First Immortal of the Sword

Beneath everyone’s gazes, the girl said bitterly, “I… I’m sorry. Just now, I was overly presumptuous…”

This was her first time lowering her head and apologizing like this. She felt conflicted about that, as well as a bit dazed.

Was this the price of growing up?

When he saw this, Uncle Yong sighed in relief, looking somewhat gratified.

He then turned to Su Yi and said respectfully, “Mystic Master, everyone in the family has spoiled the young miss since she was a baby. She’s never experienced wind or rain; a little recklessness is almost inevitable. I humbly request your forgiveness!”

The other guards followed suit, each of them requesting his forgiveness.

Su Yi merely glanced at the girl, but he said nothing. Instead, he went up to the Six-Severings Yin Corpse and looked it over carefully.

He’d never planned to make things hard on the girl in the first place.

It was just as he’d said; he’d come here for the purpose of killing the Six-Severings Yin Corpse. He’d just happened to save the girl and her guards while he was at it. He disdained demanding their everlasting gratitude.

When he saw this, Uncle Yong and the guards finally relaxed. They realized that Su Yi wasn’t about to take the young miss to task over her poor manners.

They weren’t sure when, but the downpour had silently tapered off. The tense, dark clouds had dispersed. Light returned to what had been darkness mere moments before. They could even dimly discern faint, rosy hues just over the horizon.

Dusk was approaching.

The floor of the dilapidated temple was already nothing but rubble, yet weeds flourished in its soil. The hall was a scene of both life and death, like the outline of a desolate, unbridled scroll painting.

The uniformed girl and her guards returned to the hall to treat the wounded.

Only Su Yi remained in the courtyard, examining the folding fan he’d picked up from the ground. Its edges and ribs were forged of a spiritual material, “Ink-Splattered Spirit Iron.” The cloth was Blood Yin Silk, with crudely painted clouds and the outlines of eighteen mountain ghost totems.

“This is most likely a product of the Deathbringer’s Gate. The craftsmanship is coarse and shoddy; it’s not even worth looking at. What a waste of quality spiritual materials,” said Su Yi with a hint of regret.

The fan was heavily damaged, practically ruined. Otherwise, he could have extracted the materials and used them to make a decent sword. He casually tossed it aside. Then, his gaze returned to the Six-Severings Yin Corpse.

But in the end, he found nothing.

He couldn’t help but furrow his brow. The corpse had gained sentience, and he’d even recruited several members of the Deathbringer’s Gate as his subordinates. It was highly likely that he’d already plucked both the Six Yin Grass and the Extreme Yang Flowers. Su Yi couldn’t even eliminate the possibility that the corpse had already gotten his hands on the inauspicious yin spirit vein.

Yet there were no treasures of any kind on its corpse.

Don’t tell me this wicked creature has a nest somewhere out there, and that it’s long since hidden its treasures inside? Su Yi pondered for a moment, then took out a flame stick. Sparks fell into the dirt, and the Six-Severings Yin Corpse’s remains instantly burst into flame.

Dense black smoke billowed into the air.

Soon, the entire corpse was nothing but ash. Su Yi was just about to rejoin the others in the hall when his eyes lit up.

He’d just noticed a jade pendant amidst the ashes. It was about the size of a baby’s fist, dark and non-reflective. It was extremely difficult to notice unless you were looking carefully.

Su Yi immediately picked it up and examined it. Soon, he couldn’t help but smile.

The pendant was smooth to the touch, its surface carved with mountains and rivers. It was inky black, with a simple, stately elegance.

More importantly, this was actually a storage treasure!

According to Su Yi’s memories of his current life, spatial treasures were incredibly rare within the Great Zhou’s borders. Even some Grandmasters weren’t fortunate enough to possess them.

It wasn’t that they were so expensive so much as that they were overly rare.

Su Yi wouldn’t have guessed this Six-Severings Yin Corpse would possess a treasure of this caliber.

