Chapter 93
Translator: T_Fan
At Lee Hyun’s question, Toad stared at the Cicada mask, gripped by terror.
Just who in the world was this man!?
White Weasel was a Foundation Establishment Great Perfection cultivator. He was powerful enough to command respect in most mid-sized sects, yet a single sword fragment kicked at him by the man in the Cicada mask had left him crippled.
And that was not all.
In a chamber sealed on all sides, he had taken the combined attacks of two early Golden Core cultivators’ magic treasures head-on. Then he had utterly overwhelmed and slaughtered them.
‘This man can’t possibly be a Foundation Establishment cultivator!’
Toad swallowed hard at the sight of False Badger’s and Crane’s blood spreading across the floor.
‘If even the inspector is this powerful…… what realm could the former society head he serves possibly be in?’
When Crane had scoffed at all that talk of a former society head, dismissing him as a ghost from the distant past, Toad had silently agreed. Now he could have kicked himself for it.
He was no ghost, but a genuine old monster who had been silently watching from on high all along!
Instead of answering, Toad slammed his forehead against the floor.
Thud.
“I-I pledge my loyalty! To the Two Heavens Society, to you, Inspector… to the Society Head… I’ve been loyal all along! I only followed the senior elders’ orders. I’ve never harmed any of our members!”
His cracked voice echoed through the ruined hall.
The talisman in his hand was half-crumpled and soaked with sweat. He seemed to have abandoned all thought of activating it long ago.
“Get up for now.”
Toad rose awkwardly to his feet. His knees shook so badly that he could barely stand.
Then, as though something had just occurred to him, he hurriedly rummaged through his sleeve. He brought out the new jade token he had received from the Council of Senior Elders and presented it with both hands.
“I-I’ve already surrendered my primordial-spirit imprint to the Council of Senior Elders. Weasel has the jade plaque containing it. But whatever you ask of me, Inspector…”
“If you do your job well, I’ll release your imprint later.”
“Pardon?”
Toad stared blankly at Lee Hyun.
“But in return, you’ll have to clean up this mess properly, won’t you?”
“Of course!”
Lee Hyun was not particularly fond of Toad either, but for now, he wanted to avoid losing all of the Two Heavens Society’s transaction ledgers. Too many innocent members were involved.
Besides, Toad was only at mid Foundation Establishment, so it was unlikely that he had orchestrated the affair. If he tried anything later, Lee Hyun could deal with him then.
Lee Hyun first sealed the residual energy in the two Golden Core cultivators’ corpses, then smashed their golden cores to pieces. He could no longer sense even their souls, but there was no telling whether they had learned some sinister technique.
Bang. Bang.
Toad broke out in a cold sweat at the sight.
Lee Hyun then collected the Golden Core cultivators’ storage pouches, False Badger’s mask, and all the magic treasures scattered across the floor.
Just then, a low groan came from near the wall.
It was White Weasel.
Blood was spreading around the sword fragment lodged in the right side of his chest, but a Foundation Establishment Great Perfection cultivator was not so easily killed.
Lee Hyun took Weasel’s storage pouch and the artifacts at his waist, then sent spiritual power into his body to seal several meridians. He then pressed the acupoints around Weasel’s wound. The bleeding stopped.
White Weasel’s eyes slowly regained focus. His shoulders twitched when the Cicada mask came into view.
“…Are you going to spare me?”
“I’m only keeping you alive for now because I have some questions.”
Lee Hyun crouched in front of him.
“Who is the grand elder in northern Jing Kingdom?”
White Weasel’s lips moved soundlessly for a moment before he finally spoke.
“He is called Black Wolf. He wears a Black Wolf mask, but I have never seen him unmasked.”
“Then how did you receive his orders?”
“Normally through the Council of Senior Elders’ special jade tokens and coded messages. The grand elder is extremely reluctant to meet anyone in person. I heard that even Badger… no, that man rarely met him face-to-face.”
White Weasel’s gaze shifted to the corpse lying in front of the stone door.
The mask was gone, revealing an ordinary middle-aged face above the blood-soaked, gold-threaded robe.
“His realm?”
“All I know is that he is in the Golden Core realm. He was rumored to be at mid Golden Core or higher. Even Senior Elder Crane did not dare defy his orders.”
“Which sect does he belong to?”
“I don’t know.”
“How many senior elders are there?”
