Chapter 56: What Is It Like for a Secret Realm to Enter a Secret Realm?

Three days later, Ma Mingyuan successfully broke through to high-level Qi Refining, and his confidence rose quite a bit along with his cultivation.

Bold from skill and talent, he changed his build and appearance once more, went to the market district in Cangxing City’s outer city, and pretended to be a cultivator idly wandering around as he strolled back and forth through the market.

When he casually passed the place where he had sold the paper slips last time, he feigned ease, though in truth he was observing every tiny detail.

Sure enough, near that spot, he noticed several suspicious-looking stall owners and cultivator customers. He even sensed a few faint traces of spiritual sense sweeping over him.

Fortunately, his technique for altering his appearance and bones truly was impressive. Combined with the Turtle Breath Art concealing his aura, neither his appearance, build, nor spiritual power aura revealed the slightest flaw.

After confirming once again that someone was tracking and searching for him, Ma Mingyuan understood that he could no longer sell the paper slips as smoothly as before.

Helpless, he could only go to Hundred Treasures Pavilion and plan to use consignment instead.

Hundred Treasures Pavilion had an excellent reputation in Cangxing City and was praised by all. There was no need to worry about related information being leaked.

Consigning items at Hundred Treasures Pavilion was a little more troublesome, but it was safe and reliable.

When consigning an item, one could set a base price for it. If a cultivator took an interest, they could freely offer a price. Within the set time limit, if the highest offer was above the base price, that cultivator would obtain the item.

If no offer exceeded the base price, the item would fail to sell.

Each consigned item required a certain handling fee. The longer the time, the more spirit stones were required.

After a successful sale, Hundred Treasures Pavilion took a ten-percent fee. If the item failed to sell, no additional spirit stones would be charged.

Ma Mingyuan first consigned one to see how it went, choosing a time limit of five days.

…

Out in the wilderness, a masked Paper Figure a little over two feet tall was sneaking along behind three cultivators.

The three cultivators were all at mid-stage Qi Refining. Each held talismans and ritual implements in their hands, their expressions cautious.

“Senior Brother, that Paper Figure shouldn’t be able to find us, right?”

“Don’t worry, it won’t. Even if it is an Aberrant Grade Aberration, under my Myriad Sword Qi Talisman, even if it doesn’t die, it’ll be badly wounded.”

The middle-aged cultivator in the lead spoke with absolute certainty, though a trace of pain flashed through his eyes.

That had been a second-rank talisman. To explore this secret realm, he had paid a huge price back then to get his hands on one. He had never expected that before they even entered the edge of the secret realm, his second-rank Myriad Sword Qi Talisman would be gone first.

But the situation earlier had left him no choice.

The three of them had arranged to come together to explore an incomplete minor secret realm. Along the way, they had gone through all kinds of twists and hardships before finally arriving near it.

Yet unexpectedly, a Paper Figure with a swollen body had suddenly jumped out, with something written on its chest like, “May I join you and explore the secret realm together?”—some such baffling words.

The three instantly identified the Paper Figure with their spiritual sense as an Aberrant Grade Aberration. As if facing a great enemy, they used every method they had and drove the Paper Figure away.

“Say, is there any chance that Paper Figure really did want to enter the secret realm with us? After all, when we attacked it, it barely fought back.”

Another cultivator asked in confusion.

“What nonsense are you spouting? Explore a secret realm together with an Aberrant Grade Aberration? Do you think your life is too long?

“Humans and weird entities walk different paths. Even if it truly had that thought, we still can’t trust it because of that. Those not of our kind are sure to have different hearts.”

“Yes, yes, yes...” The cultivator who had raised the doubt hurriedly nodded in agreement.

Several dozen zhang behind them, the sword qi cracks remaining on the Little Paper Man’s body were constantly healing.

“Seriously, attacking and killing the second we meet, not even giving someone a chance to talk!

