Two combatants broke away from each other, flying to opposite ends of the arena.

Tang Jie tumbled on the ground before finally stopping his momentum, his butt striking the edge of the stage.

On the other end, Cai Junyang jumped to his feet and said in surprise, “Huh? Are you trying to throw? How are you so much weaker?”

“For some reason, I can’t really get worked up when I’m fighting you,” Tang Jie replied. He stood up and patted the dust off his body.

“Tsk, how boring. If I had known this, I would have asked to spar with Senior Brother Peng instead.” Shaking his head, Cai Junyang unhappily walked away.

As Tang Jie watched Cai Junyang leave, there was a sense of strange delight in his eyes.

Cai Junyang never could have imagined that this Tang Jie that he had fought to a standstill wasn’t the real Tang Jie, but Tang Jie’s avatar.

After completing the avatar, Tang Jie had discovered that things were somewhat different from what he had initially imagined.

As the avatar was made through artificial means, its abilities were not the same as those of the original body.

In terms of strength, the avatar was far weaker than the original.

Even though it had been made with Tang Jie’s flesh and blood, blood was only blood. Once it left the body, the essence would start to dissipate. How could it possibly preserve Tang Jie’s original power?

Thus, the avatar had not been able to replicate the power of Tang Jie’s body, though it was much more powerful than the average student. According to Tang Jie’s calculations, it was around the level of major attainment in the Visceral Manifestation Classic and a basic level of the Parting Classic. Of course, if the avatar continued to cultivate in accordance with the Parting Classic, it could still improve, and the effect would not at all be dampened. But this would also mean a doubling of his expenses.

For the same reasons, Tang Jie’s original body and his avatar were not one. This was because the second body was basically a puppet made of flesh and blood, not will given form and life. Thus, he could not fuse with it. However, once he reached higher levels of cultivation, this would probably change.

With loss, there was gain. While the avatar didn’t have his formidable body or the ability to merge, it did gain an extra ability: Illusion Thousandform!

This was precisely the special ability brought by the Illusion Fox’s fiend pellet, and not even the original body could use it. But this sort of transformation was surface-level, and it was still impossible to replicate such things as aura and cultivation. In this aspect, he was much inferior to the fiend fox. Even so, this was an enormous advantage for Tang Jie. After all, Thousandform came from the avatar’s blood and did not use up any spiritual energy or require any sort of hand sign or incantation, so it could be used as the avatar willed. It was basically a fiend beast’s innate spell art, and he might even be able to use other methods to make up for its shortcomings, such as the Breath Restraint spell.

While they were different in body, spiritually, it was no different from a traditional avatar. The souls of the original body and the clone were two sides of the same coin, their minds linked such that they could be considered the same person. As one mind was guiding their actions while they were two separate existences, they could do two things at once. There was no need for anything like Heart Consonance. A thought from Tang Jie would be enough for the Tang Jie on the other end to know everything.

Thus, while the clone had been fighting with Cai Junyang on the outside, the original Tang Jie was studying the ancient formation commentary in his room. And through their shared mental connection, what he learned could be directly comprehended by the clone.

Having an avatar was essentially like doubling one’s learning ability. Although this wasn’t much of a help when it came to cultivation, it was very important for understanding spell arts. A cultivator with an avatar could use this method to master spell arts while not hindering their cultivation. But an avatar was considered a secret art, and it wasn’t something that just anyone could easily master. Even someone like Yan Changfeng didn’t have an avatar. From this, one could see just how valuable Tang Jie’s avatar was.

The clone Tang Jie watched Tang Jie and then walked out into Red Plum City alone.

Once out of Red Plum Ridge, Tang Jie walked to a stream. After making sure that no one was around, he looked down at the water.

A reflection of Tang Jie’s face appeared in the water. As it flickered in the water, it gradually began to change. The soaring brows became wide and thick, the eyes grew larger and brighter, the nose bridge sank in, and the handsome ovoid face turned round.

In the blink of an eye, Tang Jie had turned into an honest-looking youth with bushy brows and big eyes. Tang Jie took out a prepared Mustard Seed Bag, switched into cloth clothes, and then placed his Basking Moon placard into the bag. At this point, it was like he had no connection with Tang Jie at all.

This was a necessary choice.

As he couldn’t merge with the clone, Tang Jie had to find a new identity for it. After all, it would be quite the problem if people noticed that there were two Tang Jies.

After changing appearance, Tang Jie returned to Red Plum Ridge, where he got a placard as a wandering cultivator before entering the city anew.

As he came up, Yiyi came from the other direction, looking around with large eyes as if she was searching for something.

Tang Jie chuckled and walked up to her. It was only when he was about to reach her side that Yiyi finally noticed something and excitedly stared at him.

The two of them smiled at each other, saying nothing as they walked toward each other.

As they brushed past each other, Tang Jie flicked his finger, sending that Basking Moon placard into Yiyi’s hand.

With this, all problems were resolved.

With a new identity, the Tang Jie clone had nowhere to go and began to stroll around the city.

As he sauntered about, a familiar figure passed by him.

An Rumeng.

Why was she here?

Now that he thought about it, the Immortal Fortune Conference was most unfair toward the Thousand Passions Sect and Horizon Ocean Pavilion, for these two sects had more women than men. This was precisely why this Immortal Fortune Conference, which was held as a tournament to find a groom, unquestionably put these two sects at a disadvantage.

Thus, while these two sects had sent people, they were much less proactive than the other four sects.

