Aspiring to the Immortal Path

No matter what difficulties lay before Tang Jie, he had to deal with them eventually.

Xi Canhen\'s appearance made Tang Jie even more confident.

Returning to the inn, Tang Jie took stock of his inventory, and as he determined what powers he could use, a plan began to form.

The next morning, Tang Jie called over Old Fourth Liu and gave him a big bag. "Sell everything in here."

Old Fourth Liu looked inside and jumped in shock. It was all spirit coins and some very valuable treasures.

These were all goods that Tang Jie had stolen recently. Although he had already scrapped the majority of his loot, some inevitably remained. What Tang Jie was taking out now primarily consisted of things that would be difficult to trace, like materials.

Old Fourth Liu did some rough calculations and found that there were at least one million spirit coins in here, among other things.

He looked at Tang Jie in shock. "What\'s all this for?"

Tang Jie replied, "I\'ve thought it over. This time, we can\'t take the confrontational approach. Aren\'t they holding an auction? Then we\'ll win the auction for the Five Energies Sovereign Essence Pill."

"I see. But you can\'t get in."

"That\'s why I need you to go. Disguise yourself as a rich foreigner and buy the Five Energies Sovereign Essence Pill at a high price."

"They\'re using the Five Energies Sovereign Essence Pill to bait you, so they won\'t let you succeed so easily."

"I will appear. So long as I appear, they won\'t care about you."

"\'You\'ll appear\'?" Old Fourth Liu was startled. "Then how will you escape?"

Tang Jie chuckled. "That\'s my business. In any case, I\'m responsible for dealing with Godhead Palace while you just need to worry about helping me buy the Five Energies Sovereign Essence Pill. Once you help me with this, you can return to Sageheart."

"\'If I help you with this, I can return to Sageheart\'?" Old Fourth Liu was surprised, and then he understood.

Currently, he was like a new trump card for Tang Jie, as Godhead Palace was under the impression that Tang Jie was alone. But after this Five Energies Sovereign Essence Pill matter, they would definitely realize that somebody was helping him, and they might even quickly realize that the Basking Moon Sect had spies in their lands. Once they carried out a thorough investigation, Old Fourth Liu would be quickly exposed.

Thus, after this operation, Old Fourth Liu would have to change jobs and immediately return to Sageheart.

But exposing himself to help Tang Jie could be considered a major achievement. After all, the sect had long ago issued orders that all spies in Nadir Hill except those on the most important missions had to help Tang Jie if they could, and it had offered a high reward.

For the Basking Moon Sect, this wasn\'t just an expression of favor toward Tang Jie, but also a kind of stance.

Old Fourth Liu couldn\'t help but emotionally sigh when he thought about how he could return to Sageheart. "When I first came, I was extremely reluctant and always wanted to go back. But as the days grew long, I gradually grew used to living here, gradually forgot that I was a Sagehearter. To tell the truth, I don\'t even know how to speak the tongue of my hometown anymore. Now that you say I can go home, for some reason, rather than the expected anticipation, I\'m disappointed."

Tang Jie chuckled. "There\'s no need to worry about it too much. That\'s what people are. We always go from uncomfortable to comfortable, and then we grow uncomfortable again. It\'s like cultivation. Getting to a new cultivation realm is extremely difficult, and you feel like there are barriers wherever you go. But as you go on and grow more familiar with cultivation, everything flows naturally, but at that point, you ascend to a new cultivation realm and encounter new problems."

Old Fourth Liu laughed and shook his head. "So you\'re saying that I\'m about to reach the end of my cultivation, so my life is also about to reach its end?"

Tang Jie quickly stopped him. "Old Liu, don\'t say such things. Your life is just barely starting. When you return to Sageheart, you\'ll have wonderful days ahead of you."

"Yes, yes, at least I won\'t have to constantly worry about being exposed." Old Fourth Liu threw his head back and laughed. He was finally starting to feel some excitement for fleeing and returning.

The two of them discussed things to remember at the auction and what might happen.

Once the discussion ended, they left to each make their preparations.

Old Fourth Liu was already a merchant of the Donghe Province, so there was no problem with his identity, and since this would be his last mission, he wasn\'t afraid of being exposed.

Tang Jie was much busier. After learning from Xi Shangyue that Godhead Palace was actually very wary of him, choosing to hide away in a corner so as to not alarm him, Tang Jie became much bolder and began to run around the city. Of course, he changed forms for this.

Just like this, he busied himself for two days.

Tomorrow was the day of the auction.

That night, Tang Jie finished his last preparations.

