Wen Li narrowed her eyes. She was about to say something, but the man walking a short distance ahead suddenly turned back to glance at her. His eyes were pale gray, and his brows knit slightly, as if displeased by her blunt gaze.
However, he said nothing, simply leading his group toward the passage marked for Fourth-Grade Cultivation Kingdoms.
Xie Tinglan, who had been silent all this time, furrowed his brows. “Those people stink.”
Yao Dai asked in confusion, “Stink? How come I don't smell anything?”
Xie Tinglan looked up to exchange a glance with Wen Li, who shook her head and withdrew her gaze.
“Those poison users experiment on demon beasts. It's only natural you wouldn't like it.”
Yao Dai remembered something, her eyes widening. “They couldn't be from the Xuandu Sect, could they?”
She had read in the Record of Western Province Wonders that the Xuandu Sect focused primarily on pill cultivation. Although they refined pills to save people, they mostly refined all kinds of poisons. If anyone offended them, they wouldn't even know how or when they had been poisoned.
At this thought, she quickly looked down at herself to check if any creeping bugs or poisons were on her.
“Stop checking. Only brainless cultivators would pull tricks over a few words without knowing their opponent's background. People like that don't live past Foundation Establishment.”
Wen Li patted her head. “Let's go, we'll line up for the Fourth-Grade Cultivation Kingdom passage as well. As for why there aren't any teleportation channels for Fifth-Grade kingdoms or above here, I can tell you've been slacking off just by asking. Go read The Historical Records of Western Province Cultivation again. I'll test your memory in three days.”
In her past life, those cannon fodder cultivators in xianxia novels who started fighting over minor disagreements were complete nonsense.
In the real cultivation world, people might fight over magic treasures and pills, or murder and rob for gain, but they would never attack someone without knowing their background over a few harmless words. The cultivation world was full of geniuses and mighty experts backed by major factions; a single careless mistake could bring total annihilation upon one's clan or sect.
Only fools would indulge in momentary gratification, and such people were usually weeded out back in the Qi Refinement stage.
“Ah!” Yao Dai let out a miserable groan upon hearing that she still had to memorize texts even when traveling far away.
Beside her, Xie Tinglan scoffed softly, gloating over her misfortune.
Wen Li glanced sideways at him. “Since you're so envious, you can memorize one too.”
“...”
How is this envy? No thanks! Xie Tinglan raised his head indignantly.
Wen Li raised her palm, nonchalantly smoothing back her hair.
Xie Tinglan humphed coldly and fell silent.
The three entered the passage. The walls on both sides were fortified with defensive arrays—a single glance revealed intermediate and advanced arrays everywhere, along with complex combined grand arrays to prevent attacks on the teleportation formations. It was quite a lavish setup.
“Which Fourth-Grade Cultivation Kingdom are you heading to, and how many people?” asked the person registering travelers at the front desk.
“Xuanbing Kingdom,” Wen Li replied. “Three people.”
“Nine thousand nine hundred medium-grade spirit stones.”
Wen Li felt a pang of pain in her wallet. “Is there a half-price ticket for kids?”
Last time, Li Bincheng's bounty was only three thousand medium-grade spirit stones per person; taking a teleportation array once was outrageously expensive.
The registrar raised his eyes and glanced at the young girl who reached past Wen Li's waist. “No way. She's over five feet tall.”
“What about this one then?”
Wen Li lifted Xie Tinglan, who barely reached past her knees.
“...”
An utterly bewildered Xie Tinglan locked eyes with the registrar. Feeling the man's gaze scanning him up and down, his face flushed bright red. “You clearly have money! Last time you took nine...” muffled noise!
Wen Li pinched his mouth shut. “Shut up. It's my money being spent. If you're so capable, earn your own money to ride this someday.”
The cultivator looked at her speechlessly. “Fine, fine. Half price for this one.”
Feeling utterly humiliated, Xie Tinglan clenched his fists. No way. I need to find more transformation pills to eat and grow taller as soon as possible.
“That'll be eight thousand two hundred and fifty medium-grade spirit stones.”
“Deal.”
Wen Li sighed. Saving a bit was better than nothing; she still had four more disciples to care for, and who knew how much money they would burn through in the future.
