Shen Qingci lay prone on the tidal flat.
The surrounding area was a complete mess. The corpses of four Shuttle-Tailed Lizards lay scattered haphazardly, their dark green slime turning the sandy ground sticky, sinking half an inch if stepped on.
She rolled over onto her back, panting heavily.
There was a sharp, throbbing ache in her ribs; she had likely suffered internal injuries from the shockwaves. Every breath of spiritual energy felt like a blunt needle churning in her chest.
Her right fingers were too numb to lift, and her left shoulder was still dislocated, the entire arm hanging limply at her side.
Her calf had been pierced through by fangs. Shreds of her robe clung to the wound, and most of the dark blood had already coagulated.
Between the blood loss and her depleted spiritual energy, her consciousness began to drift, her vision fading in and out of darkness.
In her daze, a familiar figure drifted into view.
Plain white robes, ink-black hair, and cold, elegant features... It was her senior sister.
She stood right in front of her, leaning down to gently place her palm on top of Shen Qingci's head.
That hand carried a familiar, soothing warmth, feeling exactly like the times she had wiped the sweat from Shen Qingci's brow after her medicinal baths.
In her ears, her Dao companion's quiet voice seemed to whisper in praise, “A-Ci, you did wonderfully.”
Shen Qingci's lips twitched. But before a smile could fully form, she snapped back to reality.
Her senior sister was still in seclusion in the Sword Tomb. How could she possibly appear on the tidal flats of the West Sea, thousands of miles away?
Yet, she couldn't bear to open her eyes just yet. Just a little longer... Just a moment more!
The surrounding air was thick with the stench of death and blood. She was covered in wounds, her spiritual energy drained to the very bottom. Yet, this brief, illusory warmth managed to soothe her pain, bringing a sense of peace to her heart.
It turned out that when yearning reached its peak, even a completely fabricated hallucination could taste like honey...
Keeping her eyes closed, she silently counted for dozens of breaths before finally pushing herself up from the sand.
She couldn't lie there any longer. The scent of blood would spread quickly, and it was only a matter of time before it attracted more sea beasts. The lizards' corpses strewn across the ground were already the most conspicuous bait.
Her left shoulder was still dislocated.
Pressing her right hand firmly into the sand, she aligned the joint and violently shrugged her shoulder downward, then forced it back up.
With a crisp crack, the joint popped back into place.
She rotated her left arm to make sure it could move without issue, then gritted her teeth and pushed herself up to stand, using her knees for support.
The four lizard corpses lay scattered around her.
She crouched down, tapping the back of her hand against the skull of the nearest lizard. Sliding her fingers down the seam of its skull, she searched for its beast core.
After checking all four, she found their skulls entirely empty, with no trace of condensed spiritual energy. Tsk, what terrible luck.
After struggling all night, not a single beast core had dropped.
She didn't waste any more time. Snapping off a sharp piece of lizard scale to use as a makeshift knife, she sliced down along the widest seam of the lizard's spine.
This dark blue-gray back plate was a full finger thick, hard enough to block a full-strength blow from an early Foundation Establishment stage cultivator.
Cutting into it with the scale-knife still took considerable effort, forcing her to stop and catch her breath with every slice.
She peeled off all four back plates, rolled them into a bundle, and bound them tightly with the lizards' tough tongues. Weighing the bundle in her hand, she estimated it would be enough to trade for a few decent bottles of Yellow-grade Qi-Returning Pills.
Finally, she cut off the shuttle-shaped bone spikes at the tips of their snouts. These had high piercing power, and rogue workshops always bought them.
Once she finished packing up, she pushed herself off the sand and stood.
Several gray-feathered sea vultures were already circling in the sky above the tidal flats. In the distance, mounds of sand bulged and collapsed one after another as some unknown creatures drew closer.
With the back plates and bone spikes securely tied to her back, she didn't dare linger. She turned and retreated toward the inland.
Before she had walked twenty li, two cultivators emerged from behind a sand dune ahead.
A man and a woman, both at the mid Foundation Establishment stage.
