Li Mo forced himself to suppress his distracting thoughts.
The inner room housed cultivators of the pawn shop, which, theoretically, should be the safest place, at least for now, with no need for excessive worry.
The area lockdown, according to accounts from odd-job workers, had occurred months ago. If the pawn shop were to face imminent disaster, it wouldn't happen abruptly.
"I must master Hui Qingyi. Relying on Universal Skillful Hand alone isn't enough for self-preservation."
Li Mo took a deep breath and, to test the possibility of cultivating Spirit Stones, resumed his cross-legged meditation, absorbing the ambient spiritual energy in the air.
Lacking spiritual energy released by the Liu Li jar, the smog spiritual energy found in the outside world was indeed sparse, allowing only a faint wisp to be absorbed after half an hour.
At the same time, he branded his skin again, hastening the growth of a second layer of human skin.
Branding the same organ wouldn't cultivate new Divine Skills, but the leakless body would undoubtedly grow stronger, possibly even developing new functions.
The fourth page of the Creation Book revealed the keyword [Human Skin].
This session of cultivation felt significantly less effective for Li Mo than his previous efforts. His chaotic thoughts, coupled with the growth of the second layer of human skin, kept drawing his attention to the faint noises outside the door.
During the day, he deliberately observed the cultivators going in and out of the inner rooms.
As long as the inner room wasn't suddenly deserted, it meant that danger hadn't reached it yet.
Li Mo deeply felt that cultivation was like walking on thin ice. Even during the First Level of Puberty, it was accompanied by unimaginable difficulties, including the looming death disease.
He stayed in the inner room for over ten more days.
The inner room wasn't sealed off, but the number of cultivators had noticeably decreased, and the entire pawn shop seemed shrouded in a shadow of fear.
Li Mo realized he had to end his seclusion and make a trip to the warehouse.
According to the odd-job workers, the warehouse was used exclusively for storing supplies, but it was off-limits to them and guarded around the clock.
Before leaving, Li Mo retrieved two Crystals from his Storage Bag and fiddled with them.
The Crystals shimmered with a rainbow-like glow and showed no traces of spiritual energy on the surface. Their structure was fairly sturdy, at least beyond the ability of mortal strength to break.
However, perhaps limited by his cultivation, their growth had plateaued after reaching the size of a peach pit.
Ancient Spirit Stones, in contrast, were far purer, resembling smooth lamb-fat jade, and were over twice the size of Li Mo's Crystals.
Li Mo had never seen contemporary Spirit Stones, nor did he know if the Crystals cultivated through his leakless body met the standard. However, they should be more than enough to trade for Beast Blood.
He pocketed the Crystals and stepped out of the inner room.
Using his leakless body, Li Mo restrained the spiritual energy emanating from him, allowing the spiritual power fluctuations of the First Level of Puberty to gradually fade away.
But the Universal Skillful Hand was hard to conceal, proving that one couldn't Dual Cultivate too many Spells, as abnormalities in the physical body could easily be exposed.
Li Mo didn't rush to the warehouse but instead observed the pawn shop from different angles.
The number of patrolling guards was dense; their expressions were grim, with blood seeping from their ears, and their spear-wielding arms appeared to have undergone modifications.
"Punctured eardrums?"
Shock flickered in Li Mo's eyes. What kind of danger would require the guards to lose their hearing to confront it?
Cautiously, he weaved through the pawn shop along a designated path. Some areas were indeed sealed off, and cultivators appeared only sporadically, most of them hurrying about.
Even the odd-job workers were nowhere to be seen. Apart from the guards, only a few scattered cultivators remained in the pawn shop.
Li Mo thought of asking someone but found that any cultivator who noticed him approaching immediately stepped back warily.
He sighed internally—having only recently joined the pawn shop and spent most of his time secluded in the inner room, he had no network to rely on.
On the way to the warehouse, however, he encountered a familiar figure.
Ma Ergao, dressed in the attire of an odd-job worker, looked emaciated after just a few months, his entire body reduced to skin and bones, with sunken eye sockets.
