The Silk Road

Accompanied by Sick Monkey, Chen Fan rode his Skeleton Horse out of the canyon. Standing at the canyon mouth, he gazed out toward the sea, pondering his plans for what lay ahead. The sky was clear for ten thousand li. The sunlight fell warmly upon him, dispelling much of the chill. Yet along three other stretches of the distant horizon, dark clouds hung dense and heavy—the rainy season over Jiangnan, Jiangxi, and Jiangdong. The canyon entrance sat about a thousand meters from the coastline. He intended to build a new city to the left of Nameless Mountain. After calculating for a while, he quickly settled on the site. The only question was... Just how large should this new city be? Even for the lowest Level 1 walls, every meter cost ten ghost stones. A thousand meters meant ten thousand ghost stones; enclosing a square city measuring one thousand meters on each side would require forty thousand ghost stones just for the walls. Not to mention the exorbitant cost, whatever he built would still only be a small settlement—less of a proper city and more like an enlarged outpost. Furthermore, this was not a natural ghost fire zone, so maintaining the ghost fire daily would also consume ghost stones. "..." Seated on the Skeleton Horse, Chen Fan gazed out at the sea in silence. Upgrading the Spirit Accumulation Pavilion required a Sea Embryo. As the name implied, it definitely had to be retrieved from the sea. Now that Jiangbei's rainy season had passed, the waters were calm and tranquil. Exploration could begin. He would find a few good swimmers to see if they could dive down and recover anything. "Right here, then." Chen Fan pointed toward the open ground to the left of Nameless Mountain and said quietly, "We'll build a small city to make do for now. Have the workers Xiao Qiu brought back start construction here. If they lack materials, the mountain is full of them—they can just gather what they need on-site." "Understood." Soon, the phantoms of four kilometer-long Level 1 walls slowly materialized over the open ground. As forty thousand ghost stones shattered and poured their essence into the architectural projections, the walls rapidly solidified, enclosing the empty expanse on all four sides. Chen Fan climbed atop the wall. Reaching into his robe, he drew out a terrain card. This was one of several exotic treasures he had acquired recently. [Exotic Treasure Name]: Flat Land Terrain Card. [Exotic Treasure Grade]: Green. [Exotic Treasure Effect]: Transforms an area of land measuring one thousand meters by one thousand meters into flat ground. In the next moment— The terrain card shattered. The cracked, barren earth within the city walls began to reshape itself at rapid speed. Within a few breaths, the entire expanse stretched out flat and even, free of any fissures. "Interesting," Chen Fan murmured, observing the transformation. This was the first time he had obtained an exotic treasure like a terrain card, and it was indeed rather miraculous. A faction's foundational strength depended heavily on its stockpile of exotic treasures, which could turn the tide at crucial moments. Next, standing atop the wall, he began placing wooden cabins in straight rows. A thousand wooden cabins lined up neatly within the city. All of them were the lowest Level 1 wooden cabins, costing just two ghost stones each, for a total of only two thousand ghost stones. Beyond that, he reserved space for other functional structures, such as leaving an open area to serve as a trading district, along with sections set aside for inns and the like. In the blink of an eye, the city had taken shape. "Mm." Standing on the wall, Chen Fan smiled at the sight. The city was far larger than he had imagined. He had thought a kilometer-wide city wouldn't amount to much, but looking at it now, the area was quite substantial. Even after placing a thousand wooden cabins, there was still plenty of room to spare. A sizable amount of space remained, which could be used for farmland, breeding farms, and other facilities. For now, the Fan Domain did not have that many people. These wooden cabins were mainly meant to house lower-level personnel, such as the newly recruited workers and mortals relocating here from other cities. "That should just about do it." Chen Fan climbed down from the wall. "Send in the workers to construct the basic infrastructure. Move quickly—it must be completed in a month." Building a city wasn't just a matter of erecting walls and wooden cabins. There was much more—streets, drainage, and all sorts of infrastructure that would be manufactured in the Living Workshop and handed over to the workers to install and pave. It was painstaking work. As for paving materials, they were in no short supply. Back at the Dan Sect, they had pried up and hauled away a huge amount of jade paving stones, along with various other fixtures. He spent another 463 ghost stones to craft a Level 5 ghost fire and placed it in the center of the city. Its range perfectly encompassed the entire city, automatically adjusting to match the perimeter. Working through the night, he finally finished it all. Only then did Chen Fan head back through the canyon into the sinkhole. From now on, the interior of the canyon would serve as the core area of the Fan Domain. Merchant guilds visiting from other factions