After leaving Mujiao Town, Song Qingming headed north.
This time when he came out to gain experience, Song Qingming was not in a hurry to travel. He stopped and walked along the way. When he came across some interesting places, he would stop and play for a while. It was the vernal equinox, and all things were reviving and flowers were blooming everywhere. Along the way, he saw many beautiful sights that he had never seen before.
Song Qingming secretly made up his mind that if he succeeded in cultivation one day, he would definitely leave Wei State and take a good look at the world of immortal cultivation.
The last time Song Qingming went to the Floating Cloud Mountains, the journey was extremely dangerous and he had no time to stop and appreciate the scenery. When he returned to Qinghe County from Guiyunfang, in order to prevent his clansmen from worrying about his safety, he hurried on his way and returned to Funiu Mountain early. He had no time to appreciate the beautiful scenery along the way.
Twenty days later, he crossed Pingyang County and changed his route to the northwest. By the time he slowly walked to Guiyunfang, more than a month had passed. The entrance to the market was the same as three years ago, and one still needed to queue up to verify one's identity before entering. However, there seemed to be a few more monks guarding the gate than three years ago, and the interrogation was more detailed than last time.
After entering the market town, Song Qingming inquired and found out that a group of demonic cultivators had come to the Floating Cloud Mountains in recent years and had harmed many fellow cultivators. In order to prevent them from infiltrating the market town, the Xiaoyao Sect had increased its patrol efforts.
Demonic cultivators are those monks who practice strange and bizarre skills from other worlds. After practicing these skills, the cultivators' personalities often change drastically, and they will do anything to achieve their goals. Some special skills also have strange abilities to control others, and they may even perform blood sacrifices on mortal cultivators, which is against the will of heaven.
The cultivators in this world deeply detest the demonic cultivators. Once the traces of demonic cultivators are discovered in Weiguo, the Xiaoyao Sect will often mobilize a large-scale war to wipe them out. However, the demonic cultivators are cunning and good at hiding among the mortals in the mountains, which often makes the efforts of these large sects futile.
Song Qingming strolled around Guiyunfang for a while. This market was not much different from three years ago. Soon he came to the shop where he bought the Taixu Sword three years ago. Unexpectedly, the scene in front of him made him a little depressed. The grocery store where he bought the magic weapon had been replaced by a store selling various spiritual beasts, and the owner of the store was also replaced by a middle-aged man with a beard.
Song Qingming carefully checked to make sure he was in the right place, then he stepped forward and asked, "Boss, is the Daoist Li who was originally here still here?"
"Fellow Daoist Li, which Fellow Daoist Li? I don't have any clerk named Li here. Fellow Daoist, you are looking for elixirs, right? However, he sold this shop to me a long time ago. If you want to find him, move forward a hundred steps and you will find him." After the middle-aged man finished speaking, he pointed to an elixir shop diagonally across the street.
"Pills, wasn't this originally a grocery store?" Song Qingming looked in the direction he pointed, and became even more confused.
After spending some time asking around, Song Qingming finally realized that the original "Li's Grocery Store" had long been deserted, and the store had been owned by several different owners.
Upon hearing the news, Song Qingming's heart couldn't help but tremble. He had already deeply experienced the mystery of the Yuxuan Sutra. He had wanted to come here to inquire about the master who had deposited the Taixu Sword. He didn't expect that he seemed to have come a little late. Now the place was already deserted. He didn't know whether the original owner knew that there was a technique hidden in the sword.
Song Qingming was not giving up and asked around in the surrounding streets. Everyone was familiar with the master and disciple who opened a shop here three years ago, but they only knew that they were master and disciple. They seemed to be independent cultivators from other places and usually just ran this small shop. After asking around, no one knew where the two had gone. Now it seemed that it would be difficult for him to find the answer to this question in a short time.
Even if they were worried that I would come to settle the score, they didn't have to move the entire store. Seeing that it was getting late, Song Qingming left here a little disappointed and found an inn in the market to stay in.
Song Qingming, lying on the bed, was still thinking about this matter. Now he even suspected that the two men had intentionally hidden this martial art in the sword.
Now that he has inherited this martial arts technique and has also felt the mystery of the Jade Profound Sutra, if it was really those two people who intended to pass it on to him, they can also be considered his mentors.
The next morning, Song Qingming left the inn early and came to the market town. Following the largest street in the market town, Song Qingming came to a square on the east side of the market town. At this time, many cultivators had gathered on the square. They were either in groups of three or five, or alone like him, and they were all staring at the center of the square.
This is the place in Guiyunfang where monks' monster hunting missions are posted. There is a high circular wall in the center of the square. Posted on the wall are missions to hunt monsters, purchase elixirs, and various monster information.
From the first-level monsters in the early stage of Qi Refining to the second-level monsters at the peak of Foundation Establishment, as long as there are first- and second-level monsters near Guiyunfang, they will be included. The magical powers of monsters above level three are equivalent to those of Jindan cultivators among humans, and they generally do not appear near Guiyunfang. They all live deep in the Floating Cloud Mountains. Naturally, Guiyunfang does not dare to offer a reward for monsters of this level.
Among these published information, not only will the places where the monsters are active be marked, but also their characteristics, weaknesses and other information will be written out one by one. The valuable items on these monsters will also be specifically noted. The reason for this is to make it easier for the monks who have taken on the task to make some preparations in advance before departure, so that they can better complete the task.
For this purpose, Xiaoyao Sect specially recruited a group of cultivators in Guiyunfang to go deep into the Fuyun Mountains to investigate the information of these monsters. Then, a dedicated person collected this information together and published it on the square based on the monsters' level, difficulty and other information, plus the corresponding reward spirit stones.
It is clearly stipulated in the market that any cultivator, whether a direct descendant of the Xiaoyao Sect or a casual cultivator, can receive the bounty of spirit stones indicated in the posted task as long as he successfully completes the task and brings the required token here.
Guiyunfang is the largest market town in the northern part of Xiaoyao Sect. There are no less than a thousand cultivators living in it, most of whom are independent cultivators. After taking on tasks in the market town, these independent cultivators form large and small monster hunting teams, and then go deep into the Fuyun Mountains to hunt monsters, which also brings an unusually prosperous scene to Guiyunfang.
The reason why Guiyunfang did this was to attract more cultivators to come here to hunt monsters, weaken the number of monsters in the Fuyun Mountains, and make more preparations for future monster unrest.
When he came here, Song Qingming had already found out some information about the market here. His purpose of coming here was to find a place where he could go out to hunt monsters and train himself.
After walking around the square for a long time, Song Qingming made up his mind to start practicing with tasks that were relatively simple for him. After finding a few relatively simple intermediate-level monsters in these tasks, Song Qingming was about to walk to the center of the square to take on these tasks when a voice suddenly sounded beside him.
"Fellow Daoist, please stay for a moment."