As for Basking Moon Academy exchange student An Rumeng, she was a woman herself, so she had no reason to come.

Of course, there was no problem if she had just come to see the sights and gain some experience. After all, a gathering of the six major sects was an opportunity that was hard to come by.

The problem was that An Rumeng was in a great rush and didn’t seem at all like she had come to spectate.

Surprised, Tang Jie began to secretly follow her.

This was the eighth district of Red Plum City, where the wandering cultivators gathered. For this reason, it wasn’t as heavily guarded as the other seven districts, where disciples not belonging to the respective sects were forbidden entry.

They had only made their way a short distance before An Rumeng turned into a small alley, came up to a gate, and rapped the door knocker.

A few moments later, the gate opened, revealing a pretty face.

When Tang Jie saw this face, he couldn’t help but shudder.

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Wei Die!

The one who had opened the door was none other than Wei Die!

Why would she be here?

Wasn’t she supposed to be at Heart Severing Academy?

Tang Jie suddenly understood.

This house had probably been secretly purchased by Heart Severing Academy. An Rumeng had most likely come here to see someone from this academy.

Heart Severing Pavilion’s master had originally come from the Thousand Passions Sect, and it wasn’t strange for there to still be some lingering attachments between them. As for Wei Die appearing, it probably meant that she had been performing well as of late, which had given her the opportunity to follow her master here.

Upon seeing An Rumeng, Wei Die bowed and said, “Senior Sister An, please enter. Elder Sister is waiting inside.”

An Rumeng strode in. Wei Die looked around to confirm that no one was present before shutting the gate.

Seeing Wei Die close the gate, after some thought, Tang Jie emerged from his shadowy corner and walked along the wall, spreading out his spiritual energy to inspect the area.

This house seemed to only have a wall that would not be able to keep out any cultivator, but a little scouting would discover that the area above the walls was covered in spiritual lines. These were warning lines, and any solid substance that struck these lines would set off a warning signal, as one would expect of a warning formation.

But perhaps for secrecy’s sake, the house’s defenses weren’t very advanced. Tang Jie easily found a flaw, and with a few applications of spiritual energy, he cut a gap in the warning formation and jumped into the house.

As he was flying over the wall, Tang Jie used his toes to push off it. When he turned around to look, he saw that, as expected, there were several warning traps at the base of the wall.

Smiling to himself, he continued into the courtyard.

He didn’t have to go far before he saw the brightly-lit main hall.

In front of it, ten-some girls stood in two rows, Wei Die among them. A bamboo curtain was hung across the main hall’s entrance, blocking vision and only presenting a silhouette of the person seated behind it.

An Rumeng was standing in front of the curtain, saying to it, “The item has arrived. Senior Sister Qin, please inspect it.”

She took out a box and tossed it.

The box floated toward the curtain, and once it was close, the bamboo curtain flew up, a slender hand reaching out to take the box.

After opening the box and looking at its contents, the person behind the curtain said in a pleasant voice, “Good, good. This is for you.”

An item flew out of the curtain toward An Rumeng.

An Rumeng grabbed it, looked, made a satisfied smile, and put it in her bag.

As he was rather far, Tang Jie couldn’t see exactly what it was. He was able to make out that it was some kind of jade booklet, so it was probably some sort of cultivation method.

Is An Rumeng still seeking out a method to resist Soulscour? Tang Jie wondered.

An Rumeng said, “Senior Sister, thank you for your generosity.”

“No need to be polite. This is the result of Junior Sister An’s many years of effort.”

“It was also luck. If I hadn’t run into someone selling Triple Yang Secret Seals at the Immortal Fortune Conference, I might not have been able to unlock the hidden key.”

“How is it that Junior Sister only unlocked it now? I thought that Junior Sister had unlocked it long ago and was just waiting to make the trade.”

“How could it be that simple?” An Rumeng chuckled. “I originally came not to make the trade but because Senior Brother Du asked for my help. Coincidentally, I found a way to unlock the hidden key, letting me get my wish first.”

“Du Tianze?” The voice behind the curtain snorted, “That perverted scoundrel is still set on the little palace lord? Alas, no matter what his plans are, he won’t succeed!”

“Mm? Senior Sister Qin, what do you mean?” An Rumeng was confused.

The woman behind the curtain replied, “Do you really think Shen Qingdan will accept being married to a stranger? Let me tell you the truth. Shen Qingdan isn’t even in the Wandering Palace right now. The current little palace lord is a fake, a so-called adopted daughter. What a pack of idiots, fighting so hard for a fake palace lord.”

“What?” An Rumeng was shocked. “This is deception! Is she not afraid…”

“Afraid of what? The six major sects want the Wandering Palace, not the little palace lord. It’s the students who are after the palace lord. The ones being deceived are them, not the six major sects, so why should the Wandering Palace be afraid? These naive fools really think that they can get all that the Wandering Palace has? Wrong! The arts, the texts, and the Immortal palace will all belong to the six sects. As for the medicines and art relics, those will still belong to the Wandering Palace. Until Shen Qingdan chooses her husband, nobody can get any of it. This is the true trade!”

The voice cackled in delight at the frustration and anger that others were soon to experience.

Tang Jie was shaken by what he had heard.

It seemed that everything was a fraud from start to finish.

He had had no interest in the little palace lord, but the truth still left him angry.

His agitation caused his spiritual aura to fall into disarray, and that slight disturbance was detected.

The woman behind the curtain yelled, “Who dares to spy on my Heart Severing Pavilion?!”

A palm of white jade shot toward Tang Jie.