The moment he heard the target was only at the middle Qi Condensation stage, Jiao Xiuyuan relaxed immediately.
He readily took on the whole job, saying, "Rest assured. He's just a petty Qi Condensation cultivator. I guarantee I'll uncover every last detail of his background. It's just that the price..."
Li Fan smiled. "As you said, he's merely a petty Qi Condensation cultivator. Surely it shouldn't cost much."
Jiao Xiuyuan wished he could slap himself, and said with an embarrassed chuckle, "In this line of work, there's always a bit of risk, more or less. How about... you give me this much?"
He flashed an eight with his fingers.
"Forty contribution points. Not a point more," Li Fan said, shaking his head.
"Aiyo, you're driving too hard a bargain! At least sixty points, surely? Otherwise it's another money-losing trade!" Jiao Xiuyuan cried out in heartache.
Li Fan turned to leave.
"Wait, wait!" Jiao Xiuyuan hurriedly stepped in front of Li Fan to stop him.
"Fifty points, then. It really can't be any lower," he said, looking pained.
Only then did Li Fan halt his steps.
"You give a ten-point deposit first," Jiao Xiuyuan said, handing Li Fan a communication talisman. "Once there's news, I'll notify you through this talisman."
Li Fan accepted the talisman and took out a medium-grade spirit stone to hand to Jiao Xiuyuan.
Instead of hurrying to leave, Li Fan looked around at the other goods for sale in the room.
Seeing that a big client had arrived today, Jiao Xiuyuan grew even more enthusiastic.
"Is there anything else you need?"
"Do you sell cultivation techniques here? An escape technique would be best, or something with effects similar to the Form-Concealing Talisman," Li Fan asked.
The expression on Jiao Xiuyuan's face froze instantly.
"Heh, you're pulling my leg, aren't you? Why don't you take a look at something else? How about this Lost-Track Formation diagram? It's absolute top quality. Once activated, it can trap a late Foundation Establishment cultivator for an entire day.
"This set of Ice Talisman Swords is also quite good, perfect for ambushes..."
"Hey, don't leave!"
...
After leaving Thousand Li Hall, Li Fan returned to the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
He planned to first cultivate the Nether Spirit Illusion Art to the late Qi Condensation stage before doing anything else.
Once the Blue Flame phantom spirit had completely stabilized, it could be released to kill enemies.
With the activation of the auxiliary cultivation mode, Li Fan entered secluded cultivation once more.
...
One month later, in the sea area around Flame Crystal Island in the eastern Congyun Sea.
Deep beneath the sea, Li Fan concealed his aura, trailing behind a pack of Red Flame Sharks.
This pack of Red Flame Sharks numbered over a dozen, and they were hunting a solitary Red Seat Whale.
The Red Seat Whale possessed an enormous body. Feeding on seafloor flame crystals year-round, its hide was like a layer of hard rock.
The Red Flame Sharks, on the other hand, had razor-sharp teeth, moved swiftly, and coordinated seamlessly.
Though unable to inflict heavy damage on the whale in the short term, they could slowly wear down its vitality like a dull knife whittling away flesh.
The Red Seat Whale made several attempts to break through the sharks' perimeter, but none succeeded.
Gradually, its resistance grew weaker and weaker.
Watching the scene unfold before him, Li Fan knew the time had come.
The Blue Flame phantom spirit manifested.
It transformed into a slender ray of blue light, darting at lightning speed through the dozen-odd Red Flame Sharks and the Red Seat Whale in an instant.
A moment later, it returned to Li Fan's sea of consciousness.
The Red Flame Sharks and the Red Seat Whale froze in mid-motion.
Immediately after, an icy chill surged from inside their bodies, freezing them stiff from the inside out.
In the blink of an eye, bizarre ice sculptures appeared on the seabed.
Their postures and expressions were just as they had been in life, but all signs of life were already gone.
"The Blue Flame phantom spirit's power is indeed impressive.
"Most of these sea beasts have cultivation equivalent to the Qi Condensation stage, and their hides and flesh are tough and thick, making them difficult to hunt with ordinary methods. Yet under a divine sense attack from the Blue Flame phantom spirit, they were like lambs to the slaughter, unable to resist in the slightest." Li Fan nodded, thoroughly satisfied with this initial test of the phantom spirit's lethality.
Not long ago, after spending over twenty days, he had finally succeeded in breaking through to the late Qi Condensation stage with the Nether Spirit Illusion Art.
To test the phantom spirit's power and earn some contribution points along the way, he had accepted this mission: "Hunt Red Flame Sharks and harvest their internal pseudo-beast cores."
At five contribution points per core, he could earn over sixty points in total. Adding in the materials from the Red Seat Whale, this trip would yield over eighty contribution points.
Well, it was better than nothing.
In the past, each time he earned contribution points, it had been in the thousands; such a meager amount could hardly stir any waves in Li Fan's heart.
Thinking this, Li Fan was just about to step forward and harvest the beast cores from the Red Flame Sharks.
Suddenly, however, he sensed an enormous figure approaching from the depths of the ocean floor below.
Li Fan's expression shifted. Disregarding the beast cores right before him, he quickly retreated.
A dark brown, hideous deep-sea leviathan—with a deformed bulge faintly visible on its brow, looking like neither dragon nor fish—abruptly surged from the shadows of the seafloor.
Its gargantuan mouth opened, swallowing the dozen-odd Red Flame Sharks along with the Red Seat Whale in a single gulp!
With a sway of its massive frame, the behemoth circled once, got its bearings, and swam off in a certain direction.
Having barely evaded the leviathan, Li Fan hadn't even had time to react before watching his prey get snatched away before his very eyes.
Could he tolerate this?
Anger flared within Li Fan.
Yet the Xuanhuang Heart-Refining Incantation soon circulated, calming him down slightly.
Wait. Was this behemoth the very one that had destroyed the island cultivating Spirit Mist Grass earlier?
As something clicked in his memory, Li Fan froze.
Earlier, when he accepted this mission to hunt Red Flame Sharks, Li Fan had also caught sight of another bounty mission.
Because that mission had a slight connection to him, he had examined it rather carefully.
As it turned out, back then, almost every member of the crowd who had speculated on Spirit Mist Grass had suffered staggering losses and ended up penniless.
With foul resentment bottled up in their chests and indignation churning, they couldn't even quiet their minds to cultivate.
Yet they dared not cause trouble for True Sovereign Qingmu Huasheng or the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, so they could only vent their fury on the strange beast that had wrecked the island where Spirit Mist Grass was grown.
According to eyewitnesses, the attacker was a dragon whale, possessing cultivation roughly equivalent to the Foundation Establishment stage.
The island garrison was also a Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Yet the dragon whale's body was colossal, and the garrison's attacks landing upon it were like scratching an itch, having no effect whatsoever.
The dragon whale completely ignored the garrison, broke through the Island-Protecting Grand Formation, ran amok across the island, and devoured most of the Spirit Mist Grass.
Only afterward did a Golden Core cultivator from the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals arrive belatedly.
And this dragon whale, after taking a blow from the Golden Core cultivator, actually hadn't died; heavily wounded, it had fled back into the deep sea.
The Congyun Sea was vast. Those people wanted to slay the dragon whale to vent their rage, but they searched for over ten days without finding a trace.
Helpless, they could only scrape together what little contribution points each had left and jointly issue a bounty mission:
Whoever slays the dragon whale shall receive two thousand contribution points.
Because even a Foundation Establishment cultivator had been helpless against this dragon whale, Li Fan, a mere Qi Condensation cultivator, naturally had not accepted the mission previously.
However...
The situation was different now!
Chapter 75