Heaven Refining physique-Chapter 72: Entering The City

The rest of his journey was uneventful, and he finally used his ten minor teleportations. He was still in the dark forest, but it was definitely near the city; the trees here were smaller and less dense than before.

So, if he had to guess, it was under 1000 miles from the city.

He came down to the ground; he still wasn’t able to fly yet. So, covering the rest of the distance on foot seemed better.

Since it was near the city, he would definitely meet some cultivators. He just hoped they weren’t fools who would attack him because he was alone.

He didn’t mind killing them, but it would be better to maintain a low profile here. Although he doubted that both sects would use their portraits to search for them in cities, as they were trying to be secretive about it, there was still some chance that they had deployed someone to keep an eye on every border city, even though they had a truth seeker.

He took out a mask handed to him by Huan Caiyi and wore it. Wearing masks and robes was common in cultivation worlds; cultivators usually loved to keep their appearances hidden.

So, even if he wore the mask, it wouldn’t look eye-catching. The mask was a plain white color, without any expressive design.

After wearing the mask, he sprinted in the direction where the city was.

He hadn’t run for long when he sensed the first cultivators. As expected, they were itinerant cultivators, and all were in the Foundation Establishment realm.

He stopped and approached them. Although he knew in which direction the city was, it was just a guess by Huan Caiyi. It would be better to know exactly how far and in which direction it was.

The cultivation level he was showing with Nirvana’s Veil was the Qi Refinement realm, but he doubted they had any skill that could discern his cultivation realm. If he didn’t use his qi, they wouldn’t be able to tell his realm.

When they saw someone arriving near them, they became alert. Usually, itinerant cultivators formed groups in the city itself, so they weren’t close to each other, but it looked like this group of cultivators knew each other. There were three men and two women.

When he arrived near them, only two cultivators faced him; the others stayed behind their backs.

Jiang Hao didn’t care for their insecurities and asked as politely as he could.

"Pardon my intrusion. Can you tell me how far the nearest city is and in which direction it is?"

They became stunned. It was rare for someone to ask that. After all, they were in the Dark Forest, and usually, people would come from the city itself. After all, who would be mad enough to cross the Dark Forest to reach another city?

But one of the men who was in front still answered. He really seemed quite cautious and wanted to avoid any kind of conflict with Jiang Hao as he couldn’t sense his cultivation level.

"The city is about 70 miles from here, and it’s in this direction."

Jiang looked toward the direction he had pointed. It was similar to his original direction, so he nodded and thanked him before leaving.

It didn’t take him long before he arrived at the edge of the forest and saw a city not far away from here.

He finally reached his destination. He met a lot of cultivators in just 70 miles of his journey. This was really different than what he had expected.

This city was, after all, smaller than the previous city. So, logically, it should have fewer cultivators too, but it was totally the opposite.

He didn’t dwell much on it and moved toward the gates. There were already many people waiting in line to enter the city, along with many merchant caravans.

It took about 20 minutes before his turn came. When he arrived at the gates, the guards looked at him carefully. He knew that the guard had used a cultivation-determining technique.

After the guard saw it was only a Qi Refinement cultivator, he let him pass after taking some gold coins.

Jiang Hao heaved a sigh of relief. He was inside the city without any problem. He could mark this city for future visits.

The first thing he noticed was that the crowd here was really more than in the previous city, which was a little surprising for him.

He didn’t waste much time and went to the place where Senior Huan Caiyi’s acquaintance was.

She was quite famous in this city as she was the branch leader of the best auction house in the Eastern Region, which was run by her own family. So, she was basically considered even the owner of this pavilion.

Sky Pavilion only sold the most expensive things, so only high-level cultivators went there to make purchases.

But this auction sold everything from expensive to low-priced things. In the Eastern Region, they were even more famous than Sky Pavilion, as not everyone needed major or minor-level talisman treasures, which were only available mainly in the Central Region.

