Chapter 141 – Onyx Exchange Slate

  Luo Feng strode quickly along the stone pathways that led to his immortal cave. His heart was still hammering against his chest even though the cause of his excitement had left his sight a few minutes before.

  As soon as the heavy bronze doors of his residence closed behind him, the hum of the mines faded away, replaced by a deep, serene quiet that was suitable for cultivation and meditation. The air within was cool and crisp, tinged with metallic essence that glimmered like little motes of yellow light in the air.

  Layers of runes pulsed gently on the walls, suppressing the ever-present heat and drawing in the scant ambient energy from the surrounding hillside. The Spiritual Energy was rich here and far denser than it was outside.

  It was a fitting environment for the newest personal Disciple of Sect Master Feng Jianyu.

  But Luo Feng barely noticed any of it. He paced the length of the main chamber, his hands clenching and unclenching in excitement. His usually sharp, calculating eyes were unfocused now, dazed by the memory of what he had just seen.

  “Bai Xuelian.” He murmured, the name leaving his lips like a prayer.

  The image of her burned in his memory. Her calm, elegant posture, and the way she was as radiant as a rose in bloom. The faint chill of her aura was such a contrast to the heat around them.

  Luo Feng has seen many female cultivators before, but never one like her.

  “It must be fate! Yes, the heavens themselves brought her here for us to meet!” Luo Feng shouted as he pictured the two of them together with the entire Sect gathered to witness their union.

  Luo Feng stopped pacing as he was lost in his thoughts. His pulse raced, and he couldn’t contain his excitement. He wanted to leave right away to go find her and declare that she was his and he was hers, that they were destined to be together forever.

  “It’s love at first sight. Fate is guiding me to seize this destined connection. I’ll make her see me. No…she will see me!” Luo Feng whispered, and his conviction that they were meant to be together grew with every word.

  With that, Luo Feng checked the wards to make sure that no one could enter, then sat cross-legged atop his meditation mat and drew in a deep breath to calm his turbulent heart.

  Luo Feng’s heart began to slow as his thoughts turned inward, and a sly grin spread across his face.

  A few short years ago, he had been nothing but a half-forgotten Disciple who spent his days hauling ore and choking on the dust of the mines. His meridians had been weak, his talent unremarkable and barely enough to cultivate at all.

  No Elder, let alone the Sect Master himself, would have bothered to remember his name. If it hadn’t been for the fateful encounter in the mines, he would still be a nobody.

  Luo Feng reached into his storage bag, and his fingers gingerly brushed against something that was smooth and cold. A ripple of excitement tinged with greed passed through him at the sensation.

  What he drew out was a perfectly flat, black stone slate that shimmered faintly beneath the lights of his immortal cave. Its surface was darker than night, yet polished so finely that it reflected his own face back at him.

  If he stared deeply into it, he swore he could see motes of light like stars in the sky.

  When he had first found it buried deep beneath the mines, he had thought it was no different from other black rocks or the surrounding ore. Luo Feng figured that it was worthless, or just a trinket that looked pretty enough to exchange for a few Contribution Points.

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  But that changed the day he accidentally set a piece of silver ore on top of it.

  He recalled the moment vividly. There was a brief flash of light, and there was now a bottle of Qi Nourishing Pills where the silver ore had been only a moment before. He had thought that it was some kind of illusion or a trick, but when he tried it again, the results were the same.

  Each time he placed an object on the slate, something different would take its place. Sometimes it was a useful item, sometimes it was strange or bizarre, but they were always real.

  He named it the Onyx Exchange Slate, and it had changed his fortunes forever.

  The Slate was a strange and wondrous artifact, one that Luo Feng had never seen recorded in any of the Sect’s Jade Slips or library of known treasures. Despite a few years of cautious experimentation, Luo Feng had only managed to uncover a few of its mysterious rules.

  Its most basic function was simple. If an item was placed on its surface, it would vanish and be replaced with something entirely different. The exchange was instantaneous and couldn’t be repeated. He had tried to give some of the odder items back, but the Slate refused to cooperate with him.

  The Slate was also picky and unpredictable. He could never be sure what he was going to get in exchange, but he found that it did have a pattern. The items the Slate gave him were always roughly equal in value to what was offered.

  It was incredibly odd that it wasn’t stingy about what it gave him in return, nor was it generous. He could toss a low-grade spirit stone onto the slate to receive a basic talisman or a minor pill, but a piece of rare ore would net him a weapon fragment, even a Foundation Establishment Pill.

  For Luo Feng, who had access to a lot of materials that were nearly worthless to the Sect unless refined, it was a perfect artifact.

  The Ironvein Quarry Sect was literally sitting atop a wealth of resources in the form of ores, metals, and even beast remains. While they were valuable in theory, they were of little practical use without proper refinement.

  In fact, a lot of Disciples saw some of the more common ores as waste while searching for rarer materials. Luo Feng looked at them as an endless opportunity.

  When he first discovered its usefulness, Luo Feng would trade his day’s haul of ores and slag metal for the Slate’s mysterious blessings. Sometimes the exchanges yielded nothing more than useless trinkets, but he would sometimes review Alchemy Pills, Body Refinement Elixirs, or cultivation resources.

  It was the kind of objects that would cost him a fortune if purchased through the Sect, and often required an Elder’s backing to obtain legitimately.

  In this way, the Slate had become his new backer, the foundation to his rise in prominence within the Sect. Every breakthrough, every pill he consumed, every treasure he used to barter with his peers or trade to the Sect for Contribution Points, all of them had come from the Onyx Exchange Slate.

  Without it, he could never have reached the 6th Level of Qi condensation in such a short time, or become the personal Disciple of the Sect Master.

  The Slate was his most closely guarded secret, hidden from everyone for fear of it being taken away from him. He had told everyone that he had stumbled upon a small inheritance site filled with a few odds and ends while wandering the hills outside the Sect.

  And now, staring into its glossy surface, Luo Feng’s smile widened. The Slate had given him everything that he could ever want for his cultivation and status. Why should it be any different in matters of the heart?

  “Perfect. If I want to win the heart of Bai Xuelian, I need something worthy of her. Something that shows I’m not some miner or backwater Disciple. The Tranquil Mountain Sect is filled with treasures, but I doubt it has the sort of things the Slate can offer.”

  Luo Feng placed his hand on the Salte, feeling it thrum faintly beneath his fingers as though it was responding to his intent and sharing in his excitement.

  “What do you say, are you going to give me something worthy of the beautiful Bai Xuelian of the Tranquil Mountain Sect? She won’t accept anything mundane. Only the finest items can catch such a woman’s eyes.”

  With a sweep of his sleeve, Luo Feng pulled out a small pile of spirit stones from his storage bag, along with a rare piece of ore he had stolen from the mine during his last ‘inspection’ using his status as the Sect Master’s Disciple.

  The last was a vial of Foundation Establishment Beast Blood that he had traded using a half-dozen spiritual artifacts with a rogue Cultivator a few months before that, which he had been intending to use in his own Body Refinement when he reached a higher Cultivation Level.

  As the items touched the black surface of the Slate, the spiritual energy in the room fluctuated slightly. The items disappeared in a flash of light, and Luo Feng was observant enough to see them being swallowed by the Salte.

  Luo Feng’s heart pounded as he waited. The more value the items he gave, the longer the delay. He imagined someone on the other side of the Slate, calculating the worth, before determining what he should be given in return.

  “Give me something magnificent. Something worthy of her!”