Chapter 102 Settling Down

  Liu Pai Alliance Freedom City, this is a massive city situated in the midst of three surrounding mountains. The layout of the city is quite grand and was built according to the standards of a first-class city.

  Built at the foot of a super-large mountain, this super-large mountain was cut off from the bottom, and it is rare for anyone to know how high it used to be. The current city is three hundred meters above the ground.

  It can be seen that originally there were four big mountains here, one of which was cut off, and a city was built on the massive base of the mountain, while the other three high mountains served as the gateways to guard the west, south and north directions.

  This city, located at the intersection of the territories of the six major sects and jointly funded and managed by them, is a free city with extremely low tax rates, rules and atmosphere. Situated at the junction of three kingdoms, it attracts many cultivators from the three countries every day, and even cultivators from the distant Eastern Wuhuan Empire often come here to search for treasures.

  Within the territory of the Six Faction Alliance, there is only this one city. Elsewhere are some market towns similar to Tianxiang Mountain, varying in size but definitely smaller than a county town.

  After all, the six major sects of L^O^V^E^P^D are religious schools, not countries, and the areas they occupy belong to the depths of the wilderness, where powerful beasts can be seen everywhere.

  There are still many small and medium-sized sects in this area that have established their own schools, and the protection fees collected by the six major sects are much more reasonable than national taxes.

  National taxes are generally collected per capita, by industry, and by resource. For a sect like Mingyue Sect, the collection is relatively small. However, for a sect to develop, it must recruit a large number of disciples in batches to expand its resources. Within the territory of the six major sects, the protection fees collected by these six major sects are fixed and divided according to the number of small and medium-sized sects. Then they don't care about your harvest or the number of people, ambitious sects are suitable for development here. If Mingyue Sect comes here, it will probably lose money!

  A young man and woman emerged from the teleportation array in Freedom City.

  "Free City, hmm... a place full of spiritual energy..." It was Yang Tong who spoke early. The woman wore armor and had a mask covering her eyes and below, it was Lin Yueyin.

  Yang Tong first bought a detailed map of Freedom City in a small shop that came out of the transmission array, and was about to leave.

  Just then, a 15 or 16-year-old boy with only a fifth-level apprentice cultivation came over. "Two young masters and misses, is this your first time in Freedom City? Do you need a guide? I've grown up in Freedom City since I was a child, so I'm very familiar with the place. I'll just charge one low-grade beast crystal."

  "Alright." First tell me what's fun and delicious around Freedom City... Yang Tong asked, pretending to be a tourist.

  "You've asked the right person, in this Free City, you can buy anything." "The East City has countless grades and types of spiritual tools for adults to choose from." The West City is a gathering place for various spiritual medicines and finished medicinal products. The South City sells countless barbarian beast materials, and there are also many delicious wine houses, restaurants, and brothels located in the South City. There are also many strange street performances and major spirit shadow theaters playing box office hits from all over the world. That's the most fun place to be. As for the North City, it's a bit more intense, that's where warriors go to hone their skills and compete in various martial arts arenas with different odds and matches to test adults' eyesight and determination, sometimes even life or death duels. In the city, it is not allowed to fight, if there are grudges to be settled, you can go to the North City's life and death arena, or settle them outside the city. The city center has the League Management Committee, Mercenary Guild, World Bank, and Spiritual Tool Technology Company branches...". The young man began to introduce, "The League Management Committee is mainly responsible for handling licenses in Free City, real estate rental and sales, and also handles some special cases in Free City. They control the city's Guardian Army."

  "Ah, I see. Well, in that case, let's take you to have a good time for two days..." Yang Tong said, taking out a standard crystal stone and tossing it over. "This is your reward, take it first."

  "Oh, thank you so much for your generosity..." The young man replied with unparalleled joy.

  For the next four days, Yang Tong and Lin Yueyin played in Freedom City for a full four days. Familiarize yourself with the environment of Freedom City, as well as the market conditions of the spiritual tool industry and so on.

