Chapter 94 - 72 : The Cultivation shop (1)

Chapter 94: Chapter 72 : The Cultivation shop (1)

The short dao rested at Ethan’s waist as he climbed the slope and left the ravine behind.

The air felt different outside the narrow valley. The trees were still quiet, their leaves barely moving in the cool morning breeze, and the darkness beneath their branches was beginning to thin.

Ethan slowed as he reached the top.

Beyond the trees, the eastern horizon had turned pale. Then the first rays of sunlight slipped between the branches and fell across his face.

Ethan stopped for a moment, letting the faint warmth settle against his skin after the cold of the ravine. He turned his face slightly toward the rising sun before continuing down the other side of the hill.

Behind him, the ravine gradually disappeared among the trees, soon looking no different from the rest of the forest. Around him, the morning slowly came alive with the rustle of leaves in the breeze, birds calling from somewhere in the distance, and the occasional stir of something moving beneath the bushes

Ethan kept walking.

His body felt different after the night’s breakthrough. The change wasn’t dramatic, but he could feel it whenever he circulated his Qi. It moved through his meridians more smoothly than before, flowing with a natural rhythm that hadn’t been there before. Ethan let the sensation settle before continuing through the forest as the morning brightened around him.

The trees gradually began to thin. Patches of sunlight stretched farther across the ground, and the uneven forest floor slowly gave way to flatter earth. Before long, faint wagon tracks appeared in the dirt, leading away through the thinning trees. Ethan followed them.

Several hours passed before the landscape changed again. The forest opened into wider stretches of land, and beyond a low ridge, a thin column of smoke rose slowly into the clear sky.

As he drew closer, the sound of a large crowd reached him from somewhere ahead, a mixture of overlapping voices and movement carried through the air. Ethan’s gaze shifted in that direction. Almost instinctively, he let his Blood Perception spread through the surroundings, reaching toward the living presences ahead.

As he drew closer, the sound of a large crowd reached him from somewhere ahead, a mixture of overlapping voices and movement carried through the air. Ethan’s gaze shifted in that direction.

Almost instinctively, he let his Blood Perception spread through the surroundings, reaching toward the living presences ahead. At first, they felt like a dense mass of vitality gathered together, so closely packed that individual presences were difficult to distinguish.

Ethan let his Blood Perception recede and continued forward, following the sound through the thinning trees. After a short while, the trees began to open up, and the road beyond the ridge finally came into view. People moved along it in a steady stream, with buildings and stalls stretching farther ahead.

A settlement lay beyond the ridge, its presence becoming clearer as the voices and movement carried toward him. He had no way of knowing who among them might be connected to the Azure Cloud Sect and who was simply passing through. That alone made entering risky.

His first instinct was to avoid it. But he couldn’t keep avoiding every settlement either.

Just like he had been doing ever since the Azure Cloud Sect came after him. Since staying away from crowded places meant fewer chances of being recognized or drawing the wrong kind of attention.

Ethan glanced down at himself.

His robe was still the same one he had worn through the night, dusty and stained with dried blood. The fabric was torn in several places, and no matter how ordinary the robe had once looked, it now made him stand out for all the wrong reasons.

A clean robe would be the first thing to take care of. There were other things he needed to sort out before continuing as well, and avoiding every place where people gathered was going to make that increasingly difficult.

He couldn’t keep doing that forever.

As Ethan looked toward the settlement, another thought crossed his mind, the tracking talisman. Another risky situation on its own. Once he stepped into its range, there was no telling whether the Azure Cloud Sect would be able to pick up his presence again. And this time, there would be far more people around him.

Then there were the rumors.

He had already heard enough to know that the story about him being a demonic cultivator was spreading. The more people repeated it, the more believable it would become, regardless of whether there was any truth to it.

That could bring trouble of its own.

Opportunity-hungry cultivators didn’t need much reason to take a risk. If they believed a so-called demonic cultivator was passing through the area, some might see a chance to make a profit, collect a reward, or simply take whatever they could from him.

