Chapter 137: Chapter 137: Counterfeit and Shoddy Goods

The fleeting clamor died down, and the glinting blade light vanished with it.

Chu Mu stood in the dense forest, his blade stained with blood, his clothes pristine.

Before him lay two corpses, riddled with wounds, their eyes open in death.

"Was it really worth it?" 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

Chu Mu shook his head and murmured, ’The Immortal Path was within reach, yet they died at its very doorstep.’

’Greed without a guarantee of success always comes at a price.’

Sheathing his blade, Chu Mu paid no mind to the gore as he began to meticulously search the corpses, not missing a single spot.

Once he had thoroughly looted them, Chu Mu didn’t bother to take inventory. He simply stuffed everything into his robes, regardless of its use.

After scanning the area and confirming that nothing was out of the ordinary, Chu Mu turned his attention to dealing with the corpses.

’If you kill someone, you have to get rid of the body and erase all traces.’

His Power surged. He gouged a large pit in the ground with a few kicks, then punted the two corpses into it as if they were balls. After hastily burying them, Chu Mu dusted off his hands and departed.

"One, two, three, four..."

Back in his burrow, Chu Mu couldn’t contain his excitement as he counted the Broken Spirits one by one.

The two small cloth pouches contained a total of fifty-two Broken Spirits!

Chu Mu’s heart thudded in his chest. Fifty-two. A full fifty-two Broken Spirits!

He only earned eight Broken Spirits a month. This was more than half a year’s wages!

Chu Mu took out his own small pouch of Spirit Stones. In three months, he had saved a total of twenty-four Broken Spirits.

Altogether, that was seventy-six Broken Spirits!

That was equivalent to seven and a half Lower Grade Spirit Stones!

’One Spirit Stone for the Spirit Root Talent test, and three for the first level of a Cultivation Immortal Technique.’

’He would still have three and a half Lower Grade Spirit Stones left over!’

Chu Mu suppressed his excitement, put away the Spirit Stones, and carefully sorted through the rest of his loot.

Aside from the Spirit Stones, the rest was just a random assortment of mundane trinkets with nothing of any real use.

Chu Mu glanced around his burrow, and after a moment’s thought, he decisively stood up.

He quickly packed a bundle, took another tunnel out into the dense forest, and under the cover of night, soon vanished into the darkness.

After trekking all night, Chu Mu finally arrived outside Jade Emperor Valley just as the morning sun began to rise.

The mining area wasn’t far from Jade Emperor Valley. The only reason the journey had taken so long was that Chu Mu, fearing an ambush, had deliberately taken a huge detour.

After all, in his estimation, with so many miners around, and Jade Emperor Valley being the nearest hub for Cultivators...

...any Cultivator with ill intentions would only need to set up an ambush somewhere along the path for a guaranteed catch.

He didn’t know how likely it was, but he had to take precautions.

Reaching the Jade Emperor Valley Marketplace safely was the best possible outcome.

More than three months later, Chu Mu once again set foot in Jade Emperor Valley.

This time, however, he wasn’t the clueless newcomer he’d been before. He had Spirit Stones in his pocket, a basic understanding of the Cultivation Immortal Realm, and was just one step away from... officially stepping onto the Immortal Path and becoming a true Cultivator!

Even though three months had passed, Chu Mu remembered the layout of Jade Emperor Valley perfectly.

Upon entering Jade Emperor Valley, he headed straight for the shop that tested Spirit Root Talent.

Jade Emperor Valley was huge, but during the nearly ten days he had previously spent wandering its streets, he had only ever seen this one shop that offered Spirit Root Talent testing.

Clearly, it was a monopoly, at least here in Jade Emperor Valley.

The shop wasn’t on the main street of Jade Emperor Valley, but tucked away in a back alley on the southwest side.

Though inconspicuous, there was a sign at the intersection of the main street and the alley, guiding people much like a modern-day billboard.

