Chapter 102: The Sect Traitor (Third Update, Seeking Monthly Tickets)

He handed over the demon-touched bat pup and exchanged it for the Red Snake Fruit, which would greatly aid his next breakthrough. Xuan Xuan finally breathed easier: at last, his goal had been accomplished.

This time he returned from the expedition laden with treasure. The truly valuable relics were now stored safely in the Memory Star Sea. As for the demon pup, though it was by no means cheap, Xuan Xuan, being the one who slew the Demon Bat King, was never one to keep such a creature. Giving it to Master Lu was simply the most natural course.

In the Hall of Heaven and Earth, the spoils from that Secret Realm expedition were distributed with perfect order, and not a single disciple raised an objection. After all, the upper sect had paid a tremendous price to open the realm. Their allocation and compensation were, by any standard, generous.

Xuan Xuan watched the offered storage pouch with curiosity. The Palm Sovereign of Fengyu gathered a dense stream of brilliant light in his palm and, in midair, shaped a chain of phantom spell-patterns to mark the pouch.

Plash!

The pouch opened a small mouth, and a strand of strange, mesmerizing light streamed out. The other elders crowded forward, faces bright with expectation.

“Rare implements… Longevity Pills… Heavenly-Thread Gold Silk…”

One elder of the Spirit-Forming stage went white around the eyes, breath quick and ragged, his old face flushing red.

Xuan Xuan caught that cry and startled. So the pouch truly had been left by a Condensation-Elixir Stage cultivator; those names were no mere trinkets, but unmistakably rare and legendary.

Snap.

The Palm Sovereign knotted one finger, and with a single pinch cast a seal over all the senior elders. No sound from outside could enter.

The elders’ expressions turned frantic and bright, their eyes locked on the pouch, unable to look away. Down below, true-disciple Lefeng felt a quiet sting of resentment. The pouch had been his own find, and yet in the end it had been handed up.

A while later, the Palm Sovereign tucked the pouch away and laughed openly.

“Lefeng, you have done remarkable work this time. Rich rewards for you.”

Lefeng, his face alight with joy, rushed to thank him. Many of the gifted resources would indeed prove extremely useful.

“By the way, did you not say there was another person who also obtained a storage pouch?” Master Lu suddenly asked.

The hall froze at once.

Lefeng answered, “The other pouch was obtained by Brother Jiang. He said he had a stomachache, went to relieve himself, and said he would come back right away.”

“It is true,” Sister He Yue added with a nod. “Send someone to call him at once.”

“Yes.”

Two disciples were quickly sent to fetch Brother Jiang.

“Ha! This time, with the gains from the Secret Realm, Fengyu Sect likely surpassed the Sword Sect by at least one notch,” the Palm Sovereign and elders laughed, pleased and proud.

Yet after a few moments, one disciple returned with a report: “Return, Master, we cannot find Brother Jiang.”

What!

The faces of the sect’s elders shifted darkly. Sensing disaster, they immediately sent out more men to search all of Xingyu Mountain.

Half an hour later, another messenger came:

“Master, Brother Jiang is missing!”

At once the Hall of Heaven and Earth erupted in uproar. Whispers spread from face to face.

Xuan Xuan was also stunned. While in the Secret Realm, he had noticed Brother Jiang’s calm and discreet manner; he had never imagined he would do such a thing after returning to the sect. As a direct disciple, he knew the sect’s terrain by heart. To slip out quietly through the gate was hardly difficult at all.

“Impossible—unthinkable!”

The Palm Sovereign of Fengyu thundered in fury, sending out one elder, three administrators, nearly ten stewards, and over a hundred disciples to hunt him. Even Xuan Xuan was assigned to the pursuit.

“To think a traitor lives among us, and steals heavy treasures to flee! Brother Jiang always looked so restrained, yet at the critical moment he proved reckless without measure.”

As Xuan Xuan marched with the team beyond the mountain, many disciples commented among themselves.

“The pouch came from a Condensation-Elixir Stage master. Its value is beyond excess; one can imagine Brother Jiang could not resist the temptation.”

A few others, less kindly, felt a flicker of envy.

Xuan Xuan felt, however, that the matter was not so simple.

They searched for hours around the mountain gate and found no trace of him.

A few days later, many disciples returned defeated. The sect elders erupted in anger, but had no way to act. Brother Jiang had escaped with the heavy treasure, vanishing without a trace. The news first reached the Starfall Sword Sect on the opposite ridge, then spread through other quarters of Pinghua Town and ignited a full commotion.

Back in the North Cliff Pavilion, Xuan Xuan mused inwardly:
“This Brother Jiang is no ordinary man. Fengyu Sect spent days searching and still found not even his shadow.”

Because of the incident, Fengyu Sect closed its mountain for half a month, and Xuan Xuan lost his chance to descend again. He stayed in the tower and slowly refined himself, perfecting his Tenth Transformation.

After the hard-won half month passed and sect life slowly stabilized, Xuan Xuan decided to go down and find a secluded place to break through the tenth layer of Body Refinement.
This time he descended alone, first returning to his home in Yangmu Village to meet his parents and kin.

His sister Huilan had not let him down. In only a few months she had not only reached the seventh layer of corporeal refinement, but had even stepped into the Qi-Breathing stage.

To him, it was truly a delight.

