"You mean the Four Disasters?" the steward asked, his brow furrowed in deep thought as he processed her request.
"Exactly," Su Min confirmed, her voice steady. She saw the understanding dawn in his eyes.
The Five Elements materials needed for the supreme Heavenly Foundation path were each powerful enough to cause a significant, localized stir upon their emergence into the world. However, they were ultimately meant for Foundation Building cultivators, which meant their power, while formidable, was contained within a certain scope. A skilled and well prepared Qi Refining cultivator like herself could handle them without facing impossible odds. The resulting disturbance would be contained, a regional event, not a continent shaking catastrophe that would draw the attention of every hidden power.
Take a water attributed innate spiritual object, for example. At most, its awakening would ravage a single region, perhaps causing severe, unseasonal flooding in a coastal province or creating a strange, permanent fog over a lake. It would be impossible for it to cause a disaster on the scale of submerging an entire country and affecting millions of lives. The impact would be just right for her purposes, a noticeable blip on the spiritual radar, neither too grand to be unbelievable nor too insignificant to be missed. It was a perfect signal.
With the poor, slow spread of information in this pre industrial world, news of such an event would likely vanish beyond the affected county or prefecture, swallowed by distance and isolation, unnoticed by the wider empire. Solving this puzzle, finding these specific needles in the vast haystack of the land, would require the support of an organization with far reaching eyes and ears, like a major merchant guild or the imperial court itself. The perfect partner for this was, without a doubt, the Fuding Merchant Guild, whose commercial branches and informants spanned the entire land, from the capital to the most remote trading post.
"Now that you mention it," the steward said, tapping his chin thoughtfully as he rifled through the vast archives of his memory and recent reports, "there is something I have heard, a rumor from the eastern coast. They speak of a mysterious, giant clam demon that has appeared in the Eastern Sea. It has been devouring fishermen whole and sinking their small boats. The local Demon Slayer Division even sent a small team from the nearest city to capture it, but they were men of the land, unfamiliar with the sea environment. They lost two men to the waves and the creature and retreated without any further action taken. The matter was quietly buried."
"Hmm."
Hearing this, Su Min's eyes narrowed slightly in consideration. The Demon Slayer Division, for all their aloof and cruel reputation, was not entirely indifferent to the plight of common folk, at least not when it was convenient. Their very name carried a certain public mandate, and they did make a show of clearing out monsters and demons around the capital and a few other major, economically vital cities. The stability of the Wei Dynasty's core territories was, after all, involved. The emperor, despite his many shortcomings and depravities, was not foolish enough to let monsters run completely rampant in his own backyard, where the nobles and wealthy merchants could see.
As for the smaller, more remote towns and villages, they were often left to their own fate, deemed not worth the resources. But this southern city had been relatively fortunate in recent years. The mountain monsters had been frightened into hiding deeper into the wilderness by Su Min's potent presence over the past decade. Even the fiercest tiger demons, who once terrorized the foothills, had been personally sought out and slain by her for their materials. Now, the awakened plant spirits were being offered as protective village deities, forming an invisible, living barrier of safety for the populace. One could imagine that in the future, this place would become a rare sanctuary, a peaceful corner untouched by the outside chaos slowly consuming the empire.
"Give me a map. Mark the location of this clam spirit for me. I will leave now."
Since the lead was promising and specific, there was no reason for Su Min to delay any longer. Whether the clam demon had actually consumed a water attributed innate spiritual object or not, the creature itself, being of such power and aquatic nature, was bound to possess materials and a core essential for her water element path. She would make her move regardless. It was a worthwhile destination.
"We just so happen to have some fine, swift horses here, Miss Su, to speed your journey east," the steward offered, eager to be of service.
"No need," Su Min refused with a simple shake of her head. The offer was polite but useless.
For someone of her cultivation level, an ordinary horse, no matter how fine its breeding, was more of a hindrance than a help. She could move with swift, supernatural speed without relying on roads or trails, easily bypassing rough terrain, deep ravines, and wide rivers. A horse, bound to the roads and needing rest, would be far less efficient than her own two feet powered by spiritual energy. She was her own best mount.
"This..." The steward watched, slightly stunned, as Su Min turned to leave the room immediately after speaking, not one for long farewells. He quickly recovered his wits and hurried to his desk to write a coded, urgent secret report for his master, Prince Yong, detailing the alchemist's new quest and the bargain they had struck.
On the other side, Su Min had already passed beyond the city walls, her form a blur as she headed east toward the distant coast. Just as when she had first entered the Southern Border years ago, a fugitive with nothing, she did not take the main, guarded roads or official paths. Instead, she ventured through deep, untamed forests and over rugged, lonely mountain ranges, a silent ghost flitting through the wilderness. But even traveling through these remote, supposedly untouched areas, the internal decay and collapse of the Wei Dynasty was starkly, sadly apparent, and the sight of it unsettled her more than she expected.
When she had traveled south a decade ago, the land, while poor, had been relatively peaceful. She had seen countless farmers working their fields in the sun and had heard the sounds of children reciting lessons in village schools. But now, everything was different. There was nothing left of that fragile peace.