“Apart from the grand elder, Senior Elder Crane, and that man, there are two more Golden Core senior elders. One in northwestern Heng Kingdom and one in northern Jing Kingdom. The senior elders know what one another looks like, but… they did not get along.”
“Would the grand elder know immediately if a senior elder died? Have they left life tablets or soul lamps in his keeping?”
White Weasel gave a weak laugh.
“There are none. The senior elders did not trust one another.”
“Where did you keep the members’ primordial-spirit imprints?”
“…The imprints of the members I oversee in northern Xuan Kingdom and Heng Kingdom are in my storage pouch. The grand elder personally holds the imprints of the members in Jing Kingdom.”
White Weasel struggled for breath.
“I’ve told you all this… please…. I was just about to attempt Core Formation. The Council of Senior Elders had even promised me a Golden Core Condensing Pill… If you spare my life, I will be yours to command once I form my golden core, Inspector.”
Lee Hyun looked at Toad.
“Bring me that chest over there.”
Toad hurried to obey.
Lee Hyun set the chest Toad brought him in front of Weasel. It was the same chest Weasel had used to threaten him earlier. Inside were old-style identification jade tokens with broken restrictions and bloodstained surfaces.
When Lee Hyun asked about the jade tokens, White Weasel claimed he knew nothing about them and had only done as the senior elders ordered.
“You seemed rather proud of them earlier.”
“I-I…”
Weasel’s gaze shifted uneasily.
Lee Hyun pushed the chest aside and opened the storage pouch he had taken from Weasel earlier. The restrictions left by a Foundation Establishment cultivator did not hold out for long.
Inside Weasel’s storage pouch was a jade case with seven thin jade plaques slotted into it.
Each jade plaque held a member’s primordial-spirit imprint. Channeling spiritual power into the jade case would torment the primordial spirits bound to those imprints.
Toad instinctively hunched his shoulders at the sight of the jade case.
Lee Hyun asked.
“Is yours in here too?”
“The third one from the left.”
Lee Hyun turned back to Weasel.
“How do I release the imprints on these jade plaques?”
Lee Hyun gave Weasel a choice: willingly explain how to release the imprints, or endure the pain of having his memories forcibly read with the Soul-Searching Art.
Golden Core cultivators who had learned the Soul-Searching Art could forcibly read another person’s memories, but Weasel would most likely be left a mindless wreck.
Of course, Lee Hyun did not know how to use the Soul-Searching Art. But Weasel had no way of knowing that!
Having witnessed Inspector Cicada’s prowess, Weasel answered without hesitation. As Lee Hyun continued to question him rather than use the Soul-Searching Art, Weasel clung to a faint hope that he might be spared and entrusted with important duties. He even volunteered information Lee Hyun had not asked for.
Lee Hyun checked Weasel’s account against the relevant jade slips from his storage pouch. He also inspected the restrictions on the jade case and jade plaques himself.
A short while later, after testing the method, Lee Hyun released most of the imprints. Pale wisps of energy drifted out of each jade plaque and dispersed.
He kept only the jade plaque holding Toad’s imprint.
“You saw me release the other members’ primordial-spirit imprints just now, didn’t you? Once the handover is complete, I’ll release yours too.”
Hope shone in Toad’s eyes as he replied.
“I pledge my loyalty!”
Weasel struggled to lift his head.
“I’ve told you everything I know…”
Lee Hyun pressed a small jade slip, also taken from Weasel’s storage pouch, to his forehead.
It recorded which members had refused to surrender imprints, as well as the punishments inflicted through the jade case. The records were quite detailed, noting dates, bases, and even the types of masks involved.
Lee Hyun questioned Toad through voice transmission and found that he knew about several of the incidents. Cross-checking Toad’s account against the records confirmed Weasel’s direct involvement.
Lee Hyun spoke.
“I understand how much you value your life. The owners of those jade tokens must have felt the same.”
The instant Weasel’s mouth fell open in shock, the Yang Metal Art flashed, punching a hole between his brows. A moment later, his primordial spirit dispersed.
…
The stone door was still tightly shut.
Toad spoke cautiously.
“The formation plate is broken… so I can’t deactivate the formation with hand seals. The senior elders brought in an outside formation master to install it. He said that breaking the door open would require a Golden Core cultivator to attack at full strength…”
Lee Hyun pressed his palm to the wall beside the stone door. As he traced the formation inscriptions with a fine thread of divine sense, he found that the energy converged at a single point deep within the bedrock beyond the iron plate.
