Chapter 3: Aurum Openia Pill (1/2)

“Damn, that was a nice bit of sleep!” Lu Yun indulged in an extreme stretch. Still wreathed in the fog of sleep, he blearily scrambled up to brush his teeth and wash his face. “Wait!”

Startled into full wakefulness, he looked vacantly around him.

“It was all real! I made it to the world of immortals!” He came back to his senses. “It wasn't a dream.”

“...right!” The events of last night crashed back into him. “Enneawyrm Coffinbearers! The feng shui here is a tangible existence!”

He trembled with horror. “I’ve gotta get out of here, or I’m deader than a doornail!”

He could unravel that feng shui layout, but one that existed in the physical world was beyond his understanding. An additional minute spent here was one closer to death.

He stumbled his way out the room.

“Milord, you’re awake!” Wanfeng was walking toward him with a tray of food, and broke into trot when she saw him exit. She’d been the one to help him back when he’d fainted on the Mooncatcher Tower the night before.

“Come come come, we need to leave as soon as possible!” Lu Yun grabbed Wanfeng’s hand and tore off in the direction of the main door.

“Leave? Where?” Wanfeng looked blankly at her master.

“Anywhere but here!” Anxiety roughened Lu Yun’s voice.

“Your Excellency, you’re not going anywhere other than here.” A wizened voice sounded at this moment, quickly followed by an old man with a shock of white hair. He’d appeared next to Lu Yun and Wanfeng at some point in time, smiling merrily at them. “Where would we go to find you if you left with the governor's seal?”

Lu Yun felt like he’d crashed into a wall of air the next instant. The strong recoil sent him tumbling to the ground on his butt.

“Who are you?” Grimacing with pain, he rubbed his smarting posterior.

“You don't know me?” The old man blinked.

“I can consider getting to know you if you have a pretty daughter,” Lu Yun declared haughtily, scrambling up.

“Milord, he’s the grand steward of House Ge, Ge Long,” whispered Wanfeng.

“The grand steward of House Ge?” Lu Yun frowned. “What’s the grand steward of House Ge doing in my place?”

“Why, I’m here to protect Your Excellency, of course,” Ge Long jeered. “You have so many enemies, Your Excellency. It wouldn’t do for you to accidentally be beaten to death. I may not have a daughter, but I have a granddaughter. Would you like to see her, Your Excellency?”

Lu Yun quickly reacted when he noted Ge Long’s narrowed eyes and sinister tone.

He still had half a year left in his post, but he’d offended so many people that his enemies had sent people to keep him under watch. Or rather, they’d gone one step further and grounded him so that he wouldn’t get away.

They would move in for the kill as soon as he was relieved of his position.

“Hmph!” Lu Yun snorted loftily. He couldn’t be bothered with further argument and left with a flourish.

“He’s so ugly that his granddaughter wouldn’t be any better. Was that unseen wall of air just now the work of a cultivator?” Rather than return to his room, Lu Yun made his way up the Mooncatcher Tower again with Wanfeng’s help.

“Ge Long is a cultivator of the qi transformation realm. He formed that wall out of true qi just now. But seeing that he didn’t harm milord, Wanfeng didn’t make a move,” the maid explained carefully, fearful that Lu Yun would berate her.

“You’re stronger than him?” Lu Yun’s eyes gleamed.

“This servant can deploy combat arts and has refined my golden core. I’m in the core realm.” The girl arched her neck proudly. But something occurred to her the next second and she cautiously ventured, “Milord, you don’t blame me for not taking action just now, do you?”

The old Lu Yun hadn’t treated Wanfeng that well, feeding her a daily diet of beatings and curses. She was a foster daughter, taken in by Lu Yun’s father when her original family discarded her. If it hadn’t been for the old governor, Wanfeng would’ve died of starvation long ago.

Though she knew that House Lu hadn’t taken her in out of the goodness of their hearts, she was still very grateful to the governor’s family. She never breathed a word of complaint, even when her master whipped a criss-cross pattern across her body.

Of course, Lu Yun didn’t know any of this.

“Qi transformation? Golden core?” He hadn’t paid attention to anything else she said. “Tell me more about this cultivation business.”

“Alright!” Wanfeng agreed happily. Since the governor hadn’t been able to cultivate before, he’d never paid any heed to matters of cultivation.

“There are three major realms on the path of cultivation, with nine levels total.

“Qi, core, and spirit are the three realms. Each one is further divided into three smaller levels.

“In the qi realm, there are the qi application, qi condensation, and qi transformation levels.