As his gaze moved across the busy road, taking in the constant flow of people moving in and out of the settlement. With so many cultivators passing through, there was no telling who might recognize him, especially with the rumors already spreading. The thought brought his attention back to his robe. Dusty, torn, and stained with dried blood, it was hardly something he wanted to walk into a crowded place wearing.

Still, turning away wouldn’t solve the problem. He needed a clean robe, and he couldn’t keep avoiding every place where people gathered simply because there was a chance someone might recognize him.

For now, going in was still the better choice

Ethan adjusted his hood. The best thing he could do was make himself as unremarkable as possible. Keep a low profile, get what he needed, and leave without giving anyone a reason to remember him. Hopefully, this time would end differently from the last.

As he drew closer, the sounds ahead grew louder. What had looked like a few buildings from the ridge opened into a sprawling roadside market. Wooden structures and cloth-covered stalls crowded both sides of the road, while wagons filled the wider spaces between them. The smell of cooked meat drifted through the air, mixing with the earthy scent of spirit herbs and the sharper odor of refined metal.

The road itself had nearly disappeared beneath the constant activity.

A merchant weighed a bundle of herbs on a small bronze scale while a customer watched closely. Nearby, a young cultivator carried a freshly purchased sword wrapped in cloth, his expression bright enough to suggest he had been saving for it for some time. At the edge of the road, several spirit beasts stood beside a line of wagons, their handlers checking harnesses and loading supplies.

Ethan slowed as he reached the crowd.

For a moment, the sheer number of people made the place feel less like a town and more like a meeting point for everyone traveling through this part of the region. Cultivators moved among ordinary travelers, some wearing sect robes, others dressed plainly enough that their origins were impossible to guess.

Ethan lowered his hood slightly and for a while, he simply walked.

The gathering stretched farther than it had appeared from the road. The buildings became denser as he went, and the temporary stalls gradually gave way to proper shops with wooden signs hanging above their entrances. Somewhere deeper in the market, metal rang repeatedly against an anvil. A burst of laughter came from a crowded food stall, followed by the clatter of bowls being placed on a table.

Ethan’s gaze wandered as he moved.

He passed a stall where bundles of dried spirit herbs hung from ropes overhead, their faint fragrance mixing with the smoke from a nearby cooking fire. Further ahead, talisman papers were arranged inside wooden cases, each stack marked with small labels indicating their different uses. Behind another counter, rows of small bottles containing pills caught the light beneath a glass covering.

Farther along, refined ores and animal materials occupied separate displays, some protected by faint formations that shimmered whenever someone came too close.

There was something different around every corner.

A pair of cultivators stood over a damaged weapon, arguing quietly while the shopkeeper watched with an increasingly impatient expression. A formation shop displayed several polished formation plates on a raised shelf, their surfaces covered in intricate patterns. At another stall, a child stared openly at a strange jade carving shaped like a miniature beast while his mother tried to pull him along.

Ethan barely spared the carving a glance.

There were too many things here that he didn’t understand yet, and he had no intention of wasting time examining all of them. So he kept walking, taking the scene in because this was by far the most impressive gathering of cultivators he had come across since he became a cultivator.

Weapons hung from the walls of one shop, their polished surfaces catching the morning light whenever the door opened. A little farther on, several jade slips rested inside a glass case, each one sealed beneath a faint spiritual barrier.

His attention moved on as he continued deeper into the market. He passed several more shops before his attention was caught by particular storefront tucked between two larger stores.

Ethan slowed.

The said shop wasn’t particularly large or impressive. There were no elaborate decorations around its entrance, and just a few robes displayed near the entrance, but it wasn’t the robes themselves that caught his attention. There was a subtle spiritual current woven through the fabric, faint enough that he might have overlooked it if his senses hadn’t already been heightened by his cultivation.

He looked toward the sign above the doorway.

Spiritweave Hall.

Ethan’s gaze returned to the robes.

This might be what he was looking for.