‘There it is.’
“I’ll be back in a moment.”
Before Toad could ask what he meant, Lee Hyun sank into the floor.
The profound iron plate rippled like water and swallowed him.
When Lee Hyun rose through the floor again, the stone door was already half-open. The blue formation inscriptions on the walls were going dark one by one.
Toad stood rooted to the spot, his mouth hanging open.
Lee Hyun stepped out through the stone doorway and spread his divine sense. He could no longer sense the guard cultivator who had been checking jade tokens at the manor’s entrance.
‘He fled.’
When crashes and tremors had begun coming from a hall occupied by two Golden Core senior elders, the guard had apparently chosen to flee rather than investigate.
Lee Hyun turned to Toad.
“Let’s start by getting things in order.”
…
The warehouse stood on the far side of the pond.
Toad lifted the restriction, and the door opened.
Inside, shelves stood in tightly packed rows, laden with jade caskets, pill bottles, and bundles of medicinal ingredients. Along one wall, jade slips containing the ledgers were slotted in numerical order.
Toad pulled out one of the ledgers.
“About half the goods here were entrusted to us. They were held under the pretext of guaranteeing transactions, then withheld until the owners paid the toll. The rest was stockpiled as the Council of Senior Elders’ share.”
…
They began settling the warehouse accounts.
Separate lists were made for returning entrusted goods to their owners and refunding the spirit stones extorted in tolls by the Council of Senior Elders to the affected bases. Some of the toll money had already gone into the senior elders’ storage pouches, but as long as it was recorded in the ledgers, it could still be repaid.
Lee Hyun decided to cover the shortfall with his own mid-grade spirit stones for now. The divine-sense restrictions on the Golden Core cultivators’ storage pouches were too strong to break immediately.
As the work in the warehouse drew to a close, Lee Hyun looked again at the chest of damaged jade tokens. Their owners had been killed for refusing to surrender their primordial spirits.
He could hardly say they had died for a society head they had never met. Most had probably resisted because they refused to place their primordial spirits in someone else’s hands. For a cultivator, having their primordial spirit held hostage was little different from being cut off from the immortal path.
Even so, as society head, he could not help feeling sorry for them.
Lee Hyun also investigated the identities of the jade tokens’ owners.
“Do any of them have surviving family or known associates?”
“The ledgers list contacts for seven of them. We’ll have to look into the rest.”
Lee Hyun handed Toad a pouch of mid-grade spirit stones.
“Find them and give each of them compensation. Limit the search to what can be confirmed through our existing contacts. And from now on, Golden Core members may no longer guarantee or broker transactions. They may participate only as parties to a transaction. The position of senior elder is abolished as well.”
Toad was astonished even as he wrote down Lee Hyun’s instructions.
The inspector had ordered such generous compensation for the families of dead Foundation Establishment members! Toad had thought him utterly ruthless, never imagining that he possessed such profound benevolence and righteousness!
“What should we do if the grand elder in northern Jing Kingdom contacts us or sends someone?”
“There’s no need to hide anything. Quietly spread word among the bases that had ties to the Council of Senior Elders. Tell them an inspector acting on the former society head’s orders visited Qingshi Ridge, and the impostor society head and the senior elder who violated the society’s rules were both slaughtered there.”
“…!”
…
Lee Hyun copied all the records there. He could not trust Toad completely.
After checking the ledgers that had been handed over, Lee Hyun released Toad’s primordial-spirit imprint as promised.
When the last wisp of energy dispersed from the jade plaque, Toad touched his head in a daze.
“Thank you, Inspector!”
Lee Hyun ordered the remaining settlements to be handled at another base. He also called for several changes to the contact routes and the way transactions were processed. He told Toad to change his mask and meeting places as well. If the grand elder sent anyone after them, Toad would be the first to be seized.
After wrapping up matters at the Qingshi Ridge base, Lee Hyun parted ways with Toad.
Rather than going straight after Black Wolf or the other Golden Core members, he decided to return somewhere safe for now.
Lee Hyun did not know Black Wolf’s face, his exact realm, or where he was staying.
The man had controlled the contact network and transaction guarantees for decades. Somewhere in northern Jing Kingdom, he probably had another manor like this one, with formations and traps already in place.