would base themselves in the city he had just built. He intended to turn this place into an economic hub, utilizing a vast network of merchant caravans to dump his high-quality, low-cost goods into Jiangnan and even further afield. Relying solely on Wang Mazi's merchant guild to turn a profit was far too slow. Sharing a fair portion of the profits would make far more merchant guilds willing to make money for him. Once the rainy season ended in a month, the reputation of the Fan Domain, the widely publicized auction, and the deliberate rumor he had spread about being an advanced architect would together draw a multitude of factions to his auction. Then, he would showcase his high-quality, affordable goods. After that— Those factions would send their own merchant guilds here to purchase goods and resell them to distant regions. In effect, he would instantly acquire the trade routes those factions had spent years building. As for Wang Mazi, he would only need to focus on selling high-value merchandise. Take the Skeleton Horse, for example. In Jiangnan, a single Skeleton Horse sold for 3,000 ghost stones, primarily supplied by two factions. Whether those two had colluded to fix the price or their production costs were genuinely higher, Chen Fan didn't know. Nor did it matter. His cost to craft a Skeleton Horse was a mere 100 ghost stones. Between them lay a price difference of 2,900 ghost stones. If he sold them to other factions at 1,500 ghost stones each and let them dump the stock into Jiangnan and beyond, he would take a profit of 1,400 ghost stones per horse. He was easily satisfied and wasn't greedy. The remaining margin would be profit for those factions. Sell just a thousand of them, and that would be... A profit of 1.4 million ghost stones! With so many factions in Jiangnan, absorbing a thousand Skeleton Horses would be trivial. Give him that many ghost stones, and he could turn all of Jiangbei into a forbidden zone for ghost creatures! Besides, Skeleton Horses were far from his only bargain. When he destroyed the Dan Sect, he hadn't seized many ghost stones. For one thing, liquid funds made up only a small fraction of any faction's total wealth. Much of it was tied up in medicinal herbs, pills, and martial techniques that were either not meant to be liquidated or difficult to cash in, not to mention the Dan Sect's shops in other cities, which he hadn't visited. As a result, his haul of raw currency hadn't been particularly vast. Yet if this plan succeeded, an endless stream of ghost stones would pour into Jiangbei from all directions. He named this scheme: The "Silk Road." "Heh heh..." Thinking of this, Chen Fan leaned on his cane and gazed blankly toward the distant cliffside, chuckling to himself. He could already picture having more ghost stones than he could ever spend, walling off all of Jiangbei, and contentedly sitting there counting ghost stones all day. Just the thought of it brought a smile to his face. "Domain Lord?" "Domain Lord...?" Just then— A soft call from Sick Monkey sounded beside his ear. Snapping back to reality, Chen Fan turned to see Zhou Mo and the others standing behind him, along with several hundred people gathered on the open ground ahead. The candidates had already been selected. Everyone had been assigned to a suitable position. It was time for him to give a speech. "Ahem." Collecting himself, Chen Fan leaned on his emerald cane, looked at the crowd before him, and said, "Today is your first official day as members of the Fan Domain. "The Fan Domain is a rising power, and many of our rules and regulations have yet to be established. "However, one thing is certain: "The Fan Domain will undoubtedly dominate Jiangbei and even Jiangnan in the future. As long as you perform your duties diligently, the Fan Domain will never treat you unfairly. "Next: "Find your respective pavilion masters and have them assign your duties. "That's all. Dismissed." He said only a few simple words and added nothing more, leaving the rest to the pavilion masters. Yet over the past few days, he had noticed something: this world was indeed run by makeshift crews. Take Xiao Qiu, for instance. Previously, he had just been a stationmaster's attendant—to put it bluntly, someone who hardly commanded respect. Yet... After becoming master of the Logistics Pavilion, he looked quite the part. It gave Chen Fan the faint impression that once a person was placed in a position, they naturally came to look as if they belonged there; the only real difficulty lay in getting into the seat in the first place. Or rather, people didn't take high office because of outstanding ability, but seemed to become capable only after stepping into the role. He shook his head, brushing aside the random thoughts. Walking over to Weiwei, he patted the creature's head and gestured toward the center of the sinkhole. "Underground here, there might be Earth Gold—a heavenly material and earthly treasure that's blackish-gold and extraordinarily hard. "Can you dig it out for me?" Weiwei watched Chen Fan's gestures intently. After a moment's thought, it nodded vigorously, scrambled straight to the center of the sinkhole, and began digging. The ground here was exceptionally hard; even cannon towers would struggle to blast a crater into it. Yet under Weiwei's front claws, the tough