Before the servant arrived, Sage had already created a new Human Seal. During the transformation, just like the last time, he’d altered his soul slightly to give him a new face, features, and aura. Even if he was an extremely long distance away from where he started, there was no harm in being a little cautious. What if he were to by chance run into one of his enemies from the past? Both of his previous two faces had been distributed on wanted posters in the Dou Kingdom and Shihu Kingdom.

With a new look, he followed the servant to the main building of the manor. When he stepped out of the ‘storeroom’ he was once again impressed by the view from the high platform. The utter magnitude of such a structure was amazing. From this high point, the air was quite clear at the time and he could see to the other manors on similarly high platforms. The ‘chamber’ that housed this city was a thousand miles wide and a thousand feet tall. Recalling the view he’d got from the outside, that meant there must be hundreds if not thousands of floors just like the one he was on now. What could possibly require thousands of cities stacked on top of each other? The outside world had such massive amounts of empty and open wilderness, so what was the purpose for such a huge city?

He put aside his thoughts for now, and focused on the manor he was walking into. An odd look crawled onto his face as he looked around. The place seemed very much like Guan Zhenyan. Everywhere he looked there were exquisite works of art and expensive furnishings, but they were also piled haphazardly. It looked less like a home and more like a storeroom. It was as if he’d stepped into the wealthiest hoarders house ever. There were small passageways between the expensive items and treasures, but without care it would be very easy to bump a hanging chain or a precariously balanced stack of golden platters and goblets.

Such terrible taste.

As he walked, Sage noticed that everything was spotlessly clean and he caught sight of an array formation on one of the few clear spots on the walls. A high level cleansing array. So, Guan Zhenyan was too lazy to store his valuables in Storage Chests, but he instead splurged on expensive arrays to keep them all shiny? The man was already too odd for him to understand, so he kept his eyes forward and followed the servant to a central chamber where Guan Zhenyan was currently lounging on a massive couch and puffing his pipe as usual.

“Ahh, you’re here! Ready for your first day?”

Sage opened his mouth, ready to fire off some questions when Guan Zhenyan interrupted him with a puff of smoke. A purple cloud was shot forth from the tip of his finger, seeming to appear out of nowhere and smacking Sage in the face. The thick purple vapor swirled around from his face to completely envelop him, staying there without spreading to the rest of the room. Then after a minute, the purple cloud returned to Guan Zhenyan like a gaseous snake disappearing into the man’s palm without a single trace remaining.

“What was that?”

He could only ask indignantly as he felt his skin burning. The burning sensation sunk slowly deeper while his internal organs felt like they were starting to vibrate. He couldn’t help but to let out a howl of pain, falling to his knees. At almost the same time, he could feel his second set of meridians tremble and he instinctively started to practice the ‘Blood of Fire’ cultivation technique. The pain remained, but the poison clinging to his organs was immediately drawn away. It didn’t stop the terrible sensation and pain, but it prevented the poison from doing him any harm, pulling in all the toxin and slowly circulating it.

His body fell to the ground, writhing around as he tried to deal with the pain, flopping left and right. He smashed his fist against the stone tile, causing cracks to form. The impacts got harder as the pain increased and there was a decidedly different cracking sound as the bones in Sage’s hand gave way. The new form of pain was almost soothing in comparison and he started smashing other limbs into the ground to distract him from the poison’s burning. The sharp stinging flood was like a slap to the face, taking his mind off the slow sizzling of his entire body. His gurgling cries were finally silenced when he lost consciousness and slumped to the floor, his body twitching on its own from the searing pain.

Eventually, when he woke he felt sore all over. His skin felt raw like he’d been ever so slightly peeled, his whole body feeling scraped just lightly enough to not draw blood. He tried to sit up and all that happened was he let out a pained groan and flopped back down. When he moved the burning sensation returned to his muscles and he immediately gave in. Thankfully, breathing was only slightly uncomfortable so he didn’t have to also hold his breath. As a cultivator he could hold his breath for hours, but in his current condition that would make things even more strenuous.

He looked around and saw that he was once again in his quarters, the big empty storeroom. Only, it now looked more like a bedroom. Or at least, one corner of it did. It was still a large empty hall, but now in one corner there was a bed and a small bedside dresser, upon which was a teapot and a bowl of soup. Unfortunately, the room was otherwise completely empty. Given the state he was in, he didn’t hold back and brought out one of the Hoplite servants from his Inner World. In short order, the man was spooning him the soup and serving him tea. Thankfully, he wasn’t interrupted for the rest of the night and he gradually recovered.

Analyzing his condition, he found that the poison hadn’t done any lasting damage to his body. Instead, his flesh was merely the medium for the poison to transfer from the air to his second meridians. He received all of the pain but none of the lasting effects. Now, that same poison was flowing through his second meridians and he could produce it at his will.

“Sir, what was that poison?”

“Hah, you woke up pretty quickly! That was my ‘Skin-eating Heart Fire’. Since you survived you’ve passed the test. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to withstand my strongest poisons, but it looks like I was worried for nothing! You completed the task, but you also did quite a bit of damage to my floor so that will cut into your pay, the same goes for that furniture.”

“Bah! I’ve got some of my own in the Universe Ring, just give it back to me!”

“No can do. If you want the ring back you’ll have to pay me at least a quarter of what I spent to retrieve you from the Shou Empire. Let’s see… that will be about 10 million Spirit Stones. Do you have it?”

Sage didn’t bother answering, just grumbling to himself and stopping the mental conversation with that lazy cheapskate. Instead he sent the Hoplite back to his home and asked them to build him some furniture. A few hours later, he brought a few Hoplites out and had them set up a new bedroom, ones they’d made with bamboo and steelsilk. They also brought the other bed and dresser back outside of the storehouse, calling over other servants to return the furniture so Sage wouldn’t have to pay a rental fee for them. That’s when he remembered something.

“You’re also making me pay rent for this room, aren’t you? Which room has the smallest fee, I want that one.”

“Haha, you’re learning!”