Chapter 1112: Chapter 745: Jingxi City (Part 2)
"Sending you an ice purification divine artifact again!"
"That’s generous! I’ll buy five pieces, Xiao Bei, pay up!" Li Qianluo clapped his hands and said proudly.
Xiang Beifei: "..."
However, what he didn’t lack was breath soil, so he paid the money.
Li Qianluo cheerfully stuffed several pieces of the face basin-sized Thousand-Fathom Ice into Xiang Beifei’s hands, saying, "Hold on to it, use it as your water source when you get back."
Humans also need water to survive. Although this Thousand-Fathom Ice is only the size of a face basin, once catalyzed with Spiritual Power, it’s enough to cover the water expenses for a thousand people for two to three months.
Li Qianluo strolled happily through the market, buying all sorts of things, from clothes to fertilizers, and various Spirit Stones, even purchasing a brood of chicks to raise back home.
"We’re here to rescue people, not shop." Xiang Beifei reminded her.
"Shopping doesn’t conflict with rescuing, we can’t just come out for nothing." Li Qianluo said nonchalantly.
Xiang Beifei laughed silently.
One has to admit, this girl was quite adept at bargaining, understanding market prices even better than Xiang Beifei. Often with just a few words, she drove the price down. Of course, for Xiang Beifei, he didn’t care much about the prices; he had plenty of breath soil, not short of money.
However, they were not merely shopping for the sake of it; midway, Xiang Beifei was also constantly perceiving the structure of the city and the hidden traps within it.
Beneath the prosperous facade of the city, there was indeed an undercurrent. Every few steps, they saw some Dao Palace spies monitoring them.
Although Li Qianluo was shopping, she was actually using this chance to show Xiang Beifei who the Dao Palace spies were, teaching him how to identify them.
"Their aura is basically unrecognizable, but Dao Palace members have a mark on their divine souls. Normal people don’t have the ability to look at others’ divine souls, but we’re different. You can see divine souls, right?"
Xiang Beifei was surprised: "You can see divine souls too?"
"Of course, I can teach you how to identify Dao Palace identities. See that young man eating noodles? Although he’s only at the orifice transforming stage, there’s a ’soil’ character on his divine soul’s left shoulder, representing his rank." Li Qianluo pointed out.
"Rank?"
"The identities of Dao Palace members are divided into five ranks: breath soil, border, frontier, airspace, and earth god. They have a character marked on their divine souls, which are soil, boundary, border, domain, god."
"We determine their status in the Dao Palace through these marks. Soil generally is a gofer, the little pawn, while boundary manages the pawns. Every city’s Dao Palace branch leader is generally boundary. And the Dao Envoy’s identity is border, their power surpasses the leaders of each city’s Dao Palace branches."
Li Qianluo introduced the matters of the Dao Palace in detail to Xiang Beifei, giving him a general understanding.
"You see, they’ve sent quite a few ’soil’ to capture us humans. Generally, aside from border, domain, and god, others are insignificant. To become a ’border’, one’s cultivation must at least be in the Inquiry Dao period. Domain certainly reaches the ascension realm, and earth god is absolutely in the Ancestral Dao Realm." Li Qianluo said.
"I see."
With this explanation, Xiang Beifei could differentiate them. However, he was still puzzled that Li Qianluo could also see others’ divine souls, which was quite intriguing.
His ability to see divine souls was due to his Yin and Yang Primordial Qi, but what about Li Qianluo?
As Xiang Beifei walked along the street, he carefully sensed, and quickly assessed the number of people from the Dao Palace ambushed in Jingxi City.
The Dao Palace had sent three ascension realm experts and eight Inquiry Dao realm masters. Outside the city, there was one ascension realm, and six Inquiry Dao realms; inside the city, there were two ascension realms and two Inquiry Dao realms.
As for those in the Immortal Realm, there were at least eighty!
Some of them were experts from other races here, while the rest were all from the Dao Palace, extremely hidden.
"Feifei, I found Chu Xi! Right at the central square of the city, over on the Dao Palace’s side!"
