Dao of Money

Chen Ren froze the moment he heard that, and it took all of his willpower not to let even a hint of surprise show on his face as Jun mentioned the medallion.

He avoided looking at Yalan, though he was sure she was also doing her best to keep her expression neutral, and in that moment he was more grateful than ever that he had never told Princess Yanyue or the twins anything about the medallion. Still, his mind was already moving fast.

But how did Jun know about it?

Was he looking for a medallion of his own? Did he know about the Gate of Immortals? Or was there some entirely different reason for him to search for it? Too many questions came to him at once, but underneath them all, his instincts were already screaming one thing.

Do not let this man know.

And honestly, there was enough logic behind that instinct that Chen Ren did not need to think twice. The only other people he knew who had knowledge of the medallion were the demonic cultivators. He still remembered Gu Tian from the Cloud Mist City tournament, and even more than that, he remembered the spectre with him. Was Jun tied to them somehow? Was he a demonic cultivator himself? Chen Ren could not tell. He did not feel any demonic qi from the man, but that proved nothing. Anyone strong enough and careful enough could hide such things.

Hence, the tension in his mind only kept rising.

In the end, Chen Ren simply shook his head and said, “No. I haven’t come across anything related to a medallion. If it’s important, then it is probably hidden in one of the trial rooms.”

Jun nodded as if that answer was enough.

“Then I’ll search there. But if you do find anything, look for me. I wouldn’t mind giving you a reward for it.”

Chen Ren said nothing to that.

Jun and his two disciples turned soon after and walked down the hallway before disappearing between the shelves. Only once they were fully gone did Chen Ren look back at his own party.

“Let’s go back to the ground floor first. Then we’ll talk.”

Everyone nodded, even if the twins looked confused. Princess Yanyue, though, seemed to have understood that Jun was not someone ordinary, so she didn't argue. They stepped onto their flying swords and moved back down through the library in silence.

Once they reached the ground floor, Chen Ren jumped off first and turned to Yalan.

“How did you even run into him?”

Yalan flicked her tail at the question. “He found us. If I had to guess, then the moment he entered the library, he used some detection technique to check whether anyone else was here.”

Princess Yanyue frowned at that. “But none of my detection techniques worked here.”

Chen Ren looked at her. “I have one that worked, but I got it inside the pagoda. So I think he probably used something similar. He likely didn’t sense us before because we were in the middle of a trial.”

“A trial?” Li Qingfeng asked with a surprised tone.

Chen Ren shook his head lightly. “I’ll explain that later. Right now, I think we should leave the library as soon as possible.”

Li Qingxue raised a brow. “Just because another cultivator is here?”

Chen Ren shook his head again. “No. Because I think Jun and his disciples are demonic cultivators. And not the kind that would be easy to deal with.”

The twins’ eyes widened at once.

Princess Yanyue also nodded. “Yes. I think so too.” She clicked her tongue at the thought. “It’s very clear that Jun is strong. His disciples might only be ordinary foundation establishment realm cultivators, but he isn’t. I know every righteous cultivator in the Empire who is worth knowing, and he doesn’t belong to any major sect or clan. There’s a chance he might be from a smaller force and simply doesn’t show himself often, but I really doubt that.”

Chen Ren nodded at that, then opened the rankings to check them.

[15. Jun - 12,000 tokens.]

Sure enough, Jun was sitting at rank fifteen right now. That was not low at all when there were over a thousand cultivators inside the pagoda, but Chen Ren was still sure the man had not seriously tried climbing the rankings yet. The more he thought about it, the more Jun fit the shape of a demonic cultivator.

“So what do you think we should do?” He looked at Princess Yanyue and asked. “I believe we should go to the index, find what we’re looking for, then head toward the master lift. I don’t know whether fighting is even allowed in the library. Maybe that’s why Jun is being polite. Either way, I’d rather not deal with demonic cultivators, especially one who seems to have suppressed his cultivation to enter the pagoda, just like Yalan.”

Princess Yanyue nodded. “I was thinking the same thing.”

Before she could say more, Yalan looked between them and asked, “You know where the index is?”

Chen Ren smiled at that. “Yes. It’s actually on the ground floor itself, and it isn’t hard to find.”

With that, he stepped back onto a flying sword and rose a little into the air to get a better view of the shelves. Then he turned his head left and began counting the shelves one by one before moving back toward the others.

He pointed toward one row of shelves. “Let’s go.”

None of them questioned it. Even the twins, though clearly confused, simply followed as the group started moving. Chen Ren stayed on the flying sword, letting it carry him a little above the ground while the others walked below, and just then Yalan’s voice sounded in his head.

“Jun knows about the medallion.”

Chen Ren glanced down at her before replying in the same way, “Yes. That only makes me more certain he’s a demonic cultivator. Do you think he got the map leading to the pagoda from one of the medallions he already had?”

Yalan’s answer came back right away. “I think so. I also think he deliberately asked about the medallion. I don’t know whether he was testing you or Princess Yanyue, but he definitely didn’t ask for innocent reasons.”

Chen Ren gave a faint nod at that.

