You promised yourself to be a caged bird, but you became the supreme young master?

The next day, early morning.

Lu Heng arrived at the teahouse where he had arranged to meet Lu Jinnian the day before and waited there.

Sitting in the reserved spot on the second floor, I curiously looked out the window.

This was the first time Lu Heng had observed the customs and culture of this world since he came into it, aside from reading books.

It wasn't that he didn't have any free time before, but during the Foundation Establishment period in January, he wasn't allowed to go anywhere except his own home and the training ground.

Lu Heng felt that this might be related to spirit food. This rule was likely to prevent junior members of the branch family with inferior talent from completing the Foundation Establishment stage through higher-level spirit food.

As for the monitoring methods, he didn't know yet, only that the boy who was suspected of violating the rules disappeared the next day.

"Tsk tsk..." Lu Heng shook his head and looked back outside the teahouse.

The morning light bathed the bluestone pavement in a warm gold hue, and before the thin mist had dissipated, the long street below the teahouse had already awakened.

A peddler carrying his wares walked by, shaking a rattle-drum. Next door, steam rose from the steamer baskets of a bun shop, and the shopkeeper called out at the top of his lungs, "Freshly steamed meat buns, piping hot—"

Several early-rising men responded and surrounded the area, the crisp sound of coins clinking together mingling with the rising steam.

Lu Heng was mesmerized by what he saw. This bustling street, filled with the aroma of fireworks, was completely different from everything he had encountered since he came into this world.

Isn't this the ancient world he imagined?

If it weren't for the existence of cultivators in this world, this world would most likely be no different from the ancient world of my previous life.

In that case, he might have taken a completely different path.

It's a pity... but not a pity either.

Lu Heng did not regret coming into this world. In his previous life, as an ordinary person, he did not want to do anything, nor did he have the ability to do anything.

In the drifting along with life, I gradually became numb to myself.

Moreover, after arriving in this world, Lu Heng's long-dormant heart began to beat wildly again. This world, after all, had…

An extraordinary existence!

The Great Qi Dynasty, an empire a hundred times larger than the world of the previous life, was able to govern such a vast territory not because of the technology that Yu Ye was familiar with in his previous life, but because of the cultivators who controlled the power of the extraordinary and saintly!

For the powerful cultivators, flying through the air and controlling the power of nature are nothing special!

When one truly reaches a profound level, the ability to sever rivers with a flick of the finger, boil mountains and burn seas is merely one aspect of its power.

These behaviors are commonplace and taken for granted by people in this world, just as people don't find breathing strange.

People in this world wouldn't find it strange at all that people can gain extraordinary power through cultivation.

However, for Lu Heng, a transmigrator who lived in his previous life, a world filled with ordinary people and devoid of any magical or fantastical elements, the power of cultivators was a very magical, even unbelievable, thing.

This is a cognitive bias, and because of this bias, Lu Heng developed a desire for "extraordinary" things.

This is a very normal psychology; the more you lack something, the more you want it.

Only those who have experienced pain can truly understand the preciousness of happiness.

Faced with things that defied common sense, Lu Heng developed a strong obsession with the extraordinary.

Lu Heng also happens to have the opportunity to come into contact with the extraordinary, and even possesses a control panel.

………………

"What are you looking at? Is there anything interesting?"

Lu Jinnian, who had somehow arrived on the second floor of the teahouse, also looked out the window but didn't see anything noteworthy. He patted Lu Heng on the shoulder and asked him curiously.

"It's nothing, I guess I've been in the outer courtyard for too long," Lu Heng replied casually.

"That's true. I think you shouldn't be too tense. It's good to get out and relax occasionally."

Recalling that he had completed the Foundation Establishment in just seven days, he couldn't wait to wander around the city for a while.

Lu Jinnian felt a little embarrassed for a moment.

In contrast, Lu Heng had a full two to six days dedicated to cultivation.

So the fact that he only thought of coming out to see things today shows he's much calmer than him.

"How is it?" Lu Heng then asked.

For him now, the most important thing is not to come out and take a look at the ancient world.

If it weren't for the loan issue, he wouldn't even be leaving the outer courtyard now.

The Lu family is indeed the greatest threat to the future, as it appears at present.

However, at least for the time being, the outer courtyard of the Lu clan is the safest place for Lu Heng.

As far as Lu Heng knew from Lu Jinnian, the person in charge of the outer courtyard was a great cultivator who had reached the end of the Qi Refining Secret Realm.

For an existence of this level, it's unrealistic to expect any earth-shattering power.

However, the fact that one can reach the area covered by divine sense in an instant, even if it only covers a radius of ten miles, is almost miraculous.

Although this was possible in my previous life with the help of technology, it would be terrifying if such an ability were possessed by an individual.

Such a being would have been considered a strategic-level humanoid nuclear weapon in my previous life.

………………

"With me in charge, there's absolutely no problem," Lu Jinnian said with a rare hint of pride.

"Such a large sum of money, are you sure you can handle it so quickly?" Looking at the confident Lu Jinnian in front of him, Lu Heng asked with some suspicion.

The loan he wanted to take out this time was neither a lot nor a little.

There are ten spirit coins in total.

A cultivator in the Qi Refining Realm might earn more money from a single mission than this.

But for him and Lu Jinnian now, this is an astronomical sum.

The so-called spirit coins are not spirit stones produced by spirit veins.

Instead, it was the official currency for cultivators certified by the Great Qi Dynasty.

One spirit coin is worth ten taels of gold, and ten spirit coins are worth one hundred taels of gold, which is equivalent to one thousand two hundred taels of silver.

There may be very few cultivators in the Qi Refining Secret Realm, but there are many in the Body Refining Secret Realm.

He now uses five taels of silver a day as his cultivation allowance, which is enough for him to cultivate for two hundred days.

If Lu Heng hadn't found Lu Jinnian, whose parents were cultivators, to vouch for him...

It would be absolutely impossible to borrow so much money at once.

Even if a cultivator can create more value than this, the time required for the return to cultivation is too long, and there are too many variables in between.

At most, Lu Heng could only borrow a loan that, under normal circumstances, would keep him busy for the next few years, but would not leave him in despair of repayment.

After all, how could those gangs have imagined that, compared to the high-interest loans they offered, Lu Heng wanted their principal and never even considered repaying it?

Isn't this a two-way journey?