Li Mo greeted Ma Ergao, dragging the latter from his dazed state.
"Ergao Brother, why aren't you apprenticing in the Miscellaneous Hall anymore?"
Ma Ergao's face was expressionless as he rasped, "Heiwa, I wasn't skilled enough to learn how to sculpt statues, unlike you…"
Li Mo, having never seen Ma Ergao so incoherent before, couldn't help but scrutinize the man.
He quickly realized that Ma Ergao seemed to have gone without sleep for an extended period, leaving his consciousness in a perpetual haze.
Noticing the spiritual tablet at Li Mo's waist, Ma Ergao forced himself to perk up a bit: "Moving up in the world, Heiwa, if you ever get the chance to return to the village, please check on my younger siblings for me."
"Of course."
"By the way, is the Miscellaneous Hall doing okay?"
Ma Ergao became visibly anxious, his pupils unfocused as he stammered, "Heiwa, I… I don't know, I really don't know!"
"Da Wei was crushed to death one night while sculpting a clay figure. The next day, he became a statue and comes to life every night at midnight."
"The Manager took Da Wei away, and I… I saw things weren't right. Since I was old enough to apply for odd-job work, I left the Miscellaneous Hall."
Ma Ergao's face was filled with guilt and unease, his words sporadic and fragmented.
Li Mo could sense that Ma Ergao's nerves were stretched to the breaking point, where even the slightest disturbance might lead to a complete mental breakdown.
"Do you know what happened to Zhu Zi?"
"Heiwa, don't ask! Don't ask! There's a beast in the pawn shop, a beast!!!"
Ma Ergao stuttered with fright, as though terrified of passing bad luck to Li Mo. He turned abruptly and hurried away in the opposite direction.
Li Mo felt a lump in his throat but heard Ma Ergao murmuring incoherently under his breath: "If you recognize the beast, you'll die. The beast will come for you…"
Li Mo's scalp tingled. When he looked back, Ma Ergao's figure had already vanished down the mountain path, leaving only deathly silence.
Li Mo cursed under his breath. What in the world did beasts mean for Rong Town? Why was there no sign of them, yet everyone reacted with such terror?
Li Mo suspected that most cultivators didn't fully understand the implications either.
Only those truly in the know—likely the four Managers and Manager Tian of the pawn shop—seemed intent on erasing the beast's existence.
His thoughts churned as he walked under the bright sun toward the warehouse entrance.
[Treasure Pavilion]
The Treasure Pavilion was the Heart Beast Sect's storage for Magic Artifact Embryos and Refining Materials. Li Mo knew at a glance that he hadn't gone to the wrong place.
Compared to the eerie stillness within the pawn shop, the warehouse entrance was unexpectedly bustling, with over a dozen powerful cultivators just on the periphery.
A faint spiritual energy surrounded the warehouse, likely some sort of Array.
Li Mo even spotted the One-eyed Doctor from the Miao Shou Inn Medical Hall, evidence that Rong Town had begun addressing the pawn shop's crisis.
This reassured him slightly—the worst thing was when the higher-ups did nothing in the face of trouble.
Li Mo increasingly felt that the pawn shop had laid a massive net around the warehouse, and its target was undoubtedly the so-called beast.
He looked at the towering inner city wall, which almost obscured the mountaintop buildings.
The beast surely wasn't from outside the city; given the strict regulation of Rong Town's ingress and egress, it was far more likely to have escaped from the Inner City.
If the Outer City was already this strange, one could only imagine the Inner City.
"Sigh, I should master Hui Qingyi first."
Li Mo instinctively touched the Storage Bag at his chest, where two Crystals gleamed like gemstones. It was still unclear whether they could be considered Spirit Stones.
He emitted smog spiritual energy, masking his cultivation level as that of a beginner in the First Level of Puberty.
Although his young age drew some attention, most cultivators were too preoccupied with the warehouse preparations to care about others.