The Unruly Immortals

"Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum!" Along with the incantation in his mind, Li Huowang followed the cultivation technique, directing the breath in his dantian.

Subsequently, he lifted the Bronze Sword with his left hand and thrust it violently towards a green bamboo shoot in front of him.

The next moment, the Copper Coins on the Copper Coin Sword trembled slightly, scattered in the air, and, led by the red string, embedded one by one into the bamboo shoot.

Li Huowang gripped the hilt again, and the ancient Copper Coins swiftly returned, reconnecting into the blade of the Copper Coin Sword.

By the time the Copper Coin Sword was back in place, the bamboo shoot over one meter tall in front of Li Huowang had already split into pieces.

Then Li Huowang turned his attention to a black rock covered with green moss. He clenched the sword and chopped fiercely towards it.

The next moment, Li Huowang felt a powerful force transmitting from the sword, and at that second, it felt as though it was not he who was swinging the sword, but the sword leading his hand.

Just when the Copper Coin Sword was about to hit the rock, it disassembled in an instant. As the empty hilt swept past the boulder, the Copper Coins, strung together by red thread, regrouped and cut through a rotten tree several meters behind the stone.

"This sword is useful, very useful," thought Li Huowang, a hint of joy in his heart as he regarded the Copper Coin Sword before him.

Compared with the other things he owned, this was clearly more practical, and most importantly, it came without any side effects.

The Copper Coin Sword could, to some extent, compensate for his deficiency in long-range attacks.

The scholar by his side watched with immense envy. After all his struggles to master his divine skills, Li Huowang had come to wield them far better in such a short time.

Thinking of this, the Scholar's envy was palpable, and he approached with an excited expression. "Master, your divine skills are unparalleled in this world!"

Faced with such flattery, Li Huowang's expression looked as though he had swallowed a fly. This man had not been schooled and didn't even know how to properly kiss up.

"Master, what divine skill shall I learn next?" asked the Scholar, his eyes brimming with eagerness, voicing his most pressing concern.

Li Huowang looked at the young man in front of him but didn't answer. He had previously instructed him to learn the cultivation technique partly to dissipate his aggressive energy and partly to test the waters of the technique beforehand.

Now that his objective had been met, Li Huowang knew he had to consider what to do with his inexpensive disciple.

Li Huowang understood that given his current temperament, directly expelling him from the sect would probably not be the best way to go about things. He needed to devise a more roundabout strategy.

"Learn to read. Your next step is to learn to recognize characters," said Li Huowang, which left the Scholar stunned—it wasn't quite what he was expecting.

"Do you know why I learned this cultivation technique faster than you? It's because I can read."

"So what if I can't read? I can still learn divine skills without reading! I can even do immortal cultivation!" retorted the Scholar, evidently annoyed.

"You won't learn? Fine, then don't blame me for not teaching you," Li Huowang said and turned to leave.

"Master, I was wrong!" The Scholar, extremely anxious, knelt down before Li Huowang with a thud and kowtowed three times. "I'll learn!"

By the time Li Huowang walked out of the Bamboo Forest, the Scholar was already behind him, frowning and memorizing characters off a page with great difficulty, such hard work was entirely new to him in his life.

Seeing its owner emerge, Mantou trotted over and wagged its tail by Li Huowang's side, sniffing gently at his hem.

Li Huowang patted the dog's head and said to the others by the ox cart, "Let's go, move quickly. We need to get into Yinling City as soon as possible."

With the wheels of the cart rolling again, Li Huowang reopened the map in his hands. Looking at it, a major city of the Da Liang Kingdom, Yinling City, was not far ahead.

From the information he had gathered, this city was quite prominent in the Da Liang Kingdom and was the fief of a Prince of Da Liang.

Of course, Li Huowang didn't really care about what the city was like; what he cared more about was that once they passed this city, they wouldn't be far from Ox Heart Mountain.

Once he arrived at Bai Lingmiao's hometown, the arduous long journey would finally come to an end.

"Brother Li, I've never been to Yinling City before," said Bai Lingmiao, her eyes covered with white silk bands, holding onto the hem of Li Huowang's clothing. "My second uncle told me that the people in Yinling City are very rich. When he was young, he hunted a pheasant-tailed deer, sold it in Yinling City, and came back to build three big tile-roofed houses!"

"He said Yinling City is very big and beautiful, and the food is especially delicious. When I was a child, I often wondered how tasty it could be."

Bai Lingmiao chattered on and on, a complete change from her previous demeanor.

As she spoke, Li Huowang just listened quietly. One in front and one behind, they made quite a pair.

Under the birdlike voice of Bai Lingmiao, a tall and imposing city wall gradually appeared in front of them.

As they followed the crowd to the base of the wall, and Li Huowang found himself completely shadowed by it, he looked up and almost mistook it for a mountain.

"This wall... this wall..." Dog Wa said with a dumbfounded look in his eyes.

"This wall is really big!" Yang Xiaohai finished the sentence for him.

"You're the one who talks too much," Dog Wa said, holding his wife's waist, and hurried to catch up with the carriage.

At the front of a long line inside the fortified city, guards with the word "soldier" embroidered on their chests were checking each person one by one.

Compared to Qingqiu, it was clearly much stricter here. Everything had to be inspected before granting passage.

Everyone involuntarily became tense and pulled tight the black gauze caps on their heads.

Just entering into the ten-meter-long entrance of the fortified city, Li Huowang noticed the echo when speaking, evidence of its vastness.

"What business do you have in the city?" the inspecting guard asked with an indifferent tone.

"Esteemed officer, we're actors, please let us through," said Top Scholar Lv with a smile, handing over the travel document tied with silver, which got dropped to the ground.

Seeing the travel document with the official seal, the guards who were about to close in for a search stepped back.

"Pass. Next," said the guard.

Those words provided Li Huowang, who stood beside the ox cart that carried Black Taisui, with a sigh of relief.

Once inside, Li Huowang immediately heard continuous exclamations; however, this was to be expected with the bustling streets lined with multistory buildings on both sides.

Among these buildings was a scene as lively and vibrant as a real-life "Along the River During Qingming Festival."

Looking at all this prosperity and unfamiliarity, even Top Scholar Lv, who had seen much of the world, seemed at a loss. They stood in the middle of the street, unsure of which way to go.

Many people who saw them gave a look of disdain, recognizing them as country bumpkins who had never been inside a city.

"What's the rush? We'll do as we always do, find an inn and settle down," said Li Huowang, looking ahead and walking forward, with the rest quickly following him.

Li Huowang had a complex expression as he viewed everything before him; he truly hadn't expected to find such a prosperous place in this world.

He had thought that in this mad world, not an inch would be left untouched.