Somewhere at the east of Xuanhe Kingdom, in a mid-sized mortal city
Sitting cross-legged, a man that seemed around sixty, with brown eyes and pepper-and-salt hair breathed slowly, reciting a scripture as he used his spiritual sense to look inside of his middle dantian.
Exercising control on the few remaining Qi Pieces into it, he moved them around, turned them in multiple directions, put some together and mashed some them together, before trying to add them to an incomplete cube, multiple times. Each time, he used a different configuration to try and complete the cube.
But in the end, even after hundreds of different positions, and over five hours spent, he only managed to place a dozen or so pieces in positions that fit them perfectly in the cube, and left the rest aside.
Despite that, the man looked satisfied as he got up:
"Excellent" he thought out loud. "With that, I reached over ninety-five percent of completion and reached the peak of the early stage!"
In these last twelve years, Baotian worked hard, and not only did he get used to being a demonic cultivator, establishing the necessary foundations, backups and relationships, but he also managed to progress more than a year faster than what he planned, reaching the peak of the early stage!
Qi Pieces were made in a way that there were a large number of possible combinations to create a Qi Cube. It was only when the Cube neared completion that one configuration was left, and Baotian had just reached this point
'Now, I only have to try more configurations until I find the correct one, and I'll directly advance to the mid stage!'
If he processed methodically, even if he tried every wrong solution before finding the good one, it'd still take him less than a year!
'Hmm, I wonder what Hanchen is doing right now' he thought.
The mark he left on him allowed him to keep track of his position and cultivation stage, which had apparently reached the peak middle stage of Qi Refining.
'If he advanced at this speed, it means he either chose to keep using the Xiao clan's scripture or chose to switch to the Liu Sword Scripture instead… but considering his current position, in the north of the kingdom, it seems more likely that he chose the second option'
Baotian smiled and shook his head. In the end, it seems his 'disciple' couldn't resist the idea of a clan's treasure ending in his pocket.
"Ba Ke, are you done cultivating? Then come help me!" a woman's voice echoed.
Baotian sighed deeply, cursing himself a thousandth time:
'Of every possible name, why did I have to choose this one'
It was a tragedy that happened the first time he was asked his name after entering in contact with demonic cultivators. Obviously, presenting himself as Liu Baotian or Zhang Baotian were terrible choices, each for their own reasons. And so, that was how his thought process went:
'Zhang Ming? Heck, that's definitely the worst possible choice. Bao Tian? No, that definitely sounds like what a transmigrator named Baotian would use as a fake name, just changing the original and calling it a day. Baotian Liu? That's the same but worse! Then… Baker? Is that even a name?'
In the end, out of ideas, he had chosen the first part of this word, presenting himself as 'Ba Ke'. And each day, he lived to regret this decision.
"Yes, yes, I'm coming, wait just a damn minute, Zi Moyan!" he said, joining his business partner on the first floor of the building, helping her deal with some clients.
"So, what is it this time, did you just want me to give you some help, again?" he asked through his spiritual sense, annoyed.
"What, do you have a problem with that?" she asked back in the same way. "This building and the pawnbroker business were given as cover for both of us, and I'm your superior in the demonic path, so I have every right to ask you to put a bit of work in"
"We have mortals and Qi Refining workers to do that, stop bullshitting and just admit that you want to see me work like a peasant at your command, you lunatic bitch" Baotian said without the slightest bit of respect.
Zi Moyan, around the same age as him but already at the peak of the Qi Building late stage, was considered as a talent of the demonic path, but because of her lack of background and bad personality, she only had mortals and Qi Refining realm subordinates.
That was until Baotian, someone who searched to get in contact with the demonic path's forces and didn't have high standards, proposed his services, though more as a business partner than as a real subordinate. They soon developed a frenemy type of relationship. Zi Moyan respected someone standing up to her and at the same time was greatly annoyed by him, and Zhang Baotian found her amusing but at the same time was annoyed by her trashy behavior.
'And unlike in Earth's stories, it's not just for the show' he thought. 'If this crazy person knew I had a Core Formation pill or Zhang Ming's scripture, she would immediately cripple me and torture me to get it. Tssk tssk'
"You… you little…" Zi Moyan babbled through spiritual sense, scandalized. "Fine, I'll tell you! A few days ago, a Void Hurricane appeared in the north of the Xuanhe Kingdom. It's a category one, so we should be able to find some interesting things"
Baotian barely managed to keep his composure. A Void Hurricane! They were said to come from outside of the world, and often came along with treasures into them. Once the hurricane had weakened enough, the treasures inside became accessible, calling to the greed of all nearby cultivators. A category one Void Hurricane contained tens of thousands of Qi Refining resources, and hundreds of Qi Building ones.
Baotian, forcing himself to calm down, continued the discussion, trying to stop his greed from making him drool:
"Ah, I see. You said it was in the north, how much north, exactly?
"Extreme north, near the border of the Kingdom. I got the information from sir Bai Zisheng, one of the promising Core Formation of our path. Be grateful I'm sharing it with you"
So this was actually close to the Liu clan? Good, even though he'd have to take some risks, at least he could monitor Hanchen from a closer position.
