Chapter 340 - 329: Grand Trade Fair
Yunyang Marketplace was several times larger than Mist Forest Marketplace.
When Li Yuan entered through the south gate, a section of the stone walls on either side of the main street had been temporarily dismantled, revealing a large, cleared-out open space behind them. On this empty ground, bronze pillars etched with Array Patterns marked out over a hundred square areas, each one a market stall.
Crowds of people swarmed in from all directions.
Li Yuan did a quick visual sweep. At the south gate entrance alone, nearly two hundred Cultivators were lined up waiting to be inspected. There were Loose Cultivators, disciples from various families, traveling merchants, and Artifact Refiners—all sorts of people. Many of them still carried the lingering Spiritual Power fluctuations from their journey, a clear sign they had rushed here overnight from other strongholds.
The Primordial Yang Sect’s grand trade fair had attracted a great number of people. The more people who came, the more other Cultivators were willing to come and trade.
Plus, the Primordial Yang Sect was known to release some valuable items at these fairs.
His Divine Sense Lines spread silently through the crowd.
The security was far stricter than at a regular market. Around the perimeter of the trading area, a Cultivator stood guard every twenty zhang, and all of them possessed the aura of the Qi Refining Ninth Level.
And in the tall buildings and dark corners further out, he could sense at least seven or eight spiritual pressures of the Foundation Establishment Stage lying in wait. They remained hidden, not revealing their presence, yet they kept the entire trading area under tight surveillance.
Yunyang Marketplace’s own Defensive Array was also operating at full power. The Spiritual Power pulse from the Breath-Sensing Array swept through the area once every ten breaths.
Li Yuan retracted his Divine Sense and followed the flow of the crowd into the trading area.
In the very center of the trading area, the Primordial Yang Sect had occupied an entire row of stalls.
The stalls displayed all sorts of Sect supplies, from basic Spirit Stone exchanges to Middle Tier Magical Artifacts—a complete assortment. In the most prominent spot sat several white jade bottles affixed with Sealing Spirit Talismans. Vermilion labels were stuck to the bottles’ sides.
Realm-Breaking Pills. Auxiliary pills used by Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivators when trying to break through a bottleneck.
Quite a few Cultivators were gathered around, looking on. During wartime, the price of such pills would only rise, but the Sect’s listed price was relatively low. There was bound to be a scramble for them.
Li Yuan glanced at them and walked past.
He was already at the Late-stage Foundation Establishment, and these pills didn’t have any equipable attribute entries, so they were worthless to him.
He headed straight for the west side of the trading area, found the section of stalls reserved by the administration for Array Masters from the various marketplaces, presented his plaque from Mist Forest Marketplace, and claimed a spot near a main walkway.
The stall wasn’t large, but its location was excellent, with a high volume of foot traffic passing by.
Li Yuan took out the pills he had prepared from his storage bag and arranged them on the stall by category.
He placed the Vessel Continuation Pills in the front row, the cyan jade bottles neatly arranged, each containing three pills. Gathering Essence Pills and Healing Pills were placed on either side, while the Soul Condensing Pills, being the fewest in number, were set off in a corner by themselves.
He didn’t hawk his wares, simply writing the product names and prices on a wooden sign in front of his stall.
He priced the Vessel Continuation Pills thirty percent higher than the marketplace’s retail price, but a fair bit lower than the quotes from other Pill Masters at the trade fair.
His first customer arrived less than a quarter of an hour after he had finished setting up.
It was a family Cultivator at the Early-stage Foundation Establishment, his face weary. The family crest on his daoist robe was mostly faded. He picked up a bottle of Vessel Continuation Pills, uncorked it, and brought it to his nose for a sniff. His eyes suddenly lit up.
"The quality is good," he said, looking up at Li Yuan. "Six bottles of Vessel Continuation Pills and four bottles of Healing Pills. What’s the total?"
Li Yuan stated the price.
The man didn’t haggle. He pulled Spirit Stones directly from his sleeve, counted them out, and pushed them over.
This was only the beginning.