  Next is the issue of renting or buying a storefront.

  "Xiao Tao, we won't go out and play today. Take us to the Guild Management Committee instead. We plan to rent or buy a shop here, and it would be best if we could also choose a suitable cave. After finishing these things, you can do your own thing..." Yang Tong said to the young man waiting outside the inn.

  "Yes, I don't know what kind of store Mr. Yang wants to rent?" Little Tao asked aloud.

  "I plan to open a spiritual goods store in Dongcheng's specialty shop..." Yang Tong replied.

  "Hmm, don't know which kind of spiritual equipment store to open? There are many spiritual equipment stores in the East City, including junk shops that collect and sell waste spiritual equipment and scraps, material shops that collect and sell various materials, and regular spiritual equipment stores that sell finished products and take orders separately. The first two have no special requirements, while the latter requires a professional certificate issued by the Spiritual Equipment Technology Company..." Little Tao explained clearly.

  "Ah, finally...” Yang Tong took Lin Yue to the Guild Management Committee, went through a lot of procedures, and then paid the rent. They chose a nice little shop with a front and back yard. The front was for business, while the back had a resting room and an alchemy lab. They even installed a geothermal heating system in the lab, equipping it with all the necessary instruments.

  The rent is quite high, one hundred years for ten million standard crystal stones, and they only accept crystal stones, not spiritual coins! Yang Tong also discovered that in the Free City, except for the entertainment district like Nan Cheng, most other places only accepted crystal stones and did not accept spiritual coins.

  Yang Tong had no choice, so he simply revealed his identity and exchanged 1.5 billion spiritual coins for a standard crystal stone at the Mercenary Guild. He paid the rent for the shop. The remaining 50,000 standard crystal stones were used to rent an ordinary cave dwelling facing east, with a layout of five rooms and one hall. There was a storage room, a refining equipment and pill refining room, a practice room, a rest room, a cultivation room, and a living room, as well as a hot spring bath pool heated by earth fire. It was a bit expensive, but fortunately, all the furniture inside was complete, and if he wasn't satisfied, he could change it himself. The array of the cave dwelling wasn't satisfactory either, so he could change it to a better one. Yang Tong also personally went to see the cave dwelling, which was extremely suitable in terms of size, far surpassing the one he had excavated himself on the other side of Tianxiang Mountain.

  The safety of the cave is the responsibility of Freedom City, and the management committee responsible for renting out the cave assured that "safety is absolutely not a problem".

  Yang Tong was relatively confident in this guarantee, after all, the six major alliances relied on Freedom City to make money. If the cave wasn't safe, who would dare to settle here? Those who could afford to settle in the Freedom City area, especially those who could rent or buy a cave, were mostly cultivators with considerable family wealth, and the vast majority of them were free spirit masters like Yang Tong, alchemists, or formation masters. If safety couldn't be guaranteed, people wouldn't stay, and if these people didn't stay, Freedom City's business would at least be cut in half, and might even dwindle further.

  In addition, the management committee also specially formulated a regulation that prohibits Shinto priests with professional qualifications from engaging in fortune-telling activities.

  After settling everything, the rest was simple. The storefront was a ready-made one that had been vacated by a spiritual tool master who had to leave Freedom City for an extended period of time due to some pressing matters. As a result, he entrusted the storefront to the management committee as an intermediary, and Yang Tong was able to take it over immediately. The storefront wasn't large, but it came with a shopkeeper and an apprentice. Yang Tong happened to take them both in, and they were all registered residents of Freedom City. Having grown up in Freedom City since childhood, due to his innate talent, his cultivation level was only around novice third or fourth grade.

  The shop owner's surname is Li, 60 years old, and has been running the store for 30 years. He is very experienced in managing this type of small store. The apprentice's name is Xiao San, 25 years old, who is also a clever young man. He has two disabled parents at home to take care of. According to the previous owner, this apprentice is very filial and honest. As for the salary of the two apprentices, Yang Tong increased it by 20% based on the original amount. He also promised that if they did well, there would be a bonus.