"Hmm, indeed, I'm very grateful" Baotian said, not fooled. "So tell me, how will we share?"
Zi Moyan frowned, probably annoyed he saw through her:
"Ninety-ten, up to twenty if you have a good contribution" she said.
"Sixty-forty"
"Refusing wine to drink a forfeit! You think you can repay my generosity by just giving out crumbs? You think I'm a beggar?"
"I think I would have ended up learning about it soon anyway, so stop acting as if you just threw swann's meat at me"
"Oh? And how would you learn it?"
"Well, if you left, I would definitely spy on you to know why, so inevitably I would end up learning about it"
"..."
Realizing she was likely thinking about beating him to death right now, while dealing with a customer, he quickly made a compromise:
"Seventy-thirty in your favor, and if we find a Core Formation pill, you get it. We share the rest seventy-thirty in my favor unless there's something of equal or superior value, then you get it and I take the rest" he said. "And you'll be the one providing a spirit contract to seal the deal, and I want to have the first choice on Qi Building level artifacts. Is that alright for you?"
Zi Moyan calmed down a bit, but still kept a stern expression:
"I am at least thrice as strong as you, even without my artifacts, and I occupy a higher position" she said. "Let alone having me make the contract, what makes you think it'd be fair for you to get any more than twenty percent?"
"Because you're the one who is soon going to go through the Core Formation advancement and desperately needs a pill, and you're the one who's too afraid to go alone and need my help to cover your back"
Zi Moyan tried to replicate but, not finding any counter-argument, she could only end up agreeing with his terms. After going to the next floor, Zi Moyan reluctantly took a spirit contract out of her storage ring, and they quickly added the general terms, of course adding a few closes prohibiting backstabbing of all kinds.
"I furnished the contract, so you'll be the one furnishing the 'ink'"
Baotian winced, but he knew he had already pushed as much as possible. Without a word, the two of them went to the secret cave under the building.
Immediately, their senses were assaulted by the strong stench of blood, permeating the space around them. Bodies dried of their blood were hanging from the ceiling. And among them, one person, a young and slightly underweight man, was chained and gagged, seemingly still alive, albeit barely. Seeing the two of them enter the underground cave, the young man immediately tried to shout something but, whether he was trying to plead, call for help or insult them, whatever he was trying to say was muffled by the gag.
"I will… get the ink" Baotian said, fighting his nausea.
Spirit contracts, who could bind the ones signing it to its terms were really useful, and yet they weren't much used by the righteous path. The first reason was that they could only bind cultivators of the same major realm. The second was that their effect only lasted up to one month.
"Mhmmm, mhmmm!"
Baotian, looking away from the captive, kept approaching him. He then began to execute a succession of spells through the Crazed Demonic Blood Burial Mantra, while disguising it as a normal demonic scripture.
Placing a bowl in front of him, he executed one last spell, activating the formation that was engraved in the cave. Immediately, blood first began to come out of the man's seven orifice, and then came out of the pores of his skin, all of it to then be refined into a tenth of a liter of blood essence, that finally entered the bowl.
'I'm sorry' he thought, cowardly looking away to avoid seeing the horrifying phenomenon.
Like every other time where did this, his entire body felt dirty from the act, like a fundamental filth passing through him. That was likely because she didn't want to go through this that Zi Moyan made him extract the blood essence instead of doing it instead.
He turned to her:
"There, I got the ink" he said, his voice and expression stern to mask his true feelings.
Zi Moyan saw through his mask but, having gone through such feelings as well, she decided to ignore it and simply plunged her finger in the blood essence as he did the same:
"Then let's sign" she said.
They both pressed their bloodied fingers onto the spirit contract, sealing it. Right after that, Baotian used a spell to further compress the blood essence, before putting it in his storage bag. He would likely need it in the future since, after all, most spells used through the Crazed Demonic Blood Burial Mantra needed blood essence.
That was why, in these ten last years, Baotian had accumulated over fifty litters of blood essence ready for use.
'It has been a while since I last did that' he thought. 'But in the end, that's a good thing'
Yes, in the end, he had gotten too used to forgetting what path he had chosen. Too much time of peace, that alone was enough to lose sight of the heavens.
'And I cannot allow myself to do that'
Because if he did, he wouldn't be able to win his race against death.
"You said that the Void Hurricane was near the northern border of Xuanhe, right? Then it means it'll take around two weeks to get to it. How much time do you think it'll take for the Void Hurricane to weaken enough for cultivators to enter?"
Zi Moyan thought for a few seconds before replying:
"Apparently, a bit less than twenty days"
"Then that leaves us only a few days of margin. If we want to account for possible travel accidents, or for the hurricane dissipating quicker than planned, we have to go as soon as possible. I'll help you, so let's order our things here quick and depart tomorrow"
"You damn little control freak… fine, then, but you better do the big part if you stress us that much"
Baotian nodded, and made sure to spend the rest of the day working as much as possible to clear his mind. Yet, when he was in his bed, he could only look at the ceiling. It was clearly a dark brown color and yet, when he blinked, he saw red spots on it.
"If death is my reason for living, then what is life?"
It was on this thought that Baotian sank into a deep sleep.
And then, at noon the next day, the two of them departed, leaving for the kingdom's northern border.