My Arts Evolve When Perfected

The Yin Yang Great Realm was already a great distance from the Nine Venerable Great Realm, and the distance from Blue Star to the Thunder Great Realm was simply astronomical. Over such a long journey, the Eight-direction Reversing Ship had held countless sales, turning over its stock of slaves again and again. Only those deemed to have true potential, who needed to be transported to more distant places to be sold, managed to survive. After all, food was an expense. Who would want to haul a group of worthless things around for a decade?

In fact, few on the Eight-direction Reversing Ship even survived for more than a dozen months. Most were sold off at the very next stop after leaving their home worlds. For example, hadn’t Zhu Weiyi and the others from Blue Star been sold in the Desolate Realm, a place not too far from home?

For this very reason, the members of the Human Race who survived the journey from Blue Star to the Thunder Great Realm were the absolute cream of the crop. One could even say they were exceptionally outstanding.

They were either kept because their beauty perfectly matched the aesthetics of a wealthy race, or they had demonstrated an extremely powerful Talent in a certain field, making them worth bringing back to the Nine Venerable Great Realm for internal development. These were not for general sale, but perhaps to be sold to their own kind.

Someone like Liu Zili, for instance, could certainly not be sold. After all, even Zuo Xuan saw in her the potential to reach the Harmonization Realm. Her value was simply immeasurable; the entire Eight-direction Reversing Ship might not be worth as much as she was alone.

One had to understand, the Eight-direction Reversing Ship could be rebuilt. But a super-Talented individual like Liu Zili, with a mutated bloodline and the potential to reach the Harmonization Realm, was a once-in-a-lifetime—perhaps even once-in-an-era—encounter.

The birth of such an incredible bloodline through mutation was a matter of sheer luck. Of course, some preparation was also a prerequisite, but Zuo Xuan didn’t know the specifics. He just had a premonition that Liu Zili’s Talent was heaven-defying and that she could not be let go, no matter what. He even felt that once this woman matured, she would likely surpass most Cultivators of the same Realm—even though he had never seen her fight, and she couldn’t even wake up at present.

For this reason, the Emperor Blue Lizard person in charge of sales couldn’t even find any information about Liu Zili in his system. She was not a product for external sale.

As for the other members of the Blue Star Human Race, they did have some value, but they weren’t particularly expensive for the Three-Life Race. So, the representative sent by Yang Lei simply bought all one hundred-plus of them, paid with resources on the spot, and prepared to take the Cultivators away.

At first glance, they were indeed all female and relatively thin. However, one could still tell from their frames that they fit the aesthetic of most humanoid races. After a period of recuperation, their looks would be quite striking.

Of course, this wasn’t the main point. The representative merely gave them a cursory glance and, after confirming their Realms were all at the Dharma Realm or below, took them away. He returned to the main city managed by the Three-Life Race to report the completion of his task.

Among the group he led away, the eyes of the youngest-looking girl, who stood only 1.5 meters tall, had lost all their light. She was like a living corpse.

Shangguan Yue. For over a decade, she had drifted from Blue Star to the brig of the Eight-direction Reversing Ship, living in constant darkness. The psychological pressure was like Taishan Mountain bearing down on her, crushing her so she couldn’t even lift her head. She saw no sliver of hope and had even come to long for death. But the restrictions aboard the Eight-direction Reversing Ship were too numerous; sometimes, even dying was an unattainable luxury. She even used to wonder, ’Maybe if I get sold as a slave, I can live a slightly better life? At least I could get a full meal?’

In reality, however, that thought had been worn away within her first year on the Eight-direction Reversing Ship. She had overheard many idle conversations from the patrolling Emperor Blue Lizard People, mostly about slaves—what they were used for after being sold, and how cruelly their new masters treated them.

The most disgusting part was that a slave wasn’t considered a living being, but merely a product. In other words, once bought, they were yours to do with as you pleased. You could eat them or play with them however you wished. You could even take their skeletons apart and reassemble them into new toys. Assembling people from different races together was a relatively common pastime; slaves used this way were considered a more "interesting" type of toy, capable of stimulating the perverse desires of certain races.

She had spent over a decade listening to these stories. It had reached the point where she thought, ’It would have been better if I’d been sold to the Celestial Star Arena. All you had to do there was fight; they didn’t go out of their way to torture you. Even if I died, at least it would have been in battle.’

But with her meager combat abilities, she was never even considered. She was a Cultivator focused on research; back then, she had been an expert specializing in the study of Su Fragrance’s refining techniques. She was a far cry from a fighter.

Perhaps it was because of this unique Talent that she hadn’t been sold off as a breeding slave, not until now.

Then again, her Talent wasn’t exactly dazzling. Compared to what the Nine Venerable Great Realm was used to, it just had a slightly different, exotic flavor. Her overall value as a slave still leaned toward the breeding type.