She carefully counted every single spirit stone to ensure she didn't overpay before handing them over to the cultivator.
“Alright, go line up on the far right and wait for teleportation.”
Wen Li dragged the two children into the rightmost passage.
As she looked up, the Xuandu Sect disciples with whom they had previously had a slight conflict happened to look over at them.
Wen Li walked in unhurriedly and without a trace of panic, standing in line behind them. Silence fell over the air, and even the usually chatty Yao Dai shut her mouth.
It was the awkwardness of being caught red-handed right after gossiping about someone behind their back.
The blue-robed man at the lead kept his eyes closed in rest, while the seductive woman standing right behind him glanced at Wen Li before her eyes settled on Xie Tinglan, who looked four years old. Whatever was on her mind, she looked away after a few moments without paying further attention.
The previous teleportation array finished dispatching its group shortly after, and then it was their turn.
The guarding cultivator counted heads. Together with Wen Li's group of three, they and the Xuandu Sect disciples ahead made exactly fifteen people in this batch.
“Go on in.”
The group filed through a winding corridor. Wen Li was perfectly calm, but it was pure torment for Xie Tinglan, who could smell the reek of poisons on them; he had no choice but to close his eyes and hold his breath.
Yao Dai felt sorry for him. After all, both being demon beasts, how was the smell of the Xuandu Sect on Xie Tinglan any different from smelling the stench of a corpse of his own kind? She rummaged through the storage bags she had looted earlier.
“Here, take this.”
Xie Tinglan looked up in confusion. “What's this?”
“Durian. Smells stinky, but tastes delicious.”
“...?!”
Even Wen Li couldn't help looking down at Yao Dai with a strange expression. “Where did you get that?”
“It was inside one of the storage bags I robbed. That cultivator must have really loved it because he stockpiled a bunch of them. I tried one, and it was really tasty.”
As a demon beast, Xie Tinglan's sense of smell was tens of thousands of times sharper than a human's. Black lines creased his forehead as he stared back, completely devoid of the will to live.
“No thanks. Eat it yourself.”
Who could possibly understand? On his left was the stench of cadavers from his own kind, and on his right was the stench of shit from his senior sister.
“Master, do you want some?”
Although Wen Li liked durian, she wasn't so uncouth as to eat it in an enclosed space. “No thanks. Put it away.”
Oh boy. My disciples are starting to get weird too. This won't do—who's going to hold up the reputation of the Wuji Sect in the future?
“Oh.” Yao Dai was just about to regretfully put it back.
“Wait,” a female voice chimed in.
Taken aback by the sudden voice, Yao Dai looked at Wen Li.
“It wasn't me,” Wen Li said.
Yao Dai was baffled. Did we see a ghost?
“Over here, little girl.”
A hand suddenly poked her.
Yao Dai turned her head to look—it was actually the seductive female cultivator she had squabbled with earlier. The woman was now stretching her hand out openly, showing no trace of embarrassment over their previous clash.
“I'll give you a jade hairpin if you give me one of those to try. How about it?”
Gazing down at the hairpin held between the woman's fair, jade-like fingers, Yao Dai shook her head. “No need for the hairpin. I can just share one with you.”
The female cultivator refused, however. “That won't do. I don't like owing people.”
With that, she inserted the hairpin straight into Yao Dai's high ponytail, took the durian, and her eyes sparkled—she looked as though she had never seen such a thing before.
Wen Li understood. The Xuandu Sect was located in an extremely cold region where fruits like durians didn't grow, so she had likely never seen one.
The group entered the cave. At the center was a massive rune array emitting a faint blue glow. Surrounding the perimeter, eight octagonal pillars were actually constructed from spirit stones, filled with countless recessed sockets holding hundreds of High-Grade spirit stones.
Once they entered the teleportation formation, the cultivators guarding the eight directions casually shoveled a scoop of medium-grade spirit stones into the array core.
The light of the array grew intensely bright, and in the next moment, brilliant rays engulfed everyone.
In less than three seconds, all fifteen people vanished from within the array.
“Alright, next batch!”
...
Rate on N.U.
