Chapter 207: Leaving Southern Frost

Jiuyou sat in the tavern for a while. After listening to a mix of truth and rumor, he set down his teacup and rose to leave. He headed north along the same route he had taken when he first entered Southern Frost. As the night deepened, Baihua Market on the border came into view in the distance.

He had been here before. His last visit had also been at night. He remembered the mountain courtyard, and he remembered the market master whose storage pouch he had casually "borrowed."

With a flash of golden light, the candle in the courtyard flickered and went out. Before the slender woman could even turn around, a familiar force struck the back of her neck. She lost consciousness without a single cry and was unceremoniously kicked back onto her bed.

Jiuyou landed in the courtyard and casually plucked the storage pouch from her waist. His golden eyes swept the darkness, and the corner of his mouth twitched.

"She's gotten smarter. She knew to change her hiding spot," he muttered, his tone carrying a hint of amusement.

The sky gradually brightened as the morning sunlight slanted through the window.

When the woman pushed herself up, rubbing her head and her hip, a profound sense of déjà vu washed over her. She reached for her waist—her storage pouch was gone.

She froze for a second before cursing under her breath, "Not again!"

But she didn't panic. Gritting her teeth, she got to her feet, crossed the courtyard, and hurried toward the back mountain. She had paid a steep price to hire a high-level array master, set up a concealment array, and move her stash to a new location.

A moment later, she stopped in a clearing on the back mountain. A massive crater had been dug into the ground. The surrounding arrays had been forcibly dismantled, their spiritual light completely snuffed out, leaving only bare soil and scattered rubble.

She stood there, staring at the bottom of the empty pit.

Her knees gave out, and she slumped directly to the ground. "No, no, no—"

This exact scene played out across the other market towns along the Southern Frost border. The communication tokens of the market masters quickly came alive with activity. Complaints, curses, and speculations blended together, much like a group of victims whose pockets had been picked by the exact same hand, gathering to compare who had lost the most.

Meanwhile, ten thousand li away.

Jiuyou gathered the dozen or so storage pouches in his hands and tucked them into his sleeves.

After taking a quick count, he nodded in satisfaction. "This line of work really is the fastest way to make a profit."

He didn't linger. Turning around, he shot toward the north as a streak of escape light.

He had originally planned to find a secluded spot and enter closed-door cultivation right away. But Xuan Zhenzi had told him the chances of breaking through to Deity Transformation were only forty percent, and he refused to take that gamble.

He had prepared for this moment for far too long.

He still held the Blood Soul Restriction, a secret method that could add another thirty percent to his chances. He had already gathered four of the main ingredients, and the Nether Soul Spirit Mushroom had been forcefully matured to ten thousand years of age. Furthermore, the soul power accumulated within the Nether Capital Gate was enough to support one complete refinement.

Not long ago, he had uncovered three Level 10 Monster King Essence Souls while going through Linghu Shou's storage pouch. One of them actually belonged to the fox-wolf he had critically injured back then. He never expected Linghu Shou to have swooped in to scavenge the kill, but after all those twists and turns, the essence soul had found its way back into his hands.

By his calculations, he was only missing the final two main ingredients.

He was in no rush.

Halfway through his journey, however, he took a detour to the Cold Ruins.

He had intended to hunt down the Tier 10 Demon King that had conspired with Shangming years ago. Slaying it would yield another essence soul. But after searching the Cold Ruins for several days, he found no trace of the demon king. Even the entire landscape had drastically shifted. It seemed someone else had arrived before him and stripped the place bare of anything valuable.

Jiuyou stood on an overturned snowy slope, silently studying the residual traces. Frowning slightly, he began to ponder who could have done this, and who had made off with the essence soul.

The Blood Abyss Sect? Precious Heaven Pavilion? Or perhaps some other faction...?

However, he didn't linger to find out. He simply turned around and left the Cold Ruins.

After leaving the Cold Ruins, Jiuyou continued north, finally stopping deep within the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains near the Northern Plains.

The region was teeming with demon beasts and rarely visited by human cultivators, making it the perfect, undisturbed sanctuary.

He spent the next few days locating a hidden spot deep in the mountains, where he excavated a brand-new cave dwelling. He then went out and either hunted down or chased away the entrenched demon beasts, completely clearing a safe territory over a radius of several hundred li.

Following that, he deployed the Ember Moon Sword array around his cave dwelling, embedding twenty high-grade spirit stones to serve as the array cores, securing the entire compound with an impenetrable defense.

Once that was done, he released the Five Elements Heaven and Earth Ring.

A towering five-colored ring of light, hundreds of zhang high, floated within the cave dwelling. The five rings rotated slowly, beginning a gradual, controlled absorption of the ambient heaven and earth spiritual energy from a radius of a thousand li. It drew the energy in without leaving the slightest trace, funneling it directly into the arrays surrounding the cave. This gentle accumulation neither disturbed the natural phenomena of the area nor left any obvious signs for outsiders to detect.

The Heaven and Earth Ring operated entirely on its own. Without requiring any of his mental focus, it continuously maintained this cultivation sanctuary. Basking in this rich environment over a long period significantly accelerated his cultivation speed.

The Heaven and Earth Ring's utility in this regard completely eclipsed that of the Heavenly Spirit Ring. While the Heavenly Spirit Ring could only funnel spiritual energy directly into the user's body, the Heaven and Earth Ring reshaped the surrounding area into an energy-dense environment. The difference between the two was like comparing a trickling stream to a roaring river.

Ten years passed in a flash, as swift as a galloping horse.

Years ago, Jiuyou's cultivation had already reached the Late Nascent Soul Stage Pinnacle. If he hadn't used the Heaven and Earth Ring to carve out this sanctuary and had to rely solely on his own steady refinement, he likely would have wasted several more decades just to reach this point.

Over these ten years, he had completely refined all the Jinli Stones in his possession. With all eighty-one Ember Moon Swords successfully forged, the Jinli Sword Formation was finally complete.

He had emerged from seclusion once to test his swords. Using Sword Qi Materialization, eighty-one golden streaks of sword light cascaded down like a waterfall, obliterating a mountain peak a hundred li across in a mere instant. Even he was momentarily taken aback by the sheer destructive force. Long after the strike landed, the residual sword intent hung heavily in the air, echoing like a lingering note from a silenced bell.

The only drawback was the immense toll on his magic power and divine sense required to simultaneously control all eighty-one Ember Moon Swords. His magic power could easily be replenished by the Heaven and Earth Ring at any time, but recovering his divine sense forced him to rely on his limited stock of thousand-year-old spirit herbs, which was nowhere near as efficient.

However, during the forging process, he made an accidental discovery: actively manipulating the Heaven and Earth Ring to direct the surrounding spiritual energy drastically boosted his artifact refinement efficiency. Had he not realized this, he never would have finished forging the rest of the Ember Moon Swords in just a few short years.

By that logic, he should be able to harness the Heaven and Earth Ring to achieve the exact same boost when refining pills, crafting talismans, and performing other auxiliary arts.

One day, he finally concluded his secluded cultivation. After sweeping away any lingering traces of his aura within the cave dwelling, he was just about to push the doors open when his divine sense suddenly caught a ripple of magic power three hundred li away. Two groups of people were engaged in a fierce battle.

Initially, he had no intention of meddling in other people's affairs. But as his divine sense swept across the battlefield, he pinpointed a faintly familiar aura amidst the chaos.

Jiuyou's footsteps abruptly halted, his gaze narrowing. In that direction... there was someone he knew.