Charges

Fortunately, this person was only at the early stage of Foundation Establishment.

Otherwise, it was hard to say whether his strike could have knocked the person out, considering he was not a physical cultivator.

He looked around, gazing at the cultivators lying all over the ground, and nodded in great satisfaction.

After making sure no one was awake, he took out the Key to the Icefield Secret Realm to open the exit.

However, just as he was about to move, he suddenly thought of something and stopped. He squatted down and began patting down everyone for their storage bags.

Collecting fees was important.

He was very fair and just; no matter how many treasures were in each person's storage bag, he only took spirit stones.

And he didn't ask for much—just fifty pieces from each person.

It was just a little compensation for his hard work. He wouldn't be greedy for anything else.

After all, he didn't rely on this to get rich.

However, when he collected the fee from Jiang Cheng and a few other cultivators, he found that they actually had several somewhat worn-out storage bags on them, completely different from the ones hanging at their waists.

Lin Xiao knew immediately that these must have belonged to others, picked up by them in this ice cave.

Hu Guanyu had one too.

The only difference was that Hu Guanyu's extra old storage bag contained a skeleton and a suicide note, while the others only contained valuables, with no bones or dying words.

Obviously, unlike Hu Guanyu, they had no intention of bringing the original owners' remains and news of their deaths to the outside world.

Seeing this, Lin Xiao fell silent for a moment.

Then, he stored all the old storage bags from these people into his own private inventory, and only took fifty spirit stones from their personal storage bags.

When Lin Xiao moved on to collect the fee from Yuan Zhiyun, the moment he opened her storage bag, the system suddenly chimed.

Ding—Congratulations to the host for discovering one Heart-Questioning Stone.

Eh, a Heart-Questioning Stone?

Lin Xiao looked carefully into the storage bag and found that there was indeed a large stone inside.

To think that Yuan Zhiyun actually had this item on her.

Lin Xiao was a little tempted.

If he took this Heart-Questioning Stone now, wouldn't he effortlessly have the foundation for his sect's Heart-Questioning Path?

But taking without asking is stealing, and having lived two lives, he had never been a thief.

Even if he wanted to trade something for it, he couldn't possibly wake her up right now to ask for her consent...

It wasn't right to just swap it secretly either. Since she was carrying this item, what if she had a specific use for it? He wasn't sure, and if he rashly swapped it and delayed her matters, that wouldn't be good at all.

Although he had saved her, one thing was separate from another. Saving someone didn't mean he could just take whatever he wanted from them.

So, after struggling with himself for a long time, Lin Xiao still only took fifty spirit stones and placed Yuan Zhiyun's storage bag back.

Anyway, she lived in Yuanling City. At worst, he could just find an opportunity to trade with her later.

Besides, maybe it was even sold in the market.

Thinking of this, Lin Xiao stood up feeling relaxed and continued to collect the fee from the next person.

After finishing the fee collection from the dozens of people one by one, Lin Xiao used the Key to the Secret Realm to open the exit, and then tossed all these people out through it.

Because he didn't use the Icefield Secret Realm connection portal, this opened exit was exactly the original entrance they had used to come in.

It had already been a few days since the secret realm opened. Everyone knew the situation in the Icefield Secret Realm: gathering resources was basically done in the first few days, and the rest of the time was spent fighting demonic beasts.

But the demonic beasts in the Icefield Secret Realm were famous for getting fiercer by the day, so generally, anyone wanting to enter came in the first few days. Later on, unless someone had a special need, basically no one else would enter.

Therefore, there was currently no one at the entrance of the secret realm.

Except for two cultivators sent by the Tianxuan Sect to stand guard here.

These two were merely Foundation Establishment cultivators.

Golden Core cultivators would only come to make an appearance on the first day of the opening.

Afterwards, it was guarded by several Foundation Establishment cultivators taking turns.

They called it guarding, but they weren't actually expected to do much.

It was just acting as door gods.

Because after entering the secret realm, unless you waited for the fifteen-day period to end and the secret realm automatically teleported people out, there was no way to come out on your own.

So the two stationed cultivators at the entrance were currently busy—one meditating, and the other keeping watch.

Suddenly, they heard a thump, and saw a person crash onto the ground, unconscious.

The two were stunned. Before they could even figure out where this person came from, they watched with their own eyes as another person flew out from the entrance of the Icefield Secret Realm.

One of the cultivators softly asked his teammate beside him:

"Doesn't this secret realm only let people out after fifteen days? Today is only the eighth day, right? Did I remember wrong?"

The other cultivator shook his head and softly replied:

"You didn't remember wrong. Today is indeed the eighth day."

As the two spoke, the exit went thump, thump, thump and several more people flew out.

Seeing the entrance continuously spitting people out, the two cultivators didn't step forward to check for a while.

It wasn't until dozens of people were spat out in a row and there was no further movement for a good while that the two finally walked up.

"These people aren't dead, they're all alive!"

"Hey! Look at this one. Isn't this Junior Brother Hu, who always follows behind Senior Brother Xi from the Seven Stars Peak?"

"And this one, this one! Isn't this the young master of the Yuan family, Yuan Zhiyun?"

"Quick, wake them up and ask what happened!"

...

While the two Foundation Establishment cultivators guarding the gate outside were trying to figure out how to wake up the dozens of people Lin Xiao had thrown out, Lin Xiao had already set off for the next gray dot area to save more people.

Of course, the process remained exactly the same.

First drug them into unconsciousness, then throw them out.

Thus, the two cultivators outside finally managed to move everyone to an empty space to the side so they wouldn't be piled up in a mountain of bodies, only to turn around and find another fresh mountain of people outside the entrance.

Until the very end, Lin Xiao threw himself out, landing at the very top of the human pile, pretending to be unconscious.

The two Foundation Establishment guards dutifully moved these cultivators to the open space and laid them out one by one.

As for the valuables on them, the guards didn't give them a second glance.

They looked down on the meager wealth of small fries, and besides, they were figures from an established sect; it wasn't worth ruining their reputations over a tiny bit of loot.

As for someone like Yuan Zhiyun, who definitely had good items on her, they did sneakily open her storage bag to take a look, but they didn't dare reach their hands in.

Unless they could guarantee killing Yuan Zhiyun and all the cultivators on the ground without leaving a single trace, doing so would very likely bring a heap of trouble upon themselves.

After all, the Yuan family vaguely held the status of the number one noble family in Yuanling City, and their relationship with the Tianxuan Sect was quite close. Yuan Zhiyun was their young master, so she couldn't be easily offended.

On the contrary, if they properly settled everyone and then notified the Yuan family to come pick them up, the Yuan family would definitely give them a reward. And seeing as they were disciples of the Tianxuan Sect, the reward probably wouldn't be light either.