Several bottles containing the famed alchemy pills of immortal cultivation were spread onto cloth.

  Lu Qingshan stared at the available bottles in front of him. There were three types: the fasting pills, of which there were five bottles, generic spiritual qi recovery pills, containing only one bottle, and a stamina and blood replenisher pill, with two sets. "Have you used any of these?"

  "No," An Xin said. "We wanted to save them for when we were actually in danger. Those fasting pills were supposed to last us a while. Twenty pills a bottle, and each pill staves off hunger for a few days."

  Lu Qingshan frowned. Twenty pills and five bottles meant a hundred portions, lasting around a year for a single person. This would normally be enough for a small group of people looking for treasure. But their group was too large. He also planned to stay much longer than a few months.

  "Song Lin, it's time to pay your share," he said. The man immediately reached into his bag and pulled out his own set of pills. Unfortunately, it was much less than the An siblings' portion.

  "I have three sets of fasting pill bottles," Song Lin reported. "And one set for each of the other two."

  "Why is your amount so low?"

  “My Song family is not quite an established immortal family yet. But they do have a Qi Refinement cultivator. My cousin." Song Lin's voice was dripping with resentment, clearly audible. "They didn’t have the resources to support both me and my cousin. So they sent me down here alone. All their efforts were spent on him instead.”

  “They left me only with my clothes and my bags. I’m nobody now. All because that immortal favored him over me. Even my so-called friends and family have all abandoned me.”

  Lu Qingshan cocked his head. "The Song family... you wouldn't happen to be from Great Wind City, would you?"

  "I am," Song Lin said with a small stutter. "Have you met them?"

  "I have." Lu Qingshan would never forget them. After all, so many flies had died by their hands. He also remembered the cruelty they treated the smugglers who had taken Lu Qingshan into the city. "Do you seek revenge?"

  A moment's hesitation. But it didn't take long for Song Lin to nod his head. "If you can kill my cousin and give me what I rightfully deserve, I am willing to serve you. Are you a Qi Refinement realm cultivator?"

  Lu Qingshan had to shake his head no. "Are they very common in the immortal world?"

  "I don't really know," Song Lin muttered. "After the other cultivator took my cousin in as a disciple, my family didn't let me leave much. They said they wanted to protect me, but look at what happened."

  Lu Qingshan then turned to the An siblings, who said without missing a beat, “Our pills were from a market for immortal cultivators. They’re run by people in white masks.”

  “White... masks?”

  “Yes,” An Xin said, nervously glancing around. “The same white masks that run the ghost markets. Many of the immortal markets outside of sect-controlled territories are also controlled by this group. They have a long history — rumored to be centuries old!”

  Lu Qingshan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “The ghost markets of the mortal realm? Are they that powerful?” To control multiple immortal markets for centuries meant a vast amount of wealth. Incomparable to kingdoms and inconceivable to mortals. So then why did they place so much importance in maintaining control over mortal territories?

  "We don't know," An Zichen muttered. "How could we? We're just lone cultivators trying to scrape by. You have no idea how difficult it is to contend with even immortal families, who have consistent inheritances. Let alone the sects."

  “Keep going,” he said. “I want to hear everything.”

  “Our journey started in the cliffs of Moontide Mountain," An Zichen said. "It was there we found our immortal cultivation opportunity. We were villagers, residing within the territory of the Pure Frost Kingdom."

  "You aren't from this kingdom?" Lu Qingshan had to admit this was fairly shocking. The next major kingdom was the Golden Pillar Kingdom, and it was many, many months away. Though the two kingdoms bordered one another in technicality, no one had bothered mounting an invasion against the other due to the sheer amount of untamed wilderness in between.

  "We're not," An Xin replied. "We only managed to reach here after boarding a ship. They were offering spots for cheap and we managed to scavenge up enough spirit stones to enter."

  An Zichen looked sorrowful. "We were forced to leave our family behind. The ship refused to take mortals with them, and we weren't an exception."

  "Why did you come here then?"

  "This was supposed to be an area lacking spiritual qi. We were supposed to have real power here. To rule over mortals was not going to be the best life, but it would buy us time to cultivate. Then we could consider returning, although the journey would be long."

  "But our expectations were quickly shattered. This place is even more dangerous than the one we left. There were too many immortal cultivators in the markets, and there were even some who could fly. The white masks were in every market we went to. There was no avoiding them.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  "You're telling me the ghost markets span multiple kingdoms, with high-ranking immortal cultivators as their leaders." Lu Qingshan muttered. "Then why did they even trade for Divine Crossbows? Just to tempt us here?"

  Beside him, Meng Zhang shivered slightly, eyes focused on something in the distance. Lu Qingshan began to wonder just who the Elder’s master had made an enemy.

  “You said there were people who could fly. I’ve never heard of that ability,” Lu Qingshan said. "Is that an ability of Qi Refinement realm cultivators? Do you know about the realms of immortal cultivation above Qi Refinement?"

  “No,” An Xin muttered. “There was no one willing to tell us.”

  “Then we’re actually the same kind of people.” Lu Qingshan extended a hand to each of the two. Hesitantly, they took it, and he lifted them back up onto their feet.

  “Sorry about that,” he said, patting them on their backs. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t demonic cultivators. You were being too cryptic about it earlier. What was that anyway?”

