Iron Spear City was a border town situated on the southwestern edge of the Heroes Domain, adjacent to the area of the Nine Rivers Domain controlled by the Li Clan. Further to the north, similar towns had been able to develop into thriving metropolitan cities by attracting skilled artisans from both sides of the border. Iron Spear City, however, did not lie along any important caravan routes, so it had never been able to achieve this same level of prosperity.

That said, Iron Spear City did still see its fair share of travelers. It was just that, instead of wealthy merchants and talented craftsmen, the people who passed through Iron Spear were poor, low-level cultivators—most of whom were fleeing trouble on the other side of the border.

After exiting the alleyway that I had appeared in, I found myself surrounded by old wooden houses with broken roofs and boarded-up windows. Typically, this would indicate that I had been sent to a city’s slums, but considering what I had seen elsewhere in the Heroes Domain, I couldn’t be certain about this. With powerful Returnees walking around, even a ‘nice’ neighborhood could turn into a war zone.

That said, as I passed by a few haggard locals, I didn’t see any signs of Cicada-enhanced weaponry, so I felt pretty confident that my initial impression had been correct. I was, indeed, walking around one of the city’s poorer sections.

Overall, I was satisfied with this, but the shifty looks I was getting from some of the nearby youths made me worried that I might be in for an early reset. It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle such minor annoyances. I was just worried that the way I handled them might endanger my plans.

If I pulled out the crescent moon spade that I had gotten from Emperor Chan, for example, these youths wouldn’t even consider messing with me. However, doing this would mark me as someone who was undergoing a Return to Simplicity. This wasn’t necessarily a problem, but I wanted to appear as if I were a poor orphan from the Nine Rivers Domain—a kid who had run away to the Heroes Domain to seek his fortunes. Even if I did cause a scene, few people in the backstreets of this poor border town would remember me in a few months’ time, but leaving behind witnesses who knew that I was more than I appeared would be less than ideal.

So, I averted my gaze from the youths and did my best to avoid drawing any undue attention as I shuffled my way down the street. After all, my best defense against both mortal thieves and powerful cultivators was my appearance as a poor, emaciated orphan. Who would try to rob someone who didn’t have anything worth stealing?

Unsurprisingly, the youths decided to ignore me.

As I continued walking, however, I soon found that it wasn’t only my mediocre acting skills that had kept the vultures at bay. Nearly every street I passed was being patrolled by a Martial Master wearing the crisp uniform of the city’s guard. The main purpose of these guards was likely to enforce the Saint’s prohibitions against cultivators entering the city, but they might step in if they saw someone getting mugged in the middle of the street.

Even if the guards didn’t care about such things, my potential muggers still needed to weigh the associated risks. In any case, regardless of the reasons, I was allowed to continue my explorations uninterrupted.

During my time in the Palace of the Herb Sovereign, I was able to acquire a basic map of Iron Spear City from the Scholar’s Tower. However, as that map had been drawn more than 100 years in the future, it was utterly useless for navigating the city’s tangled streets. It helped me identify the locations of a few key landmarks, but that was all.

Still, I was eventually able to find everything I was looking for, including the city’s gates, a market, and a place where I could hire a caravanner. This done, I began looking for the cheapest, seediest inn that Iron Spear City had to offer—a place that no cultivator and only the craziest of Returnees would even consider entering.

When I found a mildew-covered wooden shack in the back alleys of the slums, I knew that I had hit the jackpot. Renting a room here would mean having to take care of a few nasty insects, but I wouldn’t have to worry about being spied on by any of the city’s powerhouses.

After paying two copper for a room, I secluded myself away and set up a couple of weak shielding and detection formations. Then, I sat down and allowed my mind to enter my inner world.

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Meng LuYao, YuLong, and YuHua were sitting around a table in a cabin on the Plane of Wood, discussing their current predicament. With no access to qi, I couldn’t create a soul avatar to talk with them, so I took out a piece of paper and sent them a quickly scrawled note. Then, after giving them a few seconds to mentally prepare themselves, I pulled them out of my inner world and into my small inn room, filling it nearly to capacity.

This sudden change of scenery caused YuHua to shrink back in fear, but YuLong just chuckled as he took in his new surroundings, clearly amused by my choice of accommodations.

