Chapter 262: Demon Cultivator Slaves
"Don’t tell the other players."
Chen Miaomiao hesitated.
This old man wasn’t like Zhai Xiaotian. He was clearly trouble.
He was at the foot of the mountain now. If she notified all the players about a strange and powerful Cultivator,
they would get nervous, and all of them would notice the old man, which would just cause more trouble.
"They haven’t been notified."
The system certainly wouldn’t tell them, for the exact same reasons Chen Miaomiao had considered.
Then again, it also failed to mention that Su Daqiang had already run into the man—and that a pig raised by one of the players had even knocked him over.
Chen Miaomiao knew there was little she could do in a situation like this.
When a powerful Cultivator came to a place like this, they were powerless and could only pray for the best outcome.
With these thoughts in mind, she returned to her work.
She had just successfully developed the Third-tier spiritual grass and still had much to do.
As for the man at the foot of the mountain, she could only take things one step at a time.
Meanwhile, Song Jiulai had naturally received the news as well.
She was stuffing some local Xuanwu City specialty jerky into her mouth while frowning and chatting with the system. "Why tell me now? This is so depressing I’m losing my appetite."
System: "..."
After a couple of chews, she took a sip of water. "The texture of this jerky is great, but the flavor is just average."
It wasn’t as good as the braised snacks the players made.
Whatever meat this was, she’d buy a ton of it later and have the players make it honey-flavored and sweet-and-spicy.
Her favorites.
System: "...You don’t look very depressed."
"The guy’s already there, and I’m not—not that it would matter if I were. He can teleport. He must be Nascent Soul Stage at a minimum."
She didn’t know why a monster like that would show up at the Longevity Sect, but it wasn’t an impossibility.
Great Power Cultivators could travel a thousand miles in a single breath; they never paid any mind to the places they passed through.
A small sect on the frontier like theirs had nothing worthy of their attention.
Unless... it now had something worthy of attention.
’Could it be the Spirit Grass Chen Miaomiao created?’
’Doesn’t seem likely.’
The Spiritual Energy from it wasn’t dense enough to attract a Great Power Cultivator.
Chen Miaomiao only encountered the old man on her way back after finishing her work, so there was a time gap.
"Either it was an accident, or something else at the Longevity Sect attracted him, and then his Divine Sense happened to sweep over and notice Chen Miaomiao’s Spirit Grass."
There were all sorts of possibilities.
The fact that he didn’t act immediately was good news in itself.
Since he was currently just wandering around Wang’an County, maybe this kind of Cultivator had simply lived for too long and gotten bored.
The Sect Token was in the system’s inventory right now. If anything went wrong, she could just have Chen Miaomiao crush it.
But against someone of this level, disaster would probably strike too quickly for the Ten Thousand Immortals Sect to even provide support.
"Sigh," Song Jiulai let out a gloomy sigh. "We’ll just have to leave it to fate."
This wasn’t the kind of opponent she could defeat just by being prepared.
Even if she had anticipated this, her own strength was still far too low.
Before, she only had to worry about the players’ grind. Now, with more and more players, her sense of responsibility was only getting heavier.
As soon as she finished buying the jerky, she would go back, finish the mission at the mine, and spend all her remaining time on cultivation.
The Sect’s current resource consumption was manageable, so she needed to stabilize her cultivation of two extremely important Cultivation Techniques: the Nine Transformations Dragon Bone and the Lotus Birth Kill.
Suddenly, an extremely boisterous noise reached her ears.
The deep, grand blast of a horn suddenly rang out, its earth-shattering sound startling everyone in Xuanwu City.
Everyone looked toward the sound and saw a massive, long procession of flying beasts approaching from outside Xuanwu City.
Their destination appeared to be the enormous Xuanwu Tower, which floated high above the city.
The Cultivators, with their excellent eyesight, could see clearly what they were.
The beasts were all pulling cages made of animal bones.
At the head of the procession, atop a winged, rhino-like beast, stood a burly-looking Cultivator.
