A Spark in the Market
"Caw!" The fellow looked incredibly pleased. Was it because of the refreshing night breeze, or the small harvest clamped in its beak? For a Great Yo-beast to be so innocent was quite a marvel in itself.
"What is that?"
"I don't know either! I brought it because it's pretty!"
"From where?"
"Over there!" Cheongo pointed north with its wing. "Lots of ships! Broken ones!"
Were they demon hunters' ships? Or had some adventurous fools gathered in droves only to taste bitter defeat? The human race's unquenchable thirst for exploration and challenge was their greatest strength, but also their fatal flaw. Their reckless strides sometimes brought them treasures, but other times plunged them straight into the abyss of death.
Come to think of it, I wonder how things are progressing in the Human Territory.
He had heard that the atmosphere in the Human Territory had been growing increasingly tense of late. The rogue cultivators' resentment toward the sects and clans was nothing new, but the recent incident in the Secret Realm had served as a catalyst, pushing that dissatisfaction to a boiling point.
The sects and clans prattled on about the "greater good" of the human race, but this so-called greater good was a concept that held little meaning for individual rogue cultivators. Historically, they had always been the sacrificial lambs offered up on the altar of that very cause.
When the human race benefited from the greater good, it was naturally the humans who prospered. But when the human race prospered, the ones who sucked up almost all the sweet nectar were the giants of humanity—the sects and clans. For the helpless rogue cultivators, what trickled down was not even a taste of sweetness, but a mere few drops that didn't even carry a scent.
Rogue cultivators might lack power, but they were no fools. They had remained silent in the face of the sects' honeyed words not because they had nothing to say, but because they lacked the strength to speak. Lacking power, they had no choice but to back down time and again, regardless of the scale of the benefits at stake.
But this time was different. What lay within the Secret Realm was not mere spirit stones, cultivation techniques, or spiritual items—it was the opportunity for Core Formation. The long-suppressed sorrow and rage of the rogue cultivators boiled over furiously.
Myeong-ha was diligently tossing firewood onto that blazing anger, fanning the flames. Though such instigation might have minimal immediate practical effect, it was exceptionally potent at setting the mood. If the atmosphere continued to ripen like this, someone would eventually lose patience and lash out. Or perhaps some oblivious fool would pour oil on the fire.
"Where is the defect?! If you have eyes, look closely! This is unmistakably a top-grade Qi-Gathering Pill!"
A young cultivator roared in anger. His face was flushed red, yet his effort to restrain himself was palpable. However, the man opposite him sneered, as if mocking his restraint, and disparaged the elixir resting between them with a sarcastic tone.
"Top-grade? I don't know what backwater corner you crawled out of, but your eye for goods is pathetic. I've managed this market for three years now. Do you think you're the first of your kind I've seen? You're just another swindler trying to rip off the gullible."
As the commotion grew, cultivators began to gather one by one. Emboldened by the crowd, the man raised his voice even higher.
"It's exactly because of scum like you that innocent cultivators suffer, and the reputation of our market is tarnished! No need for long words. If you want to settle who's right and wrong, let's do just that!"
Watching the young cultivator, who looked ready to spit blood from sheer fury, and the man mocking him, the onlookers quickly grasped the situation. It was the most common tragedy that occurred when a greedy predator crossed paths with someone possessing a treasure beyond their station.
Usually, such incidents ended with the victim swallowing their grievance. The crowd assumed this time would be no different. They expected the young cultivator to be stripped of his elixir and spirit stones, only to spit on the ground and leave the market in dejection.
But this time was different. Though the young cultivator was a rogue, he was not entirely without backing. His master was a Foundation Establishment cultivator, and he himself was a talented alchemist. This Qi-Gathering Pill was something he had refined personally; it was, without a doubt, top-grade.
As a talented youth, he possessed immense pride. Yet now, a worthless scoundrel with pathetic cultivation and zero discernment was insulting him.
"Settle who's right and wrong? You don't even know your place!"
He had endured once; why should he endure twice? The young cultivator shouted coldly and swept his hand. The man, who had been wearing a slimy smirk, had his head severed clean off, his face frozen in that very grin.