Meanwhile, Lee Hyun had hardly any usable magic tools left.
The Azure Steel Sword had shattered, and the Sinking Moon Sword had developed hairline cracks. About half of the Six-Leaf Shield was unusable as well.
There was no need to charge into enemy territory without being fully prepared.
In the worst case, a great sect from Yunzhou or Nanming might be backing the remaining Golden Core senior elders.
If they were merely Golden Core rogue cultivators, Inspector Cicada’s display of strength would surely make them keep their heads down and watch their behavior within the Two Heavens Society from now on.
On the other hand, if they were not even concerned that Inspector Cicada had killed two Golden Core members, they must have good reason for their confidence. In that case, it would be safer to avoid a confrontation for now.
…
A short message was sent to the contact bases.
Those who had impersonated the society head at Qingshi Ridge and bound the members’ primordial spirits had been executed.
Members no longer needed to pay the additional fees those men had imposed, and anyone who had not yet received their goods back was to submit their transaction records.
The contact routes passing through Qingshi Ridge were also changed.
Different people were assigned to hold the goods and handle payments. A way was also established to request verification from another base if problems arose with an intermediary.
There was no telling whether these measures would solve everything, but for now, Lee Hyun would have to wait and see how things developed.
***
Several days later, deep underground in eastern Xu Kingdom.
A cavern lay within the natural bedrock.
Lee Hyun was struggling to break the divine-sense restrictions on the Golden Core cultivators’ storage pouches.
Wary of hidden tracking restrictions, he had not returned directly to Tunnel No. 3. Instead, he had come here, far from his tunnel.
At last, he managed to break the restrictions on both pouches!
He began taking out the contents of False Badger’s, Crane’s, and White Weasel’s storage pouches in turn.
High-grade and mid-grade spirit stones poured out!
By a rough count, there were more than 14,000 mid-grade spirit stones alone, along with a hundred gleaming high-grade spirit stones stored in several jade caskets.
One high-grade spirit stone was worth a hundred mid-grade spirit stones. That made the spirit stones alone worth more than 24,000 mid-grade spirit stones, a staggering fortune!
“…!”
He could not help smiling.
Even after accounting for the spirit stones he had advanced for the refunds and paid out in compensation, he had made an enormous profit!
He had been deeply disappointed when the Azure Steel Sword shattered and the Six-Leaf Shield and Sinking Moon Sword were damaged.
Looking at his haul now, though, perhaps he had not needed to be so upset.
…
While sifting through the rest of the spoils, Lee Hyun found a heavy box deep inside False Badger’s storage pouch.
When he removed the seal and opened the box, sharp metal qi rose from within, revealing a fist-sized chunk of metal.
It was a rare spirit material, its surface densely patterned with gold markings as fine as threads.
‘Golden-Thread Cold Iron! And it’s a Tier 3 spirit material?’
It was a valuable mineral used as a primary material for refining or repairing magic treasures.
False Badger seemed to have been saving it for a long time, either to repair his Golden Light Pagoda or to forge a new magic treasure.
Lee Hyun sealed the spirit material back inside the box and put it in his storage pouch.
…
He set the jade slips from the spoils to one side.
They contained a mixture of cultivation methods, techniques, instructions for using artifacts, and transaction records.
As far as he could tell from a quick look, none of it was particularly valuable.
Lee Hyun set aside only the records on the Golden Light Pagoda and Mother-Child Rings, then sorted and stored the rest.
Then he examined the gold-threaded Badger mask again.
The bridge of the nose and the muzzle were finely shaped, and the inside was even lined with soft leather for a snug, comfortable fit.
‘Isn’t this nice…? I’ll wear this one from now on.’
…
Finally, he examined the magic treasures.
False Badger’s Golden Light Pagoda had shrunk to fit in his palm. It was hard to believe this was the same treasure that had grown nearly to the ceiling at Qingshi Ridge and unleashed beams of light.
The pagoda’s exterior bore marks where the Sinking Moon Sword’s sword qi had grazed it.
Lee Hyun rubbed the spot with a fingertip.
The marks were very shallow.
‘It’s sturdy.’
When he cautiously extended his divine sense into it, he sensed a complex web of restrictions within. Most importantly, the energy its previous owner had imparted through prolonged nurturing had seeped deep into the treasure.
The real problem, however, was how to use the magic treasure.