As that last ray of light vanished, Tang Jie sighed. "I\'ve never made such a vicious and sinister formation in my life as the one I made today. For my own gain, an entire city of people is going to die. Yiyi, would you say that I\'m too ruthless?"

"You don\'t want to kill them, but they want to kill you," Yiyi shouted. "This is all so you can survive."

"So you can drag down so many people and bury them if it\'s for the sake of survival?"

"They\'re just returning to the world. Those who cultivate the Dao shouldn\'t take life and death so seriously." Yiyi pursed her lips and said, "Where there is life, there is slaughter. This is the proper path of the world."

Tang Jie was startled. "Life into slaughter is the proper path of the world… Couldn\'t you say that the reverse, slaughter leading to life, can also work?"

He thought about this for a while, and then he shot out several bolts of energy at the center of the formation he had just made.

Yiyi was stunned. "You cracked open the Life Gate? Why? This will give those people a chance to escape!"

Tang Jie looked at the formation and muttered, "The heavens cherish life, and one cannot take things to the extreme. Leaving others a way out is leaving oneself a way out… If they run, they run. Godhead Palace\'s side has so many people, there\'s no way we can kill them all."

He turned and left.

————————————

Early the next morning.

Ninebind City welcomed the first ray of the morning sun, and it also welcomed its annual auction.

On this day, wealthy businessmen and clan representatives from all parts of the country surged into Ninebind City\'s Celestial Flower Pavilion.

Celestial Flower Pavilion was a pavilion art relic owned by the auction house. It was a defensive tool that could block strong attacks while holding one thousand people, making it the safest place to be. One could not enter the pavilion without an invitation card.

Tang Jie naturally couldn\'t get such a thing, but this naturally presented no problem to him.

He just needed to invade some rich man\'s home, knock him out, and steal his invitation card. Perhaps precisely so that Tang Jie could do this, these invitation cards which had always borne names were actually left blank so that anyone could get a card and go in.

Compared to Tang Jie, Godhead Palace had a much simpler time of things.

Celestial Flower Pavilion had private rooms, and the 12 Hawks and their allies were situated in Room 1 and Room 2, with Godhead Palace\'s Ninebind Branch Hall Master Li Tianming keeping them company.

Li Tianming was only at Nine Revolutions—not a high cultivation level. But he had been running Ninebind City for many years and was familiar with the people, so he was still needed to handle some things.

Li Tianming bowed to He Yueyang and Li Song. "The preparations in the surrounding area are complete. The moment Tang Jie enters, Celestial Flower Pavilion will completely seal up, preventing anyone from going in or out. Those above have already issued a death order. If it\'s for the sake of capturing Tang Jie, it\'s fine even if everyone in the auction house dies. Now, we just need to see if Tang Jie dares to come inside."

"That will depend on True Person Huang." He Yueyang, who had a long, horse-like face, turned to Huang Yue and smiled.

Although Huang Yue was a Spirit Ring True Person, one tier lower than him, he was Shi Wunian\'s disciple. His extraordinary background meant that even He Yueyang needed to be polite to him.

Fortunately, Huang Yue didn\'t put on airs just because he was a True Lord\'s disciple. He smiled and said, "I\'m more afraid that he won\'t come than that we won\'t recognize him."

These simple words carried a sliver of pride and confidence.

"He will come," the eldest of the 12 Hawks said.

"Brother Nan, why are you so certain?" Li Song asked.

The eldest of the 12 Hawks was actually called "Nan Ningjiang", but people more often called him "First Hawk" rather than by his real name. It was only a Heart Demon True Person like Li Song that had the right to call him by his name.

In truth, they were in a rather strange situation.

The custom of Immortal sects was to place the strongest as the leader.

But currently, there were actually four people at the leadership position. Besides the two Heart Demon True Persons, there were also Huang Yue and the First Hawk. While these two had weaker cultivation levels, they still held considerable authority. The former was a True Lord\'s disciple while the latter was in charge of the operation, so he had an even higher status than the two Heart Demon True Persons. Li Tianming wanted to make some flattering compliments, but he didn\'t know where to start.

The First Hawk said, "Because he\'s Tang Jie. This person has always been audacious. There\'s only things that he doesn\'t want to do, not things he doesn\'t dare to do."

Nobody had any response to this.

It was true! Tang Jie had been at Spirit Platform when he had dared to fight Gu Changqing, so what was there that he didn\'t dare to do?

But why did this sound so wrong?

It was like they were facing not a peak Mortal Shedding expert, but some impassable mountain, like they were doing something rash and impetuous.

Fortunately, this bizarre feeling faded as the guests entered the pavilion, or else they might have ended up throwing up blood.

