Last of Winter's Dark Days. Shuomen City, Falling Leaves Residential District, 'Serene Haze Manor', Underground cultivation room.

Bai Qi opened his eyes, and on his command, the aura that had previously been filling the entire room was recalled.

"So that's how it is? It seems that I will need to buy a few things then"

***

"Xia Fan?" He asked as soon as he opened the doors.

"I'm outside" The somehow grating and screeching voice responded almost immediately, coming from the small yard before the main building.

Bai Qi began walking towards the direction of the voice, marveling at the cleanliness of the manor. "I know I asked her to keep an eye on the manor, but I never expected for her to clean it. And how it is even possible with such a body?" As he wondered, he exited through the sliding doors of the main building and indeed, found the seven feet tall, blue steel golem standing near a small, not more than ten feet in diameter pond.

"Hmm? I thought it was morning by now, have I made a mistake?" The sky was dark, and practically no light except the rune torches located around the manor was present.

"No, you are not" A golem's headshake looked strange, but at least she did something except speaking with her metallic and monotonous voice.

"And then, the reason is?" Bai Qi asked curiously.

"I overheard some servants from the manors near us talk about it and it's something called the Dark Days"

"Dark days? I see, seems like it will be worth it to be investigated" He added another thing to the list.

"It is probably interesting indeed" As Xia Fan said, she slowly turned her massive body, now to face Bai Qi before affirming and not asking

"I can not sense your cultivation at all, which means you were succesful"

"I was" Bai Qi nodded and added

"I will require a few things now, so I was planning to visit the Trade district. Do you want to come with me?" Normally a golem accompanied its master everywhere, but Bai Qi did not truly consider Xia Fan his possession, even though he said it like that to her. Granted she was in his possession, at least nominally, but she retained free will, and he wanted her to know it.

"No, at least for now I feel better inside a closed location" If not for the metallic sound her voice had, Bai Qi could swear that Xia Fan's voice had a tinge of sadness. Not that it was surprising anyway, after all, she had been spared a lot of glances during the few days she was in the open. And albeit golems were far more common in 'Sky Tear' than they were on 'Seven Islands', it still did not help even if only three in place of nine from each group of ten began pointing at, or discussing her current form.

"That's good as well, just keep an eye on the manor then" Bai Qi did not say anything more, beginning to move towards the gates of the courtyard.

________________________________________________________________________

Same time. Somewhere in the Central District, Revered Elder Deng residence.

A message talisman, with a function like a message glyph but far more capable of tracking its target flew through an opened window on the 2nd story of the void stone-covered mansion.

Landing on Deng Guiying's extended hand, it immediately dissolved while transmitting the message to him.

"So he has left seclusion earlier?" Deng Guiying muttered before summoning a similar talisman to the one that he received. Imprinting it with a message and its target, took only a few moments. After which, Deng Guiying disappeared from the chair he had been sitting on, taking flight towards the south. Towards the Trade District.

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It did not take long for Bai Qi to notice that he was being followed by a pair of low-level Warrior Lord cultivators. The latter had their presences and auras concealed, but his own senses were on par with theirs even before his breakthrough and complete, at last, fusion with his soul and consciousness. So it did not take him long to notice the same two faces behind him. They followed him from the entrance to his manor, through the entire 'Falling Leaves', and now even in the 'Free' one he was passing to reach his true destination, the Trade District.

He could not truly do much about them without provoking an incident, not that he wanted to either. Whoever had placed someone to tail him should probably be more powerful than this two, and Bai Qi had no real chance to fight someone like that. "But troubling their lives isn't something that I can not do, isn't it?" Murmuring to himself while crossing the now absolutely empty Exhibition Square, Bai Qi thought.

***

Two hours later, one that probably should be considered midday if the sun was present, Bai Qi exited one of the closed arenas strewn around the plaza. He had found out from a notice that was hanged on every one of them that their use was allowed, at least if one registered their identity plate at the entrance formation, and so, he decided to exert himself a bit.

