Entering the City

After opening the exit, Liao Pantu blew on his beard and shrank himself back into the Soul-Nourishing Jade, floating in front of Lin Xiao:

"Put me inside your robe."

Lin Xiao obediently reached out, took the Soul-Nourishing Jade, and tucked it into his chest pocket.

Then, he heard Senior Liao's voice transmission in his mind:

"This is how we will communicate when we're outside. Alright, hurry up and go out. The exit will close automatically in a moment."

Hearing this, Lin Xiao didn't waste any time and quickly walked out through the open exit in front of him.

Once outside, he realized that Senior Liao's cave dwelling was actually located in a completely ordinary, barren mountain wilderness.

Although it was a barren mountain, it was extremely tall. The area around the exit was covered in wild, overgrown vegetation. Lin Xiao directly used the Void-Treading Technique to rise into the air, ensuring he left no tracks behind.

Meanwhile, Liao Pantu's voice transmission echoed in his mind:

"Although you are right to be cautious, let me tell you first, the location of my exit changes every time it opens. It's not the entrance to some low-level cave dwelling that can be easily discovered."

"Then why could we teleport inside using the teleportation array?"

Liao Pantu paused for a moment before replying defensively:

"Your teleportation array is of a high grade, and it requires the user to have been to the destination before. If it weren't for me, anyone else using that teleportation array—even if they knew the general location—wouldn't be teleported into my cave dwelling because they had never been inside. They still wouldn't be able to enter. What's the problem with that!"

Hearing this, Lin Xiao asked curiously:

"But now that I've been inside, does that mean I can directly teleport in next time?"

As if he hadn't thought of this, Liao Pantu froze for a moment before slowly saying:

"If you come over in the future, besides my good disciple Yigao, absolutely do not bring anyone else into my cave dwelling... As of now, besides you, little brat, no third person has ever entered my cave dwelling..."

By the time Lin Xiao arrived outside Yuanling City under Liao Pantu's guidance, it was already noon.

He hadn't expected Yuanling City to be so far from Senior Liao's cave dwelling. Even with his current mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation, it took him several hours of travel to arrive.

The imposing aura of Yuanling City was entirely different from the cities in the mortal realm.

Looking from afar, Lin Xiao saw that the surface of the towering city walls was made of a fine, smooth material that looked incredibly sturdy. The walls were about a hundred meters tall, and their width was impossible to discern, stretching so far into the distance on both sides that the ends couldn't be seen.

Upon getting closer, a heavy sense of coercion washed over him.

The gates of Yuanling City were also massive.

The side Lin Xiao arrived at, according to Liao Pantu, was the South Gate.

The South Gate actually consisted of three gates: one large and two small.

The largest gate was over fifty meters tall and about forty meters wide. At this moment, it was tightly shut.

Flanking it were two smaller gates that were currently open. However, even these smaller gates were twenty to thirty meters in both height and width.

Building such a magnificent city in the mortal realm would be practically impossible.

Yet in the cultivation world, it seemed to be no difficult feat.

As if seeing through his thoughts, Liao Pantu transmitted:

"Building this city isn't the hardest part; defending it is. None of the thirty-six cities in the South Spirit Realm lose out to Yuanling City in imposing grandeur, and every city has incredibly powerful defensive formations. But few people know who the true city lords of these cities are, or who laid down those formidable defensive formations."

As he spoke, he seemed to suddenly remember something and told Lin Xiao:

"You'll have to pay an entrance fee to get into the city later. I remember it was two spirit stones eighty years ago, though I don't know how much they charge now. Also, remember this: you must not use large amounts of spiritual energy within the city."

Lin Xiao nodded in understanding:

"Is there some sort of formation in Yuanling City that forbids people from using spiritual energy to fight? Like, if you use a spiritual spell, you'll be obliterated by the formation?"

Liao Pantu hadn't expected him to be so clear on this. Stunned, he asked:

"How did you know?"

Lin Xiao laughed it off and changed the subject:

"Ah, just a guess. Being a city lord is too good, isn't it? Just lying there every day, you get a continuous stream of spirit stones coming in."

Not far away at the city gates, a dense crowd of people was constantly going in and out.

However, looking across the entire gate area, not a single guard or gatekeeper could be seen.

As people entered the gates, they all held spirit stones in their hands. Lin Xiao then saw that the moment they stepped through the gates, the spirit stones suddenly vanished, as if absorbed by something in the void.

Since cultivators were walking everywhere here, one couldn't casually use their divine sense to probe others without risking unnecessary trouble. Thus, Liao Pantu poked a single eyeball out of Lin Xiao's robe. After taking a look at the situation at the gates, he transmitted to Lin Xiao:

"They're holding five spirit stones. Tsk, the entrance fee has actually gone up, and by so much too."

Lin Xiao, however, didn't care about the few spirit stones for the entrance fee. He asked:

"Their spirit stones disappeared directly. What's going on there?"

Liao Pantu explained:

"That's a restriction with set conditions. It takes the spirit stones once and lets a person through once."

Saying this, he suddenly remembered that all of Lin Xiao's spirit stones were still with him. So, he pulled out the storage ring and handed it over.

Lin Xiao watched as a translucent hand suddenly reached out from beneath the clothes at his chest, holding the storage ring containing fifty thousand spirit stones.

"Take it."

"Oh..." He was a bit worried. Would this restriction that could suck away spirit stones also suck away all the spirit stones in his storage ring?

Lin Xiao took the storage ring, but he didn't put it on his finger. Instead, he tucked it into his robe. Then, he took out five spirit stones from it, walked up to one of the smaller gates, and entered the city imitating the others.

The moment he stepped through the gate, he saw the spirit stones tightly gripped in his hand vanish in a flash.

Lin Xiao couldn't help but check the spirit stones in the storage ring inside his robe.

Seeing that the storage ring was still packed full of spirit stones and hadn't disappeared along with the five he just held, he breathed a sigh of relief.

Liao Pantu, who saw through his thoughts, didn't mock him. Instead, he transmitted:

"Don't be careless. Although these kinds of cities won't easily pull such a scam, it's not like it has never happened before. I once passed through a city where the new city lord was so extravagant that the city's finances collapsed. Later, they even modified the entrance restriction to steal all the spirit stones off anyone entering the city."

Hearing this, Lin Xiao was a bit surprised that such a thing actually happened:

"Did no one fight back?"

"Of course they did, but the ones robbed were mostly low-level cultivators. What could they do even if they fought back? However, it wasn't long before that city was reduced to ruins."