Chapter 475: Underwater Trade
After refining the two Magical Artifacts, Li Yuan didn’t immediately head north.
The refinement of his Spirit Veins had been made permanent, and the triangular cycle formed by the three portable Spirit Veins within his body ran stably. However, two of the three were miniature Spirit Veins from the open sea, with limited Spiritual Qi flow. The third, a branch vein from Mozhou, was thicker, yet the overall supply still had room for improvement.
Refining a few more miniature Spirit Veins wouldn’t change the cycle’s structure, but it would increase the total Spiritual Qi supply.
He had already scouted the distribution of seabed Spirit Veins near Nanyuan District once before. The large and medium-sized ones were all claimed, while the remaining miniature Spirit Veins were scattered sparsely throughout the deep waters of the open sea.
Li Yuan plunged into the sea from the Nanyuan District docks.
The permanent trait, Swift Water Escape, activated the instant he entered the water, granting his body an extremely high affinity with the sea. Water Vein Survey clearly mapped the currents for several hundred zhang around him in his Sea of Consciousness, while Subtle Vein Sense further extended his perception of the Spirit Veins’ paths and the location of their “eyes.”
He searched along the seabed rock formations, heading out toward the open sea.
During his previous journey from Liangzhou to Shuizhou, extensive practice traversing the Spiritless District and high mountain ranges had led to remarkable progress in his Teleportation Skill. His Late-stage Golden Core Divine Sense, augmented by the Profound Nether Bead’s Nascent Soul-level perception of spatial structures, pushed each teleportation closer to the limits of precision and speed.
Traveling through water, however, brought new insights.
Water is far denser than air. When using the Teleportation Skill underwater, tearing open a spatial tunnel required overcoming additional fluid resistance, demanding greater precision and timing in the injection of Spiritual Power. This repeated practice in a high-pressure environment was like weight training; when Li Yuan returned to a normal environment, the fluidity and response speed of his skill had clearly improved.
The distance of each teleportation steadily increased from ten zhang to twelve, and then to fourteen. The spatial tunnels formed faster and faster, the telltale signs of activation growing briefer, until at a certain moment, the tearing sensation vanished completely.
[Teleportation Skill: Minor Achievement → Great Success]
After reaching Great Success, the Teleportation Skill’s range stabilized at around fifteen zhang. The casting process had almost no perceptible precursor, and even the Spiritual Wave was compressed to an extremely low level.
The condition to make the Teleportation Stone permanent was perfecting two spatial Magics. Void-Splitting Slash was already perfected, and with the Teleportation Skill at Great Success, it was just one step away from that final stage.
After venturing about thirty li deeper into the open sea, cultivator activity on the seabed increased noticeably.
Figures constantly flitted through the water. Most were Foundation Establishment Level cultivators in various kinds of attire. Some held Water-Repelling Beads, searching among the seabed rock formations, while others rode Water Element Magical Artifacts, rummaging through the reefs. Occasionally, one might see a group of two or three, warily sizing up other cultivators in the vicinity.
Li Yuan swept his Dark Evil Insight across their auras.
The vast majority were cultivator guards from the various merchant ships. With the trade convention about to be held, a large number of merchant vessels had converged on Nanyuan District. In their spare time, the cultivator guards from these ships came down to the water to try their luck.
Li Yuan bypassed these people and continued into deeper waters.
After venturing another hundred li deeper, the seabed terrain began to change.
The terrain changed from a flat, sandy seabed to an undulating volcanic landscape, with black, columnar rocks rising up as densely as a forest. The currents between the pillars formed complex turbulence, and the Spiritual Qi concentration was significantly higher than in the waters closer to shore.
He was approaching the territory controlled by the island factions.
The density of cultivators was, paradoxically, even higher here.
He searched for about another hour.
His web of perception caught an anomaly.
Between two giant rock pillars about two hundred zhang ahead, there was an extremely subtle Spiritual Wave. Its frequency was different from a cultivator’s typical protective aura; it was a highly regular, pulsed output, radiating outward rhythmically like a heartbeat.
An Array.
Li Yuan slowed down, stopping about a hundred zhang away.
A small, extremely well-hidden Array was laid out on the seabed between the two rock pillars. Its coverage wasn’t large—a radius of about ten zhang—but it was exceptionally well concealed. If not for his Dark Evil Insight working in tandem with the permanent trait Array Base Retrospection, it would have been difficult to detect its existence from this distance.
Inside the Array, a small Spirit Vein was being drained.