bedrock split open with ease. Back then, he had learned from Stepmom that that figure had hammered an entire mountain into a sinkhole. With so much rock subjected to immense compression over all these years, the heavenly material and earthly treasure known as Earth Gold might well have formed. He didn't know exactly what Earth Gold was, but he knew it was a treasure, so he naturally had to dig it up. "Young Master." Just then, Sick Monkey hobbled over, stopped beside Chen Fan, and sighed with sudden emotion. "Shao Qiu, the new master of the Dark Pavilion, was also an orphan from childhood without parents. "In the past, I used to say that almost all of us had no father or mother. "Only you had a father, Young Master. "But after today... "You don't have parents anymore either, Young Master—you've been reduced to an orphan just like us." "..." Chen Fan turned his head expressionlessly to glare at Sick Monkey. "Do you have nothing better to spew? If you have nothing to say, don't force conversation." "No..." Realizing he had spoken out of turn, Sick Monkey shrank his neck back and mumbled, "I just meant to say that we're all family to one another... I was trying to express a warm and fuzzy sentiment or something." The excavation continued. Chen Fan was in no hurry. He simply brought over a table and chair, sitting leisurely in the sun while supervising the work. "The seventeen of you were handpicked by me from among two hundred and thirty-seven people. You will be the first seeds of the Fan Domain's Dark Pavilion, and its future backbone." Inside the Spirit Accumulation Pavilion. Shao Qiu paced before seventeen naked men and women, speaking each word deliberately with a tone laced with biting cold. "The Fan Domain originally had no plans to establish a Dark Pavilion. "It was I who persuaded the Domain Lord to create it. I do not want to disappoint him, and I hope you will not disappoint me. "This place is the Spirit Accumulation Pavilion. "Most of you come from the Wild Wolf Gang. All you need to know is that factions ten times stronger than your Wild Wolf Gang do not possess a Spirit Accumulation Pavilion, yet the Fan Domain does. Being able to cultivate here is your good fortune. "Only when you step out of Jiangbei in the future will you truly realize how precious this pavilion is. "My name is Shao Qiu. "You may call me Young Pavilion Master... er, call me Pavilion Master Qiu." Shao Qiu paused briefly before continuing, "You are all Level 1 cultivators. There were many whose cultivation surpassed yours, but I specifically chose you because your backgrounds are clean. "The highest-grade cultivation method currently in the Fan Domain is of the Green grade. "However, the cultivation method I will impart to you is... "The Yellow-grade cultivation method, the 'Seven Apertures Shadow Kill Art'! "Training in the Dark Pavilion is brutal. "It tests your mental fortitude to the extreme. "Out of the seventeen of you, I will ultimately keep only ten. And to those who remain in the Dark Pavilion, I guarantee this: some of you will become famous throughout the world, and the mere mention of your names will strike terror into people's hearts. "After one month of training, I will retain ten of you and personally bestow code names upon you. "Is that understood?" "Understood!" Standing inside the Spirit Accumulation Pavilion, the seventeen naked men and women responded in loud chorus, their voices filled with trepidation and anticipation. They were naturally thrilled to join the Fan Domain's Dark Pavilion. They were all young. No one among them did not crave renown; no one did not yearn to make a name that resounded across the world. The only thing was... Why did they have to take off their clothes? Among the seventeen standing here, fourteen were young men and three were young women. Standing stark naked was awkward, to say the least—especially for youths full of vigor. "Perhaps you are wondering why you were made to strip. "First: "Cultivating the Seven Apertures Shadow Kill Art requires one to be stark naked. "Second: "As assassins, you must cast aside all distractions between men and women. That applies especially to female assassins, who will often target lecherous old bastards. You must strike the fatal blow precisely at the peak of their lust, just as they are lunging toward you. "Discarding shame is a step you must take. "Next— "I will recite the Seven Apertures Shadow Kill Art to you. Memorize the method and attune yourselves to that unseen sensation. "This is not merely a cultivation method to elevate your realm. Once you comprehend it, mastering other assassination and stealth martial techniques will yield twice the results with half the effort!" After a brief pause, Shao Qiu's voice echoed through the Spirit Accumulation Pavilion, clear and ethereal. "Seven Apertures Shadow Kill Art, First Chapter: "The Form Concealment Chapter. "Eyes gaze upon death, ears heed the wind. Nose senses breath, tongue touches the palate. Body like stone, mind like the void. Tread shadow steps, trace darkened trails. "'Eyes gaze upon death' means keeping your gaze low and your focus diffuse, viewing living beings as withered stones. When locking onto a target, never stare at them directly. There are many experts out in the world; if you stare straight at them, you will be detected."