After securing that Hei Gou would not leave his suite, Xue Wei returned to his own chambers where he started cultivating.
He had purchased three masks, which left their pursuers guessing at when and if Xue Wei and his friends were exiting Cloudsoar City. They could not help but curse at him.
If they each wore a mask and blended into the crowd, it would be impossible for the pursuers to locate their targets. Only Bai Tianyi was easily noticeable because of his tiny size, so the three great sects had their men pursue every single child that exited the hotel.
To their annoyance, none of these children were Bai Tianyi. They were instead message boys that worked for the hotel to deliver messages on behalf of the patrons.
This really made them all wonder whether or not Xue Wei had bought the masks to mislead them, or if he had something planned. In the end, the pursuers were incapable of seeing even the slightest shadow of Xue Wei and his companions.
What they were unaware of was that Xue Wei had long since left the hotel. He was completely unaware of the fact that many of these pursuers were left grinding their teeth and filled with anger due to his stunt.
He wandered the streets of the city in an aimless manner for some time, before he finally headed, in a casual way, towards the poor residential area.
This residential area was a place filled with hidden dragons and crouching tigers. Here, anyone could be an extreme expert, but they could also be an unfortunate beggar.
There were many people here who had lost limbs and who had turned into cripples from their years in the army. They had lost their ability to earn money for their families, which as a result forced them to beg and live in this area where every day was a struggle.
There were also a lot of criminals who lived in this area. Because of the abundance of cripples, beggars, and criminals living in this area, the city guards had decided not to funnel resources into cleaning the area up, or even patrol it.
In the end, a parallel society had appeared in Cloudsoar City's poor area, a society that thrived on its own lawlessness; a society that did not care about the war between humans and beasts. All that mattered in this place was the profit that was to be made from selling information and items to the highest bidder.
Xue Wei had previously walked around Cloudsoar City. He had seen the signs and heard the rumors about this black market, but he had not been deep into the poor area before.
Even as a Heavenly Warrior, he was still far from being strong enough to look after himself in this area. Ordinary and Earth Knights were common, and even the leader of the black market was a Sky Knight, one of the few Sky Knights in the entire kingdom!
Xue Wei was careful. He did not speak to anyone, but he was tense and his mind was alert. He observed everything around him. He had charged up Forbidden Rush to escape at a moment’s notice.
Frankly, he was almost too vigilant. The black market was indeed interested in people's wealth and they would kill for said wealth, but if they killed every single person that steps into their territory, no one would dare to set a foot into the shadows, and that would end in them losing money.
The territory of this underground society was located right beneath the western side of the city walls, in the shadows of the city walls where all the ugly and disfigured people were hiding. In this darkness, many things that could never see the light of day were occurring.
Xue Wei reached a dilapidated building. It had three floors and was so worn down that it looked like it would come crashing down at any moment. The windows had been shattered, with shards of glass sprinkled over the windowsills.
Not only were the windows shattered, there were also long cracks on the walls. It almost seemed like it would come down any moment now. The walls had sunk in and the top floor was tilting over. Were it not for a neighboring house, it would likely have toppled over already.
Xue Wei looked doubtfully at this house. He could not decide whether or not he should actually enter. Was it not somewhat suicidal? The house could collapse at any moment, and who was to say that it would not conveniently collapse when he was inside?
Xue Wei chuckled the more he thought about it. Even if it collapsed, he should still be okay given his physique as a Sovereign Beast.
If he had the means to survive, what was there to hold him back?
This worn-out house was famous within the entire city. Even those from the respectable parts of town had heard about it before, and Xue Wei had managed to get his hands on information about it rather easily.
The man who owned this place was called ‘The Intelligencer’. No one knew his real name. He had a wide web of informants not only within Cloudsoar City or merely the Chengzi Kingdom, but he knew things from even the center of the continent and the backwater countries.
Xue Wei knew that before reaching Lan, the phony prophet, this was his best option of getting some information.
Having come to this conclusion, Xue Wei stepped inside. Unknown to him, many eyes were observing him, and some of them displayed surprise. It took guts to enter such a run-down house.
As Xue Wei entered the house, he looked around curiously. The house's interior was every bit as worn down as the exterior. The wallpaper was half ripped off, and the padding of the chairs was falling out of holes in the fabric. Some of them even lacked legs and were leaning against the wall, clearly incapable of holding anyone up.
There were no people. The entire house seemed deserted. Xue Wei could not even sense anyone inside when he spread out his spiritual energy. It was clear that whoever was within the worn-out house was much stronger than him.
