After Ye Qingxuan left.
Heifeng looked at Zhou Qingguang and suggested,
“City Lord, let’s take this chance and leave quickly?”
Hearing Heifeng’s words.
Qingyu’s lips moved slightly, as if she wanted to speak but held back.
If she could, she didn’t want to leave Qingguang City.
But when she, Heifeng, and Xueyu became commanders of Qingguang City, they swore to serve Zhou Qingguang for a hundred years.
The deadline hadn’t come yet, so she couldn’t go against Zhou Qingguang’s orders.
Xueyu, standing to the side, looked completely indifferent.
He had no ties anyway—as long as it didn’t affect his cultivation, he didn’t care where they went.
Zhou Qingguang pondered for a moment, weighing things in his mind for a long while, before slowly speaking:
“We’re not leaving for now!”
“Not leaving? City Lord, are we really going to submit to that Gui Xuanzi?”
Heifeng looked shocked, completely unable to understand Zhou Qingguang’s decision.
From what he knew of Zhou Qingguang, he wasn’t the type to submit easily.
As for Qingyu, upon hearing Zhou Qingguang’s words, a look of joy appeared in her eyes.
Seeing Heifeng’s shocked expression, Zhou Qingguang asked in return:
“If we leave Qingguang City, where are we going to find another fourth-tier spirit vein?”
“Uh?”
Hearing Zhou Qingguang’s question, Heifeng was momentarily at a loss for words.
Although there were quite a few spirit veins in Xingluo Prefecture, the vast majority had already been claimed by human forces or demon beasts.
If they went to another city to rent a cultivation cave, they could only sustain their cultivation in the short term.
Once their spirit stones ran out, they’d be kicked out.
And then they’d still have to submit to someone else just to get a cultivation cave.
The reason Zhou Qingguang had been unwilling to submit easily and serve under others before
Was because he occupied a fourth-tier spirit vein and wasn’t short on spiritual energy resources for the time being, which was why he’d refused recruitment from other forces.
All his previous decisions had been made under the premise of not affecting his own cultivation.
“Let’s stay in Qingguang City for now and see. If that Gui Xuanzi goes too far, we’ll figure out a way to leave then.”
Zhou Qingguang refused to believe that Xingluo Prefecture was so big that Gui Xuanzi could find him if he ran.
As for Zhou Qingguang’s final decision, Heifeng, Qingyu, and Xueyu all nodded slightly without further objection.
Meanwhile.
Ye Qingxuan flew along his escape route.
Finally, two days later, he arrived at Qingli City.
Qingli City spanned a thousand miles in both length and width, making it a fairly large city in Xingluo Prefecture.
Facing the magnificent city before him, Ye Qingxuan didn’t act rashly.
Looking at the crowds coming and going at the city gate, Ye Qingxuan obediently lined up outside the gate.
While waiting in line, Ye Qingxuan glanced at the entry notice written on the city wall:
“City residents pass free of charge. Outsider mortals entering the city must pay a hundred taels of silver. Outsider cultivators below the Nascent Soul stage entering the city must pay ten low-grade spirit stones.”
Silver and gold are both first-tier spirit minerals, just of different quality.
Because they have few uses, silver and gold aren’t valued by cultivators, so they’ve become the common currency of mortals.
Normally, there’s no fixed exchange rate between silver, gold, and spirit stones.
If you want to exchange silver and gold for spirit stones,
Generally, you can only sell silver and gold to cultivators as first-tier spirit minerals.
As for what price you can get, that depends on your luck.
Fortunately, cultivators don’t bother meddling in mortal markets to do things that harm others without benefiting themselves.
So the value of gold and silver among mortals remains fairly stable.
When it was Ye Qingxuan’s turn, he took out ten low-grade spirit stones and handed them to the cultivator guarding the city gate, smoothly entering Qingli City.
Although Ye Qingxuan was a Nascent Soul stage cultivator, he didn’t want to reveal himself.
So he chose to pay ten low-grade spirit stones to avoid unnecessary complications.
After entering Qingli City, Ye Qingxuan didn’t waste any time. After asking around, he quickly found the Treasure Pavilion.
“Honored guest, what would you like to purchase?”