Things exclusive to the Central Region became even more expensive here due to teleportation costs, so Sky Pavilion wasn’t as famous as this local auction house.

Jiang Hao arrived at a quite big pavilion. The name of the pavilion was Heavenly Fortune Pavilion.

It was only a branch of Heaven Fortune Pavilion, but she stayed here because it was more profitable than even the main branch.

Now, how should he meet her? After all, he had only a token that Senior Huan Caiyi gave him to prove his identity to the owner. If she had come herself, she wouldn’t even need to use this. She had taken this token for an emergency if, instead of her, Senior Zhi Hui had to come.

But it was he who got the chance to use this token. The thing that was really problematic was that his cultivation was at the Qi Refinement realm, and the guards of this pavilion were definitely able to determine that.

And a Qi Refinement cultivator having an exclusive token of their owner would be a little bit unbelievable for them.

Jiang Hao sighed and moved toward the guards. There wasn’t any other option, so he had to go through it anyway.

When the guards saw it was only a Qi Refinement cultivator, they became relaxed.

Jiang Hao didn’t say anything. He just took out the amethyst token and showed it to them.

When the guards saw the token, they squinted their eyes. They knew what this token was for, and only very few had this token, and all of them were well-known in the Eastern Region.

They looked at Jiang Hao with scrutiny, but since he was wearing a mask, they couldn’t discern who he was.

They couldn’t even ask for the token from him to check if it was really authentic, as only the manager was eligible for that. They looked at each other, and one of them went inside.

They didn’t want to judge this cultivator just based on the cultivation realm, because their leader was really a tyrant. If she knew that they chased a person with an authentic token, then they were done for.

Jiang Hao sighed. At least he wasn’t outright denied. He waited for their decision.

A few breaths later, a fatty middle-aged man came out of the pavilion along with the guard.

"Fellow Daoist, can I see that token?"

Jiang Hao nodded and handed the token to him. He didn’t doubt that they would confiscate it, as the guards would have done it already if they wanted to.

When the fatty man saw the token, his eyes widened. He knew immediately that this wasn’t just a normal amethyst token, but a special token that only the pavilion mistress gave.

And not more than two or three people had this in the whole Eastern Region. And there definitely was no man among them.

He looked at Jiang Hao again and couldn’t help but think that this might be some secret lover of the mistress, but he immediately discarded that thought as she wasn’t afraid of anything, and if she really had a lover, she would not hide it.

Instead of making baseless assumptions, he decided to bring Jiang Hao to meet her directly.

"Fellow Daoist, follow me."

Jiang Hao nodded.

Looks like everything was fine, and he didn’t have to go through any unnecessary trouble to meet Mei Ling.

They entered the pavilion through a different route and went up.

After reaching the top floor, the manager knocked on the door of a room.

"What is it?"

"Mistress, someone with your personal token has arrived."

As his voice faded, the door opened itself.

There was a woman inside, seated leisurely on a big jade couch.

She looked at them, particularly toward Jiang Hao. From her frown, it was evident that she didn’t know about him.

"Give me the token."

The manager immediately went and placed the token respectfully in her hands.

When she saw the token, Mei Ling immediately knew whose token this was. She sighed inwardly while thinking that something definitely had happened to Huan Caiyi.

She had left the Mountain Sword Sect and hadn’t appeared for this long, and even today, she had sent someone else to meet her.

All those new cultivators in Sky Pavilion were definitely related to this.

She looked toward the manager and ordered, "Leave and close the door."

"Yes, Mistress."

He bowed and left, leaving Jiang Hao and Mei Ling alone.

"You should take a seat."

Jiang Hao nodded and went to another couch that was placed in front of her.

"So, is she fine?"

Jiang Hao nodded as he knew that she was asking about Huan Caiyi.

"Good to know that. I won’t ask much because, given your disguise, you didn’t want to disclose anything either, but I do have my own ways to obtain information. In the Eastern Region, almost everything is known to me."