Chapter 485: Arrival at the Northern Plains Cultivation World

Jiang Ding took a light breath.

After six years of travel, when the green appeared before him, his heart could not help but be stirred a little, but it quickly faded, and his figure slowly dissipated.

Even if divine sense swept over, nothing could be detected.

"Magnetism Concealment Art"!

Over these years, through the avatar's unceasing contemplation, he had finally achieved minor mastery recently. With the augmentation of the Taiqing Flying Sword, even a Nascent Soul early-stage cultivator standing before him could not detect anything.

A Nascent Soul mid-stage cultivator, unless they scanned carefully, likewise could not detect him.

The Northern Plains before him, with lush grass and waters, were full of vitality, vast and magnificent far beyond the Three Kingdoms Cultivation World, and the danger was likewise so—no longer a place where Jin Dan peak cultivators could roam unchallenged.

"Zhenjun Shen Ya Zhenjun…"

Jiang Ding muttered.

If not for this person, he would still be in secluded cultivation at Tushan Xiancheng now, only considering going out when his strength could advance no further, and he would be much stronger than now.

As things stood, however, that was no longer possible.

Carrying the sect's billion-loan debt, he couldn't afford to idle even if he wanted to.

"Still, safety comes first."

"No need to rush—it's fine even if there's no opportunity."

Jiang Ding planned: "The sect's loan can be solved. If it really doesn't work out, I can just take out another loan to pay the old one. Though it's utterly shameless, the Sect Central Bank's formation spirit will forgive me."

Mainly, the cost of his refining the flying sword was too great.

At least thirty million low-grade spirit stones per year—only this could allow the Taiqing Flying Sword to grow rapidly. He had to have a domain under his control.

He stepped into the grassland in a single stride.

In an instant, wisps of faint spiritual energy from heaven and earth surged in from all directions, transforming into trickling streams that flowed into his dantian.

Jiang Ding's divine soul relaxed, and he instead felt much more comfortable.

The Spiritless Desert had truly been too torturous for cultivators.

Returning to an environment rich in spiritual energy now was like a fish returning to water—his whole body and mind became joyful.

He savored it briefly for a moment.

Jiang Ding rose, hovering in the air, his divine sense lightly sweeping over the grass, brushing away the two faint footprints.

His divine sense spread out fifty kilometers.

He concealed his form and flew toward the distance.

Before long, several dozen head of cattle and sheep appeared before him, with a youth riding a donkey behind them.

The youth was thin and small of build, his skin dark, draped in tattered sheepskin. In this cold winter season, his body trembled from time to time as he curled up desperately on the donkey's back.

"A shepherd youth who looks very poor."

Jiang Ding silently observed him and did nothing.

After the shepherd youth drove the cattle and sheep to this place with relatively lush grass and water, he let the cattle and sheep graze and forage as they pleased.

He himself, shivering, took out a cold, hard plant tuber—something like a potato—that had been roasted beforehand, its skin charred black.

He didn't even brush off the charcoal-black skin, directly gnawing on it in big bites. In a few mouthfuls it was completely down his throat, and he licked his fingers.

The tuber was only the size of a fist, far from enough to fill his stomach.

The shepherd youth rested for a moment in a sheltered spot, then stood up straight and searched around the grassland, picking up pieces of dry, hard cow dung. First he piled them into small heaps, then gathered them together into the hemp-rope net bag on his back.

Occasionally, when he spotted some berries or the like, his face would light up with joy—he would eat some and pocket the rest.

Sometimes when the cattle and sheep wandered far away, he hurriedly drove them back again.

Hour after hour, the shepherd youth's time passed just like this. Though he clearly looked exhausted, he dared not rest too long, continuously gathering dry cow dung. Gradually, a hemp-rope net bag larger than himself piled up on his back, and he hunched over as he dragged it along.

"The herdsmen of the grassland work harder than many tenant farmers."

"The grassland is too barren."

Jiang Ding sighed softly.

Over the next several days, he spent his time combing through the surrounding thousand-li area. It was a normal nomadic settlement of living and production, nothing unusual, and his Dao-child-level keen divine soul gave no warning either.

During those several days,

Apart from two or three short hours each day, the shepherd youth was busy the rest of the time, gathering dry cow dung and gathering berries.

The harvest was quite plentiful.

Seven or eight hemp-rope net bags of cow dung were packed and tied onto the backs of several docile cattle, and even his own donkey had a few bags strapped on. He could only carry a large bag of berries on his back, trudging step by step as he followed the flock home.

Suddenly, the shepherd youth felt a coolness at his brow.

It was so faint that even he himself did not notice it, taking it for some droplet of water falling from the sky—such things were commonplace on the plains.

He touched his cheek and continued driving the flock forward.

He did not see that behind him, a youth in blue robes was silently pondering something.

"This is the pasture of the Bone Blade Tribe."

Jiang Ding reviewed the copied memories of the shepherd youth, and at the same time sent a wisp of spiritual energy equivalent to a qi-and-blood type pill into the other's heart as payment.

"This is a mid-sized tribe with a population of nearly ten thousand."

"The nobles within the tribe—hmm, this he knew—are called Wanfuzhang, and there are also priests, Qianfuzhang, and the like…all of them surnamed Hei."

"The Heishi, born as the supreme noble breed of the grassland, all tribal chiefs and priests are descendants of the Heishi—this is as natural as air, sunlight, water, and breathing. No one finds it strange; it has always been so, without reason."

"No matter how brave a warrior is, even if he can hunt eagles and single-handedly slay packs of wolves, invincible on the battlefield, he cannot become a tribal chief or priest."

"Otherwise, the Eternal Sky will send down punishment, causing his body to rot and die."

"Only the supreme noble breed of the grassland, the descendants of the Heishi, can become chiefs and priests, owning all the cattle, sheep, and horses in the tribe, and all the women."

"There's nothing else after that—every day grazing, picking up cow dung to hand over to the masters, otherwise getting whipped, things like that."

"The common folk suffer so."

Jiang Ding finished reviewing the herdsboy's decade-plus years of memory, his eyes flashing. "Good news is, we haven't gone the wrong way — this is Liu Dao Sect's Beast Path territory. Otherwise, who would let a bunch of General Heishi mortals rule here, and for so many years at that, generation after generation."

"Next, we find the core of the Beast Path Heishi — the Beast Spirit City."

"Zhenjun Shen Ya Zhenjun has a high chance of being in Tushan Xiancheng. This place has a fourth-grade lower-quality spirit vein, enough to serve as a secluded cultivation spot for a Nascent Soul cultivator."

"And then, while Zhenjun Shen Ya Zhenjun is out, beat him to death."

"That's it."

"I refuse to believe that within the demonic path, in these chaotic, war-torn years, Liu Dao Sect still has Nascent Soul cultivators painstakingly investigating something, with bonds deep enough to reach this point."

Jiang Ding quickly drew up a plan.

His figure flashed, breaking through the air once more, arriving at the center of the Bone Blade Tribe, inside the great tent guarded by numerous grassland warriors.

A burly, bearded man wearing a saber sat in closed-door cultivation, his true qi having reached the peak realm of internal qi, attempting to break through to Innate.

He opened his eyes, revealing a trace of bewilderment, then closed them again.

"A bit more information."

"The location of the Heishi Khan's court — if nothing unexpected, that direction should have traces of Heishi cultivators. Find them, and we can find the location of Beast Spirit City."

Jiang Ding deployed his full concealment abilities, contacting no one, flying through the sky at a pace neither fast nor slow.

Four

(End of this chapter)