  “We… had a strange encounter with demonic cultivators at one point. It was years ago,” An Xin said. “They didn’t do anything to us but let us go.”

  Lu Qingshan immediately narrowed his eyes. He walked closely behind them and began to quietly recite the Insect Harmony Mantra. As they stood there, beginning to wonder what he was doing, Lu Qingshan felt something glide across his spiritual connections.

  He focused on that feeling, but it was too elusive. Like a rabbit hiding in three burrows, the moment Lu Qingshan caught wind of its presence, it disappeared. But the Insect Harmony Mantra had other ways of dealing with such bugs.

  The crystal cicada emerged from an emptied bag filled with jade boxes. It lazily flew around An Xin’s body while her eyes widened to their fullest in sheer terror.

  “What are you doing?” An Zichen angrily mouthed. Stricken with fear, there wasn’t much the man could do to protect his sister.

  “Don’t worry,” Lu Qingshan said, eyes narrowed. “It’s trying to help your sister — those demonic cultivators did not leave you untouched.”

  The crystal cicada flew close enough to An Xin that it almost touched her hair with its wings. The dust almost clung to her skin, but an invisible breeze blew it the other way. Lu Qingshan was sure he didn’t do that, so it must’ve been the insect. He stopped caring; it was more important to locate that vague presence again.

  He found it. The cicada struck the next instant.

  It tore through An Xin’s body and left behind a trail of glittering crystal. An Zichen screamed, rushing forward to help his sister, but then he stopped. Almost tripped. In a breath’s span of time the cicada had ripped out another insect from his sister’s body.

  “What is that?” he half-sobbed, half-shouted. “Is that inside me as well?”

  Lu Qingshan continued his chanting, a firm hold on the man’s shoulders in order to calm them down. Meanwhile, the crystal cicada simply flew around and turned its held insect crystalline. Once the demonic bug was completely crystallized, the cicada chewed through it like paper.

  When it was finished with its meal, it struck An Zichen’s body and pulled out another demonic insect. Then it repeated the same process. Lu Qingshan backed away and watched in pleasure as his Insect Harmony Mantra proficiency soared.

  Qin Ye stooped down to inspect the two cultivators’ wounds. Crystal growths had stemmed the bleeding, but posed major problems of its own. The skin around the wound was turning black and crystal was attempting to grow in their place.

  Spiritual qi flowed from his fingers and severed the growths. Li Fanghua took her position as well beside him, the two working together to drive away the crystals. Fortunately, the An siblings managed to recover, their growths flaking to the ground after some time had passed.

  Lu Qingshan looked at the martial artists standing nervously to the side. “Sorry,” he said, giving them a small smile. “I’ll have to check if your bodies have the same thing. It won’t take long, I promise.”

  “I’m not dying here!” a martial artist shouted and fled. But he couldn’t even outrun Jin Teng, let alone Lu Qingshan. A fist blew through the man’s chest and shattered their heart and lungs into chunks. Out from the gore emerged a demonic insect, which was quickly snatched up by the crystal cicada.

  Lu Qingshan had already written off these martial artists in his head. Even after his displays of strength, many refused to submit. They were still looking for ways to escape — never mind the fact that working together was how to increase their chances of survival.

  “You don’t have a choice,” he said. “Now stay still and relax.”

  Fortunately, only one other martial artist had an insect inside them, and they were from the An siblings' faction. Unfortunately, the man failed to survive the crystal growths even with both Qin Ye and Li Fanghua working tirelessly to heal him.

  “Sorry,” Lu Qingshan apologized. “It needed to be done. Demonic cultivators have multiple strange methods and I was trying to keep us safe by denying them those methods.”

  “It’s fine,” An Xin said, sitting up. She was still gasping for breath though and her eyes were unfocused. “I remember now. Those demonic cultivators…” she collapsed again.

  It was only a bout of vertigo. Lu Qingshan watched everyone for any abnormal behavior before he switched to seeing through the perspective of his flies back at the exit of the fog sea. What was truly strange was that nobody else had exited the sea of fog yet even after a week. Only two of the five groups he’d spotted had escaped: Song Lin and the An siblings. That was problematic. Especially now that he'd been reminded of demonic cultivators.

  He waited until the two siblings woke up and were ready to begin walking. "Did you two hear any news about this place? Why did you come here?" he asked. "I am here because the ghost market gave me information about a map."

  "Same here," An Xin said. "They offered a discount for my next purchase if I bought the map. I did some research and thought it looked feasible."

  Song Lin nodded as well. "It came as a complimentary gift to my cousin," he muttered. "I was promised wealth here."

  "Then did any of you know anything about this place?"

  "No," An Xin said. "But we were told there would be no Qi Refinement cultivators here."

  Lu Qingshan frowned. Assuming the ghost market wasn’t lying, they likely knew something. It was probably the fog — that was the one area that stood a good chance of blocking people out.

  But even if it treated Qi Refinement cultivators differently, that didn’t guarantee anything. A phenomenon was still rooted in reality, and there were always ways to break them. Especially considering the strange yet powerful methods of demonic cultivators who had been tracking the An siblings up until this point.

  They needed to leave, fast.

  “We have to go,” he said. “Run, far away from here.”