The heavy wooden door slammed shut, leaving a cloud of dust swirling in the shaft of morning sunlight.
The room plunged into a heavy, terrified silence.
Senior Brother Zhao was gone, and with him, Li Fan's entire savings for the month.
"He took them..." The chubby disciple, Little Fatty Zhang, wiped blood from his lip where Zhao had backhanded him. He looked at Li Fan with wide, watery eyes. "Li Fan, you just... you just gave him everything? Three Spirit Stones? That was your food money! That was your pill money!"
Li Fan stood by his bed, smoothing the wrinkles in his gray robe. His face was devoid of the panic that infected the others.
"Three stones," Li Fan said, his voice calm, "is the price of a lesson."
"A lesson?" Wang, the third roommate, shook his head in disbelief. "What lesson? That we are weak? That we are trash to be squeezed?"
Li Fan turned to the door, his eyes dark.
No, he thought. The lesson is that a dead man has no need for currency.
In Life 3, Li Fan had fought over those stones. Zhao broke his arm, costing him twenty stones in medical fees and ruining his cultivation base.
In Life 50, Li Fan had poisoned Zhao immediately, which led to an investigation that exposed him.
Giving up the money now was the optimal move. It lowered Zhao's guard. It made Li Fan appear harmless, submissive—a sheep waiting to be sheared.
And a sheep is rarely suspected when the wolf goes missing.
"Don't worry about me," Li Fan said to his roommates. "I have a plan."
He didn't wait for their response. He stepped over the broken splinters of the door frame and walked out into the fresh morning air of the Small Pond Sect.
The Sect was waking up. Disciples in gray and white robes were rushing toward the lecture halls or the sparring grounds, eager to cultivate, eager to become Immortals.
Li Fan walked against the flow. He wasn't heading to the lecture hall. He had heard those lectures a thousand times. He could recite the Basic Qi Condensation Manual backwards in his sleep. He could point out seven fatal flaws in the Sect Elder's teaching method right now.
He headed straight for the Administration Peak. Specifically, the Mission Hall.
To kill a cultivator like Zhao Dahu without leaving a trace, Li Fan needed tools. To get tools, he needed the Heaven-Deceiving Copper Coin.
And to get the Coin, he needed access to the one place in the Sect nobody wanted to go.
The Mission Hall
The hall was bustling with noise. A giant jade board floated in the center, displaying available tasks for Outer Disciples.
Hunt Iron-Hide Boars (Reward: 2 Spirit Stones / Carcass) - Danger: High
Gather Spirit Morning Dew (Reward: 1 Spirit Stone / Jar) - Danger: Low
Guard the Sect Gate (Reward: 3 Spirit Stones / Month) - Requirement: Qi Layer 3
Li Fan ignored the crowd of disciples jostling for the good missions. He walked straight to the counter in the corner, where a bored-looking middle-aged deacon was dozing off.
"Disciple Li Fan," Li Fan said, tapping the wooden counter. "I wish to accept a sanitation mission."
The deacon opened one lazy eye. He saw Li Fan's skinny frame and weak aura (Qi Layer 1). He scoffed.
"Sanitation? You mean cleaning the latrines? Or sweeping the steps?"
"The Waste Pit," Li Fan corrected. "I want to clean the Artifact Disposal Pit on Trash Peak."
The deacon blinked. He sat up, staring at Li Fan as if looking at a lunatic.
"The Waste Pit?" the deacon repeated. "Kid, are you desperate or just stupid? The residual chaotic Qi in that pit burns the skin. The fumes can knock out a cow. Nobody has taken that job in three years."
"I need the contribution points," Li Fan lied smoothly. "And since nobody takes it, I assume the reward has accumulated?"
The deacon checked his ledger. "Hmph. Nobody wants it, so the sect raised the reward to 5 Spirit Stones for a full clearing. But let me warn you—if you pass out and fall in, we aren't fetching your body."
"I accept."
The deacon stamped a wooden token and tossed it onto the counter. "Suit yourself. Trash cleaning trash. Fitting."
Li Fan took the token. He didn't react to the insult. In his eyes, this deacon—a man stuck at Qi Condensation Layer 8 for forty years—was scarcely worth noticing.
Trash Peak
An hour later, Li Fan stood at the edge of a massive crater behind the Outer Sect mountains.
The smell hit him first—a acrid, metallic stench that tasted like sulfur and rotten eggs. Green and purple smog drifted lazily over the pit. The ground was littered with broken sword fragments, shattered alchemy cauldrons, and talismans that had failed to ignite.
It was a graveyard of failures.
Li Fan tied a cloth around his nose and mouth. To anyone else, this place was hell. To Li Fan, it was a bank vault.
In Life 1, I found it near the northern edge, buried under a pile of cracked cauldrons, he recalled.
He slid down the slope, his boots crunching on glass and metal. The chaotic Qi pricked his skin like needles, but he ignored the pain. He navigated the debris with eerie familiarity, stepping over unstable piles of slag that would have collapsed under a novice's weight.
He reached the northern sector. He began to dig.
He moved aside a heavy, rusted shield. He tossed away shards of a broken mirror.
He dug for an hour, his hands becoming stained with soot and grime.
Clink.
His fingers brushed against something small and round.
Li Fan's heart, which had been calm even facing death, skipped a beat.
He pulled it out.
It was a copper coin. It was round with a square hole in the center, covered in green rust and grime. It looked like mortal currency that had been buried for centuries. It had no spiritual fluctuation. If a Nascent Soul Elder looked at it, they would see a piece of junk.
Li Fan held it up to the sun.
"Old friend," he whispered. "It's been so many years."
He bit his thumb and smeared a drop of fresh blood onto the coin.
Buzz.
The coin didn't shine. It didn't explode with light. Instead, it drank the blood and seemed to become... duller. It became so ordinary that Li Fan's eyes wanted to slide off it.
This was the artifact's power: Obscurity.
Li Fan channeled a wisp of Qi into it.
Instantly, his aura vanished.
To the outside world, he was no longer a Cultivator at Qi Layer 1. He was a mortal. A rock. Nothing.
He pushed more Qi. His face seemed to blur slightly, becoming forgettable. If someone looked at him now, and then looked away, they would struggle to recall his features.
The Heaven-Deceiving Copper Coin obtained.
Li Fan clenched the coin in his fist.
Phase 1 was complete. He had his stealth. Now, he needed his capital.
He looked toward the direction of the city, a cold light flickering in his eyes.
"Senior Brother Zhao... your stones are gathering interest. I'll come to collect them tonight."