I Have 10 Equipment Slots

"Not enough."

The man in the bamboo hat lifted his chin slightly and said in a low voice, "This time, we want five Third-Turn Treasure Pills and one Fourth-Turn Soul Condensing Pill."

"This Gu Zheng... he’s worth that price!"

"Is that so?" Blind Chen opened his mouth, his long, slender, blackish tongue darting out to lick the corner of his lips. "Fine. Bring him to me first, and I’ll verify the quality of the merchandise. Remember, I want him alive! A dead body, no matter how valuable, is only worth a single Third-Turn Treasure Pill!"

"Understood."

The man in the bamboo hat lowered his head again and chuckled softly. "We’ll bring him to you within three days."

With that, he tapped the ground with his toes, leaped into the air, and flew out of the dilapidated courtyard.

"Heheheh~"

Under the eaves, Blind Chen’s sightless eyes stared in the direction the man had disappeared. A strange grin spread across his face. ’Interesting, very interesting. This millennium-long game is much more interesting than the last one!’

...

WHOOSH~

The sound of a robe rustling through the air echoed in the alley.

The man in the bamboo hat descended from the sky.

"Boss, how did it go?"

"Did that damn blind man agree?"

"Gu Zheng is a genius from the Demon Slayer Bureau, after all!"

Five men and women, all dressed in simple coarse linen but brimming with vigorous energy, quickly gathered around and started asking questions.

"Blind Chen agreed."

The man took the bamboo hat from his head, revealing a plain and unremarkable face. He then peeled the beard from his chin, skin and all, and tucked it into his robes.

"Excellent! We’re going to make a killing this time! Trading a genius from the Jing Country for Treasure Pills, heheh..."

"Yeah, five Third-Turn pills and one Fourth-Turn Soul Condensing Pill. We’ve hit the jackpot."

"I wouldn’t say we’ve hit the jackpot just yet. After all, Gu Zheng has a Super Body·Radiant. He won’t be easy to deal with, especially since Blind Chen wants him alive."

"Don’t worry. As long as he doesn’t have a Heroic Body, he won’t be able to escape the corruption of the Celestial Demon Qi!"

"Gu Zheng is Meng Taiqi and Xie Bisheng’s disciple. What if those two old geezers gave him a special treasure that can resist the Celestial Demon Qi?"

"That’s why we have to test him first!"

"..."

The five of them broke into a rapid-fire discussion, each person chiming in.

The man who had removed his hat joined in. "We’ll test him using the ’Lu Shou Pit’ outside the city. We’ll lure the Yellow Wind Demon out of the passage! Isn’t Gu Zheng a Guerrilla General? The second-rank passage here in Sanming County is in crisis, and he’s in the southwest. It’s so close, there’s a ninety percent chance he’ll come to the rescue! And once he’s here..."

...

...

Less than fifteen li east of Sanming County Town, there was an enormous, ancient sand pit.

Viewed from above, it resembled the head of a deer, which is how it earned the name Lu Shou Pit.

Slightly north of the pit’s center, a second-rank passage connected the Demon Realm to the mortal world.

Unlike other passages, the entrance and exit to this one were underground.

And the passage was vertical!

One end was nearly flush with the surface, while the other was deep underground.

This made it seem as if the Demon Fiends were crawling right out of the earth when they emerged.

To make it easier to slay the Demon Fiends, the Demon Slayer Bureau had constructed a high wall around the edge of Lu Shou Pit. The two-hundred-meter-high wall was a continuous structure that extended deep underground, as if poured from concrete.

Gu Zheng didn’t know what methods were used to build it, but he could sense a Divine Wondrous fluctuation and a peculiar strand of qi, clearly indicating the power of Marvels had been used.

WHOOSH~!

Yellow sand danced in the air, blurring one’s vision.

Standing on the high wall, he looked toward the center of Lu Shou Pit. A swirling, spatially distorted vortex marked the passage’s mouth, from which Demon Fiends of all shapes and sizes crawled out in a ceaseless stream.

After emerging, these Demon Fiends darted through the sand, raising mounds as they moved rapidly underground.

Those were the ones that could be seen; the unseen ones simply merged with the flying sand and drifted through the air.

SHOO! SHOO! SHOO!

The sound of arrows slicing through the wind cut through the howling sand, piercing one Demon Fiend after another, but even more missed their mark.

"Aim before you fire!"

The person in charge of the Lu Shou Pit passage, Hundred Households Gao Liezhan, shouted in a low voice.

After shouting, he turned to Gu Zheng with a slight smile. "My apologies, Lord Gu. This new batch of men just arrived. They’re not very skilled yet."

"Experts all start as novices."

Gu Zheng nodded. "The Yellow Wind Demon you mentioned, Lord Gao—has it come out yet?"

"Not yet."

Gao Liezhan’s gaze shifted back to the sand-filled sky beyond the wall. "When the Yellow Wind Demon emerges, this sandstorm will form into tornadoes and grow even more violent. Not only will it obscure vision, but it will also cause hallucinations."

"So the Yellow Wind Demon uses Illusion Techniques?" Gu Zheng pressed.

"Correct."

Gao Liezhan nodded. "The Yellow Wind Demon’s Illusion Technique is rather unique. It’s ineffective face-to-face, but with the help of the sandstorm, it can produce terrifying hallucinations. On top of that, every adult Yellow Wind Demon is second-rank. Each time these beasts emerge, we lose a batch of men."

"Fortunately, after so many encounters, we’ve figured out their patterns. Every time they’re about to come out of the passage, they first stir up the flying sand."

"Just like now!"

Gao Liezhan pointed at the sky, where the yellow sand was now swirling at an ever-increasing speed. "The Yellow Wind Demon is about to emerge."

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH~!

SWISH! SWISH!

The howling wind roared over Lu Shou Pit like muffled thunder.

BOOM!

With a tremendous roar, the swirling yellow sand suddenly formed a tornado.

BOOM~

Another tornado formed in an instant, right before the eyes of everyone on the high wall.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

One tremendous roar followed another.

To the horror of everyone present, including Gao Liezhan, ten tornadoes had formed in the span of just two breaths.

Each tornado, swirling with terrifying gales and vast amounts of yellow sand, towered over three hundred meters high as it charged madly toward the nearest section of the high wall.