The Immortal Domain was vast. Even with teleportation gates, reaching any destination still took a considerable amount of time.
Bao Gu let out the scouts she had rescued from the Sky Wolf clan’s village, then unfolded a map of the Upper Realm and began studying it.
Those scouts stood off to one side, watching Bao Gu work without daring to make a sound. Only moments earlier, they had been surrounded by countless unfathomably powerful experts and had thought themselves certain to die. They had never expected their leader to appear out of nowhere and rescue them from those people. This made them even more reverent toward Bao Gu.
Si Ruo, Qu Yirou, and Jade Shura teleported onto Bao Gu’s command ship through the teleportation arrays aboard the vessels. Si Ruo and Qu Yirou both looked especially solemn. Bao Gu had repeatedly emphasized the dangers of the Upper Realm. They had not dared underestimate those dangers, yet they had still severely underestimated the Upper Realm. Even a village on a remote coast had caused such heavy casualties among the scouts. So many had died without bringing back the slightest bit of intelligence. Failing to obtain information would have been bad enough, but the scouts had actually been followed aboard the ship by creatures from the sea without anyone noticing. Despite all the experts from Soul Chasing Pavillion and the Yue Kingdom stationed aboard, not one person had sensed them. If Bao Gu had not remained vigilant and eliminated them in time, the consequences would have been unimaginable! In the Upper Realm, anyone who had not become an immortal could not take a single step. They could not even find someone to ask for directions!
Their first mission had gone disastrously, so the blow suffered by the Yue Kingdom and Soul Chasing Pavillion was easy to imagine.
Yu Mi, on the other hand, was perfectly fine. She even had the leisure to admire the passage outside, formed by the space warped as the command ship sped forward. It was dazzlingly colorful, filled with power and indescribable beauty.
The command ships spent nearly twenty days traveling before finally emerging from the teleportation passage.
The three command ships hovered high above the clouds with their concealment arrays activated.
Looking out from the command ships, they saw only the endless void.
In the Desolate Heaven Realm, the starry sky had seemed to be shrouded in boundless black mist. Here, however, it seemed far clearer and more transparent. The stars appeared much closer together, and simply raising one’s head revealed an earth-yellow star larger than the moon hanging overhead.
The sun radiated the scorching, pure aura of True Solar Fire, its rays flooding the flagship with blinding light.
Here, it felt as though one could reach up and touch the heavens.
Nearby, a huge flying vessel emerged from the teleportation passage and hurtled toward the vast land below.
The vessel plunged downward. A ripple flashed across a curtain of light above the clouds. Once it passed through the curtain, its speed gradually slowed, and it slowly disappeared into the clouds.
Bao Gu guessed that the curtain of light was probably a defensive barrier protecting the land below. Since she did not know whether her own command ships could pass through, she first sent a lightweight, ten-zhang warship to scout ahead. When it reached the barrier, a ripple of light flashed, and it entered the space beneath without the slightest resistance. At the same time, a powerful suction force seized the light warship and dragged it downward. Bao Gu had spent many years traveling through the starry sky and was accustomed to this sort of gravity. She immediately activated teleportation, broke free of the pull, and returned to the command ship.
Compared with the Upper Realm, the scouts’ cultivation was far too weak; they had no ability whatsoever to deal with danger. To avoid another round of casualties like those at the Sky Wolf clan’s village, Bao Gu decided to lead the way and scout the route herself.
After conferring with Si Ruo and Qu Yirou, Bao Gu, Yu Mi, Qu Yirou, and Si Ruo descended. Bao Nianhui stayed aboard the Cut Gang’s command ship, while Jade Shura remained aboard Soul Chasing Pavillion’s command ship. On the Yue Kingdom’s side, Si Ruo’an also sent a trusted ancestor from her own family to remain aboard the ship and provide support.
The spiritual energy of heaven and earth here was already different from that of the Desolate Heaven Realm, so the voice-transmission jade talismans brought from there were not very effective. They had no choice but to infuse them with this realm’s immortal spiritual energy and reforge a new batch.
Before setting out, Bao Gu also called Wang Ding and Sun Dilong along, as well as several errand-runners. Worried that their cultivation was too weak, she gave each of them a life-saving jade talisman. Her artifact-refining skills were poor, but with her mastery of talisman arts, she could still make protective talismans capable of withstanding several full-force attacks from a True Immortal.
Once everything was ready, Bao Gu gathered a mass of energy around them to protect them and carried them toward the land below.
She melded into the wind and unleashed a divine technique akin to a teleportation array. In almost the blink of an eye, she brought them from high above the clouds to a point outside the city gate.
A broad avenue stretched beneath their feet. Behind them stood a dense forest covered in ancient trees, while ahead loomed an ancient city that seemed to have stood for countless years and weathered endless vicissitudes. Its walls were roughly three zhang high. The passage of time had not weathered them; instead, their surfaces gleamed with a crystal-like luster, like fine jade tempered by the ages, radiating a deep and weighty presence.
A vast, faintly glowing canopy resembling the vault of heaven hung over the ancient city. It was formed from countless sword shadows radiating Five-Element immortal power. Bao Gu knew this must be the city’s defensive array. The sword shadows crisscrossed so densely that not even a mosquito could squeeze through, nor a wisp of smoke seep inside. They seemed to be arranged according to some profound and intricate sword formation. The formation could even easily annihilate the divine sense she extended toward it, so she did not dare probe it again.
They had once been powerful enough in the Desolate Heaven Realm to make the ground tremble with a stomp, but standing before this city gate, they could not help feeling like country bumpkins seeing a city for the first time.
