Seeing the necklace from Moon Flower vibrating, he narrowed his eyes.

This necklace belonged to a man who traveled to the mountain where the Moon Flower resided, searching for a flower called the Spirit Flower. He needed to deliver the necklace and this flower to the man's widow, who supposedly lived in the Wild Tide Region. Deactivating his invisibility, Liu Xing examined the necklace. Aside from its vibration, it appeared normal. The dull bronze chain held a diamond-shaped silver steel pendant that reflected the light pleasantly. He knew it held a little bit of qi, but he thought it was just residue without purpose.

"What is that necklace? Why is it vibrating?" Fang Ruxue asked, then a moment later, said, "Ah, it stopped vibrating."

The necklace had indeed stopped vibrating. The pendant lay inert in his palm, though he could still sense qi within it. This meant that the necklace hadn't stopped vibrating because it had run out of power.

Liu Xing pinched his chin and examined the pendant more closely. The most likely explanation was that Moon Flower had added the vibration effect to help him find the necklace's former owner's wife. This was immensely helpful.

"Someone gave me the task of returning this necklace," Liu Xing told Fang Ruxue. "I never thought it could vibrate like this."

"Ah, a hint then," she nodded. "That will make it easier to find the thing you need to retrieve."

"The person I need to deliver this necklace to and the thing I need to retrieve are not connected. These are two entirely different tasks."

He wondered, however, if perhaps the Heaven Severing Pill and the man who had come to collect the Spirit Flower were connected.

Liu Xing closed his eyes and tried to sense the qi around him. This city had thicker ambient qi than the grassy field where they had landed, and in that instant, he realized that this city had many cultivators—more than a hundred but less than two hundred. The guards at the gates and patrolling the walls were not cultivators, but the residue of human qi clung to them, indicating they had been in contact with cultivators. Since they were city guards, it meant the governing body of this city was controlled by cultivators.

"Specifically, three cultivator clans," he muttered. He could sense three spots in the city where the ambient qi converged, as if it were being sucked into them. This was normal, since cultivator clans and even sects usually had array formations to gather large amounts of qi in a specific place to make cultivation easier.

Liu Xing opened his eyes and rubbed his chin. The man who had come to Moon Flower's mountain was a cultivator, though he remembered Moon Flower remarking that he was not particularly talented. If that man came from this city, then he could assume that he was originally from one of the three clans that resided here. And so, his widow and child would likely reside within their clan's residence.

"Cultivators are amazing," Fang Ruxue suddenly remarked, snapping Liu Xing's attention to her. "The moment you close your eyes, you instantly get useful information."

"Are you sure you can't read minds?" Liu Xing asked.

"No, just observation skills," she said, resting both of her hands on her hips. "So, what information did you just glean? Is it useful?"

"Yeah," he nodded. "This Water Tower City is likely controlled by three clans. They are residing in the north, east, and west of the city." Liu Xing pointed back toward the gate they had bypassed. "This is the south gate, probably the only neutral gate in this city." He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts, then continued. "Since this city is controlled by three clans, the information regarding the item I need to retrieve is probably in their hands."

"What about the possibility that the item itself is actually possessed by them?" she asked. "Also, could you tell me what the item you need to retrieve is? Referring to it as 'the item' is kind of awkward."

Liu Xing hesitated for a while. Ideally, he didn't want anyone else to know the name of the Heaven Severing Pill, let alone its location. However, this was Fang Ruxue, and since she would be helping him gather information, it would be difficult if she didn't even know what they were looking for. In the end, he decided to conceal the name. He had a hunch that this name was special.

"Let's just say that I'm looking for a pill," he finally said.

"A pill? It must be a truly heaven-defying pill to make an empire as large as the Mirror Tide Empire interested in it," Fang Ruxue said, pinching her chin.

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"Honestly, I don't know. I suspect this task is more about completing it than the pill itself. However, the person who gave me this task is an elder, so perhaps it is a truly heaven-defying pill."

"Do you know what it looks like?"

"Aside from its name and the fact that it's supposedly here, I don't know anything about it. Regarding your earlier question, it's indeed possible that one of the clans in this city has this pill."

The chance of that was actually quite small. After all, whatever effect this pill had, it must be quite beneficial, and it would be better to consume it rather than store it. However, if the pill required specific conditions for consumption, then it would make sense to store it until those conditions were met.

