Chapter 1227: An Unexpected Guest
"Who's there?" the armored cultivator exclaimed in shock. He immediately summoned a barrier or white light to protect himself, then made a hand seal as all of the puppet warriors began to shimmer with spiritual light and rose into the air at his behest.
The yellow-robed man's face paled upon seeing this, and he hurriedly yelled, "Wait, Brother Cao, this is Senior Han! Don't you dare attack him!"
"Senior Han?" The armor-clad man had no idea who that was.
However, the yellow-robed man's cultivation base was comparable to his, and he was clearly extremely wary of this Senior Han, so it could be deduced that he was definitely not just some ordinary Nascent Soul cultivator. Otherwise, with the two of them situated within this spatial pocket, they would be powerful enough to combat even an early-Nascent Soul cultivator.
Could it be that this Senior Han was a mid-Nascent Soul cultivator? That would not be something that he and a few puppets could handle.
With that in mind, the armor-clad man hurriedly swept his spiritual sense toward the warrior puppets, making them descend onto the ground again.
The unfamiliar male voice harrumphed coldly. "You've made the right decision. I was about to teach you a lesson there."
Immediately thereafter, azure light flashed above their heads, and an azure-robed man with his arms crossed appeared in the air above, looking down at the two of them with a cold expression.
The armor-clad man swept his spiritual sense toward that man, upon which a shiver ran down his spine, and an expression of incredulity and horror appeared on his face.
The man up above had made no effort to hide his cultivation base, and he was a late-Nascent Soul cultivator!
But when had a new great cultivator by the surname of Han appeared in the Great Jin? Why had he never heard of such a great cultivator?
The armor-clad man shuddered with lingering fear as he thought back to how close the puppets had been to attacking this man, and he hurriedly rose into the air before extending a deep bow.
"My apologies, Senior. Please forgive me for any offense I may have caused!"
The young man up above remained expressionless and didn't say anything. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the hovering palace nearby, and a hint of surprise appeared on his face.
Meanwhile, the armor-clad cultivator down below was sweating profusely, and he didn't dare to stand up straight again without receiving an instruction permitting him to do so. After all, virtually all Nascent Soul cultivators had peculiar, and often foul tempers, so it would be very easy to irk them. He didn't want to be killed due to an oversight on his own part.
Thankfully, the yellow-robed man swooped in to save him.
A wry smile appeared on his face as he rose into the air, and he also bowed deeply as he asked, "Senior Han, didn't you say that you were going to give me several months to inform the pavilion master of this matter? Why have you followed me here?"
"I have limited time and no longer want to wait any longer, so I decided to come here to speak with your pavilion master in person. So this is the legendary Hidden Fortune Palace, right? I had heard that this palace was situated in a spatial pocket, and an extremely rare free radical spatial pocket, at that. The location of its entrance will automatically self-adjust once every few years, so normal cultivators would never be able to find it. After coming here for myself today, I can see that this is indeed an extraordinary place. You can get up now. You're a guard here and you were only doing your duty, so I won't take your actions to heart. However, I do want to see your pavilion master, so you can lead the way there for me." The young man turned to the armor-clad cultivator with an implacable look on his face.
Cao Weifeng was quite relieved after hearing the first half of Han Li's sentence, but his heart clenched tightly again upon hearing Han Li's instructions, and he turned to the yellow-robed man for help.
In all honesty, he still didn't even know why this great cultivator was here, nor whether he was friend or foe!
The yellow-robed man's lips twitched slightly upon hearing this, and after a brief hesitation, he turned to Cao Weifeng with a slight nod.
The armor-clad cultivator no longer hesitated any longer upon seeing this as he hurriedly asked, "I would be happy to lead the way to our palace master, but he's currently entertaining a guest. Please allow me to inform our palace master of your arrival, then take you to him. Is that alright, Senior Han?"
"He's entertaining a guest?" A hint of surprise appeared in the young man's eyes, but he still nodded expressionlessly.
The armor-clad man was ecstatic. He hurriedly pulled out a voice transmission talisman from his storage pouch, then spoke into it in an urgent voice before releasing it into the palace.
After doing all that, he gave the young man up above a fawning smile before stepping up the jade staircase, leading the way to the palace master.
The yellow-robed man also hurriedly followed along behind them.
However, both of them were forging ahead on foot rather than flying up the jade staircase.
There's a flight restriction!
The young man's brows furrowed upon making this discovery, but a cold smile immediately appeared on his face as he rose into the air as a streak of azure light, seemingly completely unaffected by the flight restriction.
The two people down below could only exchange wry smiles upon seeing this.
The surrounding flight restriction was able to prevent all cultivators below the Nascent Soul Stage from rising more than three feet into the air. However, it was obviously next to completely ineffective against a late-Nascent Soul cultivator like Han Li.
The young man hovering in the air didn't seem to want to excessively challenge the palace master's authority, either, as he was flying slowly behind the two Core Formation cultivators, rather than accelerating and speeding up the staircase.