The Ninebind Auction House was auctioning a total of 1342 treasures today. It was expected for the auction to go for three days and welcome 1500 guests.

With 1500 rich merchants entering this place, the vast Celestial Flower Pavilion was quickly packed.

Everyone sat on their seats and quietly waited for the auction to begin.

Nobody knew that in the private room on the upper floor, a person was scanning each and every one of them.

A vertical eye had cracked open in the center of Huang Yue\'s forehead.

Unlike Tang Jie\'s vertical eye, which was blue, indicating that it could see into the azure heavens, Huang Yue\'s eye was gold, indicating that it could differentiate between truth and fiction.

The Dao of Insight had countless branches, and the eye would have a different color depending on one\'s specialty. Thus was it said that while all the arts of the world might be the same, people were ultimately different.

Those three eyes took in all the guests within the pavilion.

Everyone nervously looked at Huang Yue, but as Huang Yue looked around, he kept shaking his head, clearly rejecting candidates, and everyone started to get nervous.

Even after Huang Yue had looked at everyone in the pavilion, he still hadn\'t found Tang Jie. There were still people coming in, so Huang Yue could only stare at the entrance. His vertical eye had been open for too long and was starting to ache, but he knew that this was an important task. Even if his Eye of Insight went blind from fatigue, he didn\'t dare to relax.

The minutes nervously went by, and the number of people coming in began to dwindle. Tang Jie still hadn\'t appeared, and everyone grew nervous.

At this moment, Huang Yue suddenly trembled and shouted, "He\'s here!"

Everyone turned in excitement and saw that it was Tang Jie himself coming in through the entrance.

He hadn\'t changed his face!

With his original appearance, he swaggered in.

This sight had everyone\'s mind shaking in shock, and Huang Yue almost cursed. He had kept up his Eye of Insight this long for nothing.

"Seize him!" someone anxiously shouted.

Fortunately, Huang Yue quickly made a new discovery and said, "Wait! That\'s not his real self. It\'s an illusion!"

The Celestial Eye hadn\'t been a complete waste, and Huang Yue was so moved that he was on the verge of tears.

To him, Tang Jie\'s body appeared to be made of rainbow-colored fog, clearly indicating that it was created by a spell art.

Tang Jie\'s Duplication spell was already famous in Godhead Palace.

But there was one thing Tang Jie didn\'t know that Godhead Palace did: the Martial Lord had been an expert in illusions.

The Martial Lord had grasped the Martial Dao in order to become the Martial Lord, but few people knew that he was also exceptionally talented in other fields. It was just that his Martial Lord title had outshone them so much that few people knew about them. The Illusion Dao was one of these. It was said that while the Martial Lord\'s Illusion Dao hadn\'t reached the Dao-controlling level, he was at least at the Dao-entering level. His formidable grasp of illusions made his already formidable strength even more terrifying.

There was a record of the Martial Lord producing hundreds of thousands of clones to deal with an enemy.

Worth noting was that these clones had actual offensive power. Although they couldn\'t compare to the original, their numbers still made their attacks terrifying.

When Godhead Palace obtained the Martial Mirror, they had performed many tests to verify that the area it had been found in was the Martial Lord\'s Returned Remnants, which was how it knew of this story. And what Tang Jie was using was clearly this Illusion Dao spell art. But Tang Jie clearly hadn\'t comprehended the Dao, so his clones were simple illusions without any attack power.

If he were able to comprehend the Illusion Dao, then those clones would have actual attack power.

As for how many clones he could have, that would depend on his attainments in the Illusion Dao.

The Illusion Dao was classified under Yin Yang, part of the Conversion of Truth and Fiction. Tang Jie\'s current understanding of the Dao of Yin Yang was constrained to Feng Buzhi\'s Reality and Illusion and some basic concepts the firebird had given him, so he wouldn\'t be able to completely comprehend this Dao any time soon.

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For these various reasons, when Tang Jie used the Duplication spell, Godhead Palace realized that Tang Jie might possess the Martial Lord\'s legacy. But they didn\'t understand how Tang Jie could get the Martial Lord\'s legacy without entering the formation, nor did they understand what all that business about You Shaofeng entering the formation had been about.

Even though they didn\'t understand the situation, they were slowly beginning to realize that they had fallen into Tang Jie\'s deception trap.

In the face of this riddle, Godhead Palace opted for the simplest method of not playing the game and instead capturing the riddler.

Alas, for many years now, Tang Jie had been wandering about while protected by the Basking Moon Sect. Although they had sent people to capture him, they had all died to Tang Jie or the Basking Moon Sect\'s people. Behind those eleven years of peace, numerous people had silently bled out.

