After exiting Zhi Ruo’s room, Xuan headed back downstairs to the first level of Open Sky Alchemist Guild’s building, preparing to head out. The reason for that was simple—he needed a weapon. The Hunting Party public event was beginning tomorrow at midnight, and he couldn’t exactly just waltz in there without a proper weapon to fend for himself—even if his goals weren’t exactly to fight the monster Horde directly.

On the way down to the first floor, however, Xuan suddenly picked up on the voice of Grandmaster Dun coming from downstairs. Cautiously, Xuan slowed down in his tracks and approached the backside of the hidden door behind the receptionist’s desk outside, pressing his ear against it to listen in on the conversation.

“Grandmaster Dun, with all due respect, a credible source has already informed us of the suspect being here. Please do not make things difficult for us-”

“Credible source? I would like to see which credible source in this city dares to insult Open Sky Alchemist Guild. Holding the suspect? He is an alchemist, part of our organization—the direct disciple of Grandmaster Zong himself, no less. As for what happened earlier today, I witnessed it myself—the boy did nothing wrong.”

“Even so, we must confirm it with the suspect himself, and he needs to be interrogated. We will call for witnesses when the investigation proceeds to that stage, but-”

“Just try and take my brother’s disciple away from here,” Grandmaster Dun growled, voice low and intimidating. “Open Sky Alchemist Guild is the only alchemy organization in this city. Think carefully before you act.”

Hearing this, Xuan chuckled softly. ‘Not bad, Grandmaster Dun. I’ll remember your loyalty.’

But to think Zhou Hai acted this quickly… Xuan had expected something like this to happen sooner or later, but this was faster than he’d originally anticipated—not that it would change anything, really.

Confidently, he strode out of the hidden door and into the front lobby, walking up beside Grandmaster Dun and facing the two city guards that stood across from him.

“You… what are you doing here?!” Grandmaster Dun whispered sharply, anger evident. Xuan, however, simply tapped on his shoulder as if to calm him, and smiled gently.

“I appreciate the thought, Grandmaster Dun. But I can handle things from here.”

The two city guards looked down at the sketch in their hands, then back up at Xuan.

“Are you the man by the name of Xuan?”

Xuan shrugged. “If I said no, would you just let me go free?”

“Er… no?”

“Then why would I answer that question?”

The two city guards were baffled momentarily. He had a point. Quickly, they recomposed themselves, and steered the conversation back on track.

“Ahem… we received a report that you injured the young master of the Zhou Family, Zhou Hai, in public earlier today. The incident occured at the alchemy event that was hosted here a few hours ago, and we were informed by the victim that you would be found here. Do you admit to injuring him?”

At this, Xuan burst out in laughter.

“Haha! Are you listening to yourselves? Zhou Hai is a Qi Transformation Realm prodigy, is he not? Does it sound plausible to you that a mere Body Tempering stage cultivator like me can injure someone like that, even if the strike was by surprise?”

“This…”

The two guards exchanged glances momentarily, before turning back to Xuan.

“About that… it is indeed not very plausible, but young master Zhou Hai suspects that you are hiding your true cultivation. As such, we will need to take you in and investigate your knowledge sea to see if that is truly the case.”

“Oh, there’s no need for that,” Xuan replied. “You can go ahead and check my knowledge sea right here. I won’t resist. However…”

He stepped forward and leaned in between the two guards, whispering into their ears so no one else could hear except them.

“… I’ll have you know that I possess a somewhat… ‘special’ mutated knowledge sea. So… if you’re going to poke around in there, you’re doing so at your own risk. You should know what I am talking about, yes?”

“…!”

The two guards’ eyes widened as they realized what the meaning behind Xuan’s words was. The Devil’s knowledge sea was infamous around the world, and any experienced cultivator should know about it. But if Xuan truly possessed the Devil’s knowledge sea, they would need to be careful about offending him. After all, there was a good chance that he was actually some powerful master, given how he hasn’t gotten hunted down by people yet.

As Xuan backed away slowly, the two city guards whispered to one another, trying to decide what to do. Grandmaster Dun was slightly confused as well, but he could tell that Xuan actually wanted these two to enter his knowledge sea, so he spoke up.

“If it turns out he truly was hiding his real cultivation, then this old master will let you take him, no questions asked,” he added. “However, if it turns out he was not… then you will leave here and never come back with your bullshit.”