  The shop, renamed "Tian Liao", reopened with Yang Tong bringing out 15 white silver-grade third-tier defensive equipment and golden-grade third-tier weapons of various types. Li Zhuang took charge of pricing, Xiao San was in charge of sales, while the store's spiritual intelligence manager was responsible for managing income, storage, and the crystal drawer. The shopkeeper only collected money, kept accounts, and then put the crystals into the spatial storage drawer.

  This is the charm of high technology, with it, the boss's spiritual master can release his energy to manage the store, and devote himself wholeheartedly to cultivation and refining work.

  Yang Tong returned to his new home and began to set up the formation restrictions. The formation disc was bought from the market, a four-star formation that guarded the entrance of the cave mansion. Inside the cave mansion, Yang Tong arranged various restrictions to represent the formation. Compared to formations, restrictions were invisible and intangible, making them easier to remove.

  "How was it? Have you had a good time these days?" Yang Tong asked Lin Yueyin while setting up the formation.

  "It's great, this is the first time I've felt such joy, thank you." Lin Yue had indeed been having a very enjoyable time these days, it was the first time she had felt the joy of playing since childhood. A girl who had been frozen in her emotions for over a decade would naturally feel the same way as Lin Yue after releasing her youthful nature.

  "So I'm saying, all of your sect's techniques are trash, might as well not practice them." Yang Tong curled his lip, clearly resentful towards the Mingyue Sect. "This time it's a reward for you, you performed quite well in the Tianxiang Mountain market town, and should be rewarded. However, from now on, you'll have to resume your identity as a prisoner."

  Chapter 103 Yang Tong, the native of the mainland, finished setting up the seal and took out the Avoid Heaven Banner. He inserted it into the ground in the center of the cave mansion and set up a spiritual energy supply array.

  "Alright." Yang Tong clapped his hands and said with satisfaction, then returned to the living room, where he saw Lin Yue Yin standing alone, looking very awkward.

  "Huh, don't you know how to be a captive? Hmm, no, I, Yang Tong, have always been clear about rewards and punishments. You helped me out in the Tianxiang Mountain market, so I'll promote you from being a captive to becoming my concubine. From now on, everything related to my daily life, food, and drink will be your responsibility. If you do well, there will be rewards; if you don't do well, naturally, there will be punishment." Yang Tong said to herself.

  Lin Yueyun was left speechless for a moment and chose not to respond.

  As soon as he finished speaking, he stretched out his hand and pointed, a beam of light landed on Lin Yue's body. The spiritual tool battle clothes that were originally worn on her body instantly restored to a belt and fell off from Lin Yue's body. Yang Tong had added a backdoor to each spiritual tool after mastering the forbidden technique, in order to prevent these tools from being used against him after they were sold.

  Lin Yueyin was once again outshone by Yang Tong.

  "How could you?!" Lin Yueyun reacted, hugging her body and squatting down, saying with a mix of shame and anger.

  "In the future, in the cave mansion, when there is no one around, it will be like this. When there are people around, you are allowed to wear your armor." Yang Tong said coldly, without leaving any face.

  Yang Tong never made mistakes on the issue of stance. Prisoners were prisoners, regardless of gender, as long as they were enemies and captured by Yang Tong. Those who weren't killed directly would have all humanitarian treatment cancelled. What more humanitarian treatment could prisoners ask for? Not being beheaded was already a blessing; if you wanted to be treated well, then become a slave or servant instead. The Lin family had offended him and almost caused his family to be destroyed. This hatred wouldn't end like this.

  "From now on, I am your master. You must forget your identity as the young mistress of the Lin family and learn how to serve a good master well, becoming a qualified and excellent concubine. From now on, address me as Young Master, and refer to yourself as slave or concubine." Yang Tong declared calmly.

