The Market
The once lively and bustling mortal town was now nothing, but a pile of derelict ruins littered with corpses and debris.
The buildings had collapsed and caved in, the northern and southern walls had both been knocked over, and the streets were filled with rubble and destruction.
Those who had survived quickly fled with what little belongings they had left.
They made their way to the nearest town, village or city in hopes of seeking a new home.
Li Zian watched from the distance as these ordinary people fled from the destruction he had helped create.
He sighed and sat down on the dirt in the lotus position, recuperating as much as possible.
The adrenaline started to fade, and a horrible pain tore through his body.
Li Zian breathed heavily as he condensed as much qi as possible, the pain slowly becoming unbearable.
After an hour or so, he began to send the qi from his divine sea to his wounds.
He used the qi to expel any types of dirt or bacteria, and then let his qi seep into the wound itself.
By controlling the flow of qi in his body, he could slowly reattach the damaged flesh and bone.
It was a long and painful process as his body was forcefully reconstructed bit by bit, and after several hours of this excruciating sensation he finally closed all the major wounds.
The smaller cuts, bruises and scrapes would naturally heal over time, so he didn't expend extra energy to heal those injuries.
He rose to his feet, his body still aching all over, and ran his hand over the skin where the giant gash had been.
It still stung horribly, but it was instead replaced with a large scar running diagonally from his right hip to upper left chest.
Li Zian made his way to the village, ignoring the looks the people gave him.
He found an abandoned, ruined house which was empty.
Hastily, searched through their cupboards, finding some pieces of fruit.
Two large tomatoes and some apples. He wolfed them down, satiating his hunger somewhat, and then wore some casual grey robes he found in a wardrobe.
Li Zian huffed and quickly left in the direction of the collapsed mountain.
He arrived at a deep dark puddle of blood which countless chunks of rock sat atop.
Li Zian drew his sword, sending out a wave of water qi that blew away the rocks, revealing the crushed body of the giant red wolf.
It lied there lifeless, its body nearly flat like a pancake. Li Zian swept his divine sense across it, and sure enough it was dead. He sighed with relief.
He gulped and thrusted his blade into its belly, swinging his sword horizontally.
All its guts and insides fell out onto the ground, and amongst all the gore was a shiny blue orb.
Li Zian snatched it up and smiled.
A beast core- this was like the dantian of a human cultivator, it gathered spiritual energy, condensed qi and held a divine sea.
Cultivators could use them to help breakthrough, and the qi inside of this core was incredibly rich- it would no doubt help him break through to the eighth layer!
He pocketed the beast core and then turned around to the direction he came from, making his way back to the sect.
He took one last look at the destroyed environment- the forest that had been trampled on by the beast, the town that he had helped destroy and the mountain that collapsed from that strange lightning.
And then he left.
--
After a while, Li Zian arrived back at the sect, entering through the teleportation array and arriving back in the valley filled with outer disciples.
It was quite busy today, and he noticed several elders hovering in the sky, keeping watch for something.
Everyone felt nervous under the watchful gazes of the elders, and Li Zian was no exception.
He wondered how he would receive the sect tokens, then an idea entered his head.
He pulled out his medallion and sent his qi into it.
Suddenly a number appeared in the air: '100' it read.
'These must be the sect tokens I've received. I assume I can just go to the market hall now…'
The market hall was a massive building sitting in the middle of the outer sect valley.
Apparently, disciples could sell any items they came across during their travels and could buy artefacts, pills and ingredients there.
Li Zian quickly entered the Market Hall, discovering countless shops set up inside the massive building with disciples going around, spending their sect tokens in order to aid their cultivation.
Li Zian glanced around, reading the prices of the items.
The first thing that caught his eye was a bottle of Condensed Qi Pills which cost ten sect tokens.
When ingested, the qi inside of the pills would release into the divine sea. They were quite useful, but not what Li Zian was looking for.
What he needed was a method of transportation and a useful weapon… A flying sword!
He walked through the market and eventually found a shop with dozens of flying swords on display, all of varying shapes and sizes.
And of course prices. The cheapest swords were at fifty sect tokens, and the most expensive was five-hundred tokens.
Li Zian gulped and searched for the ones in his price range that were of good quality.
He settled on a simple yet detailed and useful flying sword.
It was elegant in appearance and the blade was just under one meter long.
There seemed to be a blue gleam around the edge of the blade, and there were several inscriptions carved into the sword's surface.
It came along with a silver and blue coloured metallic sheathe decorated with bird-like patterns.
Its design wasn't the only good part- the material it was made from contained natural spiritual energy, meaning it was hundreds of times sharper than any normal weapon.
A true spiritual weapon.
And it was only eighty sect tokens- what a bargain!
Li Zian quickly approached the disciple in charge of the shop and exchanged his sect tokens for the sword.
To exchange the tokens, he had to create a bridge of qi between his medallion and the other disciple's medallion in order to transfer them.
After a few seconds the sect tokens were transferred, and Li Zian left with a smile on his face.
'I have twenty sect tokens left, what should I buy…'
His eyes wandered across the market, but nothing really stood out that was within his price range.
Then he saw it- a storage ring.
According to his older brother, storage rings are special rings with tiny arrays engraved into them that connects the ring to a smaller subspace.
There was one that connected to a 1x1 metre cubic space for twenty sect tokens, which he decided to buy.
It was silver in colour and had no unique designs.
He slipped it onto his right hand's ring finger and then left the Market Hall, heading back to his mountain abode to finally break through again.