Immortal Freeloader 137 (Patreon)

“I did the right thing by not trying to purchase it myself,” I muttered even as I examined the pavilion from a distance … from a great deal of distance, examining the formations around it.

When I had first visited to exchange for Aisnam’s pill, I wasn’t able to understand the true value of the protection. But, now that my formation had increased significantly, I could see more. And, what I could see scared me.

It wasn’t that the formation itself was complicated. It was merely a straightforward defensive formation, complicated but standard. However, the way it melded to the pavilion directly rather than working as an overlay was scary.

In many ways, it was more like the flying boat I used everywhere than just a building protected by formations. I wasn’t an expert on the artifact aspects, but the formations were different. I could understand the details much more.

And, they scared me. The formation design was ingenious, but it had also been simplified expertly. It was subtle, and if it wasn’t for my incredible formation skill, I might have dismissed its elegance. The formation had been designed by a true genius, and it had been simplified to make sure the lesser cultivators could apply.

That detail alone was to further enhance the danger level the place represented, which was why I decided to arrange my current plan.

I had created a fake ruin near the edge, brought the many Everdawn artifacts I had collected, and let a solitary peak Qi Gathering cultivator discover it, betting that he would use it to purchase Foundation Establishment pills.

It was why I was near the market as well. I was watching him from a distance, watching as one from that group had just left the Treasure Pavilion, trying to look ordinary. However, his caution wasn’t enough to conceal him from others, as four others started to follow him secretly.

His caution was understandable. The supposed peace of the market wasn’t enough to protect me when I sold the talismans, and at that time, the reward was nowhere near as valuable as a Foundation Establishment Pill.

He soon realized that he was being followed, and started dashing toward the misty mountains, clearly wanting to use the mist to ditch his enemies. The other four followed. I stayed near, just to make sure that they wouldn’t destroy the pill in their chase.

I could have taken them down, maybe even destroyed their cultivation … but, why should I. They were not my enemy. The opposite.

“It’s time to create another mystic land,” I decided even as I started creating a formation right in the mist, and activated it when they entered it. They fell down, unconscious, and then destroyed the land around to give the impression of a desperate battle. If anyone wanted to check, it would look like a desperate battle that had gone out of control.

I brought them to Markas, but created a different prison for them, one that kept them unconscious for the moment. I planned to create another mystic land for them, but before I made that commitment, I wanted to decide on what to learn from them.

Artifact forging was a tempting idea, but I didn’t have a technique for it. Maybe once I find the necessary technique.

I didn’t feel any guilt for kidnapping them. I could always give them an option to leave once they woke up, but I had a feeling that they would not. Especially if I could offer them Foundation Establishment Pills in the process.

“Now, let’s examine you,” I said to the pill in the box. I unwrapped it, and started to probe it carefully through my formation. It was a Foundation Establishment Pill, but its quality left a lot to be desired. It was merely a Profound Medium Grade.

Admittedly, a part of it was me acting spoiled. For any other cultivator, Profound Medium Grade was already an amazing treasure, especially since it was a rare pill like the Foundation Establishment pill.

I carefully examined its structure, trying to deduce its recipe. It wasn’t exactly a simple process. Since it was a Foundation Establishment level pill, my Umnim technique was almost completely useless, leaving only the Kartpa Alchemy Technique.

It shouldn’t have been enough as well, not merely at Major Familiarity, but luckily, I could cheat. My knowledge didn’t just cover Foundation Establishment, but also Golden Core and Nascent Soul. I might not be able to practice those stages due to a lack of cultivation, but the knowledge was still there.

After a few experiments, I was able to come up with a decent recipe. I didn’t have all the materials, and I had no doubt I would fail many times if I tried to refine it, but it didn’t matter.

I added the recipe as a bonus task through the interface I created for her, promising a Foundation Establishment Pill as a reward, the final quality dependent on her speed of success. It was an extreme reward, so it wasn’t shocking that she stopped doing anything to study the recipe.

With that task in hand, I decided to leave her alone until she completed the task. However, since I was back in Markas, I wanted to do something else than just take care of the plants and replenish my seed reserves. Two tasks were of premier importance.

First, I used it to visit the fake mystic land I had created to distract the sect cultivators, using the tunnel I had created to approach closer.

I didn’t just reinforce the formations, but also added several pills and talismans to it. The rewards themselves weren’t enough to tempt the sects, but they were impressive enough for Qi Gathering cultivators, even sect ones.

I didn’t want anyone to get impatient and demolish it. Luckily, while cultivators had many unappealing qualities, impatience was not one of them. Or, even if they were impatient, the way they perceived time was different after spending most of their lives meditating.

At the same time, I created another beautiful, convincing mystic land for the imprisoned cultivators, and even created a library of basic techniques for them, covering every topic, from music to artifact forging. However, it was exclusively auxiliary techniques. There was no combat or cultivation technique there.

I needed to improve the breadth of my abilities more than adding yet another technique I could use to defeat people in direct combat.

The design of the new fake mystic land was interesting. I had created a set of floating cells, which would keep each cultivator imprisoned safely even as they cultivated. Meanwhile, cultivators could turn the center wall opaque or transparent as they wished, but only when it was transparent, they could read the techniques at the center.

The design allowed me to appear or stay hidden as I wished. I had two aims for it. First, I wanted to create a nice spot for my prisoner to break through to the Foundation Establishment, a process that would be recorded by my cultivation, so I could see if there was anything I needed to do to protect Janassa.

Second, I wanted a group of people who would work hard to improve their abilities, yet I could interact without being too suspicious.

All I needed to was to mix while disguising myself as another prisoner.

As one last touch, I added a poem.

‘Sword's might, false gold; art's grace, eternal in the world. Conflict buns, creation stays; paint remains where blood boils.’

And, I made sure to embed a sense of peaceful development in every brush stroke, pushing my calligraphy to the limit. I pushed myself because it was the only way I could convince a bunch of itinerant cultivators who spent their lives robbing and killing to study seriously.

I left them alone to wake up.

Everything was ready. All I needed was to return to the misty mountains and search. Too bad that I had no clue about the location of an old martial sect —

“Damn it,” I muttered even as I slapped my head. I remembered that I actually had a clue. One that I learned almost at the same time of my arrival.

Elsana and Lannayin. More accurately, the mysterious place where they had discovered their unique martial arts. They were yet to return, but I still had someone I could question. Marana.

Unfortunately, the questions were too sensitive to ask directly, so instead, I sneaked into the city, and questioned her under the hypnosis — the combination of alchemy and formations made it a very good truth serum, particularly when targeted to a martial artist.

It was a mean thing to do, but what I was doing was too sensitive to be revealed. I liked Marana, but not enough to take any chances with such a dangerous question.

From her, I listened to the story of how Marana had saved the two. And, more importantly, where.

With her explanation to limit the search area, it merely took a few hours for me to find the sect in question, which was on the outskirts of the misty mountains and could be easily walked. However, it was hidden in a mountain, which kept it a secret.

I prepared several defensive formations to make sure the inevitable stampede would stay hidden.

But, to my surprise, when I created the formation, there had been no stampede, as if the mist didn’t even register the presence of the ruins as important.

Interesting.