“Sure, plenty of cultivators have died inside my cave abode, but I really am a good cave abode! And the Little Paper Man really is a good Aberration too!

“Where’s the basic trust between people and paper people?”

Lu Yuan controlled the Little Paper Man, trailing far behind the three of them while grumbling inwardly.

After accidentally overhearing the three discuss entering some minor secret realm together, Lu Yuan had formed the idea of going in to take a look.

Although he had already advanced to a middle-grade spiritual domain, possessed a middle-grade Spiritual Vein, and had many spiritual herbs inside the spirit realm, covering everything from ungraded to third-rank; although his spirit beasts and weird entities each had their own distinctive traits, making him an excellent cave abode that cultivators would linger in and forget to return from...

In the end, it was still just working behind closed doors. It was necessary to come out occasionally and inspect other secret realms in the wilderness, learn from their development paths, and exchange the spiritual herbs and spiritual medicines inside their cave abodes—one-sidedly, of course.

Mutual progress was quite necessary!

Unfortunately, those three cultivators were unreasonable. The moment they saw the Paper Figure, they showed no mercy at all, throwing talismans and ritual implements at it all at once.

Lu Yuan was not angry. After all, the Little Paper Man’s recovery ability was quite powerful, and he still needed these three cultivators to guide the way. After withstanding one round of attacks, he pretended he was no match for them and disappeared from their sight.

In reality, relying on the Illusory Yin Eye’s monitoring and the masked Paper Figure’s aura guidance, he followed the three cultivators from afar and arrived before the incomplete minor secret realm.

The three cultivators stopped before a towering, strange stone mountain. The mountain was covered in jagged rocks, like a savage beast choosing someone to devour.

The three carefully observed their surroundings. After confirming there was no danger and that no one was following them, the middle-aged cultivator in the lead took out a fist-sized, irregular dark-red stone and embedded it into a small hole.

As the dark-red stone was inserted, strands of dark-red light appeared across the surface of the stone mountain. The rocks continuously shifted, and a stone door just wide enough for one person to pass through revealed itself before the three.

The three entered one after another. As the third person went in, an almost invisible, tiny white thread shot into the stone door at astonishing speed.

It was none other than the Little Paper Man, who had shrunk and stretched his entire body to the limit.

Lu Yuan felt a little regretful. If he had known this would happen, then before transforming, he should have covered the Little Paper Man’s body with black writing. In that case, what shot into the stone cave would not have been a white thread....

Inside the stone cave, the white thread returned to the Little Paper Man’s original size. His little head slowly and clumsily turned this way and that, his empty eye sockets observing everything inside the stone mountain.

Not far away, the three mid-stage Qi Refining cultivators who had entered the stone mountain first had already explored a short distance ahead.

Compared with the outside, the stones inside the mountain were even stranger. Some had the shapes of all kinds of demonic beasts, while others had bizarre Aberration forms. Lu Yuan even saw human-shaped ones: seven or eight heads blooming into a single brain-flower, three bodies joined together and lying on the ground to form a twelve-legged monster...

The stones were lifelike, with a realism that felt as if a layer of stone powder had been directly smeared over the surfaces of cultivators and demonic beasts.

“So this is how I entered a secret realm?”

Lu Yuan watched the scene inside the stone mountain while secretly roasting the situation.

“Honest question, what exactly is it like for a secret realm to enter a secret realm?”

“Thanks for the invite. I’m in the wilderness and just left a secret realm.

“Although this question is a little strange, as the spirit of a cave abode at the grotto-heaven realm, with my cave abode occupying more than half the wilderness, countless high-rank demonic beasts and weird entities inside, and eighth-rank and ninth-rank spiritual medicines as numerous as the sands of the Ganges, I am fully qualified to answer this question.

“It’s just that quite a few cultivators in the wilderness know me, and the interests involved are too great, so I’ll go anonymous, I’ll go anonymous...”

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