Most of the villages she remembered from her journey were completely abandoned, their wooden skeletons rotting quietly back into the earth, reclaimed by ivy and moss. Once fertile farmlands were now choked with weeds and thorns, the boundaries between field and forest blurred into nothing. Even more unsettling, she had passed through the remnants of at least three ghost markets along the way, places where hope had died and been replaced by despair.
These were genuine ghost markets, not just abandoned towns. Places where massive iron cauldrons, used for rendering human flesh, still stood in town squares, their interiors stained dark and filled with scattered, anonymous human bones. The souls of the victims, steeped in potent, undiluted resentment, could not find peace. They would manifest on moonlit nights, wandering the mortal world in silent, endless agony, repeating their final moments. Though she had mentally prepared herself for the sight after hearing the rumors, Su Min still found the reality of it deeply disturbing, a cold knot in her stomach.
It was not that she feared these wandering souls. A single, concentrated blast of Demon Slayer Thunder from her gourd would likely vaporize half the market and the spirits within. The real, practical concern was a potential lack of firepower, or more accurately, an inefficient use of it. The number of spirits in such places was simply overwhelming, a tide of sorrow. She did not know if she would get caught in an endless, draining battle against a foe with infinite numbers, and a disturbance that lasted the whole night would eventually exhaust even her deep reserves of spiritual energy.
Moreover, these ghosts could never be completely eradicated by force alone, their resentment was a bottomless well fed by the empire's crimes. Su Min was unwilling to waste her precious time and energy on such a futile, Sisyphean task. Although she had the potential for an endless lifespan, her immediate goal of reaching the Golden Core stage within a hundred years was a complicated and pressing one. She could not afford to be sidetracked.
Otherwise, she would be directly facing the chase of the fully awakened and undoubtedly furious Demon Queen without the necessary power to resist, and that was a prospect far more dangerous than any ghost market.
After a week of swift, relentless travel, moving from dawn until deep into the night, Su Min finally arrived at a high, rocky peak overlooking the churning sea. When she had left the south, it had been around the tenth month, the air still holding the last warmth of autumn. By the time she reached her destination, a cold, biting autumn wind was sweeping in from the gray water, carrying the sharp scent of salt and a faint, underlying odor of decay.
"Ah, this should be the location of the clam demon according to the map," Su Min murmured to herself, glancing at the scroll in her hand before squinting out at the vast, gray, and seemingly endless expanse of water.
According to the steward's descriptions, the clam demon's base strength was at least that of a mid level Qi Refining cultivator. If it had truly consumed one of those special innate spiritual creatures, its power would have surged dramatically, likely pushing it to the late stages of Qi Refining. There was even a small chance it could have reached the Foundation Building stage, a possibility Su Min found completely unacceptable as it would make her task nearly impossible.
However, there was no need to worry too much yet. Based on the information, this clam demon had only been causing trouble for less than half a year. Even if it had consumed a treasure, its newfound power would be raw and unstable, like a child wielding a greatsword. If given another ten years to consolidate and digest the power, it might have a real chance to break through to Foundation Building, but for now, it was probably only at the peak of the Qi Refining stage.
And even then, its cultivation would not be solid, its control clumsy, making it far easier for her to outmaneuver and handle. The real, immediate challenge would simply be finding it in its own element. In such vast, trackless waters, while she could walk on the waves for a time using her spiritual energy, her reserves would eventually be depleted far from shore. She would need the help of the local fishermen, the people who knew these waters. They, at the very least, had to guide her to the creature's general territory, the stretch of sea it called home.
"Let me head down to the village first and find a place to rest," she decided, rolling up the map with a crisp motion. "This mad dash has left me in need of a proper bath and a hot meal. And it seems the emperor has not even issued a warrant for my arrest yet." She had been listening for news of it during her journey, but heard nothing.
Perhaps he thought it was pointless, that no local constable could actually stop her. Or maybe, in a rare moment of political cunning, he did not want to openly offend a skilled alchemist of her growing reputation. After all, in the unwritten rules of the cultivation world, matters of treasure hunting were all about individual ability and fate.
Life and death in such pursuits were in the hands of heaven, and lasting grudges were not so easily formed over them. But in any case, after traveling so far, she had not seen a single wanted poster with her face or name on it. As for her original identity as a disgraced noble's daughter, that was ten years in the past, a forgotten story. She had fully grown into her power and features now. No one would recognize the thin, terrified girl from those old court tragedies, nor would anyone even remember her name.
When she finally arrived at the small, weather beaten seaside village, however, she froze at the outskirts. The entire settlement was in a state of frenzied, desperate celebration, or perhaps a better word was supplication. People were banging on old, hide covered drums and wearing garish, faded red and green costumes. Under the lead of a strange, painted priestess shaking a gourd rattle filled with bones, they were performing a wild, rhythmic dance by the water's crumbling edge, as if conducting some sort of last ditch ritual to appease the unforgiving, hungry sea.