And on that day, the market, which had enjoyed peace for so long, was thrown into utter chaos.
The clash that erupted in the market was a common squabble between Qi Condensation cultivators. A person with a shred of authority crushing and extorting someone who had none was a tradition as old as human history itself—perhaps even older.
What was a tradition? It meant something the majority accepted and conformed to, whether they liked it or not. Occasionally, rebels who did not belong to this majority caused trouble, but such erratic behavior rarely affected the conforming masses. This was because tradition itself was a product of continuous evolution through such growing pains.
In other words, the current tradition was a compromise, a "line" drawn after countless clashes between oppression and resistance. In peaceful times, as long as one did not cross this line—or at least did not cross it too egregiously—nothing major would happen.
In the past, such a minor incident would have been swept under the rug so quietly that no one would even know it had occurred. But these were not peaceful times. The conflict between the rogue cultivators and the sects was a powder keg waiting to explode. The trivial clash in that small market was the single spark that flew into that very powder keg.
The young cultivator had retaliated against the sect cultivator who tried to extort him. He did not kill him, but inflicted injuries that would take years to heal, and was subsequently pursued by the sect that managed the market.
However, the young cultivator had a backing of his own. His master was a Foundation Establishment cultivator, and because he was a reasonably skilled alchemist, he had a wide network of acquaintances.
Believing that justice was on his disciple's side, the master stood firmly against the sect attempting to interrogate the youth. Pushed back by the Foundation Establishment master and his connections, the sect found itself on the verge of losing face.
In response, they contacted their sovereign sect, the one they were affiliated with. They did not expect actual physical assistance; they merely wished to use the sovereign sect's prestigious name to crush the opponent's momentum.
Normally, at this stage, both sides would consider each other's face and settle the matter amicably. Of course, even when considering mutual face, the sect's face was almost always deemed heavier, so it usually ended with the rogue cultivators making some concessions.
It would have gone that way this time too—had it not been for a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator among the master's acquaintances, who had recently returned empty-handed and thoroughly frustrated from the Secret Realm.
"Hmph! Shameless bastards who think their name alone constitutes justice!"
Originally, this late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator was only lending his name to the cause. Let alone the two young Qi Condensation cultivators directly involved, even the master who had mobilized his network was merely a junior acquaintance to him. Under normal circumstances, he would have had no reason to care about such a trivial matter.
The only reason he exceptionally showed his face in person and mocked the sect cultivators was not to help his alchemist junior, but purely to vent his own pent-up frustration. It was, so to speak, a fit of pique.
While it was uncommon for a senior to intervene in a junior's squabble just to throw a tantrum, it was not entirely unheard of. After all, even high-level cultivators were ultimately mortal beings bound to the mundane world and swayed by their emotions.
"How unsightly. To think you would shove your face into a minor squabble among juniors just to vent your anger."
In the cultivation world of Yangseo Lake, late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators were near the absolute peak. When a dispute arose between them, even the smallest disagreement was bound to stir up massive waves. Thus, unless they suffered a devastating loss, they would usually swallow their pride and take a step back, no matter how displeased they were.
Indeed, the sect side that had been rebuked by him intended to do just that.
But as fate would have it, the sovereign sect they had appealed to possessed a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator who despised rogue cultivators. And as fate would have it, word of this incident reached his ears.
Coincidence piled upon coincidence to forge inevitability, and a children's squabble escalated into a war of giants in the blink of an eye.
As mentioned, late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators were near the peak of the Yangseo Lake cultivation world. If Core Formation cultivators were immortals drifting above the clouds, then late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivators were the true rulers of the mortal realm.
Their pride was as immense as their strength, and they viewed losing face as a fate worse than death. Furthermore, with both sides already harboring deep resentment, baring their fangs at each other made a verbal dispute turning into a physical clash another inevitability.
"Oh?"
They began to clash in earnest, and news of their battle reached the ears of Myeong-ha, who was busy scattering his Lost-Soul Puppets across the Human Territory to fan the flames of internal human conflict.
"What a splendid opportunity."
