Lin Er escorted Burns’s goods to their destination. Just as Ellie had said, this kind of low-level task was basically not dangerous.

He had been very lucky this time. He had not even encountered a single rabbit. The biggest trouble on the road was simply the poor condition of the route.

After Lin Er finished the free lunch Burns provided, he had Burns sign the bounty sheet.

With that done, this job could be considered complete.

Without stopping, he hurried to the next village. Without the carriage slowing him down, he could fully unleash his footwork.

Before long, the letter delivery task was completed as well.

Now, as long as he completed two more bounties, he could raise his black iron badge to bronze.

But before that, he wanted to see what the task rewards were like.

Lin Er quickened his pace back to the Adventurers’ Guild. By then, it was close to dusk.

There were not many people in the first-floor hall. Yesterday, when he stayed at the Shattered Sword Tavern, he had seen many adventurers drinking beer and bragging. At this time, most of the adventurers in the city were probably at the tavern.

That also saved him the trouble of lining up.

Lin Er carried the bounty sheets to the counter Ellie was responsible for.

“Miss Ellie, please help me submit these tasks.”

Ellie was slightly surprised and said,

“Respected Lord Lin Er, I thought you wouldn’t be back until tomorrow.”

As she spoke, Ellie helped Lin Er submit the tasks. She was just as enthusiastic as yesterday.

[You completed delivering a letter for a rogue cultivator. Reward: 1 low-grade spirit stone.]

[You completed escorting Clearheart Bamboo. Reward: 1 Clearheart Bamboo Sword.]

When Lin Er saw the prompts, he looked calm on the surface, but inside he was wildly ecstatic.

“Right, are there still any solo bounties in the guild? If there’s something like letter delivery again, that would be even better.”

Ellie shook her head, “At the moment, there aren’t any solo bounties you can accept. You can come to the guild tomorrow morning and I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

She was a little puzzled. These low-level bounties paid far too little. Usually, very few adventurers were willing to take them and they were basically only done when someone happened to be passing by.

Even if he wanted to raise his badge level, he could find other adventurers to form a team and take better tasks with higher pay.

She did not know why Lord Lin Er cared so much. Maybe he liked helping people.

Seeing that no system quest was triggered, Lin Er could only drop it for now. Holding the 6 Ear-of-Wheat Coins in pay and the 1 Workshop Coin deposit, he turned and left.

He returned to the Shattered Sword Tavern where he had stayed yesterday. He was not very hungry, so he ordered one white bread and a serving of vegetable soup. Together with the lodging fee, it cost 2 Ear-of-Wheat Coins in total.

Lin Er still had 2 Workshop Coins and 6 Ear-of-Wheat Coins on him, enough to live for several days.

He hastily finished dinner and returned to the single room he had rented.

After closing the doors and windows, he directly extracted the task rewards.

In the next second, two items appeared in front of him.

A half-transparent, irregular crystal about an inch in size, with a jade-like sheen.

A bamboo sword 1.2 meters long, its blade a deep bamboo-green, straight and slender, the edge reflecting a glossy light.

Lin Er looked at the bamboo sword first. When he gripped it, it was not light at all. Instead, it had a steel-like heaviness.

[Low-tier Clearheart Bamboo Sword: Made from the essence portion of Clearheart Bamboo. Hard as steel. Can be driven with spiritual power. Due to crude refinement, suitable for use before Qi Refining Level 7.]

‘This should count as a magic tool, right?’

Lin Er tightly held the Clearheart Bamboo Sword and tried to mobilize the spiritual energy in his dantian. As spiritual power flowed in, the bamboo sword gave a faint hum and floated into the air.

He was both shocked and delighted. With a single thought, the bamboo sword flew and moved according to his will.

It was a bit like telekinesis, but also different.

Lin Er controlled the bamboo sword and tried carving words into the wall. The consumption of spiritual energy suddenly increased, extremely alarming.

He was slightly frightened. The taut string in his mind snapped and the bamboo sword lost power and fell onto the bed.

Cold sweat also formed on Lin Er’s forehead.

