A balding man in his forties looked fondly at his precious treasure. He had acne-scarred skin, several missing front teeth, and a rotund belly. He was ninety years old, give or take a couple of years. As a cultivator in the Lock Opening realm, the consequence of his cultivation method and poison in his youth had brought him to the edge of his lifespan. The matter of his age usually brought him anxiety. However, a small smile bloomed on his lips, showing his missing teeth. His eyes shone brightly as he imagined a future where he would finally kill that loathsome fellow, a crown prince of the Mirror Tide Empire, snatch his fiancée, and enjoy a honeymoon where he and his future wife would live happily ever after. The object he held with fondness was a small choker. It was a black choker made from a type of spirit beast that had mind-manipulation abilities. The moment this choker was put on a target's neck, they would obey every command of the one who placed it there, within limits, of course.

  Long ago, he had been rejected and scorned for showing his pure and true love. However, with this choker, that woman would be his and his alone. As he imagined the poses he would order his future wife to show him, he let out a lecherous laugh, one that sounded like a squealing pig and grated on the ears.

  "With this, I will—"

  At that moment, a soft click sounded. It was a noise with a peculiar quality that made it difficult to register. The man did not hear the sound, even though it came from right behind his head. A moment later, the man crumpled to the floor. A hole appeared in the back of his head, gushing a trickle of blood that pooled on the floor. It was, of course, Liu Xing. He was still invisible, and without further ado, he snatched the choker from the dead man's hands, carried the body out of his secluded room, and put it in the dusty room where he stored the people he killed.

  An hour ago, the room was empty. Now, exactly ten corpses lined its floor.

  Liu Xing looked at the choker he had just snatched from his latest victim. It was a foul choker, but supremely useful. It was not one of the resources given away by the Nether Lotus Sect, but rather a treasure that had originally belonged to one of Wuji Sanren's direct disciples. Almost all disciples of the Nether Lotus Sect were trying to increase their power, but several people like this man needed a specific treasure to fulfill their desires. This one had been especially desperate, as he had traded two treasures for the choker.

  Liu Xing continued his hunt.

  Inside a small room on the second floor of the main building was a large bathroom where several people could submerge themselves in a pool of hot water. Inside was a Nether Lotus Sect disciple who had white hair, wrinkled skin, and a body as thin as a dying tree. He was the oldest disciple in this sect, and one of the strongest in the Lock Opening realm category. He disrobed and was about to enter the pool of steaming hot water mixed with so many precious herbs when Liu Xing shot him in the back of the head. The man, like everyone else Liu Xing had killed, crumpled. Liu Xing caught him before he fell into the water. He did not want the pool to be soaked with blood.

  After he snatched the man's spatial bag and examined its contents, he brought out a small golden bell. It was a small treasure that could detect lies. It was valuable and could be used by a cultivator even at the Black Sun realm. However, the bell's drawback was that it would be destroyed after ten questions. Finding the number five inscribed on its back, Liu Xing noted it and put the bell in his spatial ring. Then, he carried the old man out, passing a young man who waited anxiously for his grandfather.

  After he dumped the old man's corpse with the others he had murdered, Liu Xing ascended to the tenth floor. This floor was mostly empty, with servants milling about.

  The floor was divided into four areas, each controlled by one of the four direct disciples. Liu Xing found his target not long after he arrived. She was an alluring woman. Her hair was jet black and her skin unblemished, and she had no problem showing off her body. Among the direct disciples, she was the one who had modified her robe the most. The base color was still black, but instead of blood red, her robe was adorned with patterns of golden flowers. She was lying on a grand bed, four men surrounding and pleasing her, while she smiled and wriggled in pleasure. However, while she looked pleased, the men were not. All of them were cultivators weaker than her, and each had glazed eyes, as if they were in a haze and had no control over their bodies. The woman had spent a great deal of qi in her tournament and was now replenishing her power by stealing it from these men. To the side, three people were piled on top of each other, their bodies pale, thin, and definitely dead.

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  Liu Xing aimed his gun at the woman and pulled the trigger. The woman was drowning in pleasure and had no chance to survive. Indeed, the bullet pierced her forehead, killing her instantly. The four men surrounding her suddenly collapsed onto the bed. Liu Xing entered the chamber, snatched a spatial ring from her finger, and dumped its contents on the floor. He noticed the treasure that had been given to her—an entirely blank white mask—and stored all the items in his own spatial ring. After that, he carried the woman's corpse away, dumped it with the other bodies, and continued.

