Sage of Humanity

Compared to the marketplaces Lu Ye had previously visited, Yi'an City was truly a large city. Lu Ye did not know who had built such a grand city, but its bustling atmosphere was something a mere marketplace could not match.

The city walls stood twenty zhang high and were majestically imposing. A single city gate was several zhang tall. According to the ten-part map, Yi'an City had twelve gates, and Lu Ye entered through the Southeast Gate.

As far as the eye could see, the road where several carriages could travel abreast stretched straight forward, seemingly endless, lined with shops on both sides selling all kinds of goods.

People were coming and going, shoulder to shoulder.

Although it was nighttime, the city was still brilliantly lit, displaying a scene of prosperity.

As Lu Ye walked around, he indeed broadened his horizons. However, he soon noticed something peculiar—many of the city's residents seemed to be ordinary people...

Initially, he thought they were cultivators who had performed the Breath-concealing Technique or wore Spiritual Artifacts that concealed their spirit light. But upon further thought, this seemed unlikely because there were so many such people, until a drunkard suddenly collapsed on the ground, making Lu Ye realize that these were not cultivators; they were indeed ordinary people.

Ordinary people in the Spirit Stream battlefield?

Naturally, ordinary people were present in the Spirit Stream battlefield. Those belonging to sects could return to the Nine Provinces anytime via the Heaven's Augury Pillar at their sects' bases within the battlefield. However, it was different for independent cultivators. Although they could do the same, reentering would then depend on others' approval.

Therefore, many independent cultivators who entered the Spirit Stream battlefield chose not to return to the Nine Provinces.

They would settle down there, marry, and have children, perpetuating their lineage. The descendants of cultivators were not necessarily guaranteed to become cultivators themselves. Over the years, many ordinary people had accumulated in the Spirit Stream battlefield.

Relatively speaking, it was easier for ordinary people in the Spirit Stream battlefield to open their orifices because the environment was better. Thus, many sects preferred to find suitable candidates here to recruit as disciples.

However, since the Spirit Stream battlefield was not safe, teeming with fierce beasts and frequent conflicts among cultivators, ordinary people's presence was hardly noticeable in the wilderness. Generally, only in well-established cities would ordinary people have the space to live, unlike in the marketplaces Lu Ye had visited before, where ordinary people were absent.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

The city also had a small river flowing through it. Under the night sky, several small boats drifted on the water, carrying young men and women enjoying the night by boating.

After wandering around the city for more than two hours, Lu Ye gathered the supplies he needed.

Food and clothing were what he purchased the most.

Food goes without saying. Both he and Amber had hearty appetites; a single meal would hardly be satisfying without twenty or thirty jin of meat. The amount of food he bought this time wasn't much, as there was already a lot of demon beast meat stored in his storage sack, which Amber had killed during the Dragon Spring Meet.

The meat of demon beasts was more nutritious than that of regular beasts and was Lu Ye and Amber's favorite, especially the meat of snake demons, which was exceptionally tasty... Unfortunately, ever since leaving Qingyun Mountain, he had enjoyed it only a few meals and had not had such luck since then.

As for clothes... he generally needed a new set after each battle, either stained with the enemy's blood or his own, always ending up unclean.

After asking for directions, Lu Ye rode Amber straight to the local Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union.

Although there were inns in the city, Lu Ye still preferred staying at the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union. At the very least, it was safer, and the nightly cost of one Spirit Stone was not expensive considering his current financial state.

...

Under the dim lights, a woman's scream pierced the air as she covered her back with her hands, tears swirling in her eyes. She had been molested by a brocade-clad young man while wandering the night market.

The young man, evidently of noble birth, dressed in fine clothes and adorned with gold and jade, bore a sleazy smile on his face and sniffed his fingers under his nose, exclaiming, "Fragrant!"

The woman's husband, who was with her, inquired about the situation and stepped forward to confront the young man but was knocked to the ground by a thug accompanying the young man, screaming in pain.

Seeing this, a cultivator nearby could not stand by idly and made to intervene to discipline this spoiled young man. However, just as he stepped forward, another figure suddenly appeared in front of the young man.

Looking closely, the newcomer was enveloped in intense spirit light, evidently a cultivator of the Level 6 realm.

In the outer circle of the battlefield, a Level 6 cultivator was a rare sight. Having one act as a guardian for this spoiled young man showed the young man's extraordinary background.

This person originally wanted to stand up for justice, but who dares now? He himself was merely at the Level 3 realm.

"What disgrace!" he muttered under his breath, turned away, and walked off. Out of sight, out of mind.

There was always injustice in the world, and it was not something he could possibly remedy.

"Alright, that's enough. Don't kill him," said the spendthrift young master, and his thugs dispersed with those who recognized them shaking their heads in resignation.

The wronged woman flung herself onto her husband, crying inconsolably, while the young master sighed deeply, turned around, and patted the Level 6 cultivator's chest: "Not interesting at all, Old Dong."

Old Dong...