He realized that he was not familiar with controlling spiritual energy. Simple actions were fine, but the moment they became even slightly precise, spiritual energy consumption rapidly increased.

He controlled the bamboo sword to fly again. This time he did not do anything complicated. The tip directly aimed at the wooden wall.

With a whoosh, the bamboo sword flew out from top to bottom and stabbed into the wall.

Lin Er went over to look and found it had pierced in twelve centimeters. If that had been a person, it would have gone in from the front and come out the back.

If he managed to truly train this flying sword, then taking someone’s head from ten thousand meters away would be as easy as breathing.

However, he quickly discovered that once the flying sword went beyond three meters, his control not only weakened drastically, but spiritual energy consumption also increased by several times.

‘With the little spiritual energy I have, I can’t afford to throw it around.’

Lin Er did not have much spiritual energy in his dantian and could not waste it casually right now. At the very least, he needed to wait until he obtained a cultivation method before making further plans.

So he turned his attention to the spirit stone instead. Holding it in his palm, he could clearly feel the spiritual energy contained within.

Lin Er was like an unlucky man trapped in the desert. Seeing the spirit stone now was like seeing a basin of clear water and his body could not help swallowing hard.

He knew the spirit stone contained precious spiritual energy, but how was he supposed to use it?

Swallow it, or use some method to absorb the spiritual energy inside.

He had his guesses, but they were all taken from novels and films. What if this world worked differently?

This spirit stone was too precious. Wasting even a little would be a crime and he could not afford to experiment casually.

‘I still need to hurry and get a cultivation method.’

Lin Er forcibly suppressed the excitement in his heart.

Delicacies were right in front of him, yet he was starving and could not touch them.

That feeling was truly miserable.

Fortunately, Lin Er quickly calmed down.

After putting away the spirit stone and the Clearheart Bamboo Sword, he lay on the bed, closed his eyes and gradually fell asleep.

* * *

Storm Dragon Valley.

This place was filled with abundant wind element. Air currents circled endlessly year-round and with even a moment of carelessness, tender skin would be cut by the wind.

On the peak of Dragon Valley, a palace stood tall, majestic and solemn.

All of a sudden, many small wyverns took flight, welcoming the return of their king in midair.

Storm Calamity—Kailanos, the master of Storm Dragon Valley.

At a young age, his strength had already reached Tier 6 and he was brimming with arrogance.

Kailanos landed steadily on the ground, folded away his outspread wings and headed straight for his treasury.

This patrol of his territory had yielded no real gains. He had only picked up a few glittering gemstones and a bag of gold coins, better than nothing.

A low hum rolled from his throat as he pushed open the heavy rock gate. The treasury looked just the same as when he had left, with no changes.

Kailanos tossed the gemstones and gold coins into the treasury. He was about to leave when his vertical pupils abruptly contracted.

‘A thief!’

Kailanos had an extremely good memory. He sharply noticed that something seemed to be missing from the treasury.

Who had eaten dragon gall to dare steal right under this king’s nose?!

Kailanos suspected it was his own kin stealing from him. Otherwise, if there had been an intruder, they would have reported it immediately.

Fortunately, he had long ago cast a retroactive tracing spell on the treasury.

Kailanos spoke in dragon tongue and the tracing spell activated instantly, projecting the recorded images from the treasury after his last departure.

The footage flowed rapidly. The image was very blurry, but it was more than enough to catch an internal thief.

He soon saw that more than twenty bottles of low-tier healing potion, several dozen low-tier element stones and more than ten vine-bamboo stalks carrying elemental power had vanished out of thin air.

The thief had left no trace at all. They had likely used a high-tier invisibility spell. From that perspective, it could be ruled out that it was his kin.

The thief had ignored precious magical items and instead stolen these little trinkets. That was even more like riding on his head to provoke and humiliate him.

A cold, violent emotion slowly climbed up along his spine.

Kailanos’s reverse scale spread slightly, rubbing with a faint sound almost like metallic hissing.

‘Damn little thief, don’t let this king catch you! Otherwise, I’ll definitely strike you into charcoal with lightning, then tear you into pieces!’