After a little while, seeing that Shin Liu Min was still asleep, she concluded on what she wanted to achieve on the journey.

“Will we be able to stay on the inside of the strider?” Wei Yi asked the woman in front of her.

“I think my husband would take exception to that. He is very fond of investments, trades, value for money and all that – the Chen blood is very influential on him and his family. As such, he will probably step in here in a huff, demand that you need to guard the caravan for the rest of the few hours before we finally arrive at the Chao District,” the woman stated, her smile remaining the same, “I don’t think he’ll try to kick out your girlfriend, though. He does have a conscience, somewhere.”

“Very reassuring. You haven’t been able to figure out where such a thing is even after all of the time that you’d spent with him?”

“I have found quite a number of curious things instead, but… you don’t care about that, do you?”

“Not at all, especially not when it comes to your husband. You would be more interesting, but there are quite a few things I can do instead before bringing up those kinds of topics,” Wei Yi said, “For example, would you mind telling me about your caravan?”

“You’d prefer to discuss business instead of pleasure?” the woman pouted for the first time since the beginning of the conversation, “I suppose I can tell you a little. We’re delivering a few items from the Ju and Bai Districts to the Chao District, who tend to produce things that the district we’re heading to doesn’t like bothering with. You know of the tendencies of that family, right?”

“All brawn and no brains, I’ve heard.”

“Yes, that tends to be the case. Exceptions are far and few between, like one Chao Juzan that has been making a name for himself in the Ning District. Besides those that are capable of creating inscriptions, they don’t like most craftsmen, despite making use of their creations very frequently. So, people like my husband deliver goods to them, so that they don’t have to stray near the ‘gear-heads’ of the Ju District and the ‘pale devils’ of the Bai District.”

From what she heard from Chao Ru, such was the usual way of things over there, so it wasn’t all that surprising that the rumours were true. Hearing of Chao Juzan was a little more interesting, but to avoid making it obvious that she had been in the Ning District not too long ago, she chose not to comment.

“This time, we’re bringing along some cloths and fabrics that had been brought to the Bai District from the Jiang District, as well as some inscription plates for the inscription masters of the Chao District to work on and improve their craft,” Xin Fu continued her explanation, “We’d have gotten completed inscriptions, but we had an unfortunate lack of talent around the time of our arrival and departure.”

“Would that be more profitable?”

“I believe so, from what my husband mutters at night. He is a terribly poor sleeper and tends to have a lot of dreams.”

“In that case, if you had someone with inscription skills to create a few things of great value, how much could be shared with that great art master? Their work is guaranteed to be of incredibly high quality, in case that is important to your caravan or the Chao District buyers.”

“You’d do that for us?”

“I wouldn’t mind earning some money and getting the opportunity to stay out of things. Acting as a guard is something that is within my abilities, but not something I enjoy doing all that much,” Wei Yi said, dropping the more ambiguous angle of her question since Xin Fu appeared to understand her right away, “Having something to work from, an idea of which inscriptions to make, would help, though.”

“My husband may have that, but I would need to ask him first. He can be rather picky when it comes to his business decisions.”

Since she wasn’t able to make that decision, she naturally left to speak with her husband, while Wei Yi brought her attention back to the sleeping maid beside her, who was currently curled up as best as she could in the limited space available to her.

Due to their sudden discovery of a trading caravan, they had not been able to prepare for the meeting of other people quite like how they’d have wished to, seeing as she could still distinctly smell several things that civilised society tended to prefer to ignore. However, perhaps they had simply had too little else to smell as of late and became really sensitive to things that other would immediately miss, or perhaps Wei Yi’s refining of her sensory organs had placed her in a similar spot to Zhi Qiu Ya, but nobody else seemed to notice.

Perhaps it was a little more common to have a so-called ‘natural’ smell out in the Northern Desert than it was in the Central Plains, given the fact that any perfume or method used to counteract the constant sweating and exhaustion would need to be at the ninth realm in order to last longer than a day or two, even less the closer one go to the Glass Wastes. Whatever the case was, they were going to need to abandon their daily schedule at least for now, especially if Shun Liu Min was to go outside.