This time, though, they finally had a chance.

Huang Yue\'s words immediately calmed down the excited group.

"Do you know where his real body is?" He Yueyang asked.

Huang Yue shook his head. "I\'m not sure. But illusions have no consciousness and need to be controlled by the main body, so he can\'t be too far."

"How far?" Li Song asked.

Huang Yue shook his head again. "I don\'t understand illusion spells, so I can\'t say."

First Hawk Nan Ningjiang said, "Eighth Sister."

A girl with a clean and delicate face said, "It is based on the terrain. If the terrain is open and free of obstructions and if one\'s cultivation level is sufficient, one could easily control an illusion from several thousand meters away. But in the complicated landscape of a city, with buildings all over the place, the control distance is much shorter."

This girl was skilled in illusion spells and had a keen understanding of how they worked.

Upon hearing this, Nan Ningjiang waved his hand, and a map with the auction house at its center appeared.

Although the First Hawk was an expert in creating maps, it wasn\'t to the extent where they could even draw out the entire layout of a city. From this map, one could see that Nan Ningjiang had meticulously prepared for this operation.

He said, "Based on this terrain, estimate the farthest distance he could control an illusion from."

The eighth sister stared at the map and began to calculate, saying, "I can only give a rough estimate… About… five hundred meters."

The First Hawk swung his hand, extending the area the eighth sister had indicated by another three hundred meters and making a circle with a radius of eight hundred meters. "It should be in this area."

"That isn\'t small," He Yueyang worriedly said as he looked at the circle.

He naturally understood what Nan Ningjiang wanted by drawing this circle.

Nan Ningjiang turned to Ming Yezhen and said, "True Person Ming, if you were to seal this area and prevent any teleportation, how long could you last?"

Ming Yezhen pondered the answer. "It\'s too big. Fifteen minutes at best."

"Not enough!" Nan Ningjiang firmly said. "It has to at least be an hour."

"I can\'t do it. Even if you had Lady Xu help me with a formation, I still couldn\'t do it."

On the side, Xu Mingyue said, "I was sent over to break formations, not lay them down. That said, it\'s too late to lay down a formation."

Simply sealing the area already had them in a difficult spot. A thin sheet of frost appeared on Nan Ningjiang\'s face.

At this time, Huang Yue was still staring at the duplicate Tang Jie.

The duplicate had already found a place to sit down and was quietly waiting for the auction to begin.

His composure made True Person Liang furious. He impatiently said, "I\'ll go and attack him. Let\'s see what he does once he\'s lost his clone."

"Shut your mouth!" Li Song glared. "Isn\'t that telling Tang Jie that we\'re here? If he withdraws and doesn\'t appear again, wouldn\'t this trap have gone entirely to waste?"

They had taken great pains to lure Tang Jie here, and they couldn\'t afford to lose it all because of some rash action.

True Person Liang knew that he had said something very mindless, so he dropped his head and said, "I just think that if his clone is here, Tang Jie won\'t enter the pavilion. We have to think of a way to solve this problem."

This had just been his helpless attempt to explain himself, but Nan Ningjiang abruptly said, "Yes, we have to start with the clone."

Everyone turned to Nan Ningjiang, and he turned his head and said, "Hall Master Li, have all the guests arrived?"

"It\'s basically all of them."

"Good!" Nan Ningjiang said, "Order for the pavilion to be closed, and activate the Celestial Flower Defense Barrier."

"Eh?" Everyone was shocked. If they did this, there was no way Tang Jie could enter the auction house.

The eighth sister suddenly jumped up and said, "Right, closing the pavilion and activating the barrier will make controlling the clone much more difficult for Tang Jie. If that happens, he has to either give up or get closer to the pavilion."

Everyone was enlightened.

Since Tang Jie had sent his clone, it meant he still wanted the Five Energies Sovereign Essence Pill. Once the pavilion was closed, Tang Jie would no longer be able to control the duplicate, at which point the duplicate would become useless and dissipate.

Closing the pavilion was a normal part of the auction, and activating the Celestial Flower Formation was also a safety procedure, so Tang Jie couldn\'t use these measures as a sign that Godhead Palace\'s people were lying in ambush. Thus, he would probably approach Celestial Flower Pavilion, which would give Godhead Palace a chance.

Upon understanding Nan Ningjiang\'s intention, Li Tianming said, "Once the Celestial Flower Barrier is activated, the seal will be extremely strong. Tang Jie would probably have to go up to the door to be able to control his clone, and he might not be willing to take such a big risk."

"Then leave a small crack," Nan Ningjiang replied. "Leaving a way out for others is also leaving a way out for oneself."