An immortal riding a colossal beast three or four stories tall suddenly landed in front of the city gate. As the beast’s four hooves struck the ground, the earth shook with a boom, and the dust it kicked up rose like thick fog. Pedestrians along the roadside scattered in all directions.
Bao Gu waved away the dust raised by the immortal and the mount, only to see the mount suddenly shrink to the size of an ordinary horse. Carrying its rider, it then ambled toward the city gate.
For the first time in her life, Si Ruo had been made to eat someone else’s dust. She frowned but said nothing.
Qu Yirou did not react at all.
Sun Dilong and Wang Ding stayed close behind Bao Gu. As two weak cultivators in a place teeming with immortals, they exercised every ounce of caution they possessed.
“Let’s go into the city!”
Bao Gu stepped toward the city. Just as she reached the gate, an immortal-grade halberd radiating a stern, icy light slashed down in front of her, its edge almost scraping the tip of her nose.
Sun Dilong and Wang Ding’s hearts leaped into their throats.
Qu Yirou’s hand rose almost instinctively and came to rest at her waist. If she twisted her wrist again, her blade would certainly flash from its sheath and take the guard’s head.
Si Ruo was one step behind Bao Gu. The halberd’s sudden descent startled her as well. The oppressive might of the immortal-grade weapon was so heavy that the True Dragon Sword at her side reacted too, and a faint dragon shadow and the aura of imperial authority enveloped her.
Bao Gu reached out with a slender, jade-like finger, pinched the halberd that was nearly touching her nose, and nudged it a few inches away. She shot a sidelong glance at the gate guard blocking her path and frowned.
“If you have something to say, say it.”
The gate guard did not even look at Bao Gu. His face expressionless, he said:
“Entry fee!”
“They charge for entry?”
Bao Gu’s beautiful eyes widened as she turned to look at the guard.
“Make way!”
A voice came from behind them. Another graceful immortal, standing atop a flying sword, drifted leisurely to the city gate and flicked a sleeve. With several crisp clinks, five crystal-clear immortal spirit stones, each carrying a wood-elemental aura, dropped into the basket at the guard’s feet.
Ah, so that was what immortal spirit stones looked like!
As Bao Gu’s treasurer, Sun Dilong broke into a cold sweat. This was the first time he had ever seen an immortal spirit stone. How could he possibly have one to pay the entry fee?
Bao Gu’s enormous storage bag was stuffed with heavenly materials and earthly treasures. She even still had a small pile of Five-Element immortal stones, but not a single immortal spirit stone.
Qu Yirou and Si Ruo were even worse. Before coming to the Upper Realm, they had never even heard of immortal spirit stones.
After a brief pause, Bao Gu plucked a ten-thousand-year-old treasure medicine from the Xuantian Mountain Range inside her enormous storage bag. She sealed it with immortal spiritual energy and tossed it into the basket.
The treasure medicine had not even fallen into the basket when it suddenly flew back into Bao Gu’s arms.
Only then did the guard, who had not even spared Bao Gu a proper glance, deign to look at her. His face remained expressionless as he said in a grave voice:
“Immortal spirit stones!”
He looked Bao Gu up and down, then stood there like a door god. The halberd in his hand edged closer to her once more, stopping less than a finger’s breadth from the tip of her nose.
“I don’t have any. Can’t I pay with something else?”
The guard ignored her completely.
Bao Gu was speechless.
With no immortal spirit stones to pay the entry fee and no strength to storm the city, Bao Gu and the others could only retreat from the gate in silence.
“Now I understand what it feels like for even a hero to be stumped by a single coin! In all my years, I never imagined there would come a day when I couldn’t even produce one coin.”
Before Si Ruo’s voice had even faded, Bao Gu suddenly walked to the roadside. She whipped out a demon-beast hide and spread it over the ground, then arranged the ten-thousand-year-old treasure medicines and eighth- and ninth-grade spiritual treasures, all sealed in jade boxes with spiritual energy, across it in neat rows until the hide was full. She then pulled out a slab of jade more than six feet tall and, using one finger as a brush, wrote in a few swift strokes:
“Ten-Thousand-Year Treasure Medicines and Eighth- and Ninth-Grade Spiritual Treasures – Blowout Sale!”
Si Ruo was utterly dumbfounded. The leader of the cultivation world’s greatest power, the Cut Gang, was actually setting up a street stall at the city gate!
Wang Ding and Sun Dilong craned their necks at the spectacle their Left Envoy had created, so shocked that they were left gaping.
Qu Yirou had known Bao Gu ever since Bao Gu first set foot in the cultivation world and had long since witnessed her way of doing things, so she was not surprised in the least.
Bao Gu crooked a finger at Wang Ding and Sun Dilong.
“You two, come here.”
They went over reluctantly, cupped their fists, and saluted.
“Left Envoy!”
Bao Gu pointed to the left at Wang Ding.
“You stand here!”
Then she pointed to the right at Sun Dilong.
“You stand here!”
Finally, she pointed at the sign she had propped up.
“Shout the words on this sign!”
Wang Ding and Sun Dilong gaped at her, utterly dumbfounded.
Bao Gu’s expression darkened.
“Shout! Do I have to shout it myself?”
The two men shuddered at the same time, then shouted at the top of their lungs:
“Ten-thousand-year treasure medicines! Eighth- and ninth-grade spiritual treasures! Blowout sale!”
Si Ruo huddled beneath a large tree nearby and wailed inwardly:
“After painstakingly cultivating for thousands of years, I finally ascended, only to come up here and set up a street stall!”
The whole scene gave her an overwhelming urge to cry and never stop.
