Immortal Freeloader 82 (Patreon)

“Excellent,” I muttered even as I twirled the broken ring on my finger. I had been hopeful about the ring, but the reward still shocked me. 

A storage ring. 

I moved to the nearest empty room I could detect, and put four protection wards to block any potential Qi flow before I reached my Inventory. A ring popped into my palm. 

“Fascinating,” I muttered as I examined it slowly. It was certainly a lucky discovery. It solved my biggest problem, that whenever I had to remove anything from my Inventory, I had no way of putting it back on, forcing me to constantly hide things around like a squirrel. 

I was happy that I had a solution to that. Now, I could just bring them along. 

As for its value, I didn’t even want to imagine it. Not only was it a bona-fide artifact, but also a rare one. Even though it was merely a Profound-Low Grade ring, it would cost thousands of spiritual stones, unlike a talisman of the same grade. 

“Now, it’s time to take ownership,” I said as I reached my Qi. I didn’t know much about artifacts, but I knew that subduing them required blood and subdued Qi, even the weakest artifact taking a few strands, while some of the truly strong ones required months, maybe even years to properly control. 

Even with my abundant Qi, I was ready to work hard for hours until I could establish a rudimentary link … but when my Qi touched, I felt the space, enough to hold about ten gallons of liquid, accessible mentally. 

“Cheating is fun,” I muttered as I realized that, just like Qi strands, artifacts came properly subdued. 

A fascinating advantage. I hooked the ring to a chain and put it on my neck, making it less noticeable. It was not the largest space, but I didn’t need a lot of space to hold pills, talisman materials, gold, and spirit stones. 

A gallon of water might not be impressive, but a gallon of gold was a completely different matter. A gold piece was barely five grams, and a gallon of pure gold was almost a hundred and sixty pounds. Converted, a gallon of gold represented about twenty thousand gold pieces. 

A nice pocket change … especially since I still had my Inventory for more.

Speaking of it, the ring was also a good excuse in case I had to access my Inventory. Revealing the existence of a storage ring was not ideal, but it was much better than showing I had a wondrous ability like Inventory despite being a Qi Gathering cultivator. 

Arousing the curiosity of strong cultivators was not a smart idea. 

I collected the protection talismans and put them into the storage ring, happy to watch them disappear. “Excellent,” I muttered as I returned to the auction house, repeating the same trick several times. 

I received a nice haul, but nothing fascinating. I played my role well, but even when frustrated, most of them didn’t give out their gifts. Some didn’t care about my plight, and some were willing to bring those useless stuff with them even if they moved out. Not that I could blame them. 

Worse, not every successful acquisition resulted in a treasure. More than half of the items I had identified were actually martial artist tools, and they were merely tainted by Qi. And, since none of the sellers had high cultivation, ten times return only resulted in repaired weapons of the same rank. 

Admittedly, it wasn’t horrible. They might be martial artists' weapons, but a profound Medium-Grade weapon was still a dangerous treasure. If auctioned, it would easily go for several thousand gold pieces, maybe even higher depending on the purchaser. 

Unfortunately, at this point, it wasn’t worth my effort. Mortal economy didn’t have much use to me. 

Luckily, the day was not a waste. The storage ring alone was worth dedicating a far longer time, and I also received a few talismans — my skill meant that I was able to identify them successfully even in their ruined state. 

I had managed to get some kind of lightning talisman, another flame talisman of higher quality, a shield talisman that was geared for direct combat, and most importantly, a concealment talisman. I still needed to study them to learn how to draw them, but it didn’t make them any less valuable. 

Then, sometimes, my luck rewarded me. “Thank you, great master,” I said as I grabbed the broken dagger the middle-aged man had in hand. He thought himself to be a martial arts genius, with a desire to develop a masterful dagger art. 

He clearly lacked the ability, the willpower, and the intelligence to achieve that, but I didn’t care about it.

My eyes were on the reward. 

[Pity Bonus - 10 (Capped)]

[10x Return - Qi-Enhanced Dagger, Damaged, Profound Peak-Grade]

“I’m sure an enthusiastic young man like you would do wonders when inspired with a tool like this,” he said. 

“Yes, great master,” I said and departed. I was happy with the dagger, as a cultivator weapon, even a damaged one, was a treasure. I didn’t have a proper dagger technique to maximize its value, but even without it, it was a valuable advantage. 

Unfortunately, he was the last candidate I had identified on the line. I threw one last glance at the royal auction house. While walking around, I also learned that they weren’t planning to hold an auction for a while, which further my willingness to rob them further. If they held an auction, I might have considered buying them — well, making a rich woman buy them as a gift — but since that route was not available, I decided to put my hands on it directly. 

Hopefully, I would find a much larger variety of talismans. 

Of course, I wouldn’t rob them in the middle of the day. Nighttime was a far better time.

However, just as I was about to leave, I noticed a trio of Tiger Fist members walking away from the auction house, one in the middle of a thick book with a dense Qi imprint that he tried to keep hidden but failed. Two of them were connate realm martial artists — though they tried to look merely at Skin Refinement — and the one in the middle was a young man at the peak of Muscle Refinement. 

A young master and his guards. 

The ensemble was impressive enough, but what really caught my attention was their attitude. They tried to look casual, but they weren’t particularly successful. The two Connate Realm experts were tense as they subtly checked the environment, while the young master was vibrating with nervous excitement. 

Whatever was in their hands must be pretty valuable for them to react that way. 

I followed them from a distance, and when they chose to take a shortcut, I pulled my newest essence sword from my inventory, and rushed from behind, and before they could react, I stole the book from the young man. 

“How dare you!” the connate realm artists moved to attack me, but I forced one of them to stay back by throwing a knife at the young man they were tasked to guard. 

“Follow him! He stole the tribute!” the young man shouted, and one of the connate guards chased me. 

I could have escaped easily if I had used my full speed. But, I didn’t forget my aim of ruining the relationship between the Tiger Fist and the Royal family. And, leaving them to look all the wrong places was a fun idea. 

So, I ran toward the palace, letting the guard catch up with me a couple times … and deflecting him using the Imperial Sword, making sure he pinned me as a royal guard. And, once I arrived at one of the secret entrances to the palace ground, I made sure to avoid his gaze before I used my full speed, and rapidly left the city, leaving him to think I went into the palace ground. 

Only after I had left the city, I checked the book. My eyes widened. 

It was a book on the basics of Formation Design. A beginner book, but a complete legacy. 

No wonder they were so excited!

“What an interesting turn of fate…” I muttered as I examined the book for a moment before I put it into my storage ring. Once again, a lucky encounter that defied any reasonable understanding of probability. 

More interestingly, I realized that any such ‘lucky’ encounter had the potential to drive my conflict deeper with Tiger Fist, and likely the force behind them as well. It was far from the first time I was dragged into that conflict, and at this point, I flat-out refused to believe that it was an accident. 

Karma, fate, or anything else… Something was driving me to that conflict.

I sighed and stopped thinking about it. Unfortunately, I had tasks more urgent than solving the working of the mysterious principles of the universe…