Jun led Xi Shen from the center of the City to its outskirts.
The buildings here looked even worst than when they were viewed from above. Xi Shen also saw other children like Jun and Big Nam lurking around the area. Playing childish games that could let them forget about their impoverishment for just a brief moment.
The sight was rather tragic.
*Splash*
Xi Shen’s foot just stepped into a puddle of... well, from the pungent odor and blackness of the liquid inside of it, he didn’t know what was inside of this puddle.
Seeing this, Jun said, “Big brother, these streets are rather filthy, you should have probably worn a pair of shoes if you find it discomforting.”
“It’s fine.”
Xi Shen said as he raised his foot from the puddle.
Jun saw that it looked completely dry, the same way it went in was the same way it came out. Jun found that weird phenomenon completely baffling, and he stared at Xi Shen’s clean bare feet in curiosity.
“Why does the outer city and the inner city have such disparity in the living conditions? Is the King of this City not the type to care about his citizens?”
Xi Shen asked while Jun continued to lead him through various shady-looking alleyways.
“The King is said to be in a coma, the useless Crown Prince is the one in charge of the City. However, ever since he took over he started making arbitrary and downright horrible decisions. For example, he increased the yearly taxes for people in the Outer City, tripling what it was previously. He said it was to develop the City’s infrastructure and even though he did, it was only the Inner City! He then completely ignore the poorer Citizens and kept the taxes as high as before. The people in the slums are those who were forced into poverty by his corrupt acts.”
Jun was clenching his teeth, and balling up his fists. He was obviously upset by this, maybe a little more than what was normal.
Turning to Xi Shen behind him, Jun then said, “Do you know he also spent that tax money to build statues of himself?! And those are not even the worst of what he had done, he overrule the King’s previous decree that slavery was forbidden in the City. Now slave traders are starting to target poor families in the slums by offering them money to sell their children to slavery. It’s completely twisted, and it seemed as if it was all planned by that vile Crown Prince.”
Xi Shen listened to Jun’s rants while he calmly followed him from behind.
“Is that why they're so many child beggars in the City?”
As Xi Shen said that, he looked at another group of young kids loitering around. That was about the fifth group of kids he saw so far.
“Most of us child beggars are runaways. They managed to escape before their parents could sell them to slavery, however, there are some who chose to be sold so they could help their families and hopefully get a kind Nobleman as their master.”
“How about you, how did you end up in this situation?” Xi Shen asked.
“I’m an orphan. The orphanage I use to stay in was demolished so that Crown Prince could create new and better-looking buildings in the Inner City. All the orphans who were in that Orphanage were thrown into the streets to fend for themselves.”
Xi Shen wasn’t a saint, but he couldn’t deny that he didn’t feel something when he heard about the current situation in the City. He wondered what the Cultivation Clans were doing to allow this to happen. He didn’t know the hierarchy of this City so maybe the Royal Army was the strongest power in the City, making the Crown Prince do whatever he wanted.
But there was another possibility he was considering, that they were just as corrupt as that Crown Prince.
As Xi Shen was thinking that, a shifty-looking man brushed past him.
Xi Shen's body immediately tensed and his senses tingled.
Stopping in his tracks, he turned his gaze and met the man’s own who turn to look at him. Xi Shen and the man’s gaze locked for a brief moment, but the man seemed uninterested in Xi Shen and turn back around before hurrying off to his destination.
‘This vile and disgusting aura. That man’s body reek of Demonic Qi.’
Xi Shen narrowed his eyes.
“For us child beggars to survive we have to cling on to a strong leader who can protect us from those slave traders. And in exchange, we pickpocket and steal goods before giving them our earnings. After a certain amount of time, the group comes together and we receive a portion of the stockpile based on our contributions and the amount of money we earn. Big Boss is one of the seven big leaders in the slums, he…”
Jun turn around to look at Xi Shen but saw that he was nowhere to be seen.
Stopping, Jun looked around confused for a moment but soon wasted no time spinning on his heels and quickly leaving the area before Xi Shen could return.
After walking through a remote alleyway, the middle age man took several more twists and turns, cutting through houses' backyards before reaching an abandon-looking building that resemble a warehouse.
After glancing at his surroundings with caution and narrowed eyes, he opened the warehouse's double doors and entered.
This strange scene would look extremely weird given the early morning, even if this was the slums that had all kinds of shifty people lurking about.
