As the morning sun rose, three figures soared through the sky.
Ye Feng's face was flushed with excitement, and he waved his arms enthusiastically at Li Guanqi and Cao Yan.
"Boss!! Just low-grade spirit stones alone come to a full thirty thousand!!! We're rich!!!"
Li Guanqi smiled faintly, shaking his head in fond exasperation. "Alright, alright."
"Your dad was willing to shell out a million spirit stones for you, and back when you were betting against me, I didn't see you batting an eye at tens of thousands of spirit stones."
"How can a mere thirty thousand get you this worked up?"
His eyes bright, Ye Feng curled his lip and grinned. "How could that be the same?"
"That's what my old man earned; it has nothing to do with me."
"But these thirty thousand—we earned this together!"
"Right, Big Head?"
Cao Yan said with a look of utter despair, "Second Brother, can you please stop calling me Big Head?"
"You've called me Big Head seventy-eight times throughout the night!"
"Besides, we looted this, we didn't earn it."
Listening to their bickering, Li Guanqi didn't feel annoyed; rather, his heart felt profoundly tranquil.
The path of cultivation was long. If one had to walk it alone, it would simply be too lonely.
Though... Ye Feng truly had a loose tongue, not falling behind the gossiping village women in the slightest.
At the thought, Li Guanqi found himself somewhat missing Fulong Village.
Those were the happiest years he had spent in all his life.
Yet at this moment, he suddenly remembered that the fellow who used to bully him when he was little had also been named Zhao Beichen!
Only, he had already slain the Zhao Beichen of Ziyang Palace. He wondered if that village bully was at home preparing to get married right now.
After all, sixteen was the age to marry.
Just then, the voices of Ye Feng and Cao Yan chatting behind him drifted into his ears, catching his interest.
"Big Head, you said you can refine pills. How good are you at it?"
"Uh... I think I'm pretty good."
"And I don't just know alchemy... talisman crafting and arrays, I dabble in them a bit too."
Li Guanqi was slightly startled. He turned his head and asked in disbelief, "You know talisman crafting and arrays as well?"
Cao Yan gave a somewhat bashful nod, pointing at his own head.
Then, turning to Ye Feng, he said crossly, "It's not called a big head. It's because my divine sense is too immense—so vast I couldn't refine it, and it just kept growing."
"Previously, due to some special reasons, I couldn't cultivate."
"Yet my divine sense kept on expanding."
At this point, Cao Yan looked up at the two and grinned. "If I hadn't met you, even if I hadn't been beaten to death, my expanding divine sense would have eventually caused me to burst and die."
Hearing this, Li Guanqi understood, and he unconsciously rubbed his hands together.
Trading glances with Ye Feng, both felt as though they had struck gold with a living God of Wealth.
With Cao Yan around, they could keep all the materials from slaughtered demonic beasts for him to craft into talismans.
Various rare ores could be given to him to turn into formation plates or flags. When the time came, they wouldn't have to worry about spirit stones at all!
He was an absolute God of Wealth!!
Eager to test him, Ye Feng pulled out a blank talisman slip and some cinnabar, handing them to Cao Yan. "Come on, Big Head, draw one and let me see."
"I've never seen a talisman master make one before."
Cao Yan's face darkened, and he curled his lip. "No talisman brush?"
Ye Feng froze, muttering, "This thing needs a talisman brush? Nobody told me that when I bought it!"
Hearing this, the two beside him couldn't help bursting into laughter.
Just as Li Guanqi was about to stop Ye Feng from fooling around, Cao Yan actually reached out, took the talisman paper, and muttered, "Drawing by hand works too... it's just a bit rusty..."
As he spoke, he dipped his middle finger in some cinnabar.
With primal energy surging inside him, his right hand moved swiftly across the talisman paper!
Looking completely relaxed, within just two breaths, Cao Yan handed the talisman paper to Ye Feng.
Wiping the cinnabar off his finger, he chuckled. "It's just the simplest Fireball Talisman. Haven't drawn one in years, so I'm a bit out of practice."
Ye Feng looked down at the cinnabar smeared across his chest and let out a tragic wail: "Ahhh!!! Big Head!! This is my only new set of clothes left!!!"
Li Guanqi, meanwhile, took the talisman and examined it. The cinnabar had yet to fully dry, yet it already gave off a faint ripple of spiritual power.
Clearly, the Fireball Talisman in his hand was functional!
Pondering for a moment, Li Guanqi raised his hand, channeled a wisp of primal energy into it, and tossed the talisman into the air.
Boom!!!
In an instant, a blue fireball a full foot in size blasted out from the talisman!!
Li Guanqi and Ye Feng stood frozen in place, swallowing hard.
Ye Feng said in a hoarse voice, "B-B-B... Big Head!!!!"
"You call this a motherfucking Fireball Talisman?!"
By the end, Ye Feng's voice turned shrill and high-pitched.
Li Guanqi also closed his mouth, at a loss for words.
One had to know that the Fireball Talismans exchanged with sect merit points in the Great Xia Sword Sect were at most the size of a fist, with very limited power.
Yet the one Cao Yan had just drawn was at least five times larger than an ordinary Fireball Talisman!!
Its power was even comparable to the full-strength strike of a middle Foundation Establishment cultivator!!
Moreover, the color of the flame was abnormal; the eerie blue fire was clearly far hotter and vastly more lethal.
Unfazed, Cao Yan smiled and said, "In my hands, low-grade fire talismans can all achieve this kind of effect, though high-grade ones can't."
"As for arrays... I'm a bit weaker. Alchemy is still what I'm best at."
Hearing this, Li Guanqi couldn't help giving Cao Yan a deep look.
Judging by this, Cao Yan's talent was in no way inferior to his own!
It was no wonder that his clan's power struggle had affected him.
From another angle, this also confirmed that Cao Yan's clan was certainly not weak!
Yet in the next moment, a smile touched the corners of Li Guanqi's mouth, and he laughed softly with a trace of self-mockery.
"Since I've already made my choice, why bother weighing the pros and cons?"
With that, Li Guanqi called out to the other two, "Let's go. There's a shipyard closest to our current location; we can figure out where it's best to head from there."
The two immediately surged forward, following behind the youth.
Suddenly, their expressions unchanged, Li Guanqi and Ye Feng pulled out jade slips at the exact same moment!
An order from the Great Xia Sword Sect!
The message was brief, yet it shook the hearts of all disciples out in the world:
"Starting today, the Great Xia Sword Sect shall retreat from the world for three years!"
"The sect is unharmed; do not worry."
Ye Feng's expression didn't change much, not yet realizing what was going on.
Yet Li Guanqi smiled faintly and consoled him, "Rest assured. Since it says everything is fine, we don't need to worry."
During their conversation, Li Guanqi also told Cao Yan where the two of them came from.
Flying at the very front, Li Guanqi smiled faintly, murmuring inwardly,
"The sect must have already grasped the mysteries of the eleventh stage of Qi Refinement."
As for why he hadn't left behind more, it wasn't because the sect hadn't treated him well enough.
Rather, he felt that for the current Great Xia Sword Sect, never mind techniques for the thirteenth layer—even a method for the twelfth stage would likely make them an instant target, perhaps even bringing about secret destruction at the hands of some powerful faction!
Chapter 203