Chapter Twenty-Three: The Techniques of the Master of Alchemy

“With this paltry strength, you dare to call yourself a bandit cultivator?”

Qin Ming returned to his small house in the shantytown. He opened the spoils he’d acquired and began to examine them.

In the storage pouches of the two cultivators from the Feathered Spirit Sect, he found over five hundred spirit stones, two lower-grade magical artifacts, one mid-grade artifact, several lower-grade talismans, and two of mid-grade quality. Among these, there was a mid-grade Golden Halberd Talisman and a mid-grade Firecloud Talisman. Neither of them had managed to use these before their demise.

The only mid-grade artifact was the pitch-black round shield that Qin Ming had sent flying with his shovel. The shield now bore a gash, but with some repairs, it might still be usable.

Aside from these, there were five bottles of pills—two bottles of Qi Nourishing Pills, and three bottles of antidotes or detoxifying pills. The cultivation manuals and spellbooks of the two were also inside, though Qin Ming had no use for them.

From the three other storage pouches, he collected a total of over six hundred spirit stones, three lower-grade magical artifacts, and some lower-grade talismans.

This haul alone yielded over a thousand spirit stones.

“As expected, crime does pay!” Qin Ming reflected with a sigh.

He stowed all valuable items from the five men into his own storage pouch. The rest, he incinerated with a single Fireball spell.

With that done, he began pondering how these five had ended up working together. Judging from what the burly, bearded man had said, Fellow Daoist Ruan must have found them later, tempted by Qin Ming’s beastfang rice and plotting against him.

What unsettled him more was the close association between the Feathered Spirit Sect cultivators and these bandits—an alarming revelation. There were likely deeper secrets lurking within the sect. Still, as long as they didn’t trouble him, it wasn’t his concern.

For now, his only wish was to farm in peace.

If he hadn’t advanced to the fifth layer of Body Refinement, today it would have been his own storage pouch being looted, the outcome utterly reversed.

Two days later, the atmosphere in the shantytown grew tense once more.

Two members of the Feathered Spirit Sect’s patrol had been killed, causing a considerable stir. It was a blatant provocation against the sect!

The Feathered Spirit Sect began imposing martial law and conducting searches near the marketplace.

“These bandit cultivators are getting far too brazen!”

“Last time t