But after several minutes passed, the middle-aged man suddenly poked his head outside of the door and look around.
After finding no one following him, he fully left the warehouse.
With a frown on his face, he muttered to himself, “Was it just my imagination? That kid seemed extremely weird. Well, it was best if I had been cautious, no telling what could have happened if someone who wasn’t supposed to found our secret hideout.”
After muttering that, the man walked across the street and entered an ordinary-looking house, that one would normally find in the slums.
The man quickly entered and walked to the house’s one bedroom. Shifting a rug on the floor, a door leading underground was revealed.
The man lifted the circular latch on the door before entering.
Meanwhile, a dark mist floated from the alleyway the man had walked from before moving to the house’s front door. Xi Shen’s figure then materialized at the entrance.
“Oh? It seems I’ve stumbled upon a Demonic Cult secret hideout! They’re many of them spread across the Maple Continent in hiding, most missions the Academy receive is a report of a suspected hideout in a certain area. If I subjugate this one, maybe I’ll be able to collect some Academy points. I’m not lacking Spirit Stones to convert to Academy Points but they will only allow you up to a certain point. I can’t rely on that method forever to gain them. Plus, this is a good opportunity to stretch my stiff limbs! All this cultivating and training without battle had gotten me eager for a fight.”
Eyes burning with battle intent, Xi Shen flipped over his palm and a gray mask appeared in his hand.
His puppet that had infiltrated the Bai Clan had snagged a piece of the strange ore that blocks Soul Sense and Divine Will. It didn’t take much for Xi Shen to create a thin and wearable mask from it.
After covering his face with the featureless mask that only showed his golden pupils, he pushed the door and entered.
Upon entering the house, Xi Shen sent out his Divine Will and scanned its entirety before he found the entrance in the bedroom. He didn't know what it was if it was because of his unique soul, but the mask or ore hardly blocked his Divine Will.
Xi Shen moved to the bedroom and quickly entered the passageway that led underground.
His body turned to mist as he went down.
He passed several detection runes hidden along the long narrow passage, but he easily avoided triggering them and continued on. As he went, he kind of realized based on the direction and distance, that this pathway underground was leading to the Inner City.
Soon, light could be seen up ahead, and after reaching it, the sight of an open cavern greeted Xi Shen.
Moving stealthily, his presence went undetected as he examined his surroundings.
The cavern was rather large, and even had several pavilions constructed.
Going back and forth within those pavilions, and in the surrounding cavern, were foot soldiers of the Demonic Cult Faction. All of them were in the Sea Expansion Realm.
From Xi Shen’s estimate, there were probably around a hundred of them. Maybe more was deeper inside as he saw passageways in the walls opposite where he was that led out of sight.
‘Well damn, it looks like this is a mid-tier Demonic Cult base. To think a mid-tier base would be hiding inside this City. If they wanted to then they could take over it, assuming they haven’t already.”
Xi Shen's eyes figuratively narrowed into slits.
“I don’t sense any outstanding cultivation aura though, but I do sense two Core Formation Realm experts from those two pavilions.’
Xi Shen’s attention moved to two of the larger Pavilions dozens of meters away from his position.
Xi Shen's dark mist of a body was hiding among some crates near the entrance.
‘Now how should I go about this, I wasn’t really expecting to find this much of them. Should I take them by surprise and just start killing them? So many Sea Expansion Realm cultivators aren’t a problem but when those Core Formation experts are added to the mix, things might become tricky. Or rather should I scheme a bit and kill them off stealthily?’
As Xi Shen was contemplating this in his head, one of the crates his misty body was hiding behind, was suddenly lifted up by a Demonic Cultivator.
"....!!??"
Upon seeing this dark mass behind the crate, that Demonic Cultivator became shocked.
“Well, I guess that answers my question.”
Xi Shen said as a Sword Qi formed in the air and swiftly slice that Demonic Cultivator’s head clean-off.
A loud crash then echoed out as the crate the Demonic Cultivator was carrying fell over. All the Demonic Cultivators in the cavern suddenly paused what they were doing and looked over in the direction the noise had come from.
Seeing the headless corpse of their comrade spurting a fountain of blood before falling over, they quickly became alert whiled a shout thundered out in the cavern.
“INTRUDER!!!”
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Word Count: 1716
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