The male cultivator carried a broadsword over his shoulder, while the female cultivator clutched a short dagger. Upon spotting Shen Qingci, they both stopped in their tracks, sizing her up from head to toe.
Her robe was torn to shreds, she was covered in bloody scabs, and fresh lizard back plates were tied to her back. To anyone, she looked like an easy target who had just escaped with her life and completely drained her spiritual energy.
The male cultivator's gaze lingered on the back plates for a moment before shifting to her face. Early Foundation Establishment stage, alone, with no emblem of any major sect on her.
Caressing the hilt of his sword with his thumb, he took a step forward to approach her.
The female cultivator suddenly grabbed him. Her divine sense quickly swept over Shen Qingci before she glanced back toward the tidal flats behind her. Lowering her voice, she whispered, “Wait, there's residual lightning-attribute spiritual energy on her. She's a pure Lightning Spiritual Root! Someone with this kind of talent is either a descendant of a great family or a core disciple of a major sect. There's no way she's a rogue cultivator. For all we know, there's a Dao protector hiding in the clouds above. We can't afford to offend them.”
The male cultivator's expression changed dramatically. He quickly hoisted the broadsword back onto his shoulder, hastily threw out a quick “My apologies,” and fled on his sword alongside the female cultivator.
The two fled at lightning speed, their movement techniques almost matching those of late Foundation Establishment stage cultivators. They had likely used quite a few swift-travel talismans.
Shen Qingci calmly withdrew her gaze, not taking this brief encounter to heart at all.
She snapped a thick casuarina branch from the roadside to use as a makeshift walking stick.
The bite wound on her calf was still oozing blood. With her very first step, she left a faint bloody print on the sand.
Adjusting the bundle of back plates on her back to secure it tighter, she set her sights on the southeast and began to shuffle forward step by step.
Not daring to spread her divine sense too widely, she only kept her perception focused within a dozens-of-feet radius around her. Whenever a sea beast beneath the sand approached, she would detour in advance.
If she couldn't avoid them, she would find cover and hide, waiting for them to move far away before resuming her journey.
It was over three hundred li from the tidal flats to Leiyuan Market. She hadn't even recovered ten percent of her spiritual energy and didn't dare to fly, relying entirely on her feet to walk the distance.
Along the way, she ran into two more groups of rogue cultivators.
The first group consisted of two early Foundation Establishment stage cultivators. Catching sight of her blood-drenched appearance from afar, they turned around and left without a word.
The other group of three mid Foundation Establishment stage cultivators was bolder, trailing her unhurriedly for about half a cup of tea's time.
Without turning around, Shen Qingci stabbed her branch backward into the sand beside her. The tip of the branch, enveloped in a trace of sword qi, pierced straight through the head of a Qi Refining stage sand scorpion lurking beneath the surface.
Seeing her display of sword qi and sensing the refined lightning force within it, the three immediately halted.
She was a tough nut to crack! Looking at her wretched state, she probably didn't have much loot anyway. It wasn't worth risking their lives over.
The three exchanged looks and quietly withdrew.
Shuffling forward step by step like this until the next morning, she finally saw specks of spiritual light twinkling at the end of the sand dunes ahead. Leiyuan Market was right before her eyes.
Standing outside, Shen Qingci did not rush inside.
This famous rogue cultivator market of the West Sea was comparable in size to a small town. The entire trading district was situated along the gentle slopes of the West Sea coast, spanning dozens of li.
The perimeter was enclosed by green stone walls several chang high. Array pillars were embedded at regular intervals, and the spiritual pearls suspended atop them linked with the runes on the walls, enveloping the entire market in a restriction.
The restriction only served to ward off sea beasts and did not restrict the entry or exit of cultivators, making it highly relaxed and completely unregulated.
It was early morning, and sunlight filtered through the gaps in the low-hanging thunderclouds. Gray clouds rolled endlessly above, with lightning serpents frequently weaving through the cloud layer.
The surrounding air was a chaotic mix of scents—the salty brine of the sea breeze, the smoke of medicine cauldrons, and the rank smell of demon beast pelts. It felt as hot and dry as being baked in an oven.
Following behind a few rogue cultivators ahead, she entered through a side gate on the south side.
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