“Were you afraid that we were getting too comfortable in there?”

“No,” I snorted, with a slight shake of my head. “I just wanted to welcome you to the Central Continent. Is it all that you were hoping for?”

YuLong nodded happily. “It’s a little smaller than I was expecting, but I can see why everyone back in the Nine Rivers Sect dreamed of coming here. Such… musty aromas are hard to find back home.”

Ignoring him, I turned my focus to Meng LuYao, who was still dressed in the clothes of a Pavilion attendant. “LuYao, before we go any further, I need to ask about your blessing. I know it lets you see a person’s talents, but I don’t know the specifics. How exactly does it work? How do you know what someone’s good at?”

Meng LuYao hesitated—but only for a moment. Whatever information had been contained within her memory orb had been enough that she quickly got past the usual reticence to tell people about one’s blessing.

“When I look at someone with my blessing active, it’s almost like I’m looking into an affinity testing orb. I see various symbols that represent a person’s different talents. The more… vibrant these symbols, the more talented the person.”

“So, you see things like a tree for a wood talent and an ingot for a metal talent?” I asked.

LuYao shook her head. “No, the symbols are just… random lines. They look like writing, kind of, but they aren’t anything like normal writing. They’re strange glyphs that don’t make any sense. Whenever a person uses a particular skill, the symbol associated with that skill lights up, so I’ve been able to figure out most of the basics. I can recognize the symbols for alchemy and formations, but there are a lot that I don’t have the slightest idea about.”

She looked down sheepishly. “I only know what I’ve been able to figure out in the three years since getting my blessing, though. I must have chosen not to include anything about these symbols in that memory orb you used.”

“I see,” I said, bobbing my head in thought. Then, after carefully positioning my hand to avoid causing any injuries in the room’s tight confines, I reached into my inner world and pulled out my crescent moon spade.

“What do you see now?” I asked, moving the moon spade side to side, ever so slightly.

LuYao studied me carefully. “Three symbols are lit up—one brightly, two dimly. The bright one, though… There’s no life to it. It’s there, so you have a talent, but it looks dead. I’ve never seen something like that before.”

A slight smile crept onto my face as I returned the moon spade to my inner world and pulled out a random saber. “What about now?”

“There are still two symbols lit up, the same two dim ones as before. The brighter symbol faded into the background, though.”

“I’m not sure about the dimmer ones—possibly my martial talent?—but the bright one should be the symbol that represents my talent for the crescent moon spade. It’s not dull and lifeless because it’s dead. It looks that way because I’ve transformed it into an affinity.”

As my three companions sat in stunned silence, I explained to them everything that I had learned about how affinities and latent talents worked on the Central Continent. Then, I held out the saber to Shi YuLong.

“This is why I wanted to bring you with us, YuLong. If anyone is going to have the talents needed to develop proper affinities on this new continent, it’s you.”

As YuLong accepted the saber, Meng LuYao examined him. “Five talents lit up. The brightest—the saber talent?—is incredibly vivid. Something that I’ve only seen in those with powerful blessings.”

I passed YuLong one weapon after another. Each time, a new symbol lit up, just as vibrant as the last, showing that YuLong had a high talent in each of the Western Island’s eighteen weapons.

“Excellent,” I said, rubbing my hands in satisfaction. “With LuYao being able to identify talents in each of the eighteen weapons, what we need to do next is going to be a whole lot easier.”

My three companions just looked at me questioningly, so I continued.

“The Heroes Domain has a system in place for nurturing new clans and sects. If we want to draw as little attention as possible, we need to enter this system from the ground floor. To start, we need to create a new Nine-Star Sect, and to do that, we need five mortal youths who have never cultivated.”

I pointed around the room. “Unfortunately, YuHua can’t join us yet because of her age, leaving us with only three. So, we need two more.”

I could have brought Yan and the others along to meet this requirement more easily, but my goal for this life wasn’t to have fun with my friends. It was to build a Su Clan that was capable of standing tall on the Central Continent. So, our new sect needed to involve members of the Su Clan from the very start.

Of course, since YuLong was helping me with this, we might as well create a powerful Shi Clan while we were at it. After all, it wouldn’t do for the Su Clan to be Chang’an’s sole superpower, now, would it?