Five days later.
Geng District, Tower Nine, sixty-fourth floor.
Chen Mu sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, fitting a Fifth Rank Truthful Listening Talisman over his ears.
Ignoring the occasional strange groans and moans that came through, and after confirming there was no danger nearby, Chen Mu’s face showed relief, “They’re all decent people here.”
“I should have moved to the sixty-fourth floor to begin with; the sixty-third floor is still too close to the sixty-second.”
“I wonder if the matter has been resolved.”
After handing over the dark-faced strong man to Mo Wuzhou, Chen Mu didn’t meddle in the affair any further.
Had it not been for the fear of being caught outside, and the relative safety offered by the Tongtian Tower, he would have run away long ago.
“Can’t be too close to the sixty-second floor; it’s easy to get involved in trouble.”
“Can’t be too far from the sixty-second floor either; if it’s too far, I won’t be able to benefit from the Cold Moon Toad’s protective aura.”
“The sixty-fourth floor is just right.”
…
Chen Mu perked up his ears once again to assure the surrounding rooms were safe, then he looked down at the ground in front of the meditation cushion.
There lay three items.
A black leather bag thick as a wrist and as long as a forearm. Your next read is at empire
A Mustard Seed Talisman scroll the thickness of a carrot.
A snow-white fanged tooth the size of a thumb.
The first two came from the long-armed strong man. The fanged tooth was plucked from the neck of the dark-faced man.
“I didn’t want to,” Chen Mu sighed.
He preferred to earn his wealth and resources diligently with his own hands.
He detested easy gains because they diminished his sense of achievement.
“If you insist on giving them to me, I have no choice but to accept,” Chen Mu said helplessly as he picked up the black leather bag and untied the drawstring at one end.
Two palm-sized leather talismans;
one goose egg-sized black bottle of indeterminate material;
and a palm-sized cloth pouch containing about twenty or thirty soybean-sized gold fragments.
He shook the black bottle, and it rattled.
“Most likely some kind of elixir.”
He then unfolded the two folded leather talismans.
“Spiritual Light Talisman?”
Chen Mu had noticed that the long-armed strong man, just before being killed, was sticking similar leather talismans on his body to add Spiritual Light.
Chen Mu observed with interest.
The palm-sized brown leather paper was covered with black star-point silk threads, making one dizzy at a glance.
“It’s somewhat similar to artifact refining,” Chen Mu mused.
The brown leather paper was the carrier, with the black star-point silk threads forming the talisman.
“Wonder where I could learn the Talisman Making Technique.”
This was probably a very lucrative craft.
…
Bang!
Chen Mu activated the Mustard Seed Talisman with a flick of Mana, and a watermelon-sized wooden chest popped out and crashed onto the floor.
Inside were no significant items, just over a thousand White Jade Coins.
Chen Mu forcefully suppressed the excitement swelling inside him as he counted them.
He didn’t approve of such excitement.
“How long can this thrill last? It will probably be gone by tomorrow,” he mused.
After all, it was an unearned windfall.
He sighed, trying to suppress the corners of his mouth that wanted to turn up, but, as expected, he failed.
In the end, he could only grimace, showing a mouthful of white teeth, as he put White Jade Coins into the Five Ghosts Bag one by one.
Ha ha…
…
“Is this a Mustard Seed Talisman too?” Chen Mu wondered as he stared at the floating white fanged tooth before him.
There was a golden hoop at the top of the fanged tooth, presumably for threading and wearing.
About a third of the way up, there were three black dots the size of soybeans in a circle.
Countless threads radiated from the three black dots, covering the entire tooth.
Having cultivated up to this point, those once-incomprehensible star-point silver patterns were now somewhat discernible to him.
“Using a fanged tooth as a Mustard Seed Talisman? That’s unusual.”
A thread of Mana entered one of the black dots, and within his perception, a space about the size of an air conditioner’s outdoor unit appeared.
It was a pity that it was completely empty. Nothing was inside.
Yet Chen Mu raised an eyebrow, staring intently at the black dot.
He added Mana again and could sense the same space.
“Could it be a reusable Mustard Seed Talisman?!”
Mustard Seed Talismans made from Exotic Beast Skin also had a circle of black dots, each representing a chance to open it; once the black dot disappeared, the leather talisman was spent.
He hurriedly sent Mana into the other two dots.
Bang bang!
Two watermelon-sized wooden chests materialized in front of him.
“Could there be three separate spaces?”
“Three reusable spaces?!”
What a great item!
“This seems to be an upgraded version of the Mustard Seed Talisman,” Chen Mu realized.
A Mustard Seed Talisman made from Exotic Beast Skin was like a battery-operated device, being unusable once Mana was exhausted.
A fanged tooth Mustard Seed Talisman kept a power cord, always usable as long as there was Mana.
“This thing must be quite valuable, right?”
He then turned his attention to the two reddish-brown wooden chests.
Chen Mu suddenly had a bad feeling.
Opening the chests, one was filled with bottles and jars of various elixirs. The other was full to the brim with White Jade Coins.
“Can you not give me so many White Jade Coins?”
Chen Mu looked at the full chest of gently glowing jade with a resistant expression.
As money came in too fast, at one point, the notion of taking the six siblings of Wu Mountain to raid homes and rob them flickered through Chen Mu’s mind.
“Dare you disturb my Taoist heart?!”
“That dark-faced man was cunning indeed!”
“To leave behind such troubles even in death.”
Chen Mu became furious, waved his hand, and locked all these White Jade Coins inside the Five Ghosts Bag.
“Hoo…”
“What a relief!”
…
Another five days passed.
Chen Mu used the Truthful Listening Secret Technique. An odd sensation emerged.
Inside the sixty-second floor, three obstructed areas appeared.
It felt like looking out the window to see the sky but having the view partially blocked by the building across the way.
Those obstructed areas also blocked the reach of the Truthful Listening Technique.
“Song Wujie is back!” Chen Mu realized.
Before, there was only one such sensation, which he confirmed to be the Cold Moon Toad.
Now that there were two more similar obstructions, they had to be Song Wujie and Liang Yi.
“Has the matter with the Zhongshan Path been settled?” Chen Mu wondered.
“I need to find out what’s happening.”
Being secluded in cultivation all the time has this downside. Information is too isolated.