Since she was temporarily employed as a maid, she could be used to gather information or purchase things without forcing Wei Yi herself to distract herself from whatever she might end up doing within the Chao District, but it would be important for her to not be mistaken as some prostitute.

It wouldn’t do for someone to make that assumption, then act in an impolite manner just because they think her to be someone disposable. Then again, Shi Liu Min was already in the third realm, so if someone was to attempt to do something to her, she could easily deal with most potential assailants, who would need to either be incredibly ignorant or arrogant in order to mistake someone at the third realm for a common whore. She also didn’t know whether the Chao District even permitted those kinds of businesses, which could result in other issues if the guards decided to arrest her for personal amusement.

All of these situations could be dealt with, either through force or tact, but she would rather avoid unnecessary trouble, as always.

“Mhm…” the maid breathed out, her eyelids twitching before they opened, “Sorry… I hadn’t thought that I would collapse quite that easily, but I suppose that I was wrong. I hope I hadn’t caused you any trouble?”

“No, not really. You’re not that heavy, and you look cute when you sleep, so there’s no issue with it. This trader caravan apparently trades in fabrics and cloths on this particular journey, so it should be possible to obtain some new clothing for you here. What kind of thing would you prefer? I could probably make something myself, since I do have some minimal experience in sewing, but I would need a clear idea of what I would be working on.”

“I don’t really know, I’m afraid… What would you like to see me in?”

“How little autonomy do you actually like to have? If I was, for instance, to go tell you to never wear underwear again, would you just agree?”

The maid smiled, “It’s not too different from the current situation, is it? I would just be doing it on purpose instead of being forced to make do with what little I have. Although, I’m far too lacking in any interest in exhibitionism in order to voluntarily be doing that kind of thing outside. I suppose I wouldn’t mind if it was just us…”

“Just to be sure, there is one thing that I want to ask,” Wei Yi checked the area around them with her spiritual perception, which was easier to bring out of the strider’s carapace than into them, just to be sure, “Are you interested in me? Beyond just sexually, that is?”

“I… I may not be the best to ask about such things. My world view isn’t exactly the best after-”

“Yes or no is sufficient. I can accept and provide lectures on all sorts of topics at a later point, if you want to provide one.”

“Then… I’m not sure. It’s not something I’d reject, I think.”

“In that case, I would just like to inform you that those kinds of relationships are not possible for me, not for the moment. If you don’t change your mind by the time that this changes, I will also reconsider it, but for now, the moment that I decide to give anyone that kind of attention, they will be in danger, and a danger as well,” Wei Yi explained, “I, and the faction I am part of, are opposing a very powerful group. So long as they are given the advantage of a weak romantic partner that I care about to any significant extent, they will not hesitate to use it as much as possible.”

“I see. Even if this was something we were trying out, I think that it would be a bit early…”

“Perhaps, although I’d say that we certainly know enough about each other’s bodies to meet the requirements. As for the more casual stuff, I don’t engage in it much and you haven’t had the chance yet, so it isn’t like we can learn more about one another in that respect,” she shrugged, glancing outside, “Anyway… There’s some water in the jug, if you want it. I might be a little busy soon.”

Shun Liu Min didn’t bother asking what she meant, keeping to her earlier word of not bringing up unnecessary questions, but she received her answer nonetheless when Xin Fu and her husband entered.

The latter appeared to be in a mixed mood, with a frown in his brows but eyes that glimmered with the excited lust for wealth, alongside lips that couldn’t decide which one of the two they would rather portray and thus twitched from one position to another. His wife had her standard smile that reached from ear to ear and followed her husband inside to sit down opposite Wei Yi and Shun Liu Min, keeping an arm around him as she did so.

“You are an inscription master? Prove it,” the merchant said, getting straight to the point.

“Give me an inscription plate, and I will.”

“Do you not have the credentials of any of the inscription alliances within Yi City? Do you not have a badge?”

Wei Yi shook her head, “Nope.”