"What would happen if that were truly the case? Would you...?" She gulped, her eyes trembling.

Liu Xing suspected the first image that came to her mind was of him massacring people. That didn't quite fit his temperament, although it was in line with what he had done on Blue Emerald Island and to General Zhao Ming's naval army.

"I would prefer a peaceful solution to get that pill. Perhaps I could buy it with the spirit stones I have. If that's not possible, I could offer a favor in exchange for the pill. If that doesn't work, then I could try sneaking in and stealing it. Only if those options are not possible would I reluctantly choose violence."

Fang Ruxue nodded, though he noticed that she nodded quite eagerly, as if she were relieved by what he had said. Liu Xing wasn't offended, though he found it concerning that people saw him as a violent person.

"Let's start gathering information," Liu Xing continued, stuffing the necklaces into his inner robe. While he was curious why the necklace had vibrated, and he had a hunch that it was because it was resonating with something related to the widow he intended to meet, he decided to search for whatever was resonating with it as they roamed around buying supplies and gathering information. One stone to kill three birds.

Liu Xing grabbed Fang Ruxue's wrist again. She protested, stating that being invisible would hinder gathering information since she couldn't ask or probe people. He agreed, of course, but he decided they needed to get as far away as possible from the south gate first.

They began to walk along the side of the street, moving between people on the sidewalk. The sidewalk wasn't very wide, and they walked side by side, occupying almost half of the sidewalk. Luckily, the invisibility didn't just hinder people's sight; it also dimmed their presence. Liu Xing found that, at least to mortals and people not actively searching for him, this also meant that they would ignore things about them, whether it was his footsteps, his voice, or even his presence. On several occasions, his shoulder bumped into someone, and they just acted as if they didn't realize they had hit anything.

This made him realize how General Zhao Ming had used this invisibility to become a serial killer.

As he walked, he came to a startling realization. When he first got the gun, he experimented with all its abilities, including invisibility. Back then, the invisibility would only activate when he pointed the gun at a source of danger, usually enemies, spirit beasts, or a city he deemed dangerous. Right now, he could activate his invisibility regardless of whether he was pointing the gun at danger or not.

He thought it would be quite an upgrade to be able to turn invisible whenever he wanted. However, perhaps that was not the case. After all, he currently felt that the entire Wild Tide Region was dangerous. Maybe his gun decided that, since everywhere was dangerous, it would activate invisibility regardless of where he pointed it. If so, he realized how arbitrary the invisibility activation rule was. Maybe the gun didn't have a rule. Instead, it inferred the rules from his subconscious. If so, he could train to remove this limitation, allowing him to turn invisible without restriction. In that case, he could also train the speed at which the invisibility spreads.

"I think this is far enough," Fang Ruxue suddenly said.

Liu Xing broke out of his thoughts and looked around. They were standing in front of a pristine white railing. Across from them, the city sloped downward, giving the impression that they were standing on the edge of a cliff. From there, he could see the fountain shooting high into the sky. He had seen it from outside the city and assumed it was nearby. Now, he realized that wasn't true. The fountain was actually quite far away, but it was enormous, creating the illusion that it was nearby. At the edge of the city, he could see the city spreading upward over three small hills, as if the entire city resided in a shallow valley. From this view alone, he could tell that Water Tower City sprawled for almost a hundred kilometers.

To his side, Fang Ruxue pointed forward. "This city is big. Really, really big."

Indeed, this was not some shabby little city barely alive; this was a thriving metropolis. Gathering information in this vast city would take a lot of time.

"We need a better plan," Fang Ruxue said.

Liu Xing nodded, trying to come up with an idea. His first thought was to use all the women he had brought here. Thirty people was a lot, and if they spread out, they could cover a lot of ground. A moment later, though, he dismissed the idea. It would leave behind too many traces. Also, this matter was sensitive, and involving too many people would certainly cause information to leak. However, while he rejected this idea, he got another, more subtle idea from it.

This city was vast, meaning many people lived here. When many people live in one area, there are people from various backgrounds, and the gap between the rich and the poor is usually wide, to the point that poor people struggle to get food while the rich can afford to indulge in hedonistic lives. In a metropolis like this, there were usually people who hid in the city's underbelly. He was quite sure that among the criminal organizations in this city—and he was certain they existed—there must be people who traded in information.

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