  In this manner, Liu Xing killed the disciples of the Nether Lotus Sect one by one. Killing them was surprisingly easy. Most of the people he needed to kill were in the Lock Opening realm, and those who had already crossed into the Core Splitting realm were likewise no trouble. The most troublesome was a man he needed to shoot five times to kill, but even he was not much of a hassle. The fact that almost all his targets were isolating themselves to recuperate or admire their treasures was also helpful. He noticed that while there was some camaraderie between them, the majority did not trust each other, which was fair. It worked in his favor, after all.

  Three hours after he started hunting, he had filled the room with twenty corpses. Not all of them had the treasures he wanted. However, all of them had something valuable. The poorest disciple was his latest target. He was an unfortunate fellow who had won only a single time in the entire tournament, and he was the one who had the Lightning Clone technique. He had overheard the man lamenting his fate, since he had no affinity with the lightning element, people did not want to trade with him, and he only had ten spirit stones on him. Still, Liu Xing showed him no mercy, and in the end, the man never even knew he had died.

  "Alright, everything's going perfectly," Liu Xing muttered.

  Tide Walker was growing stronger. The creature was still content on his shoulder, but Liu Xing knew it was eager to fight. Aside from the Lightning Clone technique, he had gotten all the treasures he needed to capture and interrogate Wuji Sanren. However, while he had plenty of treasures with similar effects, he realized not all of them could be used at the same time. For now, three treasures complemented each other. The first was a set of golden cuffs. These cuffs could block qi circulation in the body by sucking the qi into the treasure itself. The hairpin nestled in his hair could suppress another person's qi by suppressing their will, making the qi dormant. He also had a poison that specifically attacked qi paths, making them shrink and blocking them, with the added effect of paralyzing muscles and restricting joints. These three were quite potent already, and he had several other treasures that achieved more or less the same function. Then, for interrogating Wuji Sanren, he also had three useful treasures. First was a gourd that wafted a mist that could muddle thoughts. He also had the choker that would make its target obey him within certain limits, a treasure in the shape of prayer beads that would coax the wearer to talk, the golden bell that could detect lies, and many more.

  All in all, Liu Xing was ready to head toward Wuji Sanren, capture him, and interrogate him.

  However, Liu Xing decided not to rush. Instead, he needed to use all of the treasures to fully understand their effects. While he had already seen some of the treasures in action, many of them he had not, so he came out of the hallway to do just that.

  His target was a man called Senior Brother Gao. He was the de facto leader of the direct disciples. He was also one of the strongest and probably the closest to Wuji Sanren. The man was standing on a balcony on the seventh floor. He stood with his hands behind his back, overseeing the fights below like a commander judging his troops' capabilities. Liu Xing leaned against a wall not too far away from him. His eyes were locked on his target as he patiently waited for an opportunity. If he remembered correctly, the man had been assigned a very valuable treasure based on how people reacted to it. It was called the Blood Puppet. However, its shape, when the man received it, was akin to that of a blood-red ostrich egg. He suspected this treasure was one that could either grow alongside its user or perhaps grow into a second body for its user. It was useful; however, Liu Xing did not want to have or use it. The moment he got his hands on it, he would destroy it, because the treasure was said to have been made from the sacrifice of a thousand mortals and a hundred cultivators.

  Liu Xing waited patiently for an opportunity to move. Several times, disciples came to him. They were either reporting people burned for trying to escape, asking for advice, or something else. A woman even came to him and invited him to a certain chamber that night, though Senior Brother Gao declined, which made her smile devilishly, as if she were pleased by his rejection. At a certain point, Liu Xing considered doing something to lure the man from his position. However, luck favored him, because after a full hour of waiting, the man finally called someone to his side and asked him to take his place for a moment.

  "If I may ask, where do you intend to go, Senior?" the subordinate asked.

  "I need to report the situation to the Elder. While I'm gone, you're the one in charge."

  "I understand," he replied.

  Senior Brother Gao nodded, then turned around and began walking away. Liu Xing waited until the man passed him, then he followed.

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