“This…” The guards were still hesitant, but after a while, they made up their minds. “… Alright. One of us will send our consciousness into your knowledge sea, while the other will remain outside… just for safety purposes.”

“By all means.” Xuan welcomed them with open arms. “I’m ready whenever.”

The guard who was going in gulped in fear, then sat down in a lotus-position on the floor. Xuan mimicked him and the two closed their eyes, but the difference in complexion was clear. Xuan was perfectly calm, while the guard had his fists clenched nervously.

“Lower your knowledge sea’s defenses. I’m coming in.”

Xuan did as told, and all of a sudden, the guard found himself staring at a vast, violet sea. A bright white moon loomed above the deep and hazy purple horizon, while the dark lavender sky glimmered with millions of stars.

The guard let out a breath of wonder.

“It really is the Devil’s knowledge sea… but… what’s with this incredible size? And what is this tremendous pressure I feel…”

“Welcome to my knowledge sea,” Xuan’s soul form said, suddenly appearing behind him. “Do you like what you see?”

“A-Ah?!”

The guard quickly turned around, flustered, but what he saw next nearly made him piss his own pants.

There, Xuan’s soul manifestation hovered, wearing his true appearance—the appearance of Zero. The guard felt like he’d seen the opposite of Medusa—too perfect to describe and yet enchanting enough to make him completely unable to move.

But in that moment, all the guard felt was terror.

Behind Xuan’s manifestation was a massive black hole formed from the thick Devil Qi in the air from his Devil’s knowledge sea. The space had torn open to create a devouring rift, slowly spiraling. Right now, Xuan was still controlling it, but the moment he chose to let go of that control, the guard’s soul would be sucked in and absorbed by the void, never to be seen again. In the real world, his body would become a lifeless vessel, and no one would be able to save him.

‘To be able to control a space rift this big within his own knowledge sea… just how powerful is this person’s Soul?!’ The guard cried in his head, eyes filled with horror. ‘No, I must escape… I have to get out of here!’

“… W-Wait, this humble one had eyes but failed to see! Powerful master, please spare my life!”

“Oh? But you still have to see if I was hiding my true cultivation, right? Go on, stay here and look around for a bit more.”

“N-No, my investigate is complete. Clearly, senior is not hiding his true cultivation, we were simply too blind to even consider it!”

“Is that so? Are you sure you don’t want to confirm it? Just to make sure…”

“N-No, that won’t be necessary. Please, powerful senior, we won’t ever bother you again, so-”

“Really, now… even if Zhou Hai offers you another sum of money?”

“Wha…”

The guard’s eyes widened even further as he realized Xuan already knew everything from the very beginning. He didn’t know how it got leaked or what kind of accidental mistake he had made, but one thing was for sure—he was done for. He couldn’t even move an inch under the tremendous pressure being emitted by Xuan, and his fate was completely sealed.

“Heh. Too bad, too bad… you chose the wrong person to offend.”

With a snap of his fingers, Xuan let go of his control on the space rift, and allowed the Devil’s knowledge sea to do its work.

“No… NO!”

Xuan smiled. ‘Fool…if you were an actual city guard, the Divine Asura Eye would’ve said as much beside the Occupation row on your profile.’

The guard’s dying screams would reach no one, and his soul would be turned into nothing but food. As the space rift closed and the guard was swallowed whole by the black hole, a notification appeared in front of Xuan’s Soul avatar.

“2,600. Not bad, not bad. The Soul stat gains are somewhat useless for me since I already have them at 16 billion, but the Physical stat gains are great. But… that person was only a Fourth-Layer Core Formation cultivator, not to mention one who barely cultivated his Soul. Zhou Hai, aren’t you looking down on me a bit too much?”

Well, he wasn’t going to say no to free food. He now knew that the Devil’s knowledge sea’s absorption powers allowed him to gain half of the original cultivator’s stats, since Fourth-Layer Core Formation cultivators had stat values of 5,200 at base. Since that guard wasn’t a player, however, he didn’t gain boosts to all his stats with every cultivation breakthrough, resulting in low Soul stats.

If there was still one difference between NPCs and players left in the game, this was it—the ‘stats’ NPCs gained upon breakthrough were directly related to their talent, whereas all players had the same amount of ‘talent’, so to speak. Of course, ‘talent’ wasn’t an actual stat—at least, not as far as Xuan knew—but it was just the comparison between players and NPCs.

