The Legend of Fangren

Outside the city, Fang Shi handed the rescued people over to Zhang Kongming, but did not follow them. Instead, he took out a letter.

"Master Zhang, my childhood friend is still in the city. I must go back to find her. Once I hand over this letter to you, my mission will be complete."

"Alright, be careful. I will report back to the sect. If nothing unexpected happens, I will come to settle accounts with the officials' families in three days."

Zhang Kongming flicked a cloud of mist and led his people away. Fang Shi turned back and entered the city again.

Qumu City is very large, and the busiest streets are only the tip of the iceberg. In addition, many streets are deserted at night, and every household stays indoors, making it like a ghost town.

Reflecting on the disappearance of the children, the local residents probably believe that Qumu City is not as prosperous as it appears on the surface.

Fang Shi returned to the city, quietly climbed onto the rooftops, and scaled the walls and eaves to reach the highest point possible, where he could take in the entire city's night view.

If a conflict occurs, the mystical energy and spiritual light will emerge, and should be extremely conspicuous in the darkness of the night.

"Got it."

He thought of something that could be used at this moment.

I arrived at the market and entered an expensive jewelry store.

"Shopkeeper, is this crystal genuine?"

"Hey, sir, why are you questioning our products the moment you walk in? Are you here to cause trouble? Look at the sign I've put up next to the counter—it says 'Tenfold compensation for fakes!'"

"really?"

"Really, otherwise how could it be worth my exorbitant price?" The shopkeeper said, then thought to himself, "This young man probably wants to buy some cheap fake jewelry but is too embarrassed to ask."

So he said, "If you want to buy a fake, I don't have any. Go away, don't bother me while I'm doing business."

The shopkeeper waved his hand to shoo him away, but Fang Shi immediately slapped his money on the counter and said, "I want to buy the real thing, and I also want to buy a piece of raw crystal. Do you have any?"

"Oh?" The shopkeeper was surprised. "Sir, you don't think much of our cooking?"

"No, it's just a little hobby of carving."

The shopkeeper immediately looked at him with new eyes, not expecting that this young man was a kindred spirit.

"You seem young, and I'm not sure about your skills. Giving you good materials would be a waste. I have a piece of flawed, blemished crystal here; would you like it?"

Fang Shi immediately nodded: "Yes, yes."

As long as it's a genuine crystal, that's fine.

Before long, the shopkeeper brought over a wooden box. Upon opening it, he found a piece of crystal with a rough surface and a purple-white color, which was of poor quality at first glance.

"Since we share the same interests, I'll sell it to you for three hundred, how about that?"

Three hundred coins would take an ordinary family ten days to save up, and this was just for a small piece of scrap, which shows how expensive jewelry is.

"Here you go." Without blinking, Fang Shi took out another string of coins, making it three hundred with the coins on the table.

"readily!"

With the money exchanged for the goods, Fang Shi carried the wooden box out of the shop, turned around and went into an empty alley, took out the crystal and placed it on the ground, then pulled out a stone pickaxe and smashed it.

With a crisp, melodious clanging sound, the multicolored crystal was instantly dissolved, transforming into a smooth, even-colored crystal [item] that landed in Fang Shi's hand.

The game only has amethyst, but since the power of disintegration can disintegrate it into items, it means that the recipes related to it can be used.

He obtained this crystal precisely to make a telescope.

[Telescope]: It can be synthesized by placing amethyst and two copper ingots vertically.

The recipes in reality are much more flexible than those in the game; the copper ingots in the recipes can be synthesized from other metals without any problem.

Fang Shi naturally used gray iron ingots as materials and eventually synthesized a [gray iron telescope].

Since both materials are ordinary, the telescope naturally only has ordinary telescopic functions, but that is sufficient.

Once back on high ground, Fang Shi used binoculars to search for people in the city.

First, observe with the naked eye to find anything suspicious, then examine it carefully with a telescope.

Unfortunately, the eaves of ordinary houses are not high enough, so the scenery in the city cannot be seen in detail.

Fang Shi slapped his forehead: "Seriously, this isn't a game, there's no rendering distance limit here, just blindly stack them higher."

Nobody should be looking up at this hour...

He jumped stealthily, placed a block under his feet, jumped again, and placed another block... In the blink of an eye, he had placed more than three sets of stone blocks, and Fang Shi's height reached two hundred meters.

"..."

Admittedly, the wind was strong up there, and his legs were trembling a bit. Fortunately, blocks of the same material could be combined into one if placed side by side, so he quickly expanded outwards to create a three-by-three-meter platform, and then surrounded it with stone walls [blocks] of the same material.

[Stone Wall]: Composed of six stone blocks placed in two rows at the bottom of a 3x3 grid. A single stone block is a pillar, but adjacent blocks can be placed to form a stone wall. The wall is 1.5 meters high.

With the stone wall blocking his way, Fang Shi finally felt a sense of security and began to observe the scenery of the city.

By a twist of fate, the disappearance of the child caused the city's residents to stay indoors at night and not even turn on any lights, leaving the city pitch black and any light would be quite conspicuous.

With such a broad view, Fang Shi realized how much the telescope had been buried in the original game.

At a height of two hundred meters, the dark streets below were viewed without any optical distortion. The objects in the mirror were magnified to an extremely smooth, proportional degree, as if the naked eye had truly been brought closer to that distance. Even the outlines of objects under the moonlight were clearly visible.

Fang Shi's eyesight had already improved along with his physical fitness, and now, with the addition of this telescope, he had truly become a "clairvoyant."

Suddenly, the telescope stopped in the darkness. Just now, there seemed to be a flash of light there, and now, after a while, another flash of light appeared.

"He Zi belongs to the metal element, and its mysterious energy and spiritual light are exactly white, so it must have encountered hostility."

Remember the location, Fang Shi, hurry up and dig down.

"Uh..." But when he was almost on the ground, he found a group of soldiers surrounded by torches.

Never mind, since the sect is going to take action against the Qu family anyway, what does he have to be afraid of offending them?

Once he reached the height of the house, he stopped digging and jumped onto the roof to the side, using the bricks and tiles to head towards the Luo River.

"Chase them! Chase them quickly!"

The soldiers below chased after them anxiously, but were quickly outpaced.

With each leap, Fang Shi shattered several tiles and jumped over one or two rooftops, managing to reach the spot where the white light had flashed within a minute.

As they approached, they heard Luo He shout, "Senior Sister Qu, run! I'll cover your retreat!"

Then a white light rose from the street, and a long spear shot out like a dragon, its white shadow dazzling, piercing through the black-clad man in front of him.

*Thud!* The man in black was pierced through the waist and abdomen, exploding into a hazy gray mist. Several more men in black rushed up after him, seemingly formed from darkness itself, endless in number.

Luohe had no choice but to quickly draw his gun and sweep the sharp blades, but the result was the same, only making the gray fog thicker and more pungent.

"Junior sister..." Qu Mei was extremely weak and unable to help, so she could only run away.

However, men in black appeared from all directions and surrounded the two.