The restrictions in a magic treasure were designed for a Golden Core cultivator’s magical power. Lee Hyun would have to investigate further to see whether a large quantity of Foundation Establishment spiritual power alone would be enough to operate it fully.
Nor would it be easy for him to turn the spirit materials into other artifacts better suited to his needs.
Melting down and refining Tier 3 spirit materials such as Golden-Thread Cold Iron, or completed magic treasures, required the core flame of a Golden Core cultivator or a Tier 3 flame.
Here, too, the quality of magical power mattered. He would struggle with Foundation Establishment spiritual power alone, no matter how much he used.
Lee Hyun chose not to push it and withdrew his divine sense for now.
He then took out the Azure Thunder Mother-Child Rings he had collected and examined them as well.
Eight smaller rings overlapped a single large one. Despite being knocked away by Lee Hyun’s sword qi, they showed almost no visible damage.
The stele-shaped defensive magic treasure, on the other hand, had a crack near its base.
Apparently, he had pressed down too hard with the Sumeru Mountain-Suppressing Seal.
‘That’s a shame.’
He had not had the luxury of holding back for the sake of his spoils, so it could not be helped.
Lee Hyun sealed the Golden Light Pagoda and Azure Thunder Mother-Child Rings separately and put them in his storage pouch, then packed away the damaged treasures on their own.
Even the fragments of the shattered red mirror and the cracked stele would retain some value as spirit materials.
…
After putting away the spirit stones and miscellaneous spoils, Lee Hyun thought back to the cultivation plan he had recently made, which included producing Essence-Cultivating Pills through alchemy.
That plan left him with an annual shortfall of just under four hundred mid-grade spirit stones.
Even after deducting the spirit stones he had returned to the members at Qingshi Ridge and given to the bereaved families, today’s haul alone would cover that shortfall for decades.
Of course, repairing his sword and shield and acquiring other artifacts would cost money too.
Still, he would not have to dig up and sell his older spirit herbs for some time.
‘And their medicine age will keep increasing in the meantime.’
…
Ten days later, at Tunnel No. 3.
Lee Hyun was examining the Sinking Moon Sword.
The hairline cracks in the blade were not deep. The problem was that the tip was slightly chipped.
Lee Hyun first used his divine sense to examine the points where the hairline cracks met the blade’s restrictions.
Fortunately, the core restrictions were undamaged.
When he bought the Sinking Moon Sword, he had been told it contained Tier 2 Thick Earth Refined Metal, which made scratches and fine cracks easy to repair. Perhaps it could be repaired.
But a clumsy repair attempt could ruin the properties of a sword listed in the Nanming Hundred Artifacts Register, and there would be no undoing that damage.
The Six-Leaf Shield, in particular, seemed far too badly damaged for him to repair himself.
With his limited knowledge of the artifact-refining art, he was reluctant to work on either one. Lee Hyun decided to visit cultivator markets in search of a skilled artifact refiner.
***
At the same time.
A cultivator market in northern Jing Kingdom.
A cultivator wearing a Black Wolf mask set down a jade slip.
Opposite him stood a Foundation Establishment cultivator in a Crow mask.
“Crane and Badger are both dead?”
“That is what the reports say.”
“Tell me what you know for certain.”
Crow offered him another jade slip.
“The hall at Qingshi Ridge collapsed. The warehouse was empty, and those who handled communications had relocated.”
“Who took the goods?”
“It appears they were distributed to the parties involved in the transactions.”
Black Wolf’s hand went still.
“They returned them?”
“Yes. It was not looting. It seems they identified the owners of the goods and the amounts owed, then settled the accounts through the existing contact network. We have only been able to verify some of the transactions, though…”
“Who do they say did it?”
“Inspector Cicada.”
Black Wolf was silent for a moment.
He had heard of Inspector Cicada before. The man supposedly answered directly to the former society head, traveling from region to region to trade and occasionally inspect the bases.
“He did it alone?”
“No one else was named in the message.”
Black Wolf tapped a finger against the table.
‘Impossible… Crane and False Badger were Golden Core cultivators… Is Inspector Cicada really that strong? Could Society Head Badger from all those years ago still be alive? If the same man has survived all this time… he would have to be at least a Nascent Soul cultivator!?’
Of course, the position of society head could have been passed down from one successor to the next. But he had never personally confirmed the former society head’s death.
Suddenly, he found himself afraid of the Two Heavens Society.
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