Myeong-ha immediately mobilized his Lost-Soul Puppets to intervene in the clash between the two late-stage Foundation Establishment masters. The stage had already transformed into a battle of pride between the sects and the rogue cultivators, and with Myeong-ha's covert instigation added to the mix, the conflict only grew larger and wilder.
"So it was your handiwork after all?"
Even while holed up in the Black Cult Palace, Jekyeong kept his eyes and ears open. Thanks to Choi Ju-tang and Han Cheongyu constantly delivering the latest updates, he was well aware of the commotion unfolding in the Human Territory.
"Fellow Daoist, you overestimate my abilities. I did next to nothing."
Jekyeong did not believe a word of it. He knew that the unrest in the Human Territory had originally been a mere war of nerves, but had rapidly escalated after the deaths of several Foundation Establishment cultivators.
The death of Foundation Establishment cultivators. While not impossible, anyone who reached the Foundation Establishment stage naturally possessed exceptional self-preservation skills, if nothing else. Yet such masters had lost their lives in someone else's fight?
Had there been no reason for suspicion, he might have chalked it up to coincidence. But Jekyeong had an incredibly strong suspect in mind. The fellow before him was an expert in such underhanded schemes, and he even had Foundation Establishment cultivators at his beck and call. Well, strictly speaking, they weren't fully intact Foundation Establishment cultivators, but physically, they were identical.
"At any rate, isn't this a good thing? The time is ripening."
Myeong-ha made no attempt to refute Jekyeong's suspicious gaze. To Jekyeong, this was as good as admitting he had played a hand in it.
Impressive.
His ability to plot was one thing, but what Jekyeong truly admired this time was Myeong-ha's sheer diligence. This fellow was pulling strings in Muryangae while simultaneously instigating chaos in the Human Territory.
No matter how skilled Myeong-ha was at manipulating his Lost-Soul Puppets, a cultivator's mental energy was ultimately finite... Perhaps this guy was cutting into his own cultivation time just because he was so engrossed in playing the mastermind.
Well, I suppose it's not that strange. His life is on the line, after all.
If one imagined the drool of Taotie dripping directly over their head, what wouldn't they do?
"But didn't you say those from Muryangae would make a move?"
"Indeed. There was a reaction, so they might have already set out by now."
"If the Yao of Muryangae cross over, won't the fractured humans simply unite again?"
"A reasonable concern. It could certainly happen. However, I trust that the Yao of Muryangae will take that into consideration."
"You mean they won't make a massive scene?"
Myeong-ha—or rather, his Lost-Soul Puppet—nodded.
"Hmm."
Jekyeong wondered if this fellow was overestimating the Yao race. Perhaps his own presence as a business partner had set Myeong-ha's expectations for the Yao far too high. No, was that too self-conceited?
"We shall see."
Ultimately, instead of pointing it out directly, Jekyeong warned Myeong-ha with a metaphor. He was telling him that things might not go exactly as planned. He didn't care whether Myeong-ha took his warning to heart or not. He had delivered the warning; whatever went wrong or fell apart afterward would be Myeong-ha's responsibility to bear.
"By the way, Fellow Daoist. It seems your cultivation has progressed in the meantime?"
At Myeong-ha's subtle inquiry, Jekyeong's brow twitched. This fellow's perception was sharp beyond words.
No, he might just be testing me.
Since the entire Heukgyo Water Territory had been in an uproar recently while he refined Demon Qi and harmonized fire energy, it was highly likely Myeong-ha had caught wind of something.
"I am merely attempting various things as I prepare for Core Formation."
"Oh? But don't you only need to unearth your bloodline, Fellow Daoist?"
To Myeong-ha's puzzled question, Jekyeong shot him a disdainful look and snorted.
"What progress can be made by relying solely on the legacy of one's ancestors? A bloodline is merely a foundation. What one adds to that foundation, and how much, is what proves the capability of the descendant."
A lie mixed with a grain of truth was always far more potent than a complete fabrication. Except for the part where he swaggered as if he possessed a legendary bloodline, most of what Jekyeong said was entirely sincere.