He had been careful about his exercises, only using his current level of cultivation. Not because he did not want to hide something, but more because he needed it evaluated. The cultivation set he had decided to follow, one that had given him surprise after surprise, had followed the same routine as soon as he had brought in the Sage realm. A flood of information, mantras, and even techniques to break through, control, or even hone his powers appeared in his mind.

From all of them, there was only a single problematic one, and as always, it was the one that he had wished for not to be so. 'Master of Everything, Ruler of Nothing' was indeed a grand set, and each time something was revealed, it managed to surprise Bai Qi again.

Still, it had a small kink of making the advantages be mixed with a lot of trouble. Granted, the Soul realm advances originated from learning Martial skills or Soul techniques had probably saved him, but that did not make it more likable. After all, what common Soul realm cultivator would have the opportunity to quickly, at least if he intended to breakthrough further, obtain nine different skills? Not to mention practice Soul powers, each of them requiring several years to be mastered? The war and afterwar provided him with the first while his original soul was enough to pass the second, but still, if he wasn't who he was, he probably would have stagnated in the realm for several years.

And now, 'Master of Everything, Ruler of Nothing' usual flood of information revealed him the Sage realm requirements. And each of them was harder than anything Bai Qi had even heard of for such a low realm. Not that he did not welcome the challenge, no, but he had the need to advance into the Earth realm before being able to travel this plane's territories with at least some degree of safety, and his cultivation set did not want to help him with it.

His personal, as there was no one else in the entire universe practicing this set, were indeed a bit extreme. Apart from the usual Mindpower requirements, which he had covered by the remaining level from his past life, he also would need to surpass the limits of his body for every one of the three beginner levels.

The first level required a strength comparable to a thousand of catties, or a hundred average mortals. Thankfully he had both improved his body, meridians, and pathways before. Not to mention that the process of healing his probably ill-advised last stand had made him more resilient. Thus he had broken through it almost without issue, just by infusing qi into his muscles to the limit.

But now, the 2nd level of the realm asked him to surpass the speed of a peak Warrior Lord cultivator! Bai Qi's current speed was already over any Sage realm cultivator, thanks to the heaven secret level of the Body realm, but... A Warrior Lord? He could probably contend with them if using all of his resources, but surpassing? That was on the realm of impossible, considering almost two realms of difference and no advantages, with them counting with the same secondary meridians as him. Such a result could be achieved by training and improving his movement techniques, but still, it was something he truly had not expected.

The third level that followed it was not less hard than the others, but at least he would not have any trouble with it. The requirement, apart from the Mindpower mastery only required his pathways and meridians to reach a Warrior Lord level, and he was almost on that level already.

The true problem and the reason for his decision to go to the Trade District were the following 'Wisdom' or Intermediate levels, respectively the 4th, 5th, and 6th of the Sage realm. Each of them required him to reach at least a Master, or even probably the local Grandmaster level in a non-martial path. A thing of note, one that was actually Bai Qi's main worry, was that normally requisites for lower realms foreshadowed ones from the future, which meant he would probably need to be prepared for requirements as crazy as being a Saint-level master. And not in one, but in three, four, or even more disciplines!

His mind occupied with thoughts of the future, Bai Qi even forgot to check on his tail. The two cultivators were forced to find something to do, something unsuspicious enough for the place, during these two hours.

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The trade district, or as Senior Deng had revealed the previous 6th overlord one was bustling with activity. Even with no sun in the sky, under the illumination of simple rune torches or more advanced light formations people moved from shop to shop, merchants tried to shout for customers, and shady characters went along their shady business. Speaking of which, Bai Qi had been the target of one of them.

"Ahhh, my arm!" A child not older than eight years had suddenly appeared before Bai Qi. He then tripped and fell on the ground right as Bai Qi passed, creating an image of the latter stepping on his arm. And now, while shouting and crying, the child waved a purple, swollen arm, showing it to everyone around.

"Such event will be followed by another, one of a responsible adult appearing and either accusing me or trying to extort money for the purpose of healing the supposed damage" And as Bai Qi thought, a fat, old and bald man, dressed in a salty white robe broke through the surrounding flood of people while shouting something like "I am a healer" and quickly lowered himself near the child.