  Lin Yueyin had an urge to cry, from young to old, she really never encountered such a thing, the previous three years were nothing, at that time everyone's stance was different. Now Lin Yueyin originally thought that her relationship with Yang Tong had eased, but she didn't expect that Yang Tong would be so heartless.

  Yang Tong entered the practice room and began sorting out relevant information about the Secret Realm Token.

  "This so-called secret realm, its history dates back to the ancient times before" The Wind Xuan Continent was not originally a continent owned by humans, but rather a habitat and birthplace of another civilization.

  Finally, humans developed and expanded their territory, strongly attacking the mainland, destroying the indigenous civilization that refused to surrender and attach itself to humanity.

  Humanity dispatched countless true gods to descend, using divine power to impact and directly destroy all the weak and small civilizations of the indigenous people. However, this indigenous civilization also had a true god-level existence. In order to continue its bloodline and not let humanity succeed easily, the entire civilization hid the treasures it had accumulated over countless years in various places on the continent, in the void space.

  These must be the mystical realms, what people now call secret lands.

  Actually, during World War I, most of the secret realms were plundered by the strong men of human civilization, but there are still a small number of extremely hidden treasure secret realms that have not been discovered.

  Of course, the secret realm discovered by the Six Faction Alliance was actually found by the six major sects hundreds of millions of years ago. By now, it has been developed almost to its full potential. Later on, the ancestors of the six major sects used this secret realm to set up layers and layers of trials, allowing their inner disciples to test themselves and have adventures, while also leaving behind many benefits that could help people smoothly break through to the Sky Level with the aid of Heaven's Gift and Earth's Treasure, as well as more easily break through bottlenecks under the blessing of Semi-Divine Spiritual Energy. This secret realm opens once every fifty years, and all inner disciples at the 9th level or higher from the six major sects can enter. The next opening is in twenty-five years.

  The Six Faction Alliance issued a large number of Secret Realm Tokens to win over some beneficial friends, some were given to the middle and small sects under their subordinate vassals, some were given to scattered cultivators, and some were even directly auctioned off in Freedom City.

  This secret realm is an ideal place for a strong person of the Ninth Level of the Earth Realm to break through to the Sky Realm.

  Inside the sect, the entry-level is outer door disciples, the Earth level is fifth-generation inner door disciples, the Sky level is fourth-generation true transmission disciples, the Void level is third-generation core disciples, and the Sacred Realm is second-generation sect masters and elder-level. Those who differ by one generation must be addressed as Master Uncle or Master Aunt, and so on, with cultivation determining rank, and levels are strictly divided.

  So, Old Man Yi sent out this Secret Realm Token because he saw that Yang Tong had already reached the 9th level of Earth cultivation. In another twenty years or so, he would be able to reach the peak of the 9th level and purify enough spiritual energy to prepare for a breakthrough to the Sky level. At this time, entering the secret realm was extremely suitable.

  After Yang Tong obtained this information about the Sect Alliance Secret Realm, he couldn't help but feel a little regretful. Breaking through to the Sky Level was a huge attraction for other Earth Level martial artists and divine thought cultivators, but for Yang Tong, as long as he had enough high-quality crystal stones, it wouldn't take him twenty-five years to break through to the Sky Level. By then, even chrysanthemums would have withered.

  However, Yang Tong was very interested in the native civilization of this continent, but it was too long ago and not easy to trace back.

  Yang Tong held the Secret Realm Token and walked out of the cultivation room, sitting down on the sofa in the living room. This cave mansion was not one that Yang Tong had opened up himself, but rather a luxurious, specially designed and decorated one. The living room was extremely large, with a complete set of furniture including a sofa, tea table, and guest chairs. The resting room even had a large bed that could accommodate four people. The practice room was fully equipped with all sorts of instruments for testing one's skills.

  "Lin Yueyin, pour me some tea!" Yang Tong shouted.