One had to admit, the commercial atmosphere in Jade Emperor Valley was surprisingly strong.

Walking through it, if not for the Power constantly surging through his body, Chu Mu might have even thought he’d been transported to some ancient tourist town from his previous life.

"Hey, friend. You looking to get your Spirit Root Talent measured?"

Chu Mu had just reached the intersection when a tall, skinny man sidled up to him, speaking in a hushed, conspiratorial tone.

Chu Mu subtly took two steps back. "Sir, can I help you?"

"That place in the Marketplace that tests Spirit Root Talent? It’s a rip-off, especially for newcomers like you. I’ll do it for you. Five Broken Spirits. What do you say?"

The man held up five fingers, glancing around nervously as if afraid of being spotted.

Chu Mu was tempted. But just as he was deliberating, before he could even speak, the man’s expression suddenly changed, and he ostentatiously put some distance between them.

"Wang Mazi, what do you think you’re doing?"

Immediately, Chu Mu heard a sharp reprimand and saw a middle-aged man in a suit of armor striding toward them.

Chu Mu’s pupils contracted, and he quickly averted his gaze.

That armor was the uniform of the Jade Emperor Valley Law Enforcement Team.

Without a doubt, this middle-aged man was a Cultivator from the Jade Emperor Valley Law Enforcement Team.

"Nothing, nothing! I was just worried this newcomer couldn’t find his way, so I was offering a little help."

"Captain Li, what brings you out to the streets? It’s been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure..."

Wang Mazi’s face was a mask of sycophantic flattery. If Chu Mu couldn’t faintly sense the aura of a Cultivator’s Cultivation from him, he would have mistaken the man for some common toady from the mortal world.

"Hmph. Wang Mazi, you’d best watch yourself. Jade Emperor Valley has its own rules. You’d better be crystal clear on what you can and cannot do!"

"I know, I know..."

Wang Mazi agreed profusely, not daring to utter another word.

Then, the man turned to Chu Mu. "Are you a newcomer to the Cultivation Immortal Realm from the mortal world?"

"Yes."

Chu Mu answered, bracing himself.

"Once you’ve entered the Qi Cultivation Realm, if you plan on residing in Jade Emperor Valley, remember to register at the back of the valley. And pick up a copy of the rulebook, too!"

"The Spirit Root testing is in the back alley. Go there yourself. Don’t listen to the nonsense these people spout. Breaking the rules of Jade Emperor Valley isn’t a problem a few Broken Spirits can solve!"

After saying his piece, the man’s attention returned to Wang Mazi, and he continued his tirade, leaving the tout completely stunned.

Seeing that this unexpected trouble hadn’t involved him, Chu Mu had no intention of lingering. After muttering a farewell, he quickly slipped away.

As for saving five Broken Spirits... Chu Mu had been tempted, but he wasn’t stupid enough to openly break the rules right under the nose of Law Enforcement.

Besides, the rules in Jade Emperor Valley seemed far stricter than he had imagined.

"Spirit Root Attribute test. One Spirit Stone."

He was greeted by that curt sentence the moment he entered the shop.

A middle-aged man sat leaning back lazily behind the counter, not even bothering to look up.

Chu Mu pressed his lips together, took out the ten Broken Spirits he had prepared, and placed them on the counter.

The middle-aged man glanced over, and the ten Broken Spirits on the counter vanished.

Then, with a wave of his hand, a metal disk appeared in the man’s grasp.

The metal disk then floated into the air and flew directly over Chu Mu’s head. A white light flared. Before Chu Mu could feel anything, the light went out, and the disk had vanished.

"Four-Attribute Pseudo Spirit Root. Five points Fire Element, four points Gold Element, one point Water Element, and one point Earth Element."

"As for a Cultivation Method, you should choose one with the Fire Attribute."

The man said lazily, then waved his hand, motioning for Chu Mu to leave.