He still couldn’t tell whether Jun’s question had been a guess or whether the man already knew Chen Ren was here for the same reason. Either way, the feeling Jun left behind in him was bad. He felt dread. It had been there the moment their eyes met, and it had only grown stronger since then.

Jun felt like the kind of man who could kill him if he truly wanted to.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

At the same time, that old frustration returned.

The same one Chen Ren had felt so many times already whenever he thought about the medallions and the Gate of Immortals. All he had were guesses, clues and fragments. But nothing was complete. He still did not know what exactly he had gotten himself involved in, and only the golden dragon could probably tell him that properly.

But the creature was likely still sleeping inside his soul. He didn’t know how to wake it up without causing anger.

The thought irritated him, but before it could grow into anything more, they reached the shelf he had marked out earlier.

Chen Ren slowed to a stop.

The others stared at the row in front of them. “This is the shelf where the index is,” he said and pointed.

Li Qingxue’s eyes narrowed at once. “The index is here? Of all places?”

Chen Ren nodded as he stepped off the sword and walked toward the shelf. “Yes. It’s the best place to hide it once you give it some thought. No one would waste time checking ordinary shelves when all the truly valuable books are hidden in trial rooms. Naturally, anyone would assume the index should be hidden in one of those places too.”

And that was exactly why finding it would probably have been impossible without meeting the spirit first.

Chen Ren stopped in front of the shelf, counted the books carefully, then reached toward the middle row and pulled out three of them. After that, he slid his hand into the empty space they had left behind. A spatial rune was hidden there, thin enough that no one would have noticed it without knowing to look, and when his fingers finally touched a book inside it, he pulled it out.

It was an ordinary-looking book, average in size and had a blank cover.

For a moment, Chen Ren simply stared at it, then he opened it.

The moment he saw the pages inside, he smiled. They were filled with names of books, along with the rows and shelves where each one could be found.

“We got it. Let’s see what this library actually holds,” he looked at others and said.

He placed the book down on the ground and started turning the pages while the others leaned in to look. He had to admit, the whole thing was arranged well. The books were categorized properly, and there were far more of them in the library than he had expected. There were around twenty whole pages just for poisons, poison techniques, and related writings. There were even three full pages of cultivator autobiographies, names Chen Ren had never heard of before.

Unfortunately, Wang Jun’s name was not among them.

He certainly would have liked to know more about the head’s life. Every time Wang Jun spoke about himself, it was always with some sort of bragging, but Chen Ren guessed he would not get that chance today.

So he kept turning the pages of the index, searching for what they had actually come for.

From time to time, he noticed the twins’ eyes flash whenever he passed over an earth-grade or sky-grade manual, and honestly he understood them. Either of those could become the treasure of a clan and change its fate completely. Even Chen Ren himself would have liked to get his hands on one. Unfortunately, the index clearly showed that such manuals were hidden behind more trial rooms, and while it did not mention what kind of trials guarded them, Chen Ren had no trouble guessing they would be worse than anything they had faced so far.

Even hundreds of years ago, the value of a sky-grade manual would have been enough to make cultivators kill hundreds for it.

So he kept flipping through the book.

Page after page.

Halfway through, Princess Yanyue crouched beside him and took over, her eyes scanning every line carefully as she searched for the journal she had wanted from the very beginning. But even after they had gone through half the index, there was still no sign of it.

There were journals listed, yes, but they all belonged to clearly more accomplished cultivators, and Chen Ren doubted that was what Princess Yanyue had been after.

As for himself, he found no mention of the medallion either.

Still, he had never expected the medallion itself to be named directly. What he was really searching for was a book related to hidden items or artifacts scattered through the pagoda. If such a book existed, then the medallion had to be mentioned somewhere inside it.

But for now, luck was not on his side.

It felt to Chen Ren like they had been going through the index for over an hour, yet they still had not found anything truly useful. Even Yalan let out an annoyed purr. “I’m sure even this index has spatial runes hidden under its covers. Otherwise it should have ended long ago.”

Chen Ren nodded. “Yes, but what can we do? The place is too huge. There’s no way the index would be simple to get through. At least now we know this library has almost everything a cultivator could ever want.”

“But we can’t just go and take everything,” Li Qingfeng said. When Chen Ren looked at him, the man was frowning.

Li Qingxue answered before anyone else could. “If we could, then the heavens would just throw worse trials at us until we became worthy of that kind of knowledge.”

While the rest of them spoke, Princess Yanyue kept turning the pages without pause, her full attention locked onto the index. Then Chen Ren’s eyes caught on one line, and he immediately said, “Stop. There it is.”

Her hands froze on the page at once. Everyone leaned closer and there it was.

“Journal of Azure Immortal Sect Cultivator.”Princess Yanyue let out a breath that sounded almost like relief. “Do you think this is the one?” she asked.

“It would be strange if it wasn’t. It’s not like every Azure Immortal Sect cultivator kept journals,” Yalan replied.

Princess Yanyue nodded and moved her eyes to the side to check the section where the book was stored.

Then her face went a little pale.

Chen Ren glanced at her first, then followed her gaze and immediately understood why. Written right there beside the entry was the location.

The journal was part of the tenth floor lord’s personal collection.

***

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