Closing his eyes, Xuan returned his consciousness to the real world, and when he opened them again, the other ‘guard’ was frantically shaking his partner.

“Hey! Lei Yiran! Wake up! What’s wrong!”

“Don’t bother,” Xuan replied, as calm as ever. “He won’t wake up.”

“You… what did you do to hi-”

The guard moved to confront Xuan with a furious expression on his face, but in that moment, the sky outside opened up with yet another announcement that echoed across the world—and the next words that came from it froze the remaining guard in place.

Slowly, the guard stared up at Xuan in realization, who had his System open in front of him, displaying the following messages:

“Y-You’re…”

The guard’s voice quivered, too shaky to even finish the sentence.

Dismissing the notifications, Xuan smiled ominously before leaning in beside the guard’s ear, whisper as quiet as a grim reaper’s scythe.

“Shhh… what happened today didn’t happen, am I right?”

Quickly and shakily, the guard nodded his head, on the verge of tears from fear. He knew that he couldn’t go against Xuan, who was announced to have Soul Strength of over a billion. Of course, as an NPC, the guard wasn’t aware just how strong that number truly meant, but the way his partner died was proof enough that Xuan was not someone they could afford to offend.

“Good, good. You may go. When you get back to the guard station, you should know what to say, yes?”

Again, the guard nodded obediently. “L-Lei Yiran… died from a group of thugs… who later escaped with his body to sell it…”

“Mm. Not bad,” Xuan said, patting on the guard’s shoulder twice. “I leave the body with you, then.”

The other guard gulped and stored the cultivator’s body into his Space Ring, completely unable to even look at Xuan in the eyes. Once he was done, the guard fled the scene as quickly as possible, eager to get the hell away from Xuan like he was some sort of monster—which, to be fair, wasn’t all that far from the truth.

‘A shame…’ Xuan sighed in his head. ‘The other guard was an actual city guard, so I can’t afford to kill him as well right now. Lei Yiran, though, was just a spy who Zhou Hai forcefully planted inside the guard station just today specifically to target me—that’s why ‘City Guard’ didn’t show up under his ‘Occupation’. He wasn’t anywhere near experienced enough to have that title, and who in their right mind would send a rookie like this on an interrogation mission mere hours after they got the job? Hmph… idiots.’

Slowly, Xuan tilted his head towards Grandmaster Dun without fully turning around, who wore a shocked expression on his face, unsure of what to make of the whole situation that just unfolded.

“Sorry, Grandmaster Dun. But since you’ve discovered my identity now…”

“… Kill me if you like,” Grandmaster Dun said, clenching his fists. “However, I will not give in that easily. Even if I have no chance of winning against your ridiculous Soul power… I’ll at least try.”

Xuan, hearing this, chuckled softly. Then, he began walking away, letting the matter go.

Naturally, Grandmaster Dun was confused, and spoke up to voice his thoughts.

“Wait. Aren’t you going to silence me?”

“You’re not a bad person, Grandmaster Dun,” Xuan replied as his figure began to disappear. “I don’t kill people who haven’t acted against me. As long as you keep my identity a secret, I won’t do anything to you. But if you do…”

The old man gave a firm nod. “… I understand. No one else will hear about what happened here today.”

“That would be for the best.”

With that, Xuan left, carrying on with his day like nothing just happened. He remembered Grandmaster Dun defending him before he showed himself in the lobby, so that was why he was letting the old man go. Xuan trusted in his loyalty.

Luckily, the alchemist guild had already been closed for the day already, meaning there hadn’t been anyone else in the lobby—no employees, no customers. Otherwise, Xuan would’ve had to take a different approach—going with the guards to be interrogated, then manipulating them using the same method.

Either way, he had everything planned out, but he had no doubt about it—this wouldn’t be the last card Zhou Hai played against him. But whatever Xuan had coming his way, he was prepared for it.

He always was.

Still, the fact that Xuan was the first player to kill another cultivator was somewhat surprising. He’d expected that hothead Nine Heavens to have already done something similar, but upon second thought, he decided that even the earliest of players had only arrived here about a week before he did. Given that short amount of time, only very select few people would be able to reach the Core Formation stage, whereas most would still be stuck tempering their bodies. With that kind of cultivation, how could they kill anyone?

Only Xuan, who had special powers, could pull something like this off as a mere Body Tempering stage cultivator.