Qian Chen decisively pulled out the magical implements he had been planning to discard anyway, presented the White Bone Relic and the rest, and asked the Lord of Reincarnation, "How many Moral Points will these implements fetch?"
"The Heavenly Demon White Bone Relic: nine hundred Merit!"
Not even priced in Moral Points... Qian Chen's face went deathly pale.
The next few items were worse still, fetching only a hundred-odd Merit apiece. By the Lord of Reincarnation's buyback discount, that meant the White Bone Relic was worth barely three Moral Points in the Reincarnation Lands. To be sure, the White Bone Relic had once had its restrictions struck down — before that it might have been a flawless magical implement, perhaps even a magic treasure — but once an implement's restrictions are struck down, its value almost never recovers.
The cheapest item that took Qian Chen's fancy still cost one Moral Point... As for the goods priced in Merit, he never gave them a glance. True, the things Qian Chen carried were worth that much — but once the buyback discount was applied, there was little to hope for.
Since that was how things stood, Qian Chen simply put them away. The Reincarnation Lands' buying prices were shamelessly black-hearted; if selling here would not buy him any implement worth using, he might as well keep his goods and trade with other cultivators from the Central Lands at some later date. The rest would have been one thing. But the White Bone Relic — Qian Chen could hardly hand it over to anyone of the demonic path and let them work evil through it. Selling it to the Lord of Reincarnation, even if it fell into some evildoer's hands in the end, Qian Chen could still accept; but placing it personally into a demonic villain's hands would leave him feeling that every evil that man did carried a share of his own guilt, and that would gall him sorely.
As for the other exchange entries: spirit pills and wonder drugs Qian Chen did not need... and even if he had, he would refine his own — that was Taishang Dao's house specialty, and Qian Chen had every confidence in it. Moreover, pills that came out of the Reincarnation Lands would never, given Qian Chen's caution, pass his lips. The Lord of Reincarnation might have a thousand arts for planting a hidden hand inside him, but wherever caution was possible, Qian Chen would be careful, without fail.
Guard against one sort of snare where you can...
In truth, apart from destitute wandering cultivators like Old Fox, who had no choice whatsoever left to them, the orthodox Mysterious Gate sects and the true-transmission disciples of the great sects essentially never rashly swallowed spirit pills of unknown origin. A pill's nature was intricate; who knew what ambushes and hidden hands lay concealed within? Cultivators commanded too many tricks — the practice had all but destroyed that whole structure of trust.
Cultivators were one and all faithful believers in the small-peasant economy, exalting self-sufficiency. When a spirit pill they desperately needed was at stake, unless they had an alchemist they trusted absolutely, they would sooner learn to refine it themselves from the very beginning than entrust the work to another — no one, that is, beyond sect elders, close companions, or great cultivators of such lofty virtue and standing that scheming against them was simply not worth the effort.
Take Qian Chen: there was hardly any chance he would ever scheme against Old Fox — not because Old Fox trusted his character, but because it was not worth it... The whole fox family's lives might well be worth less than a single spirit pill Qian Chen could beguile out of them. And so wandering cultivators would sooner grovel in the dust, resorting to every wile, begging pills from the disciples of the great Mysterious Gate sects — those disciples who prized their sect's unsullied name above their own lives — than trust a companion of obscure origins who was, like themselves, a wandering cultivator.
Qian Chen still had plenty of spirit talismans in his pouch, and the Reincarnation Lands' exchange prices on natural treasures were terrible value — probably because the Lands possessed uncommonly convenient means of putting such materials to use. So unless someone urgently needed a material that could not be had anywhere else, hardly anyone would play the sucker.
What remained, and what was most valuable to Qian Chen, were Daoist methods and spells.
"Geng Yuanzi's Daoist Book"
Qian Chen's gaze lingered a long while on this volume. Its exchange price was not steep: swear a Dao heart oath never to teach it to a single soul, and eight hundred Merit would let him take the whole set away. That was because it lacked fundamental Daoist methods; most of it was cultivation insight and the miscellany of spells.
But the fundamental Daoist methods Qian Chen knew ran deeper than Geng Yuanzi's own — for Geng Yuanzi had been a disciple of Louguan Dao several hundred years ago.
This kindled a scheme Qian Chen had long been turning over in his mind: pass himself off as a surviving disciple of Louguan Dao and find himself a footing. Louguan Dao had kept a low profile all those years, then met sudden calamity — it was perfectly natural for some disciples to have survived. Many Louguan Dao elders had been wandering far afield; who was to say that in some forgotten corner there were no Louguan Dao elders who had ascended? It was just as natural for them to have left disciples behind: anyone able to pass on the fundamental Daoist methods was by that very fact a child of the sect, acknowledged by Louguan Dao itself.