She could, if necessary, create a fake badge to display her status as an inscription master, since she had seen one or two of them in her life, but she did not intend to do so as she wouldn’t be able to prove its validity with any of the organisations that could legitimately issue them. Also, she wasn’t truly certain of the level of inscription master that the man before her wanted, nor how she would be rated if she was to attempts to get a legitimate badge. Her crafting technique could create inscriptions up to the five-star level, but her energy and cultivation might not permit it in the same manner.

Furthermore, her three-star inscriptions might not be at the same level as that of most inscription masters, also for the same reasons.

‘I should also consider whether or not one of my types of energy may be used in order to optimise and improve the inscription process, like spiritual will can assist with array creation, or how my bloodline is bound to have some effect on talisman creation when I utilise my own blood,’ Wei Yi thought, showing none of that uncertainty to the people before her.

“Do you think I will pay you just because-”

“Darling, don’t you think you can give her a go? Look at her outfit – doesn’t it look pretty valuable? If she wastes materials, you could ask her to sell her clothing to make up for it!”

‘Woman, whose side are you on, and what exactly are you doing? Do you just want to see me in an embarrassing situation, or does your mind just work in strange ways?’ Wei Yi tried to understand, but could hardly do so without outright asking those questions, “I will not need to do so. Give me a basic plate.”

“Only if you agree to my wife’s condition.”

“Why should I? The Chao District is not far away now, so I and my companion can depart, go there, and earn money for some other person with the very inscription plates that you’d be delivering.”

“Do you really think you can bargain with me like that?”

“Absolutely. You may want to see me naked, but it won’t do you much good even if you manage it. In addition, my clothing is not something that you can afford to handle, surnamed Chen. In addition, you should remember that not every single trade can be made without giving up anything.”

She wasn’t even exaggerating her words in order to put herself in a stronger position, since he would indeed likely find her current state to be unusual at best and completely in conflict with his preferences at worst, seeing as his wife had a far more standard figure in every way, and he would truly get into a lot of trouble if he was to acquire her clothing and attempt to use it or sell it. Even if her current appearance differed enough from what she showed in the Ping District, there would still be countless individuals from that place who would pay a lot of money and invest a lot of effort to see her pay for what she did.

If the merchant was to be found in possession of her items, it would naturally invite certain kinds of theories, and even if he managed to convince others that he was not on any kind of amicable relationship with the woman that had done so much damage to the bandits of the district, he would still need to endure quite a few attacks and raids before they calmed down.

With him only being in the fourth realm and possessing only a small merchant caravan, he would be unlikely to be able to handle many such attacks, especially if Ping Waqing was to get involved. Even a few cultivators in the fifth realm would be enough to permanently scar the business he ran.

However, the man with the surname of Chen did not know that, “No trade is occurring yet.”

“Oh, really? A merchant should be very well aware that trades occur all the time. This very statement is a trade, offering wisdom in exchange for patronage and the purchase of other services, as well as an offer of friendly relations,” Wei Yi stated, smiling somewhat ominously despite the fact that nobody could see her lips, “You’d do well to accept.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“Xin Fu, dear, would you mind getting an inscription plate for me? One-star will be enough. Your husband doesn’t seem to be too keen on accepting risks.”

“Wait-”

“One-star? I think I know what those look like. I’ll get it right now!” his wife exclaimed, leaving before he had even the slightest opportunity to object further. He would certainly have done so, but since all that Wei Yi wanted was a one-star plate, he would not lose more than a silver coin or two.

As such, he decided that since the choice was made for him, he might as well see where this would go, and whether or not the masked woman truly did have some ability in inscriptions. If she did, then he could easily get some more money out of her, especially if she was a capable inscriber, but the investment required otherwise wouldn’t be too bad. He was simply reluctant to waste any of his materials when the trip was already not performing as well as it could have.

Wei Yi, meanwhile, was able to see traces of those thoughts with her spiritual will thread, but that would do nothing to discourage her from experimenting with free things. If she succeeded, then this man would have quite a lot more money from this one journey, and if she did not, she had already managed to evade the condition of needing to give up her things – not that anything on her body was worth only two silver coins – and could just fake the inscription working for long enough to get to the Chao District and escape from them.