After examining it briefly, Su Yi exerted strength through his fingers and brushed the inky black pendant’s surface. This instantly dispersed the layer of weak seals protecting it.

He sensed its interior, and discovered that the space inside was extremely narrow, only about three square feet. It was only barely enough to fit a large wooden chest.

The storage space was already full of numerous items: scattered jade bottles, spiritual medicines, spirit stones, scrolls, etc.

This was undoubtedly the sum total of the Six-Severings Yin Corpse’s possessions. Everything was here, including the Six Yin Grass and Extreme Yang Flowers Su Yi had come here in search of.

However, he didn’t find that inauspicious yin spirit vein. He wasn’t sure if the corpse had already refined it, or if it were still hidden somewhere within Mother Ghost Ridge, undiscovered.

Before long, Su Yi took inventory of his spoils: nine stalks of spiritual medicine: five tier-one, two tier-two, and three tier-three.

It’s worth noting that although the Six Yin Grass and Extreme Yang Flowers were both tier-three, they were prime supplements for Inner Furnace Realm cultivators, far beyond what normal tier-three spiritual medicines could compare with.

It was for this reason that the Martial Dao Grandmaster, Xiao Tianque, had come here in search of Six Yin Grass.

Aside from the spirit medicines, there were fifty-five spirit stones and about a dozen bottles of various types of cold yin medicines. Ghost cultivators used them to temper their abilities, but they weren’t useful to Su Yi. Still, he could at least give them to Qing Wan.

Finally, there was a scroll. It was made of leather, but it was so old and worn that its pages were yellowed.

It described a secret cultivation method called the “Nine Devils Profound Yin Technique.”

As impressive as the name sounded, after Su Yi flipped through it, he couldn’t help but shake his head in disappointment.

This was nothing more than a “corpse refining” technique, an aberrant branch of ghost cultivation.

Even if you practiced it to its highest limit, you could at most “borrow corpses to condense a body” and “undergo metamorphosis to become more human-like.” At best, you’d barely be on par with an Origin Dao cultivator.

It couldn’t even begin to come close to the Ten Directions Asura Sutra he’d given Qing Wan, and it wasn’t worth so much as a second look.

At my current level, my regular daily cultivation alone burns through a tier-one spiritual medicine. Even with all the herbs I acquired today, I’ll at most be able to support my expenditures for another two weeks….

But if I want to reach the pinnacle of ‘Refining Bone’, I’m afraid half a month won’t be enough.

Going forward, I’ll have to keep searching for spiritual medicines….

But then, finding this dark jade pendant means I didn’t make this journey in vain.

He set those thoughts aside, then hung the pendant from his waist.

With a storage treasure, he’d have no need to drag around heavy luggage during his upcoming journeys.

This was what pleased Su Yi the most.

When it came to cultivation, he was confident that he was more diligent and assiduous than anyone.

But when he wasn’t cultivating, he was as lazy as could be. If he could leave something to other people, he would. He wouldn’t so much as lift a finger if he didn’t have to.

Darkness spread, and night fell.

The group lit a new campfire within the dilapidated great hall.

When Su Yi walked back inside, Uncle Yong and the others hurriedly rose to greet him.

“Mystic Master Su, it’s already gotten late. We’ve prepared a modest meal to express our gratitude. Please, take a seat.” Uncle Yong invited him with a smile.

Su Yi glanced at the fire and saw a sumptuous array of food and drink. Furthermore, they’d cleared a wide, comfortable space, and it was obviously intended for him.

“Don’t mind if I do.” Su Yi wasn’t the type to put on airs. He simply sat down and stretched.

When he saw that everyone else was still standing, he casually ordered, “Sit down, all of you. No need to be reserved. I’ve never cared about these sorts of details.”

Only then did Uncle Yong and the others smile and sit down.