With the Daoist book Geng Yuanzi had left behind, added to the Louguan Dao fundamental methods Qian Chen knew of his own knowledge, he would be more Louguan Dao than the Louguan Dao disciples themselves — Louguan Dao's founding patriarch. Others dared not attempt it for fear that some Yuanshen Perfected One might calculate out a flaw; but Qian Chen could withstand any such divination.
His origins were Louguan Dao true transmission, pure through and through. Below Venerable Wenshi, every last one of them, counted one by one, was his junior. Let a Dao Lord come, and he too would have to bow his head and address him as Martial Uncle, Grand-Uncle of the sect. As for Venerable Wenshi: reckoned from the Taishang Dao Ancestor, he would have to call him Martial Uncle; reckoned from the Dao Dust Pearl, he would have to own him as a junior brother.
Let anyone try to calculate Qian Chen's origins: Qian Chen's Karma was now wholly dissolved, and so long as he returned to Louguan Dao and reknit his Karma — bowed once toward his own true self and entered as a disciple beneath Louguan Dao's gate — he would be Louguan Dao true transmission to the marrow. For a Louguan Dao disciple's initiation had, from the first, been witnessed by Qian Chen's own true self.
With that layer of identity, Qian Chen would be a man of traceable origins in this world. His doings would gain a layer of convenience: when the day came to raise the banner of rebuilding Louguan Dao, the other orthodox sects would scarcely dare casually interfere with anything he did. With that bond of incense-and-fire affection behind him, he would get along far more smoothly than a man without origins. Cultivation, too, would go more easily... beyond the fundamental Daoist methods, sects on close terms traded other spells quite freely.
And if it came to sects of the same Taishang Dao Lineage, Qian Chen could slip into the Taiqing Sect, or any other sect of the Taishang line, as a true-transmission disciple with perfect ease — and once his Daoist methods reached full mastery, they would in turn send men and put out effort to help him rebuild Louguan Dao.
"I mean to wrap myself in several layers of identities. On the surface, I am a wandering cultivator; in truth, a wandering cultivator who has obtained Geng Yuanzi's Daoist Book.
On the surface, I am a wandering cultivator of Geng Yuanzi's line; in truth, I have already received Louguan Dao's true transmission — a Louguan Dao disciple who lived through the great calamity.
On the surface, I am a Louguan Dao disciple who escaped the calamity by a fluke; in truth, I am an heir the sect's elders left behind, schooled in secret so that Louguan Dao might endure — and behind me stands an inheritance spirit treasure of Louguan Dao.
On the surface, I am an ordinary inheritor of Louguan Dao; in truth, I am the inheritor designated by Louguan Dao's sect-guarding treasure, the Taishang Dao Dust Pearl.
On the surface, I am the inheritor designated by the Taishang Dao Dust Pearl; in truth, I am the Taishang Dao Dust Pearl itself!
And last of all, my real identity: a transmigrator from Earth!"
Qian Chen buried that thought in the deepest recess of the Dao Dust Pearl. He was confident that even the Lord of Reincarnation could not peer into the notions kept there; indeed, anything that touched on his transmigration, Qian Chen thought through only inside the Dao Dust Pearl.
"Roaming the jianghu, a man wants several identities in reserve. If the chance ever comes, I ought to open a few alt accounts — a demonic sect, a Buddhist order, the Primordial Witch Cult, even one under the Demon Clan — to smooth the way." Qian Chen smiled faintly, resolved to hide his real identity beneath layer upon hasty layer of cover. This, too, was his lifelong caution...
There was just one problem: without swearing the Dao heart oath, Geng Yuanzi's Daoist Book cost a full Moral Point.
Qian Chen still could not afford it. Nor could he first buy the book at the oath-swearers' price, then scrape the money together later to undo the oath — for Qian Chen would never, ever swear a Dao heart oath in front of the Lord of Reincarnation. All his life, Qian Chen had trusted nothing but caution!
"Buying Geng Yuanzi's book outright would cost ten Moral Points... that much can wait a step." So Qian Chen mused to himself. As for why buy it outright: if some other Reincarnator ever saw Geng Yuanzi's Daoist Book here at the Lord of Reincarnation's, the false identity Qian Chen was building might come under suspicion — a one-in-ten-thousand risk, granted.
