"Just a moment..." Sierra mumbled, flipping the page and shushing him with just one hand.

Oof.

"M-My bad."

Xuan sat down beside her and checked out what she was reading. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a book from this section. Instead, it was a book about runes and how each rune worked.

At least, that would explain why every single page had unrecognizable hieroglyphs. Maybe someone just really sucked at writing, or maybe someone made a book specifically for blind people?

Whatever it was, Xuan was patient. In the meantime, he notified Yuelan of where he was, and less than 10 minutes later, Yuelan and Hanbi arrived at the Alchemy Association.

Right off the bat, the two beauties got the attention of every single man and woman present. Yet unlike ordinary beauties, Yuelan would be better considered a poison beauty, because anyone who even tried to pursue her would end up in a grave.

But when it came to being around those she found comfortable, she always relaxed.

"There’s so many books..."

"It’s a library," Hanbi said with a sigh.

Yuelan’s brow twitched. "No shit. I haven’t been to many libraries in the past."

A faint smirk appeared on Hanbi’s face. "Bum."

Both of their Qi suddenly flared up, and right as a fight was about to begin, a loud thwack stopped it. Turning toward the noise, they all realized that Sierra had reached the final page of her book and finally closed it.

"I’m ready to leave now," she said calmly.

"Ah..."

"Alright then." Xuan stood up and coughed, getting rid of the uncomfortable silence. "What’s the next city like, Hanbi? You said we’d only be visiting two."

She let out a sigh. "Indeed. The second one is a little less interesting than the first, but I have to participate there on behalf of my sect, since a tournament is being held."

A tournament?

"What kind of tournament?"

"A battle royale with a few hundred cultivators from their respective sects. It’s a tournament in several phases, but during the first phase, the main battle royale, we’ll need to find some symbols scattered throughout a large area that we’ll have to find to proceed."

She smiled at the three of them. "If you want, I can sign you guys up too. It’ll be fun, and you can get some good prizes. You three are still from a beginner world. You’d benefit from some cultivation manuals."

"Ah..." Hanbi’s eyes widened. "Speaking of, you guys haven’t cultivated in ages. Want to enter seclusion for a few months when we’re back? All of you really need to increase your cultivation."

"Sure sure, whatever. Sign us up as well. We’ll all be participating," Yuelan said and tapped Xuan’s back.

With that, the four of them chatted for a little, then took their leave. This time, however, instead of running to where they needed to be, they took a carriage. Xuan never imagined that carriages even existed to begin with, especially not in cultivation.

Merchant carriages, maybe? Hmm...

Either way, they left the beautiful city of Qujiang, making sure to take some souvenirs in the form of delicious fish, which they ate while talking. Unbeknownst to anyone but Xuan though, Yuan was resting atop the carriage and snorting a line of powder from a crushed pill.

He made himself known to Xuan, but not to the others. It was one of the reasons why Xuan was chuckling every now and again, since he never expected his old and disciplined Alchemy master to be doing drugs on his carriage.

And unbeknownst to any one of them, the woman who had so eagerly tried to kill Xuan in the Alchemy Association back then was also trailing not too far behind them.

Despite that, the journey began swiftly.

Traveling for nearly four days across a flat plain put into perspective just how large this world was, since when Hanbi showed him the map, he realized that they had barely even moved a nail’s worth of length in comparison to the actual size of the world.

That meant it might even take a year or two to travel from one side of the world to the other. No wonder there were so many people here. A lot of opportunities to find some overpowered stuff lying around too.

Heh.

Xuan put aside his greedy nature and stared at the gates of a surprisingly large, yet empty city. Didn’t Hanbi mention there would be some kind of battle royale happening? Shouldn’t there be thousands of spectators?

"I get what you might be thinking, but only sect members are allowed. Five at most," Hanbi said, leaning against the carriage window as the carriage rolled inside the city. "Don’t talk to anyone, by the way. All of the people here have sharp tongues."

She paused, glancing over at Yuelan. "Whatever you do, don’t cast that black hole attack before the battle royale starts. If you do, we’re going to get butchered."

Yuelan pouted. "Stop thinking of me as some child. I was obviously not planning to do that."

"She’s lying," Sierra chimed in with a bored look. Before Yuelan could retort, the carriage abruptly stopped, causing Yuelan and Hanbi to bump heads and glare at each other in hatred.

As for Sierra and Xuan, they didn’t even budge. Of course, they were the first to exit the carriage too, admiring the empty streets, as well as the food scattered around everywhere.

No merchants, but food? Free food? Definitely free food. If not free food, then why was it free food-shaped?

Sierra seemed to get it too, so she went ahead and began feasting. Yet in the corner of his vision, Xuan spotted an apple eating some crumbs from Sierra’s pocket. Just then, he remembered that he had given her an apple monster pet back in the Three Eyed Angel’s Dungeon.

He had thought she tossed it out, but from the looks of things, that apple monster was slowly growing inside her pocket. It was now the size of a walnut.

Xuan found it amusing, so every now and again, he tossed a crumb in the air and watched as the apple monster lunged out of her pocket and ate it.

Though after just a few minutes of eating the probably free food, Yuelan and Hanbi stepped out, still glaring at each other.

Despite that, Hanbi seemed to have calmed down enough to give some instructions.

"For starters, don’t eat any of the food here. It’s poisoned."

"Ah."

"Ah..."

[Poison Qi - Intermediate - 43.99% → 44.22%]

Touché.