"What have you done?! Not only did you step on the poor child, but you had also your aura penetrate into his arm! I will probably have to amputate it now" The 'good' doctor bellowed as he finished his check, one that was even more of a scam than the entire situation. Indeed, how could someone with a cultivation of the beginner Soul realm, basically a local mortal, even detect someone's aura? Not to mention that that would require one to send his own qi into the arm, and the man had not done such a thing.

"..." Bai Qi normally would prefer to ignore the scammers at all, which he partially did by not talking back, but after looking at the swollen arm of the boy, he felt like helping. At least because a simple healing potion from the ones he had trained with before was nothing expensive, while that probably broken arm was painful.

He did not react to any of the shouts and words, almost as the people around, who probably were used to such events, and simply walked towards the boy and slightly lowered himself. Willing for a potion to appear from one of his void rings, he again paid no attention to the supposed healer's shouts about him trying to kill the boy and just applied it on the arm.

Not staying to look at the situation, Bai Qi stood up, turned around, and continued walking towards his destination - The nearest 'Trade Hall' tower, one of the three located near each of the district gates.

***

Usually going around the stores and buying everything would be cheaper and even more rewarding in terms of finding rare items, but Bai Qi had neither the knowledge about local stores nor the desire to spend an entire day blindly looking for the things he needed, so he opted to buy it through the Trade Hall. Albeit called a hall, it was actually an enormous organization that covered the entire city, formed by the owners of hundreds of stores and other establishments, they enforced their prices on everyone else, and also counted with their own cultivators to prevent any attempt of stealing, or albeit it was just a rumor - rebellion from other traders.

Bai Qi's list wasn't short, and so he was considered as a VIP client and a man called Mo Fu, a manager level clerk of the seven-story tower simply called 'North Trade Tower' latched on him immediately.

"So young master requires all of these items exactly? Or it can be slightly varied?" Mo Fu asked right after hearing the list of required items.

"The herbs and materials I mentioned don't have similars while both the refining and pill furnaces I asked are of the single quality available on the market, or Mister Mo says he has something out of the table to offer?" Bai Qi smirked at the attempt or try to goad him into buying something far more expensive, and probably less useful.

"Oh, no, no, it's a misunderstanding. What I meant is if Young Master is interested in other items as well?" Mo Fu was a shrewd one, and he quickly understood that the youngster in front of him did know what he was buying, and so it was probably to simply seal the deal and be done with it.

"Items? No. But I am interested in the next auctions to be held in the district. Is it possible for an unaffiliated cultivator to assist?" Bai Qi had planned beforehand to assist one of them. After all, what would be better for getting a good understanding of the prices around here.

"The auctions? There are two to be held in the remaining days of the year, and albeit one is a closed one, there is no issue for Young Master to assist the 'Trade District Show'. Well, if Young Master places the required deposit in time"

"Mmm, I see, and when is the date of this one?" Bai Qi asked in turn.

"In a week, and the deadline for deposits is three days or when the last spot is occupied, whatever happens first"

"I see, and how much?"

"A mid-grade spirit stone. Young Master will have to use it in the auction or it will be lost. If Young Master is interested, then I can accept your deposit and present you the participant badge right away"

"Mmm, let's do it like this. And another thing"

"Yes?"

"Can you send everything to my manor?"

"Yes, there will be no problem with that. Does Young Master requires anything else?"

"No, thank you"

Afterward, a few thousand spirit shards changed hands, and Bai Qi exited the tower with his objective complete. He had bought the materials and herbs required for him to begin to dabble into Pills and Refining, while not forgetting about a few consumables for formations and runes. Leaving potions aside, there were four other possible paths for him, and to prevent any future issue, Bai Qi had decided to train them all while centering on his speed and body training. He would also require at least a Spirit weapon, as neither of the ones offered to him by the Empire truly fitted him, but that would have to wait to this so-called 'Trade District Show'.

"Haa, time to return then" Bai Qi mulled and after passingly confirming the existence of the two cultivators that had been tailing him since he left the manor, slowly began to make his way back towards the latter.