The Spirit Vein was slightly larger than the two miniature ones from the open sea that Li Yuan had previously refined. It had a diameter of about a foot and a low-to-medium Spiritual Qi flow.
A cultivator sat cross-legged on the rock surface directly above the Spirit Vein, his hands pressed against its “eye.” He was using a special Cultivation Technique to extract the Spiritual Qi from the Spirit Vein and compress it into a fist-sized, turquoise container.
The man’s Cultivation was at Late-stage Foundation Establishment, and his aura carried the salty tang of someone long-immersed in the sea. He wore a short, deep-blue sharkskin tunic, its craftsmanship far superior to the crude garments of an ordinary sailor. He bore no insignia of any faction.
Extracting and reselling Spirit Veins was a common livelihood for Loose Cultivators in the open sea. Miniature and small Spirit Veins weren’t worth developing in the eyes of the island factions, but for a Loose Cultivator, the compressed Spiritual Qi from a single vein could support several months of cultivation. Selling it to an interested client yielded a considerable profit.
But not just anyone could get into this line of work; it typically required a combination of Magical Artifacts, Arrays, and specific Cultivation Techniques.
Li Yuan waited from a hundred zhang away for about a quarter of an hour.
After the man finished extracting the Spiritual Qi from the Spirit Vein, he put away the turquoise container, stood up, and began dismantling the Concealment Array.
His movements were extremely practiced; clearly, this wasn’t his first time.
After dismantling the Array, the man turned, and his gaze landed in Li Yuan’s direction.
He froze.
A Late-stage Foundation Establishment Cultivator’s perception was limited underwater, so he only just now realized someone had been watching him from a hundred zhang away. His hand immediately went to the Magical Artifact at his waist, and a cold, wary glint flashed in his eyes.
Li Yuan raised both hands to show he meant no harm and slowly approached.
“No need to be nervous, Fellow Cultivator.” He stopped fifty zhang away. “I’m not looking for trouble.”
The man sized him up for a few moments.
Li Yuan’s suppressed Late-stage Foundation Establishment aura made the man relax his guard slightly. ‘A lone cultivator of the same rank… meeting in a place like this, he’s probably also looking for Spirit Veins.’
“What do you want?” the man asked, his voice hoarse and his words clipped.
“I want to buy Spirit Veins,” Li Yuan said directly. “Miniature or small, either will do.”
The look in the man’s eyes changed.
Wariness was quickly replaced by a shrewd business sense. He looked Li Yuan up and down, his gaze lingering for a moment on the storage pouch at his waist.
“What do you want Spirit Veins for?”
“For cultivation.”
The man fell silent for a few moments, seemingly judging Li Yuan’s origins and trustworthiness. In the end, his mercantile instincts overcame his caution.
He took three turquoise containers from a special storage pouch at his waist and lined them up in his palm.
“Three small Spirit Veins. The quality is decent, with Spiritual Qi purity over seventy percent.” He tapped the leftmost container with his fingernail. “This one is partial to the Water Element and has the highest Spiritual Qi flow. The middle one is a Mixed Spiritual Vein, with a bit of every attribute. The one on the right has a slight Metal Element affinity and the lowest flow.”
“How much?”
“Six hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones for the lot.”
‘The price isn’t low.’ A single miniature Spirit Vein went for about eighty to one hundred Mid-grade Spirit Stones on the Nanyuan District black market. Six hundred for three small Spirit Veins was a premium of about thirty percent.
‘But he clearly knows that anyone willing to pay a premium for Spirit Veins out here on the seabed isn’t someone who’s short on Spirit Stones.’
“Deal.”
Li Yuan took the Spirit Stones from his storage pouch and completed the transaction. He stored the three turquoise containers in his personal space.
The other man put away the Spirit Stones, a satisfied smile appearing on his face.
“A pleasure doing business with you.”
He gave a cupped-fist salute, then his figure blurred and shot away through the rock pillars toward the open sea.
Li Yuan didn’t leave immediately.
He closed his eyes, sweeping his perception net from Dark Evil Insight over his own body.
An extremely faint spiritual imprint had been left on him.
The imprint’s spiritual frequency perfectly matched the fluctuations of the Loose Cultivator’s Cultivation Technique. It was a tracking marker, secretly placed the instant their hands touched during the transaction.
‘A skillful technique. Not easy for a Foundation Establishment Cultivator to notice.’
Li Yuan didn’t remove the imprint, nor did he turn back to pursue the Loose Cultivator.
The thought of going fishing began to surface.