Chu Mu hesitated for a moment before he couldn’t stop himself from asking, "Excuse me, Senior, what do you mean by ’points’?"

The man glanced at Chu Mu. "One Broken Spirit."

Gritting his teeth, Chu Mu took out another Broken Spirit and placed it on the counter.

"The Cultivation Immortal Realm divides Spirit Root Talent into several grades: Celestial Spirit Root, Earth Spirit Root..."

"Besides Celestial Spirit Roots and Mutated Spirit Roots, all others are a mix of Multiple Spirit Roots. Therefore, it’s necessary to determine which Spirit Root is dominant for a Cultivator..."

"Then... if I may ask, Senior, my Spirit Root Talent has five points in the Fire Element. If a dual-attribute Earth Spirit Root was split evenly, wouldn’t that also be five points? Does that mean..."

"That’s some wishful thinking!"

The man chuckled, seemingly intrigued. "Logically speaking, that would seem to be the case."

"But Spirit Root Talent doesn’t follow common logic."

"It’s determined by fate!"

"These ’points’ are just a general classification. It’s just a way of saying that the total potential for any given grade of Spirit Root is set at ten."

"It doesn’t mean that ten points from a Pseudo Spirit Root is equivalent to ten points from an Earth Spirit Root!"

"Your five points are not at all the same concept as five points from an Earth Spirit Root."

"The more mixed the Spirit Root Talent, the greater the negative impact on a Cultivator’s ability to sense, absorb, and even refine Spiritual Qi."

"This negative effect increases almost exponentially."

"If we were to score your Pseudo Spirit Root Talent’s total as ten, then an Earth Spirit Root would be a hundred, maybe even two or three hundred, and a Celestial Spirit Root would be in the thousands!"

"This junior has been taught."

Chu Mu bowed respectfully.

"You’re an interesting kid. This old man will give you a piece of advice for free."

The man smiled. He was clearly no older than middle-aged, yet he referred to himself as ’this old man’.

"Please enlighten me, Senior!"

Chu Mu bowed again.

"When you go to buy a Cultivation Immortal Technique, don’t listen to all the sales pitches. Just buy the most basic Fire Element Cultivation Technique, the Blazing Fire Technique."

"Don’t gamble your Immortal Path on anything else!"

Chu Mu was confused, but the man didn’t ask for more money this time, launching directly into an explanation.

"There’s a dizzying array of Cultivation Techniques on the market, and a kid like you can’t afford a complete one."

"You can only afford to buy them one level at a time. Can you be sure the level you buy is part of a complete technique? Or is it just an incomplete fragment with only one or two, maybe three or four levels? Can you even be sure the Cultivation Technique has no hidden flaws?"

"There are too many Cultivation Techniques in the Cultivation Immortal Realm. Some are legacies from Ancient Cultivators, others have circulated from faraway lands, and some are from lineages that have been completely broken..."

"Worse yet, some Cultivators create their own techniques and circulate them without even knowing the drawbacks. Maybe they want other Cultivators to be their test subjects, or maybe..."

"The origins of these techniques are just too varied. Many shops don’t care. If it’s a Cultivation Technique, they’ll sell it to make a profit. If you buy the wrong one, whether you run into problems during your Cultivation or discover it’s incomplete and have to switch to another technique, it’s an incredible amount of trouble."

A chill went down Chu Mu’s spine. "This junior has been taught!" he said quickly.

"Alright, I’ve said my piece. Now go do what you need to do."

The man waved his hand dismissively. The brief, cheerful expression he’d worn was gone, replaced once more by indifference.

Chu Mu gave one last respectful bow and silently took his leave.

Back on the street, Chu Mu replayed the man’s words in his mind, and he couldn’t help but feel a little nervous. To think he could get scammed even when buying a basic Cultivation Method...

’This Cultivation Immortal Realm seems so strict,’ he thought, ’so are there really no rules against fraud and selling defective goods?’

...