.

* * *

When he opened his eyes again, impure energy rushed into his nose while a bustling clamor assaulted his ears.

"Make way! Make way!"

He sensed someone approaching and twisted aside to avoid a cart passing down the street.

He slowly surveyed his surroundings. A market street stretched away in both directions. He was in a city of ordinary people. Yet their clothes looked a little strange. Instead of the hanbok worn in the Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula, they wore brighter colors, wider sleeves, and more elaborate garments. The buildings, too, had an architecture subtly different from that of the Three Kingdoms.

'Where am I?'

Yise stopped a passing ordinary man.

"A moment."

"What is it?"

"I have a question. Where is this?"

"Are you from out of town? What do you mean, where? This is West Lake Market Town. Don't you even know where you're standing?"

West Lake Market Town. The name meant nothing to him.

"From your clothes, you don't look local. C-could you be a Cultivator?"

"I am, yes."

The man's face instantly turned white. Trembling, he bent at the waist and lowered his head.

"S-sir, forgive me. You looked so young that I... I was terribly rude..."

"It's fine. Just tell me where I am. I seem to have ended up somewhere unfamiliar after miscasting a spell. Start with the continent and be specific."

Once again, horror spread across the man's face. Just how powerful a Daoist was this, to speak of traveling between continents? He had a dreadful feeling that one wrong move might make this the day of his death.

"Th-this is West Lake Market Town, under Hanrim City in the Jeong Empire, on the Eastern Continent. The West Lake Guild rules this place, and it is a lay affiliate of the Pill Refining Sect."

The Eastern Continent. Yise was relieved. At least he had not ended up on another continent.

"Which part of the Jeong Empire is Hanrim City in? North, south, east, or west?"

"We're at the very northern edge."

"..."

The Jeong Empire spanned over ten thousand li both east to west and north to south. The Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula lay on its southern border, which meant he would need to travel at least ten thousand li, plus several thousand more, to reach them.

Keeping calm for the moment, he tried sending a message talisman. But it would not activate, perhaps because he was too far from the main mountain.

'I've gone and gotten myself lost.'

Yise let out a self-deprecating laugh.

"That helped. Thank you."

"Y-yes. Not at all, sir."

"Are spirit stones useful to ordinary people too? I don't have any silver or gold coins."

Yise took a spirit stone from his storage pouch and handed it to the man, whose startled expression brightened with delight.

"S-something this precious...! O-of course! Of course they're useful!"

The man hurriedly tucked the spirit stone into his clothes.

This seemed to be one of those secluded Cultivators—Cultivators who shut themselves away and did nothing but cultivate. The sort who devoted every waking moment to cultivation and knew little of the world.

A single spirit stone would buy an ordinary person more than a year's worth of rice. Ordinary currency made spirit stones difficult to acquire, but exchanging a spirit stone for ordinary money was easy in any market town.

The man revised his assessment: today was not the day of his death, but a day of extraordinary luck.

"One last thing. Do you know where I should go to get information in this market town?"

"Ah, yes, yes. Do you see that tall, five-story pavilion over there?"

The man raised an arm and pointed toward the end of the market street. At its northern end stood a five-story pavilion with a gleaming golden roof. A single glance made it clear that this was the heart of West Lake Market Town.

"That's the External Affairs Pavilion, where you can submit requests to the West Lake Guild or accept commissions. Outside Cultivators and ordinary people are free to come and go. If you're looking to buy information, that will be the quickest place."

"Thank you," Yise replied briefly.

The man bowed repeatedly, not raising his head until Yise had disappeared from view.

* * *

Yise stepped into a secluded alley off the market street, took the Daemudo robes from inside his clothing, and put them back into his storage pouch. Then he concealed his Demonic Energy with a Demon-Concealing Talisman.

The Jeong Empire was said to have as many as three hundred Core Formation Cultivators. Given that it was over fifty times the size of the Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula, the imbalance was inevitable. However vast its territory, happening to pass even one of them could lead to unnecessary trouble.

'I'll break through to Foundation Establishment here, buy a flying ritual implement, and head back.'

Returning to the main mountain was his immediate goal, but covering ten thousand li and several thousand more would take a full month even if he ran nonstop, tearing through Flying Body Talismans all the way. This was hostile, unfamiliar territory. He judged it better to prepare thoroughly and make the journey south safely.

'And I can broaden my horizons while I'm at it.'

In truth, his desire to break through to Foundation Establishment right away outweighed his desire to return to the main mountain. Besides, spiritual elixirs would be much easier to obtain outside Daemudo's territory.

After devising a whole string of excuses to stay, Yise headed toward the External Affairs Pavilion, equal parts excited and nervous.

'What a feast for the eyes.'

Yise glanced this way and that as he walked. The scenery had a markedly different character from the cities of the Three Kingdoms of the Peninsula: the angle of the upturned eaves and the ornaments dangling from them, the way the walls were built, even the shape of the stone fountain rising in the middle of the street.

He walked for some time, captivated by everything around him, just as he had been as a country bumpkin newly arrived in Azure Mountain Capital, wandering the village below the main mountain.

At last, the main entrance to the West Lake Guild's External Affairs Pavilion came into view. This was the first Cultivation sect he would visit besides Daemudo. What would it be like?

With nervousness, excitement, and curiosity in his heart, he advanced one step at a time.