Vessel of Worlds

"Fellow Cultivator Xi!"

"Brother Xi, how have you been!"

"Fellow Cultivator Xi, it's been too long!"

...

The Xi surnamed cultivator's name carried great weight among West Star Island's Foundation Establishment cultivators, and the tearoom's occupants rose one after another to salute him. Four or five, however, remained unmoved—they gave Xi Feng a single cold glance, then went on sitting as though nothing had happened.

"Fellow Cultivator Wang!" "Fellow Cultivator Cheng!" "Fellow Cultivator Shi!"

...The Xi surnamed cultivator returned each salute in turn.

After a round of pleasantries, he made his way over to the cold-faced young man's table.

"I am Andy—greetings, Fellow Cultivator Xi!" Andy clasped his fists in salute and introduced himself.

"Too kind, Fellow Cultivator Zhao. Please, sit!" The Xi surnamed cultivator returned the salute, and the group took their seats.

"Big Brother Xi, Brother Zhao would like to join our team. What do you think?" the big man said—then, without waiting for an answer, his lips moved faintly as he transmitted a few words.

The Xi surnamed cultivator started at the transmission, looked Andy over, and said: "With strength like Brother Zhao's, having you join would be wings on a tiger. That said, your experience is still shallow—when we hunt, I'd ask you to follow our coordination closely. Any spoils will be divided according to contribution. Is that agreeable?"

"No objection at all!" Andy answered readily.

"Good!" The Xi surnamed cultivator was delighted. "On this trip to the Outer Star Sea, our targets won't just be rank-three and rank-four beasts—we're going to try our hand at a rank-five as well. With Brother Zhao's help, my confidence has grown considerably!"

"A rank-five beast?" the big man and the girl both exclaimed under their breath. The cold-faced young man said nothing, but even his face betrayed a flicker of shock.

"That's right. I've spent most of this past year preparing for it. Now, with a strong helper like Brother Zhao added to our number, our chances should be very good," the middle-aged man said. His tone was not forceful, yet it carried a quality that was difficult to resist.

"Little sister was wondering why Big Brother suddenly asked us to scout for new members. So it was for a rank-five beast! I take it Big Brother means to obtain a rank-five beast core to refine pills—and attempt Core Formation?" The girl's large eyes sparkled as she smiled.

"Big Brother is going to attempt Core Formation!" the big man cried out, his voice equal parts astonishment and envy.

"Heh. Quite right. I've lingered at late-stage Foundation Establishment for decades. Unless I get my hands on some rank-five beast cores and refine certain pills, further progress is all but impossible. So—brothers, Fourth Sister—will you brave the danger with me and seek treasure in the tiger's den?" The middle-aged cultivator confirmed her guess.

"Wherever Big Brother goes, I go!" the big man declared without a moment's hesitation.

"Yes—with Big Brother there, little sister isn't afraid of any rank-five beast. Besides, Second Brother, Third Brother, and I have all been stuck at the mid-stage bottleneck for ages. With pills refined from rank-five cores to help, we might just break through and reach late-stage Foundation Establishment ourselves!" The girl agreed as well.

"I'm in!" The cold-faced young man finally spoke—two words, precious as gold.

"Brother Zhao, what say you? If you'd rather not take the risk, we would all understand." The middle-aged cultivator turned to Andy—with, in truth, no confidence whatsoever in the answer.

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Andy was only early-stage Foundation Establishment, after all. Cores from rank-three and rank-four beasts were plenty for someone at his level; there was no need for him to provoke anything as dangerous as a rank-five beast. And with those peak-grade flying needles of his, no team anywhere would turn him away.

"I'll go too. Though since I have no experience, could we start with rank-three and rank-four beasts, and move on to the rank-five once I've found my footing?" To the middle-aged cultivator's surprise, Andy agreed with remarkable ease.

"But of course! Ha ha!" The middle-aged man laughed with great pleasure, then added: "Within our team, we go by rank of seniority. If it doesn't offend you, call me Big Brother Xi, and I'll call you Fifth Brother Zhao. How about it?"

"Yes, Big Brother Xi!" Andy said with a small smile.

The others warmly took up the cry of "Fifth Brother" and "Old Fifth"—even the icy Di Er managed a "Zhao Five."