But Qian Chen acted on caution alone... he would never let a single possibility of exposure slip past.
Even supposing it did come to light, it would only unmask Qian Chen's first, second... his second layer of identity at the outside...
For this was the supreme Great Dao of the other world — the inherited true meaning of Acquired Dao-Evolution and the Acquired Follow-the-Heart Great Dao; one who grasped it could prove the Great Luo.
"As things stand, Miaokong is the only one who might guess my fifth layer of identity, and the Taishang Dao Ancestor the only one who knows my seventh... they both know far too much!" Hands clasped behind his back, Qian Chen said evenly, "Taishang Dao Ancestor, I... very well — I'll start with you, Miaokong!" And he gave a cold, sinister chuckle. "If anyone's to blame, blame yourself for knowing too much!"
"And as for you..." Qian Chen cast a sideways glance at the vast sky above the cloud platform. "Lord of Reincarnation, I trust you know your own place..."
The sky stayed perfectly calm; the Lord of Reincarnation did not deign to notice this clown at all.
Qian Chen spent a two-hour period working through the information on the Exchange List, settled on the few items he would buy once he had Moral Points, and even drew up an order of purchase. Having tidied his shopping cart, Qian Chen heard, right on schedule, the Lord of Reincarnation's voice from above: "Mission commencing..."
Darkness fell before Qian Chen's eyes, though the Dao Dust Pearl sensed a subtle shift in space and time. With unimaginable power, the Reincarnation Lands moved Qian Chen to another world in an instant. When light returned before his eyes, he was standing on a desolate footpath, and countless ants crawled up to his feet, arranging themselves into a line of writing:
"The Four Seas Hall is one of the most illustrious powers of the jianghu. Unlike powers of long inheritance such as Wudang and Shaolin, it was founded single-handedly by Hong Sihai, the Azure Heaven Tyrant Fist. Within less than thirty years of its founding it had overtaken the Beggar's Sect to become the foremost gang under heaven. Ten years ago, moreover, Hong Sihai led the assembled heroes of the righteous path to shatter the Demonic Cult and struck down its Cult Master with his own hands; from then on his might awed the Four Seas, and the whole jianghu revered him as the Martial Alliance Leader!"
"Main quest: reach the Four Seas Hall's headquarters before Hong Sihai's seventieth birthday! Reward: ten Merit, and activation of the next main quest..."
"Side quest: slay martial grandmaster-class experts (Qi Refining realm) — ten Merit for each one slain. Slay great grandmasters (Spell Comprehension realm) — one hundred Merit for each one slain."
After a few breaths, the ants all scattered...
Qian Chen said mockingly, "This main quest really doesn't pay. Could it be that the Reincarnation Lands' rewards rise and fall with a mission's difficulty? And while we're at it — a unit like Kindness Points, cheap as small change, what reason does it even have to exist?"
The only goods Qian Chen had ever seen priced in Kindness Points sat in a most inconspicuous miscellany category: many mundane things, at strangely lopsided prices — one tael of gold was worth one Kindness Point, and one jin of refined iron was worth one Kindness Point too, though in Great Jin of the Central Lands a single tael of gold would buy eighty or a hundred jin of refined iron.
There were all manner of luxuries too — fur pelts and fine wines, produce of every kind. Had Qian Chen seen these earlier, perhaps he would not have needed to go to Great Jin to have clothes and Daoist robes made to measure. He had even spotted firearms in there — muskets and machine guns — along with spirit stones and countless things whose use he could not fathom at all. It was as though every mortal object, anything with nothing to do with Daoist methods, had simply been dumped in here.
Qian Chen followed the footpath down to the highway and studied closely the dress and bearing, the accents and air, of the people passing to and fro.
The Heavenly Net Umbrella unfurled, screening all around him; when Qian Chen reappeared, he wore a scholar's blue gown, a green-bamboo book chest on his back. A canvas awning shaded the chest's top, the Heavenly Net Umbrella slotted through its side; the awning, propped up on two bamboo poles, had a red-skinned gourd hanging from it. Set against Qian Chen's rather youthful face, he looked every inch a studious youth hurrying along the road.
Along the highway he made his inquiries, learned in which direction the Four Seas Hall lay, and set off down the road.
The Four Seas Hall's renown filled this world, so the Lord of Reincarnation had not dropped Qian Chen too far away: it was no more than two days' journey for an ordinary man to Linhai City, where the Four Seas Hall's headquarters stood.
Chapter 8