Seeing this, he at once taught her everything from the book he had cultivated in his previous life, The Thirteen Unfoldings of the Immortal Way. This set of immortal techniques can cultivate one all the way to the Spirit-Forming level, far beyond ordinary methods by standards no one could easily compare. He gave her no less than that: other elixirs, spring-basin essences, all manner of useful things.

“Why did Brother bring back so much this time?” Huilan wondered, but did not press him with questions.

Xuan Xuan pondered silently. Now his means were ample enough to buy a dwelling in town and move the whole family there.
In the cultivation world today, places resting on ley lines are mostly controlled by the dominant forces of a region. Pinghua Town’s spiritual atmosphere, though below a true sect, was still twice as rich as that of Yangmu Village.

He left all such worldly arrangements to Song Heng. Song Heng now lived in part of Yangmu Village, and on one side answered Xuan Xuan’s orders, and on the other kept watch over friends and homeland.

“Xuan Xianshi has finally returned. A half-month ago, so many sect disciples were searching this area that people were in panic. Even the law-enforcing village head was too afraid to interfere…” Song said with relief, then recounted recent events.

“It was only a hunt for a traitor disciple,” Xuan Xuan replied. “It has passed; there is no need for panic.”

He understood exactly what Song meant.

By midday the next day, Xuan Xuan’s family moved to town. Many villagers came out to see them off, full of goodwill and envy.

“Xuxuan, with a son so capable, when he prospers later you mustn’t forget us old friends.”
“With one son in a celestial sect, there is no comparison. A house in town costs at least tens of thousands of Lingyuan coins. Ordinary people like us could never buy one in an entire lifetime.”

His parents were proud and happy. Their son had risen up, dragging the whole family out of poverty and into the circle of town residents, where life was much easier.

Pinghua Town lay across a ley line, and its spiritual atmosphere surpassed that of a common village. Here, ordinary adults commonly stood at the third or fourth layer of Body Refinement, generally above village levels, and one could occasionally glimpse true sect adepts.

Of course, any region at town tier stands on a ley line, and by controlling one patch of spiritual air, its combined strength can be formidable.

Above town rank, Xuan Xuan knew, stood the Spirit Cities. Huanglong City, for instance, stands upon a wider ley line, with an atmosphere superior even to Pinghua, nearly comparable to a sect.
Fengyu Sect, though nearby and influential, is merely one sect among many close to Pinghua, while Huanglong City governs ten or more such town-level districts.

Huanglong City is a thousand li away. Xuan Xuan had never gone there. He had only heard from sectmates that it is the trade center of a three-thousand-li radius, where all sorts of cultivation-world goods flow and mighty cultivators appear from time to time. Even disciples of sects there are expected to move with modesty.

In Pinghua, Xuan Xuan sold off useless earthly-spiritual materials—purple-rock crystal ore and similar items—and exchanged them for a large amount of Lingyuan coins.
After everything was in place, he gave further instructions to Song Heng:

“Use these spirit stones to buy a home in town and settle down. Our arrangement stays unchanged. The few elixirs I left should be enough for you to break through several layers in the years ahead.”

Song Heng accepted the stones and felt inward shock. Since Xuan Xuan returned, he had spent freely, each gesture worth tens of thousands of Lingyuan coins, without once blinking. Even among seasoned immortals, he knew no such hand was common.

Xuan Xuan did not linger in the townhouse. After tying up matters, he left immediately.

“Brother leaves so soon. I’ll work harder on my cultivation. One day I’ll catch up with him,” Huilan said, her lips pouting in mild complaint.

His haste was born from urgency.
The Red Snake Fruit from the Secret Realm could not be stored for long, or its spiritual vitality would wither away.
More than that, his self-created Tenth Transformation of Dragon and Snake had reached complete perfection. His body’s metamorphosis had reached its peak; only half a step remained before entering the tenth layer of Body Refinement, stepping into the gate of Ancient Body cultivation and truly becoming a cultivator of weight.

Xuan Xuan flew toward Yangmu and entered the woodland.

To break through that layer he dared not do so inside the sect, so he needed a secluded site. He ran the Feather-Drift method, and his form flew like a swallow through the deep forest.
At one moment he reached the edge of a cliff and suddenly stopped.

That cliff and abyss were intimately familiar—an impression he would never forget.
Four or five months ago, right here, Xu Dahu had flung him over this precipice, and he had survived only by breaking through at the edge of death.

Now, with his present strength, even a hundred Xu Dahu would not be enough to oppose him.

Returning to the old place, he closed his eyes and stood by the cliff, inhaling the slight cold wind, remembering how wildly his life had changed in a few short months, like a dream.

Then, suddenly, he gathered his power through his feet and leapt straight into the hundred-zhang abyss. His body fell like a great bird.

At one instant in the descent, his limbs thrashed in midair as inner essence, qi, and blood surged outward like a rising tide to the surface. A vast roaring resonance was born, linking him in strange communion with heaven and earth.

His body seemed to grow light, taking on the shape of a great raptor. In the air it spun, sometimes using the air pressure to rise, sometimes stepping against the rock wall, as if weaving between life and death but in truth gliding in calm ease.

A few breaths later:

Thud!

Xuan Xuan landed with his form arcing like a spirit serpent, coiling into soft earth and carving a pit. His blood and qi churned violently, yet he was unharmed.

“Body Refinement Ten… here, then.”

He drew a deep breath, settled his inner current, and cast one last glance toward the distant cold pool.

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