He held a giant horn, and it was he who had produced the blast.
Whispers broke out around her.
"The City Lord of Xuanwu City is back..."
"He’s brought back a lot of prey this time..."
Song Jiulai was a little surprised. Xuanwu City had many beast sculptures, and its overall style was wilder than that of most Human Clan cities.
But this group of Cultivators before her was a bit too wild.
Song Jiulai was now standing by the jerky vendor’s stall. Even though the procession hadn’t landed, the surrounding crowd automatically flew up and formed two columns to make way.
She quickly asked the shopkeeper, "Ma’am, what is this?"
Seeing that it was a customer asking, the shopkeeper was quite enthusiastic in her explanation. "That’s the entourage of our City Lord of Xuanwu City! They’ve returned from a hunt in Demon Cultivator territory. They must have caught a lot of those fiends who wreak havoc everywhere!"
Understanding dawned on Song Jiulai. "Oh, I see~"
As if deliberately showing off the scale of their expedition, the procession flew very low—low enough for every Cultivator in Xuanwu City to see clearly.
Inside those bone cages were astonishingly beautiful—Demon Cultivators.
Every one of the Demon Cultivators was stunningly beautiful, both men and women. Some hadn’t even fully mastered transformation, and the tell-tale marks of the Demon Clan were still clearly visible on their heads or bodies.
The Demon Cultivators all wore terrified expressions as they looked down at the crowd below.
In contrast, most of the Xuanwu City Cultivators looked at the Demon Cultivators with expressions of greed, disgust, or rage.
The enmity between the Demon Cultivators and the Human Clan was irreconcilable. Demon Cultivators killed humans, and humans, naturally, killed Demon Cultivators.
And seeing such beautiful Demon Cultivators...
Having watched her fair share of TV dramas, Song Jiulai had a pretty good guess what was going on, but she still asked the shopkeeper, "Shouldn’t they just kill the Demon Cultivators? Why capture them and bring them back?"
The shopkeeper gave Song Jiulai a surprised look. "You really are from an out-of-town sect. They’re captured to be made into slaves, of course. They’re so beautiful, wouldn’t it be a waste not to use them as Furnaces? Besides, humiliating them like this is the only way to make the Demon Cultivators truly feel the pain!"
The shopkeeper then asked, "Where are you from? Don’t you have Demon Cultivator slaves where you live? You—are you from the Ten Thousand Immortals Sect?"
Song Jiulai was shocked. ’She could guess that?’
Seeing the flicker in her expression, the shopkeeper wore a look that said ’I knew it.’ "Only those prudes from the Ten Thousand Immortals Sect are so sanctimonious. They don’t take Demon Cultivator slaves. When they encounter a troublesome one, they just kill it. Killing the ugly ones is fine, but wouldn’t it be better to keep the good-looking ones as slaves?"
Song Jiulai: "..."
’The Ten Thousand Immortals Sect... no Demon Cultivator slaves?’
It must be true. She really had never heard of such a thing in the Ten Thousand Immortals Sect’s territory.
Even this shopkeeper in Xuanwu City, thousands of miles away, was saying it. It seemed the Ten Thousand Immortals Sect was truly unconventional in some ways.
She looked up and saw the young and clearly inexperienced Demon Cultivators.
Just then, in the third bone-cage carriage, she saw a Female Demon Cultivator leaning against the bars of her cage.
Her beauty was breathtaking, stunning Song Jiulai no less than the sight of Qing Guo’s face had.
Her eyes were a striking gold with vertical pupils. On the Yunzhou Continent, with its countless races, she couldn’t tell which branch this Female Demon Cultivator belonged to.
The Female Demon Cultivator showed little panic in her expression. She just leaned against the bars, watching the crowd of Cultivators below.
Suddenly, her eyes met Song Jiulai’s.
Song Jiulai was only slightly taken aback, but the female demon’s golden vertical pupils seemed to dilate for a brief moment.