A large city appeared before the group of children. Its architecture was unlike anything Long Di had seen before, and this was counting his experience on earth and his experience within Thunder Cloud City.

The buildings were large and exuded a feeling of being able to withstand the onslaught of calamities, whether natural or otherwise.

“Here it is, Blackstone City! A large city headed by demons,” Feng Yu’s very modest chest puffed up as she introduced one of the demon race’s cities with pride.

“Hm.”

Long Di’s lacklustre miffed her a bit, but considering the amount of emotion that he showed on this trip, this could have very well been a standing ovation in his own special way.

As they entered the city, many gazes were shot their way, or more accurately, at Long Di.

After all, Long Di was a human, and humans were a rare commodity in these parts.

Long Di looked back at the demons in curiosity and, whilst expressionless, his neck was performing its function to the best of its ability, swivelling back and forth like the swivel chair of a broken man working in customer service.

Nevertheless, Long Di for the first time could see just how diverse the demon race truly was.

He could see large four-armed dark-skinned titanic beings, humanoid demons with scales covering their entire bodies. Some had horns, whilst others boasted a tail, and some even had a combination of the set.

Of course, there were many demons that bore a striking resemblance to humans, but humans, much like other species, had a specific essence or breath unique to them. It was this quality that Long Di could sense that made him know these beings were anything but human.

Of course, the reverse also applied. Meaning that many people here knew that Long Di was human, and he was like a beacon in the night because of it.

The disciples thought that Long Di would feel pressure because of it, but luckily it seemed he didn’t care about it one bit.

Many of these demons, however, didn’t exude the powerful fluctuations that belonged to powerful cultivators.

It was Feng Yu who explained that many of the demons in Blackstone City were ‘mortals’ and not cultivators.

Still, overall, the number of people present appeared sparse, compared to other times.

While cultivators were present, they were not as plentiful as they were in other cities. However, because cultivators were still around, young disciples like Feng Yu and the others were not a rare sight.

Surprisingly, however, the attention eventually shifted to Shen Ling. The latter’s face eventually turned red under the onslaught of attention.

It didn’t matter where or when, it could always be seen that beautiful women will always be the centre of attention.

When Long Di saw the amount of attention being shot their way, he eventually advised. “Yeah, we’re gonna have to get you a veil.”

“Hmph!” Feng Yu snorted. “What, are you struck dumb by my junior apprentice-sister’s beauty?” she asked with a proud grin.

“Senior apprentice-sister Feng Yu!” Shen Ling cried out in embarrassment. Her reddened face only served to increase her beauty.

“How is she, does she move your heart?” Feng Yu ignored Shen Ling’s cries of protest and continued to question Long Di. “Her otherworldly looks are mesmerising, aren’t they!? I’ll have you know that not just anyone is worthy of her, but if it’s you, I guess I could think about it. Your talents are… meh, passable... I guess.”

Shen Ling was truly beautiful, even her apprentice brothers had a crush on her. Of course, Feng Yu had crushed their hopes regarding getting together with her.

Not to mention how mediocre their talent was, it was obvious that someone strong had to be with Shen Ling, as her life would be anything but peaceful.

Long Di gave Feng Yu a blank look before he started on her. “Feng Yu, first of all, I wanted a veil to hide her face because people are staring. It’d be the same if she was ugly beyond all reason. Second, I do think Shen Ling is beautiful, I’m not blind. However, it all depends on what she wants, and let’s not forget that I’m eleven, which makes it weird. Maybe when I turn twelve, we could entertain the thought, but not now. Also, being beautiful is far from enough to move my heart, so there’s none of that for me right now. Plus, why are you the one acting like this? Your looks are subpar compared to hers and for some reason, you seem to…”

Since Long Di woke up and chose violence, the three disciples could see small beads of tears balling up in Feng Yu’s eyes.

“Stop it!”

Surprisingly, this shout of protest that cut short Long Di’s merciless tirade was none other than Shen Ling.

Long Di raised a brow at her apparent outburst.

“Faster than I thought, not bad.” Long Di mumbled. He was genuinely surprised that Shen Ling was able to come to her sister’s rescue, or anyone’s rescue for that matter.

“What?”

That low whisper didn’t escape Shen Ling’s ears. Was there a reason why he decided to just fly off the handle like that?

“Nothing,” he said finally.

He stretched his hand towards her, causing her to close her eyes in fright. Did she anger him somehow by stepping in his way? But she couldn’t hold back and do nothing while he insulted her senior sister.

The latter might be a bit… unconventional in her mannerisms, but Shen Ling knew that she only had her best interest at heart.

How could she just sit back and watch Long Di do her wrong? Even to the point where her normally strong-willed senior sister was driven to tears.

“Eh?”

However, Long Di’s fingers simply tapped her forehead with a faint glow.

Shen Ling simply rubbed her forehead slowly with a dumbfounded expression. This was the second time he did this to her, but she said nothing more about it.

Long Di turned to Feng Yu and saw the latter stare back at him with her cheeks reddened. The tear that threatened to overflow before had receded, most likely because of Shen Ling’s timely rescue.

“Feng Yu, my apologies for calling you a mass of poorly constructed meat bag.”

Hearing Long Di’s ‘apology,’ Feng Yu didn’t know if she should laugh or cry. The two boys merely shook their heads as they watched the proceedings.

Based on what just happened, it seemed that Long Di was testing Shen Ling. The only thing was that he was so random that they couldn’t truly tell.

“The elders gave you money and a target, correct?”

Long Di was asking about the money for the medicine and the actual medicine that was needed.

“Y—Yeah,” she decided that it would be best to stop teasing Long Di. He was quite savage in verbal bouts. “They told me that what we need to get is a Violet Dew Tulip.”

Long Di raised a brow when he heard this, “So what we need isn’t a pill, but a herb instead?”

Feng Yu’s cheeks reddened in embarrassment once more. “Well, that would be ideal, but pills are too expensive, so we don’t dare to think about them and instead use whatever healing herbs we can get our hands on. Violet Dew Tulip is not necessarily common, but it’s not too rare either, plus its effects are not too bad.”

Not just Feng Yu, even the other disciples lowered their heads with shame. Though Feng Yu was giving a decorated explanation, the more barefaced reason was that they were too poor.

Their sole business of forging weapons was not very lucrative, especially considering that they only forged regular weapons.

This was something that only the elders did and though the disciples always wanted to learn the craft to help the elders increase the production of the weapons to bring in more revenue, they were never allowed to help.

Selling regular weapons never did make much money, especially in the age of cultivators, but the quality of the weapons constructed always received never-ending praise and allowed the small sect/village to find a small market here and there.

Still, when it came to something like medicinal pills, the profit made from such a small business naturally made such luxuries out of their reach.

Making pills was something that required not only high spiritual force but also deft control of it as well.

Unfortunately, the majority of the demon race specialised in body cultivation, their spirituality was lacking in many areas so there were pitifully few alchemists among their ranks.

This meant that they had to find their source elsewhere. That meant that pills were very expensive here due to price inflation.

“Have you forgotten about our recent windfall?” Long Di pointed to the ring on his finger.

Feng Yu’s, and the other disciples’ eyes brightened when they heard his words. How could they forget?

They were rich now, they could very well buy a lot of things they didn’t even imagine before!

“You said that Violet Dew Tulip wasn’t too rare, right? Where did you buy them before?” Long Di asked Feng Yu.

“Oh right, there’s a specific shop that we know of that provided it before. Come on, I’ll lead the way,” Feng Yu advised with a bit more energy in her step.