As soon as Ye Qingxuan entered the Treasure Pavilion, someone came up to greet him.
“Do you have a detailed map of Xingluo Prefecture?”
“Yes, a detailed map of Xingluo Prefecture is a hundred high-grade spirit stones each. May I ask, honored guest…?”
Ye Qingxuan nodded slightly:
“Give me one.”
With that, he took out a hundred high-grade spirit stones and handed them over.
Seeing Ye Qingxuan so straightforward, the person was somewhat surprised.
After reacting, they quickly took the spirit stones Ye Qingxuan handed over and fetched him a detailed map of Xingluo Prefecture.
After receiving the map, Ye Qingxuan gave it a brief check. Once he confirmed there were no issues, he turned and left the Treasure Pavilion.
After leaving Qingli City again and getting far away from it.
Only then did Ye Qingxuan take out the map and examine it carefully.
“So that’s how it is!”
Ye Qingxuan had been puzzled earlier—why wasn’t the Treasure Pavilion afraid of maps being leaked when they sold them?
After a detailed inspection, Ye Qingxuan discovered that the map had a Spirit Transformation level restriction placed on it.
The map required spiritual sense to view.
Cultivators below the Spirit Transformation stage couldn’t break the restriction, so they couldn’t copy it.
As long as the restriction on the map wasn’t broken, any cultivator below the Spirit Transformation stage who even entertained the thought of copying it would find the map in their memory becoming chaotic and disordered.
As for cultivators at or above the Spirit Transformation stage, the Treasure Pavilion had no way to constrain them.
But the Treasure Pavilion wouldn’t try to constrain cultivators of that level anyway.
If there was a chance to curry favor with them, the Treasure Pavilion would probably be happy to do so.
After browsing through the map in detail.
The map recorded the territories of major and minor forces throughout Xingluo Prefecture, as well as the terrain and landforms, in great detail.
Even for Spirit Transformation level forces, some ordinary non-secret information was introduced on it.
Openly, there were nine major Spirit Transformation level forces in all of Xingluo Prefecture.
Among them, five were human forces: Xingluo City, Nanyu City, Feiyu Sect, Huangji Sect, and the Treasure Pavilion.
Yes, the Treasure Pavilion was also one of the openly recognized Spirit Transformation level forces in Xingluo Prefecture.
However, aside from the city where its headquarters was located, the Treasure Pavilion didn’t occupy much territory.
The Treasure Pavilion was a neutral force, only interested in setting up shops in various cities.
Normally, the major forces would give the Treasure Pavilion face and allow it to open shops.
As for Xingluo City, since it was openly the strongest force, everyone default regarded Xingluo City as the capital of Xingluo Prefecture.
And that was indeed the case. Xingluo City wasn’t just located in the core region of Xingluo Prefecture—
It was also, by far, the largest city in Xingluo Prefecture, spanning a hundred thousand miles in both length and width.
Even across the entire Eastern Pole Domain, Xingluo City could be considered a magnificent major city.
The remaining four Spirit Transformation level forces were actually gathering places for demon beasts.
They were: Ten Thousand Beasts Mountain, Poisonous Swamp, natural chasm Mountain Range, and Water Marsh Kingdom.
These four places had massive concentrations of demon beasts, each with sixth-tier demon beasts present.
As for the exact number of sixth-tier demon beasts, the map didn’t specify in detail.
Within a million miles around these four places, there were no human cities at all—showing just how terrifying they were.
In Xingluo Prefecture, aside from these nine openly recognized Spirit Transformation level forces, there were countless Nascent Soul level forces scattered throughout.
Among them were quite a few demon beast gathering places.
And these Nascent Soul level demon beast gathering places were exactly Ye Qingxuan’s targets for building his city.
Although Ye Qingxuan was confident in his own strength and trump cards,
Being new to the area, before he had a clear understanding of the detailed strength of the Spirit Transformation level demon beast gathering places, Ye Qingxuan wasn’t prepared to make a move on them.
So, fifth-tier Nascent Soul level demon beast gathering places were Ye Qingxuan’s best targets.
His eyes quickly scanned the map, and Ye Qingxuan soon locked onto a location on the map: Ten Thousand Spirits Mountain.
