"Something's not right?" Lu Wenxing looked around. "What's wrong?"

Shi Xuan didn't say anything more. He walked a few steps in the market with his two senior brothers, then took off on his sword in an open space and flew towards the Langya Sect's residence.

From the market town at the foot of the mountain to the main peak of Langya Sect, the three of them flew at a short distance on their swords, not very high.

As they traveled to a desolate place, two figures suddenly darted out and hurled a fireball at the three's flying swords.

Spells are easy to dodge, but in this situation, the three of them could no longer control their flying swords and fell to the ground.

When Shi Xuan sensed something was wrong, he became more vigilant. The moment he was attacked, he unleashed a sword aura to retaliate. The two men were unable to withstand the sharp sword aura and quickly retreated a few steps.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Shi Xuan and the other two landed on the ground. Then, all three of them drew their swords at the same time, and three pure sword energies rushed straight at their faces, forcing the two attacking cultivators to retreat repeatedly.

What's going on? The two were shocked. Weren't they just three poor cultivators at the early stage of Golden Core? How could they be so powerful?

The two had already reached the Great Perfection of the Golden Core stage, but magic cultivators were inherently weaker than sword cultivators, let alone when facing three exceptionally talented sword cultivators.

In particular, the width of Shi Xuan's meridians and the depth of his Qi Palace are probably beyond the reach of the two Golden Core Great Perfection cultivators.

The two activated their defensive magical artifacts and used their divine senses to examine Shi Xuan, discovering that her cultivation level was at the fifth level of the Golden Core stage. This was already the mid-stage. Of the other two, the tall and thin one was also at the mid-stage, and the fat one was at the third level of the Golden Core stage.

They have the wrong information! Who is so greedy as to offer three thousand high-grade spirit stones to ambush and kill three sword cultivators in the mid-stage of the Golden Core realm? They'd be risking their lives to earn those spirit stones!

Seeing that the situation was not good, the two decided to retreat. They decided to give up on the spirit stones and focus on their lives!

But Shi Xuan had no intention of giving them that chance. As soon as the three of them clashed, she signaled her two senior brothers to flank them from behind. When the two tried to retreat, they were blocked by Lu Wenxing and He Weiqing. When they looked ahead, Shi Xuan's sword energy, which was full of spiritual power, came straight at them.

The two waved their hands in unison, using their magical artifacts to block the sword energy, but they did not notice that, hidden beneath the sword energy, a thin, soft rope flew out and circled behind them.

As they blocked the attack and were about to retreat, they discovered that they couldn't move!

A silver rope bound them, rendering them immobile. Strangely, they couldn't even use their spiritual power!

This silver, strong rope was Shi Xuan's own practice creation in weapon crafting, the Spirit Binding Rope, a fourth-tier magic artifact. Cultivators bound by it were unable to use their spiritual power. Of course, if these two were at the Nascent Soul stage, it probably wouldn't be able to bind them.

After successfully binding the two men, Shi Xuan swayed in front of them and asked, "Tell me, why did you attack me?"

The two men had come for profit, and now that they were captured, they had nothing to hide.

"The mission we saw on the black market's mission list was to kill a red-clad female cultivator in the early Golden Core stage. If successful, there would be a reward of three thousand high-grade spirit stones," the two confessed.

Although these two were rogue cultivators, they had reached the Great Perfection of the Golden Core stage, making them no ordinary people. They initially thought that with their Great Perfection Golden Core cultivation, dealing with an early-stage Golden Core cultivator would be a piece of cake. Who would have thought that the mission didn't match the description? The person wasn't even an early-stage Golden Core cultivator; in fact, they were a mid-stage Golden Core cultivator with strength far exceeding that of a mid-stage cultivator, and also a sword cultivator…

They've really hit a snag today; they haven't been treated like this in years.

"A black market mission list?" Shi Xuan narrowed his eyes and asked, "What's the requirement to get three thousand spirit stones? Kill me?"

The man nodded: "If you can't kill him, you can still get two thousand if you record it as a serious injury."

"When was this task listed?" Shi Xuan asked.

"About an hour ago, because of the huge reward and the high difficulty of the task, it was placed at the top of the task list so that everyone could see it."

A little over an hour ago... it seems to coincide with the time Fan Mingzhu left the auction. Adding to this her later desire to bid for the Breakthrough Pill but her inability to produce spirit stones, the whole thing makes perfect sense.

Fan Mingzhu is something else; she's even learned how to hire someone to commit murder.

"How can we be sure we'll receive the reward?" Shi Xuan asked.

"If I kill you, I'll take your head back to complete the mission. If you are seriously injured, I'll need to bring back the image stone that shows your serious injury."

“Okay,” Shi Xuan nodded to indicate that he understood, and then put away the storage bags for the two of them.

Then he took out a recording stone and said, "I can now fake being seriously injured. Use this recording stone to record it, then go back to claim your reward and give it to me."

This operation stunned both of them; they had never imagined that the tasks on the leaderboard could be completed in such a way! How is this any different from fraud?! Which of these two groups is the real villain?!

But since things had come to this point, the two of them had no other choice.

"Could we leave a small portion of our storage bags..."

"Of course not," Shi Xuan sneered. "If you two want to kill me, I should be grateful that I spared your lives." With that, he stuffed a pill into each of their hands before untying their spirit-binding ropes.

"Now you know who I am, right? The only alchemist in the Western Continent of Qian Yuan who has attained the Dao Seal. I gave you my unique poison pills. If you don't get the antidote within twelve hours, you will surely die. Now, record the image of my serious injury and go back to hand in your mission. If you dare not hand over the spirit stones to me, you can expect to die suddenly."

The binding ropes were removed, but both of them remained deeply saddened. The feeling of having one's life in someone else's hands was truly unpleasant.

But that was all he could do. Shi Xuan quickly gathered all the necessary items, spilled the blood of a low-level demon beast all over himself, and then used some kind of magic to make himself pale and look like he was on the verge of death.

When he turned to look at the two of them, his gaze shifted from weak to arrogant. "Take out the recording stone and let's begin."

The two task force members had no choice but to carefully take out the recording stone and aim it at her.

Shi Xuan immediately got into character. She bit her pale lips tightly, staggered a few steps, and fell to the ground.

"Who...who...sent you here!" She was so weak that she could barely speak.

If the two mission members hadn't witnessed her transformation firsthand, they probably would have believed her. The transition was so seamless, there was absolutely no trace of acting!

The two men were too embarrassed to respond, so they simply raised their hands as if to deliver the final blow.

At this moment, Lu Wenxing and He Weiqing appeared at the opportune moment. One turned around and swung his sword, while the other took Shi Xuan and fled on his sword.

The image-recording stone stopped there. After a while, Shi Xuan returned on his sword and bluntly ordered the two of them, "Go now. I'll wait for you here."

The two cultivators who took the quest were now filled with regret, regretting their overconfident decision to accept it. Could this female cultivator listed on the quest board be a kind soul? Look at what she'd done!

The two of them, looking as if they had lost their parents, turned back with the photo stone. Shi Xuan was still reminding them from behind, "Remember to be cheerful when you receive the award!"