The Level 6 cultivator's eye twitched fiercely as he looked up at the full moon in the sky, thinking: What misfortune is this!

He had defected from his sect, his third orifice had been destroyed, and his future prospects were bleak. To escape the pursuit of his sect, he had traveled day and night to this place and, using his previous connections, joined a 9th grade family.

He had thought that with his cultivation at the Level 6 realm, even if he wasn't put to significant use, he could at least have a respectable status. After all, cultivators of his level were rare in the outer circle, and someone like him could have easily held the position of a Deputy Governor.

He used to be a Governor, after all.

When the family he joined received him, they were extremely enthusiastic. But once he truly joined, to his dismay, they assigned him the task of personally protecting their young master!

This job can be summed up in two words, which is guarding!

A Level 6 cultivator like himself was actually supposed to guard a mere mortal? When he heard this news, he felt like he was going to split apart.

He consoled himself that this was just a test, after all, he had a past of betraying his sect, so being accepted by someone at this time was not too bad.

The young master he was supposed to guard was just like all the other spoiled brats in the world, gallivanting around the city with a few malicious servants, causing public resentment with his outrageous behavior. He did nothing good and got up to all kinds of mischief. He had even been beaten up before, nearly losing his life.

Although the young master was a mortal and not favored by the Family Head, his enchanting mother was the apple of the Family Head's eye. What mother doesn't love her own son? Under that wretched woman's instigation, he, the person who sought refuge, ended up being assigned to guard the young master.

After a few days of interaction, he found that the young man's character was exceptionally terrible, just like earlier, he wasn't necessarily trying to do anything to that young lady; this guy was just mischievous…

Throughout the day, if he didn't touch ten or eight people, he couldn't stay still. Many in the city recognized him, and most of the young women who suffered dared not speak up, and thus the matters would be dropped quietly.

However, this guy had some sense of propriety in his actions, never daring to provoke cultivators. He only bullied ordinary mortals. It was unclear how a mortal like him developed the ability to discern cultivators.

One has to say that everyone has their own talents.

He also would not easily cause any fatalities, just like earlier, he only had a few malicious servants beat someone up and left it at that. This was probably the biggest reason he had survived up to now, of course, another reason was that the family he belonged to was strong enough.

"Let's go, Old Dong!" the young master called out, leading his few malicious servants away nonchalantly.

Old Dong followed, his face gloomy, feeling as if life was bleak.

At the Southeast Gate, a carriage stopped, and a young man with two people entered the city, the clusters of city flowers dazzling those who had never seen such sights before.

The leading young man had the cultivation of the Level 5 realm, while the other two only possessed Level 2, one male and one female.

"There are many people in the city, do not run off, if you get lost, you won't be able to find us," the young man instructed.

Among the two Level 2 cultivators, the female obediently responded, following her senior brother, while the male laughed and said, "Sister, don't listen to Brother scare you, we have the battlefield markings, even if we get separated, we can still contact Brother."

"Oh, right," the woman realized and turned to look at her senior brother with hopeful eyes.

The senior brother felt a bit of a headache and sighed, "Alright, go take a look around by yourself, remember to find me at the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union, we will stay here tonight and leave tomorrow!"

"Got it, Brother!" The woman was thrilled and darted into the crowd along with the Level 2 male, disappearing from sight.

The young man sighed helplessly and walked toward the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union.

...

In a guest room on the third floor of the mercantile union, Lu Ye sat cross-legged, with fifty-four spiritual orifices enhancing his Gathering Spirit, and nature's spiritual energy constantly flowing in from around him.

He was not in a hurry to cultivate, as there was something he had been unable to investigate earlier.

He reached into his storage sack and pulled out a flat object from the sack, which had been ejected from Dragon Spring.

At that time, he had only had time to put the object into his storage sack, and later, because Tang Wu was around, he couldn't investigate it until just now.

"Ah woo..."

What Lu Ye hadn't expected was that as soon as he took the object out, Amber growled softly, crouched low, and stared fiercely at the object in his hand.

This was a display of Amber's hostility.

Lu Ye, puzzled, looked at Yiyi, who quickly soothed Amber and exchanged words with Amber before explaining, "Amber couldn't say clearly, it was just an instinctive reaction."

"Instinct?"

"Yes," Yiyi nodded.

Lu Ye looked down at the object in his hand, palm-sized, oval-shaped, and at first glance, it resembled something like a fish scale, but on closer inspection, it didn't quite seem so.

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Snake scale?

Suddenly, Lu Ye remembered the flying dragon pattern on that bronze door, which had scales very similar to the one in his hand.

Could it be a dragon scale?

But how could Dragon Spring spray out a dragon scale? Moreover, such a thing had never been mentioned by Xie Jin. If Dragon Spring had previously ejected dragon scales, it surely could not have been concealed, as more than just Qing Yu Mountain went there for Body Refining.

Lu Ye then recalled the two huge blood-red pupils that had surfaced in his mind during the body refining process.

What was that, and what was this?