Xue Wei was not completely sure about the procedures to follow when one wished to get information from this place. He just knew it was the go-to location.
Was he supposed to wait at the ground floor? But there were no people. After waiting for half an hour with nothing happening, Xue Wei decided against standing still and went towards the crooked stairs leading to the upper floors.
He had to watch his step. Every single one of the steps on the stairs was so old that they creaked violently, and some of them even sank when he put his weight on them. It was clear that he would fall through at any moment if he was not careful. He would rather not have that happen.
When Xue Wei finally reached the second floor, his eyes landed on a person. This person, he could not sense in any way. Had he not been looking straight at her with his own eyes, he would never have guessed she was there.
It was a woman. Her hair ran long and hung down casually. She had a pretty face, but she was not the kind of beauty that could cause the downfall of a city. Even so, there was a gracefulness to her, a confident air about her that he had never sensed from another woman – not even Wang Xiaoyun.
The woman was dressed in a red dress. It did not seem luxurious, but neither did it seem plain. It had golden lining and seemed to be of acceptable quality.
When Xue Wei stepped onto the floor, her head snapped up from a mountain of scrolls that were placed on a table in front of her. Her eyes were incredibly sharp and penetrating. She raised an eyebrow in surprise when she saw him there.
"What can I do for you?" she asked. Her voice was gentle, like flowing water, her tone soft and inviting.
"I heard about the Intelligencer in town," Xue Wei began saying. "I have precisely a need for information, and I believe that this would be my best option."
The woman's eyes narrowed and she cocked her head ever so slightly as she observed Xue Wei, clearly trying to calculate whether it was worth working with him.
"So, what kind of information are you looking for?" the woman asked after a slight pause. She had apparently evaluated him as a customer.
"Sovereign Beasts," Xue Wei said. "I want any information available on Sovereign Beasts. It doesn’t matter – their variations, their behavior, their history or even just their legends, I want everything."
The woman was stumped when she heard this. She had expected something completely different and could not help but frown.
"Sovereign Beasts... It’s not that we don’t have information on them," she stated slowly. "It’s just that they are the stuff legends are made of. It will be hard to say what is false and what is true. Although we are an information hub, those legends and records are kept by the strongest factions in the continent. Getting them will require some skill."
The woman knew that although it sounded very easy to get the legends about the Sovereign Beasts, this customer wanted to have records and real information as well, something that would need time to gather.
"Can you help me?" Xue Wei asked anxiously. The woman, who had been pondering deeply with a frown on her face, looked at him and nodded her head.
"It is not that we cannot help you," she said seriously. "It is just that this is going to be a very costly affair and it will take me a few months to gather all the information you might want. Also since it is so time-consuming and that it is likely to expose some of our moles in the main families, we cannot accept low-grade essence stones or gold coins as an exchange."
Xue Wei had thought he could pay with low-grade essence stones so he was quite surprised, but it made perfect sense to him after thinking it through.
He, however, would prefer not using his formations as currency, as it would instantly compromise his identity. Instead, he searched his storage ring and found the essence stones that he had gotten from the Moon Prince. He withdrew one and handed it to the woman.
"How many of these essence stones will this cost?" he asked in a seemingly calm way, but deep within his heart an almost unbearable ache had started spreading. Although he was rather liberal with money and wealth, these essence stones were truly valuable. From what he could see, they were top-grade essence stones.
Essence stones were ranked from low, middle, high, to top grade. Top-grade essence stones were almost nonexistent in the modern day, as the resources on the planet had been excavated excessively to a point where even high-grade essence stones were hard to come by.
Having to take out some of his limited supply of top-grade essence stones was enough to make his heart bleed, but he truly needed information about the Sovereign Beasts so he did not have much of a choice. He could not offer formations lest he blow his cover or reveal what the ‘real’ him was actually looking for.
"Ten top-grade essence stones," the woman said with a stern voice that conveyed that it was not up for discussion and brought Xue Wei back from his pain and suffering to reality.
"We cannot do it for less than ten," she repeated, thinking that Xue Wei was unhappy with the price.
In fact, Xue Wei was slightly unhappy with the price. It was a lot of essence stones, especially top-grade ones, but he knew better than to argue with this woman. She was frightening, and if he declined, who knows whether or not she would just straight up kill him and take his storage ring. Flaunting one's wealth was already a crime.
"I can accept it," Xue Wei said hesitatingly, though with pain clearly evident on his face, "but I will need the news within three months. I intend to leave the city after three months."