Chapter 70

Chapter 70: The Golden Cicada Sheds Its Shell

After hearing what Yun Xi said, Hua Xuan Zi immediately knew this junior sister had already made up her mind. She did not waste words. She took Yun Xi’s identity jade token and helped her accept the sect mission, since she happened to be on duty at the Mission Hall. Otherwise, it really would not have been easy to help with this.

“All right. I’ve helped you accept the mission, but this is a group mission. You’re not the only one going to search for our fellow disciples. You’d best find a partner you can trust,” Hua Xuan Zi reminded her kindly.

“Thank you for the reminder, Senior Sister. I will find a suitable partner to go with me,” Yun Xi said.

After that, the two of them traded some pills and talismans. Hua Xuan Zi left the Cultivation Hall with a smile on her face.

After Hua Xuan Zi left, Yun Xi began thinking about who to choose as her partner. Honestly, she leaned more toward going alone. Besides searching for an ownerless spirit vein, she also had to find a place suitable for Foundation Establishment, and she could not easily let her fellow disciples know about any of that.

If she ran into danger outside, it would be far easier to escape alone. At worst, she could still hide in her space. Besides, this trip was also meant for a lightning technique.

That technique had not been recorded by the sect yet, so she wanted to strike first. In the serialized novel, the female supporting character had a single lightning spirit root, so after entering the sect, she was nurtured as a key disciple. Not long after she reached Foundation Establishment, the sect found her a Heaven-tier lightning technique called “Peerless Sword Thunder Art.”

This technique fit the female supporting character’s lightning spirit root extremely well. It had both a cultivation method and sword techniques, and it all depended on how the cultivator understood and applied it, which was why the name sounded so domineering.

Yun Xi’s mission this time was difficult, so after thinking it over again and again, she decided to travel alone. However, she told Wei Zong Hao about it in private.

When Zong Hao heard it, he frowned. “Yun Xi, it’s too dangerous for you to leave the sect alone. It’s easy for someone to set their sights on you.”

“Zong Hao, I know what I’m doing. This trip isn’t only to avoid Yun Qing. I can’t keep suppressing my cultivation,” Yun Xi said, stopping there. She believed Zong Hao would understand.

Zong Hao did understand, because he was also preparing to break through to the ninth level of Qi Refining.

“I understand. If you say it like that, I’m relieved. But outside the sect, you still need to keep a sharp eye. Don’t trust people too easily,” Zong Hao said.

“I know. That’s why I need you to work with me and put on a golden-cicada-shedding-its-shell act to fool Yun Qing’s people,” Yun Xi said bluntly.

“That’s no problem. Whatever you say, I’ll do,” Zong Hao said, patting his chest.

“Good. First we’ll do this… then this… and then…”

“Got it… no problem… all right, we’ll do it your way.”

After they leaned in and planned it out, they went off to handle their own tasks.

The next day, Yun Xi rented a three-mu herb field in her own name and planned to try growing spirit plants herself. She made a big show of buying spirit herb seeds, then threw herself into the field as if she planned to stay there long-term.

This made the disciples watching Yun Xi in secret gradually relax their guard. Then, on a moonless night, Yun Xi handed the herb field over to Zong Hao. After dawn, using the excuse of having accepted a sect mission, she smoothly left Hao Ran Sect.

Yun Xi knew she had at most half a day to shake off her tail. Once she left the sect, she pushed the “Thousand Shadow Wind-Supporting Technique” to the limit, almost turning into a gust of wind as she vanished from the sect gates. In one hour, she reached Hao Ran City, the city at the foot of Hao Ran Sect’s mountain.

Hao Ran City was a major cultivation city built under Hao Ran Sect. There were flying boats here that went to other regions, and if you had enough spirit stones, you could even take a teleportation array.

But Qi Refining disciples who went out on sect missions usually chose the cheapest transportation. They used a lightness talisman or simply walked. Only for urgent missions would they take a flying boat.

Yun Xi did not want to waste time, so before entering Hao Ran City, she used the Huadian divine artifact to disguise her cultivation as late-stage Foundation Establishment, raising it by a full realm. She also disguised her face a little.

Her method of changing her appearance was something she had learned in her own world—one of the four great evil arts of the East: makeup. She disguised herself as an ordinary woman you would forget the moment you saw her. She was 1.58 meters tall now, and since she had grown taller, her figure was a bit thin, so it looked fairly convincing.

Then she went to the teleportation array area and said she wanted to go to the Bao Hua Mountain Range. The sect disciple on duty felt the late-stage Foundation Establishment pressure on her and treated her very respectfully.

“Senior, it costs five thousand low-grade spirit stones to go to the Bao Hua Mountain Range.”

Yun Xi’s face did not change, but she bled inside. Everything she owned in her storage bag came to only five thousand low-grade spirit stones. She had saved them up by diligently refining pills and drawing talismans. This was going to wipe her out in one go.

But she could not back down at a crucial moment, so she only asked calmly, “When do we depart?”

“Senior, once the teleportation array has ten people, it can be activated. With you, it makes exactly ten.”

Hearing that, Yun Xi gave up on switching to a flying boat. She felt that leaving as quickly as possible would only help her, so she tossed the storage bag full of spirit stones to the disciple.

The disciple swept it with his divine sense, confirmed the spirit stones were correct, and handed Yun Xi a token, telling her to go straight to the Teleportation Hall.

Yun Xi did not delay for even a moment. Holding the voucher, she entered the Teleportation Hall. Her arrival made the people waiting to head to the Bao Hua Mountain Range stand up. After everyone stood on the teleportation array, the Golden Core cultivator in charge waved a hand and started the teleportation.

This was Yun Xi’s first time taking a teleportation array in the Cultivation World. Her eyes were wide, and she even released her divine sense to feel the process.

First, array patterns lit up under everyone’s feet. Then everyone was wrapped in golden light. After two breaths of jostling, Yun Xi felt a weightless sensation. Once that brief weightlessness passed, she saw the array carrying everyone into a dazzling, colorful space tunnel.

She stared at the five-colored light streaming past her for only two seconds before she felt dizzy, and then nauseous, like she was carsick.

She immediately closed her eyes and drew her divine sense back around her body, slowly shaking off the dizziness. She did not know how long it took, but her body suddenly jolted, and the golden light covering everyone dispersed.

“Bao Hua City has been reached. Please leave the Teleportation Hall in order.”

A deep male voice pulled Yun Xi back to reality. She opened her eyes and saw the people around her slowly stepping off the array. She followed them out, and once she left the hall, she ran to a flower bed by the roadside and vomited.

Unfortunately, she was used to cultivating on Bigu Pills, so she did not throw up anything.

“Senior, would you like to smell a green-tangerine sachet to stop nausea?” a cautious voice said.

Yun Xi held back her nausea and turned around. It was a young boy with a bone age of ten, carrying a basket. The basket held beautifully embroidered little pouches, which should have been the sachets he mentioned.

Because Yun Xi turned her head, the boy seemed startled and backed away two steps.

Yun Xi raised her hand, took a green pouch into her palm, and held it under her nose to smell.