She did, after all, have some comprehension of the Dao of Law, and inscriptions were part of it. Everything was part of it, so long as one understood the basic nature of reality.

In theory, that also applied to the Fire Dao, or Water Dao, or even the Dao of Lust, for the first could be described as existing within all things as the spark of life, the second could be said to be the source of all life and the thing that keeps it going, and the last could be said to be one of the primary driving forces that are part of the base instincts of humanity and the beasts that exist around it. So long as someone dove deep enough to understand the essence of any Dao, they would be bound to discover a part of the Great Dao’s truth, and might eventually reach a full comprehension of the Great Dao through the lens of whatever Dao they chose to pursue.

Wei Yi did want to avoid such a thing, however. To focus on one thing tended to be better than focusing on everything, but to mistakenly view everything through only one lens and with only one perspective would result in a warped view of the world, one that would force her into potentially seeing things in the same manner as the Mirror Plane Aberrations or the Great Families, which was hardly ideal. Instead, the approach of comprehending the nature of all things in the current approach, wherein she studied all Dao while focusing on the Dao of Law as the means by which to empower the rest, seemed better.

‘In a way, that too is a part of the Dao of Law. One thing could act as a lot of others, but only one will truly be the original. Fire could be used to burn wood, or boil away water or even eat through stone and melt metal, but boiling water simply turns it to steam, devouring stone with naught but flame is wasteful, and metal requires a high temperature in order to melt, with the resulting molten liquid still being potentially harmful…’

The longer she was able to think on the Dao of Law, on the principles behind law itself, behind the very fabric of the universe and the rules that allowed it to exist, the more she felt that she was approaching something akin to the state of enlightenment that many cultivators wished for. The world around her seemed to be changing – not breaking, or shattering, or even dissolving, but simply transforming from one state to another. It was as if someone had taken an image that was only meant to be viewed from a single angle and placed it at that appropriate angle… No, it wasn’t someone else that did it. She had placed it there herself, or perhaps even grabbed it from some malicious entity that wasn’t willing to let her see things as they truly were.

Right before her eyes, countless abstract matters and concepts seemed to become clear and plain, their laws baring themselves before her. Fire burned in the heart and body of the man before her, keeping his body moving. Earth made up much of his flesh, creating the solid shell of humanity. Metal coursed through his veins, the blood keeping him alive. Water was the source of his volume, permitting him not to be an empty husk. Wood was the nature of the countless veins, arteries, meridians and nerves that were spread out across his body, supporting every single one of the other elements.

It was rather fascinating to see things in this way, especially her sight seemed to expand even further.

The planar energy within each of his meridians became plain to her, nearly prompting an immediate comment on the inefficiency of the energy flow. A faint crimson light permeated his form, the slight sheen of money and the sound of colliding coins manifesting from it. His spiritual will filled his mind, occasionally encountering and defeating brutal motes of killing intent that emerged within it, but also spread out throughout his flesh and the air around him. Traces of physique energy littered his body, but they were faint and weak, barely able to show through all of the other forms of energy within him, a hint of his ancestors once awakening a physique.

As she observed the world around herself, seeing more and more principal laws hiding within the simplest of objects, she was instinctively able to feel a faint circle appear within her irises, dividing them in two with a brighter colour than the rest of her silver eyes.

“So, will you tell me your name?” a voice suddenly broke her out of the enlightened state.

She was concerned that everything that she had gained would disappear, save for the understanding of the five elements and the Dao of Law that she had gained from it, but while it did become less clear, the change in perspective that she obtained did not appear to vanish. Everything still looked different to what it had been before, and that strange circle remained as well.

“I am Wei Yi,” she said casually, but nearly stopped herself when she realised that her voice and words, which should have been no different to before, all contained vague differences and traces of energy that made her clearer and more powerful, ‘Great Stride stage?’

After the Minor Achievement stage, the Great Stride stage permitted the application of many common principles of the technique within more common actions, such as making use of a movement technique’s systems to allow for easier and more efficient travelling without the need to use planar energy at all. Thus, it made sense that once a Dao reached the Great Stride realm, it would permit for many of its insights to be put to use.