From beginning to end, the armored girl looked as if her soul had left her body. Her head was lowered, her pretty face pallid, and she said nothing. It seemed she’d yet to recover from her earlier shock.

But she didn’t have any of her former domineering, prideful temper, either.

Su Yi certainly didn’t care how she felt. He ate and drank as he pleased, ignoring her completely.

When they saw Su Yi’s disregard for the details, the guards gradually relaxed. They started toasting him and making small talk. Su Yi didn’t refuse, but he barely spoke, either.

Even so, this level of amiability was a huge comfort to Uncle Yong and the rest of the guards. They’d been truly terrified that this mighty existence capable of cleaving a Six-Severings Yin Corpse directly in two would hold a grudge. If so, it would be a nightmare far greater than any of them could bear.

Guo Bing was delighted too.

Everything he’d seen today had expanded his horizons. He was increasingly convinced that with Su Yi’s abilities, he could easily cure the yin poison afflicting him.

As they conversed, Uncle Yong no longer kept their origins a secret. Intentionally or unintentionally, he revealed their identities one by one, as well as the purpose of their expedition.

Only now did Su Yi learn that they hailed from another of Cloudriver Prefecture’s four peak-level factions, the Yuan Family.

The girl in military attire was called Yuan Luoxi. She was the youngest daughter of Family Head Yuan Wutong, the apple of his eye and the pearl of the family. Everyone doted on her.

Uncle Yong’s full name was Cheng Wuyong. He was an elder, albeit one with an outside surname, and he’d accompanied Yuan Luoxi as the leader of her guards.

The guards were all elites with cultivations in the Blood Circulation’s Refining Sinew or Refining Bone stages. They were valiant and capable on the battlefield.

They’d come to Mother Ghost Ridge in search of Six Yin Grass. Yuan Luoxi wanted to give it to her father, Yuan Wutong, as a birthday present.

When he heard that, Su Yi’s eyebrows shot up. “How did you learn that Six Yin Grass grew in Mother Ghost Ridge?”

He’d first heard from the Spiritjade Marchioness, Zi Jin, that almost no one in Cloudriver Prefecture knew that Six Yin Grass grew here.

The uniformed girl, Yuan Luoxi, had sat there in silence throughout their conversation. This time, she spoke up. “A little while ago, Grandpa Xiao visited our family home. He mentioned it in passing while discussing something with my father, and I secretly committed that information to memory.”

Even as she spoke, she hung her pretty head. She sounded dejected.

“Xiao Tianque?” asked Su Yi.

Yuan Luoxi was briefly stunned. She finally raised her head, her pretty eyes blank. “You… Mystic Master, you know Grandpa Xiao too?”

Even the way she addressed him had changed.

This was indirect proof that she now saw Su Yi in an entirely different light.

“Of course I know them. Not long ago, he led his granddaughter into Mother Ghost Ridge, only to suffer grave injuries at the hands of that Six-Severings Yin Corpse. If he hadn’t bumped into me, I’m afraid he would be long dead by now,” said Su Yi casually.

Cheng Wuyong and the other guards’ visibly started.

All of them were well aware of just how lofty Xiao Tianque’s status was. When he visited the Yuan Family, the family head had personally gone out to greet him!

Meanwhile, something seemed to occur to Yuan Luoxi, who blurted, “Mystic Master, don’t tell me you’re that ‘lofty expert’ Grandpa Xiao told me about?”

The way she looked at Su Yi had now changed completely. Her eyes brimmed with shock, disbelief, bewilderment, as well as a hint of awe.

“If he was talking about the person who saved his life, yes. That was me,” said Su Yi, but his thoughts were elsewhere.

He’d already understood. They’d learned of the Six Yin Grass from Xiao Tianque. That was what prompted Yuan Luoxi and the others to undertake this expedition.

Seth's Thoughts

Ancient Chinese lighters looked like this. I wanted to call the thing a lighter, but it felt like an anachronism, so “flame stick” it is.