This young man was naturally none other than Han Li, who had arrived in the Great Jin.
Even though his cultivation base had taken large strides, it still took him half a year to reach the Great Jin through the Moulan Plains.
As he was passing through the plains, he encountered no difficulties whatsoever, and that leg of the journey had been extremely smooth.
This was rather surprising to Han Li.
He had prepared himself to teach the immortals of the Soaring Tribe a lesson as he passed through. After all, he had almost been killed by those Soaring Tribe cultivators once upon a time.
However, along the way, he only encountered some low-grade immortals, and not even a single one at the Core Formation Stage or above.
Only after doing research did he understand the reason for this. It turned out that over 100 years ago, the Endless Sky Saintess and the Illustrious Grand Immortal issued a joint order, gathering all of the high-grade immortals to the Endless Sky Temple to engage in seclusion for some unknown reason. Without orders or permission for them to leave, they were prohibited from exiting the temple. Through this order, the Endless Sky Saintess and the Illustrious Grand Immortal seemed to be trying to forcibly increase the overall power of the cultivation world in the Soaring Tribe.
Han Li was naturally a little disappointed after hearing about this information. However, he certainly wasn't going to rush over to the Endless Sky Temple to hunt them.
After all, the Soaring Tribe was quite a force to be reckoned with, and if he were to attack the Endless Sky Temple, he'd be facing the might of their entire tribe rather than just a single cultivator or two. This was different from killing that Elder Ximen of the Star Palace, whom he had a personal vendetta against. The power of the entire Soaring Tribe was something that he still had to be rather wary of.
With that in mind, Han Li relinquished his plan to pick on the Soaring Tribe, leaving the Moulans Plains and continuing his travels toward the Great Jin.
Obtaining the refinement method for the spatial pocket was simpler and less time-consuming than the other two things that he had to do, so he decided to take care of this matter first.
He first visited a renowned market in a certain state within the Great Jin, then tracked down a branch of the Hidden Fortune Pavilion. He told the shopkeeper of the branch, who was the yellow-robed man, that he wanted to purchase the refinement method for the spatial pocket.
If a normal Nascent Soul cultivator had stated such a request, the shopkeeper would've most definitely rejected him without a second thought.
However, Han Li hadn't been hiding his cultivation base in the slightest, and the late-Core Formation Stage shopkeeper was petrified to be in the presence of a great cultivator. As such, he could only offer a respectful smile as well as a rather uneasy explanation.
He had no right to even know the refinement method for a spatial pocket, let alone sell it. As such, he would have to ask the master of the Hidden Fortune Palace for a verdict. This was quite an important matter, so it would be inappropriate just to send out a voice transmission talisman. Thus, he had to pay a visit to the palace in person, and he was asking for Han Li to wait two to three months for his reply.
Han Li felt this to be quite reasonable, so he agreed.
However, he wasn't actually just going to sit around and wait for so long. Instead, he unleashed a secret technique to track the yellow-robed man to this place.
As far as he was aware, even though the Hidden Fortune Pavilion was supposed to be just a chain of shops, they actually had connections with many of the renowned righteous sects, as well as Devil Dao sects. Furthermore, they also had a late-Nascent Soul great cultivator as their guest grand elder. Very little was known about this guest grand elder, and he was an extremely mysterious character.
However, none of that mattered to Han Li.
As long as this guest grand elder wasn't the master of the Yin Sifting Palace, even if he were an elder of the Heavenly Devil Sect or the High Zenith Sect, it wouldn't have anything to do with him.
As such, even though he intended to secure this secret technique through intimidation, he wasn't going to really ask for it free of charge. Instead, he had already prepared a large quantity of spirit stones and rare materials in advance.
As such, there really was no reason for them to risk offending a great cultivator just to maintain the confidentiality of a secret technique that was more trouble than it was worth.
Upon reaching around the halfway mark on the staircase, the sound of a tolling bell suddenly rang out from the hovering palace, extending a welcome to the guest of the Hidden Fortune Palace.
A dozen or so streaks of light then shot forth from within the palace, soon revealing themselves to be a group of cultivators. All of the hovered in the air on either side of the entrance to the palace, seemingly unaffected by the flight restriction in place.
Two people emerged from the center of the group, standing side by side as they looked down on Han Li and the others.
Han Li's brows furrowed upon seeing this, but his expression quickly reverted back to the normal. He abruptly raised a foot and covered a distance of over 100 feet with a single step. Following a few more steps, he had abruptly appeared at the entrance of the palace, where he was directly facing the two people at the center of the group.
The cultivators on either side naturally burst into a frenzy upon seeing this, and some of them had even laid their hands on their storage pouches with panicked expressions on their faces.
"Insolence! Fellow Daoist Han is a guest of ours! You can all go away now." One of the two men in the center, a rather portly old man, scolded the two rows of cultivators beside him sternly before turning to Han Li with a smile.
Han Li inspected the old man with an indifferent expression as he asked, "Are you the lord of the Hidden Fortune Pavilion?"