Xiaohei’s voice rang in Xiang Beifei’s mind.
"I’m heading over now."
Xiang Beifei signaled to Li Qianluo, then immediately moved in that direction.
At this moment, the square was also packed with people. Many Yi Tribe cultivators were stopping to watch, looking at the person suspended in the air over the square.
It was a ten-year-old boy, his hands tied in mid-air by two rings formed from breath soil. He appeared listless, lips pale, with a few scars on his face deep enough to reveal bone, eyes slightly closed, looking as if he had undergone immense torture.
Seeing the little boy covered in bruises, Xiang Beifei’s gaze turned cold.
A ten-year-old child, who hadn’t even begun to cultivate Spiritual Power, was being tortured like this.
Xiaohei hopped back onto Xiang Beifei’s shoulder, saying, "He’s still alive."
Alive, but barely breathing.
"Damn it! So ruthless even towards a child?"
Li Qianluo clenched his fists, eyes flickering with anger.
Xiang Beifei looked around. There were powerful formation patterns surrounding them, and ascension realm Spiritual Power had tightly locked onto little Chu Xi. If even a fly approached, it would likely be met with a devastating strike!
People came and went around them, with many cultivators stopping to watch the little boy suspended in the air. Some people were also discussing among themselves.
"I heard this little kid is from the Human Race, caught by the Dao Palace. But he’s so young, is it right for the Dao Palace to kill him?" A short old man with a cane asked.
"The Dao Palace has already issued a statement; this is not just a kid, but a Human Race Immortal Realm expert who’s lived for thousands of years! Don’t be fooled by his appearance!"
"Really? An Immortal Realm expert? He sure doesn’t look like one."
"Shows how little you know. In the Edge Corner Airspace, you should never judge by appearances. You should know many races molt during cultivation, rebirthing into a young child from an aged old form. This happens all the time."
"But I’ve never heard of the Human Race molting."
"The Human Race is a very sinister race. It’s said they can learn any race’s spells. To learn the unique Heavenly Dao of other races, they’ll capture and refine the divine soul of experts from that race, claiming it for themselves, truly wicked! No need to think about it; this little boy surely learned some sort of rejuvenation technique, his real appearance is nothing like this!" A burly man vowed.
"Exactly, rumor has it the Human Race sent this person to kidnap experts from the Divine Sense Dao tribe to cultivate Divine Sense Dao. But was caught in time by the Dao Palace, almost killing and devouring Dao Envoy Ge Hengzi’s divine soul!"
"The Human Race is too vicious! To cultivate others’ Dao, they resort to such underhanded tricks! This human looking like a child truly deserves his fate!"
"No doubt about it! We must all be careful when dealing with the Human Race. There’s a reason they’re wanted by the Dao Palace; they strengthen their cultivation by devouring the Heavenly Dao of other races! Cultivating is hard enough, beware of getting targeted! If you discover a Human Race member, you must not hesitate!"
...
The chatter was endless, extremely grating.
Xiang Beifei’s brows furrowed deeply.
The Dao Palace went to great lengths to defame the Human Race, painting even white as black. Chu Xi, clearly only a ten-year-old child, was forcefully portrayed by the Dao Palace as an age-reversing Immortal expert.
Such rumors perpetuated among various races in the Edge Corner Airspace, making the Human Race the evil faction committing myriad sins. Unfortunately, the Human Race was too weak; even when wrongly accused, they couldn’t explain themselves.
"The Dao Palace’s influence in the Edge Corner Airspace is too vast. To clear the Human Race of these baseless slanders is extremely difficult." Li Qianluo couldn’t help but say.
"Regardless of that, we need to find a way to save Chu Xi."
Xiang Beifei looked at the barely breathing little Chu Xi. Saving him was of utmost importance now.
"Do you have any ideas?" Li Qianluo asked.
Xiang Beifei looked down at the breath soil beneath him, which was under the Dao Palace’s control, firmly linked by the Formation. He then gazed at the distant, majestic Dao Palace building, lost in thought.