If that was accurate, then not only had she reached the Great Stride stage in one go, but it had given her an entirely different way to observe and interact with the world, as per the laws she understood.

While it was an incredible thing to attain, given the fact that it would naturally raise the power of nearly every technique at her disposal, it did show that it would be significantly more difficult to reach the next stage unless she grasped something even more intrinsic to the nature of reality, and to reach into the stages beyond would naturally be even more complex. This was both a negative, simply due to the additional time that it would require, but also a positive, since the more difficult a Dao was to comprehend, the more it covered and the more power it could grant her.

Eventually, it might even permit her to manipulate the world around her according to the Dao of Law without requiring anything more than her will, although it would likely be far easier for her to create a technique to take advantage of this before that stage.

‘That’s something that I will need to get onto to…’

“I’ve never heard of the Wei family, let alone them being proficient in inscriptions.”

“On the other hand, I am highly familiar with the Chen family, and I have to say that I am incredibly surprised that you are so poor at business when you are a part of it. Did you renounce that name?”

“You-”

“What that was meant to teach you is that viewing someone solely according to their family name is foolish, and you are likely only doing it due to distrusting me and trying to find some excuse not to see whether or not I am speaking the truth. If I am, then you will feel stupid and will think that your face had been slapped, so to speak, whereas if I am lying, you will have wasted your money. Am I wrong?”

“…” he stared at her with an annoyed glare, but did not choose to answer her question, instead moving on as if nothing had been said, “Are you telling the truth?”

She smirked as audibly as she could, “If I began with lying, I’d have no reason to stop.”

That only made him grumble more, but a statement that couldn’t be argued with did finally stop him talking. Unfortunately, the damage had been done, and she was no longer able to return into the full enlightened state, only finding herself able to retrieve the remnants of what she had begun to grasp while in that state. It was a shame that she didn’t get to observe some of those within the prison realm with that kind of vision, as she would have doubtlessly learned a lot, but she knew that even that much hadn’t been expected, and was enough to nudge her along nonetheless.

Since neither of them was going to get much from one another, they didn’t continue talking, with the merchant turning away to look at his own goods while Wei Yi chose to take a look at Shun Liu Min’s state.

“You doing alright?”

“Mhm. The water has helped, although I can feel ‘it’, still,” the maid whispered back, despite hardly needing to do so since Wei Yi could sense the remnant energy within her body.

It was made even more easy due to her new perspective through the Dao of Law, which resonated with her own comprehension of the Dao of Lust and permitted her to see its influence upon the maid’s body. While she couldn’t compare to what it had been like before, especially when she had first been affected by the side effect of whatever medicine it had been extracted from, it was clearly weakening and decaying quite quickly, and would soon be entirely out of Shun Liu Min’s system, at which point they would be able to do what they liked far more freely.

Before then, they would still need to get opportunities for dual cultivation away from others.

“I’m back~! Is this what you wanted?” Xin Fu entered the strider and presented them with a one-star inscription plate alongside some other things that could be said to have some vague relation to inscriptions.

“Some of this is, the rest I’ll make use of anyway. Give me that large metal plate and put everything else on the… table?” she glanced at the surface between the two seats inside the strider.

The merchant’s wife chose not to clarify or correct her, so it seemed that it either didn’t matter to anyone else, or that she had been correct. Xin Fu placed that large metal plate before Wei Yi, the rest near it, then sat back down beside her husband, resting her head on his shoulder as she watched what Wei Yi would do next.

“Do you require some tools?”

Ordinarily, perhaps she would have answered affirmatively, but as she looked onto the inscription plate now, she saw it in a completely different manner. It was still a piece of metal that was suitable for the channelling of planar energy, and it was still something that needed to be carved out in order to create an inscription, but none of that seemed anywhere near as mystifying as before. It had gone from an attempt at divination to merely reading a letter with someone’s exact location described in full.

For that reason, she simply shook her head. She did not need tools, and if she was to just create a one-star, simple inscription to prove her ability, did she even need a technique?