  Lin Yueyun helplessly walked out of the practice room, apparently she had gone in to vent her emotions. After hearing Yang Tong's words, she really came out obediently to pour tea and water for Yang Tong.

  She actually wanted to wash her hands of it, but every time she steeled herself to do so, she found herself unable to say it out loud. A classic case of daring to think but not dare to act, and for some reason, Yang Tong had her completely under his thumb.

  "Master Yang, have some tea..." Lin Yueyun's face turned red as she handed the teacup to Yang Tong.

  "Hmm, not bad, this kind of service attitude is just right......" Yang Tong was very satisfied and delighted.

  Lin Yueyin saw the Secret Realm Token on the tea table, picked it up and said: "Young Master, you are really lucky. This Six Alliance Secret Realm Token is hard to come by, countless people who are stuck at the ninth level of the Grandmaster's bottleneck can only dream of getting one."

  "This thing is useless to me, but you said this token is very valuable, I can consider auctioning it off..." Yang Tong put down the teacup and hugged Lin Yue in his arms, smiling and saying.

  "What, sell it out? You're crazy, this thing... Love Channel update." Lin Yueyun felt that her attitude was not right and quickly pressed down "Young master, you don't need to give it to your slave instead?"

  Yang Tong didn't feel the pressure of breaking through to the Sky Level, that was because Yang Tong's cultivation method was too advanced, like the Jade Clear Secret Record's mental technique. Looking at Yang Tong's auxiliary cultivation of the Nine Turns Primordial Merit's first and second layers, Yang Tong's true yuan purity was much stronger than the Sky Level. There was also the auxiliary cultivation of the "Yin-Yang Ultimate Ode" Lesser Yang Volume, which was another magical method that could break through bottlenecks.

  However, Lin Yueyin was born into a thousand-year-old aristocratic family in the Lin clan, where this Sky-level is the highest martial power. Although it has been passed down for thousands of years, Lin Yueyin knows better than anyone else how difficult it is to break through this bottleneck. Like her father, the head of the Lin family, who was young and probably around 40 years old when he broke through to the Ninth Level of Earth, but now more than 60 years have passed and he is still stuck at the Ninth Level of Earth.

  The peak of the Earth rank, with a lifespan of over 400 years. However, more than 80% of those who reach this level are stuck here until their lifespan is exhausted and they die in frustration.

  "You? This token is useless to you, you're cultivating the Taiyin Volume of 'Yinyang Wuji Fu', as long as we dual cultivate once, you'll be able to break through to the Sky Level smoothly. It's just a bit harder to enter the Sacred Realm, but Void Level is nothing..." Yang Tong said calmly.

  This is indeed the truth, ancient immortal cultivation methods do not emphasize innate talent, but rather enlightenment and temperament. Coincidentally, Yang Tong and Lin Yueyin's innate talents were both of the excellent type, cultivating the immortal Taoist method, successfully building the foundation, naturally advancing rapidly.

  Lin Yueyun also couldn't help but feel a thrill of excitement, mixed with some slight shyness, but the shyness was quickly dispelled by the good news that could rapidly improve. "Young master, is what you said really true?"

  "Nonsense, you're now my wife, do I need to deceive you?..." Yang Tong gave Lin Yue a white eye.

  Lin Yueyin felt that the word "sh" sounded particularly good, and at the same time, she was also thinking that if she really surrendered to Yang Tong, maybe she could slowly eliminate his hatred for the Lin family. In a certain sense, the Lin family did owe Yang Tong a great debt of gratitude, and it was only natural for her to repay it herself. Besides, which woman didn't want to find a perfect husband? Yang Tong met all the standards. It was precisely because of this thinking that Lin Yueyin was able to slowly accept her new identity.

  "But I don't completely trust you yet, let's see how you perform...” Yang Tong said calmly. In fact, Yang Tong was also an extremely self-centered person in a sense. To put it bluntly, he found it difficult to trust anyone except himself and his parents.