It left Andy feeling somewhat out of his element. Cultivators were by nature a cold and unsentimental lot; exchanging greetings at all was already considered courteous, and addressing one another as brothers was rare indeed.

But these people had spent years hunting together in the Outer Star Sea, passing through who knew how many trials of life and death. Without seamless coordination and mutual support, they would long ago have died in the jaws and claws of some beast. A bond tested that many times was truly no lesser thing than brotherhood.

Andy, however, was different. He only wanted to safely accumulate some hunting experience. These people had fine reputations, but one could know a face and never know the heart. Outwardly he said nothing, yet he kept his guard up at every moment. Fortunately he had no shortage of life-saving measures—even if outmatched, escaping with his life would pose no great difficulty.

"Second Brother Di, Third Brother Xun, Fourth Sister Hong!" Andy greeted each in turn.

The wide-eyed girl frowned. "'Little Sister Hong Si' is ugly enough—'Fourth Sister Hong' is even worse! Just call me Hongchen!"

"Yes, Fairy Hongchen!" Andy said, smiling.

The whole table burst out laughing.

...

Half a day later, the party of five arrived at an ancient stone building in the West Star Island market. It housed a large teleportation formation in a state of constant, bustling operation—dozens of groups of cultivators teleported in and out nearly every hour. This formation led to one of the Star Sea's Three Immortal Islands: the Immortal Island of Penglai.

Xi Feng paid five hundred spirit stones to the formation's keepers and received five Transfer Talismans, handing one to each of them.

The five affixed their talismans and stepped onto the formation. A moment later, white light flared, and they vanished.

After a spell of dizziness, the five appeared inside a magnificent hall of carved railings and jade-inlaid stone, standing atop an identical teleportation formation.

"Fifth Brother, first time on the Immortal Island of Penglai, isn't it?" Hongchen said. "Let me tell you about this place!"

"Thank you, Fairy Hongchen," Andy said.

Hongchen began: "This Immortal Island of Penglai is one of the three great pillars of our Star Sea. They say the Nascent Soul seniors on this island alone number in the dozens—and the Core Formation seniors are beyond counting! As for the island's size, at the flying speed of Foundation Establishment cultivators like us, you couldn't circle it in a year. More terrifying still, the entire island is enveloped by a formation called the Myriad Phenomena Floating Grand Formation—it doesn't sit in the water at all, but hovers dozens of zhang above the sea, an immense floating immortal isle. Penglai holds several peak-grade spirit veins, a full cut above even high-grade ones. On the main peak—the one named Penglai itself—stands a colossal Spirit Eye Rock over a thousand zhang tall. They say the spiritual energy density within a hundred kilometers of it ranks first in the entire Star Sea. Legend has it that a single breath of that air would double a Foundation Establishment cultivator's odds of breaking through a bottleneck! Even many Core Formation seniors gladly pay enormous sums to rent dwellings there and meditate, all to speed their cultivation!"

"Life on the island is very free—as long as you don't fight or stir up trouble. Orthodox or heterodox, high cultivation or low, anyone may come and go as they please. As for running a shop, pay the annual rent in spirit stones and there are no restrictions whatsoever. So every merchant with any real strength opens a branch on Penglai. The island's market is easily a hundred times the size of ours on West Star Island! The rare treasures flowing into it every year are beyond counting. Put simply: with enough spirit stones, this place is a cultivator's paradise—there's nothing you can't buy!"

Andy's heart leapt. Whatever else he lacked, spirit stones he could never spend to the bottom. If it was truly as Hongchen said, couldn't he simply throw down fistful after fistful of stones, buy batch upon batch of high-level beast cores, refine furnace after furnace of pills—and push his cultivation step by step to mid-stage, late-stage, perhaps even a run at Core Formation?

But he dismissed the notion almost at once. If he actually did that, no matter how careful he was, someone would mark him sooner or later. For gains that enormous, there would always be those willing to risk violating the immortal island's rules to quietly erase him.

Men die for wealth as birds die for food. If word of the fortune Andy carried ever got out, cultivators at Core Formation and above would cast aside any scruples about the island's rules and stop at nothing to kill him and seize it. All the more so given that in the cultivation world, high-ranked cultivators had always regarded their lessers as ants and weeds—one wrong word was often all it took for them to strike.