The city of Iron-Hoof was a chaotic melting pot of mercenaries, rogue cultivators, and merchants looking for a quick profit. Located on the edge of the kingdom, it was the perfect place to disappear—or to begin an ascent.
Shen Yuan stood at the city gates, his tattered servant robes replaced by a simple, clean black cloak he had "borrowed" from a traveling merchant. Behind him, the siblings Ye Fan and Ye Lin looked like ghosts of their former selves, their faces hidden under deep hoods.
"Listen well," Shen Yuan said, his voice low and cutting through the noise of the crowded street. "In this city, you are not royalty. You are not even refugees. You are my shadows. Do not speak unless I command it. Do not draw your weapons unless I nod."
"We understand, Han... I mean, Senior," Ye Lin whispered. She had started calling him 'Senior' instinctively. The power he had displayed in the forest had shattered her worldview.
Shen Yuan led them not to the main plaza, but to a narrow, sunless alleyway where the air smelled of stale wine and cheap incense. They stopped in front of a shop with a crooked sign: "The Broken Cauldron."
"A junk shop?" Ye Fan muttered, looking at the rusted tools in the window. "What are we doing here?"
"Buying the future," Shen Yuan replied.
Inside, a hunched old man with a glass eye was polishing a cracked jade bottle. He didn't even look up. "We don't take beggars. Move along."
Shen Yuan walked to the counter and placed a small, jagged stone on the wood. It was a piece of common limestone, but it had been soaked in the blood of the 7th-tier Elder he had killed earlier.
The old man's glass eye seemed to twitch. He squinted at the stone, then at Shen Yuan. "Blood-soaked stone? From a cultivator's heart? Who did you kill, boy?"
"Someone who didn't need his life anymore," Shen Yuan said calmly. "I need three things: a Grade-1 Spirit Cauldron, ten portions of Devil-Tongue Root, and a map of the Myriad Grave Valleys."
The old man laughed, a dry, wheezing sound. "That cauldron alone costs five hundred gold taels. You look like you don't have five copper coins."
Shen Yuan leaned in, his black eyes reflecting the old man's soul. "I don't have gold. But I know that the 'Grade-4 Bone-Melting Pill' you tried to refine yesterday failed because you added the Phoenix-Tail herb too early. Your meridians are currently burning from the backlash, aren't they?"
The old man froze. His face went from pale to ghostly white. "How... how could you possibly...?"
"The scent of burnt phosphorus on your breath and the slight tremor in your left thumb," Shen Yuan said, his voice dropping to a whisper that felt like a blade at the old man's throat. "I can fix your meridians and give you a recipe that actually works. Or, I can wait ten minutes for your lungs to turn into liquid. Your choice."
The shopkeeper trembled. He realized he wasn't looking at a young man. He was looking at an ancient monster wearing a young man's skin.
"The... the cauldron is yours," the old man stammered, reaching under the counter. "And the herbs... I'll give you my best stock! Just... please, save me!"
Shen Yuan smirked. This was the power of knowledge. In this world of brute force, a Sovereign of Alchemy was a God among mortals.
Half an hour later, they left the shop. Shen Yuan carried a small spatial bag—a gift from the terrified old man—containing the cauldron and materials.
"Why the Myriad Grave Valleys?" Ye Lin asked as they walked toward a secluded inn. "That place is cursed. They say the dead don't sleep there."
"Exactly," Shen Yuan looked toward the horizon, where the distant mountains of the graveyard valley loomed. "The Lin and Zhou families will expect us to flee to the capital. They won't follow us into a land of death. And for me... those graves are not a curse. They are an army waiting for a commander."
He stopped and looked at his reflection in a puddle. His power was growing, but it wasn't enough. He needed to reach the Foundation Establishment stage before the Empress's spies found him.
"Ye Fan, Ye Lin," he said, turning to them. "Tonight, you begin your true cultivation. It will be painful. You might wish for death. Но к утру вы перестанете быть добычей."