News traveled fast. In less than an hour, a crowd had formed around Li Yuan’s stall.
The demand for pills during wartime had been suppressed for far too long. Cultivators who had fled from Yunzhou clutched their Spirit Stones but couldn’t find anything to buy, as the internal pill supply of the marketplaces couldn’t keep up with the influx of people. Now that a large batch of essential wartime pills had finally appeared at the trade fair—at prices more reasonable than other Pill Masters’—the Cultivators were practically lunging at his stall.
The Vessel Continuation Pills sold the fastest.
These pills could repair meridian damage, making them a life-saving necessity for Cultivators who had suffered internal injuries during their escape. The low and medium-grade Vessel Continuation Pills Li Yuan brought were completely sold out within four hours. Even the empty bottles on his stall were snatched up.
The Healing Pills were cleared out soon after.
The Gathering Essence Pills and Soul Condensing Pills, being more expensive, sold a bit more slowly, but by the afternoon, the majority of them were gone as well.
Li Yuan put the last few bottles of Soul Condensing Pills back into his storage bag, keeping them for his own use.
His stall was empty, but the Spirit Stones in his storage bag weighed heavily on his wrist.
After selling off the pills he had accumulated over the past few days, a rough calculation showed that the Spirit Stones he had earned in just half a day were nearly equivalent to two months of revenue from his shop in Mist Forest Marketplace.
Li Yuan packed up his stall and walked deeper into the trading area.
With the pills sold, it was time for his real business.
He walked past row after row of stalls, his gaze sweeping quickly over each one. Most stalls displayed conventional goods. Occasionally, he’d spot a Magical Artifact or Spirit Medicine of decent quality, but none were what he was looking for.
When he reached the northeast corner of the trading area, Li Yuan stopped.
The stalls in this area were noticeably quieter. Most were run by elderly Loose Cultivators, and the items on display were far more disorderly: damaged jade slips, incomplete cultivation technique scrolls, chipped Array Discs, and even a few beast bones of unknown origin.
Li Yuan’s gaze fell on the stall of an old Cultivator with graying hair and a beard.
The old Cultivator was dozing off, leaning against a stone pillar behind him. A dozen or so items were sparsely arranged on a gray cloth in front of him. A few jade slips were casually piled together, covered in a thin layer of dust.
Li Yuan crouched down and picked up one of the jade slips.
The jade slip was made of a coarse material and had a fine crack along one edge. He sent his Divine Sense inside, and a large amount of information flooded his mind.
A Tier Two Body Refining Technique. A complete one.
It was called the Mystic Iron Bone Forging Skill.
Li Yuan injected his Divine Sense, mentally tracing the rough cultivation path described in the portion outside the Restriction.
After being drawn from the Dantian, the Spiritual Power didn’t follow the conventional ends of the meridians. Instead, it permeated outward directly along the marrow channels in the center of the bones. From marrow to bone, and from bone to periosteum, it tempered the body layer by layer, from the inside out.
It was completely different from the Nameless Body Refining Technique’s path through muscles and flesh.
It was also completely different from the Iron Wall Body Refining Skill’s path along the outer layers of skin and bone.
The three techniques each used their own pathways and didn’t conflict with one another.
Li Yuan withdrew his Divine Sense from the jade slip and looked up at the old Cultivator.
His movements had already woken the old man, who sat up, rubbing his eyes.
"This jade slip, how much are you selling it for?"
The old Cultivator squinted at the item in Li Yuan’s hand, then waved his own hand dismissively.
"One thousand Spirit Stones."
Li Yuan haggled the price down to eight hundred Spirit Stones, then handed them over and placed the jade slip into his storage bag.
Eight hundred Spirit Stones. A complete Tier Two Body Refining Technique would normally fetch at least a thousand on the market. But with wartime prices crashing, and this technique having an extremely high cultivation threshold—requiring a profound Body Refining foundation just to begin—it was of little use to ordinary Loose Cultivators, so it naturally couldn’t sell for a high price.
But for Li Yuan, this was the final piece of the puzzle he was missing.
Li Yuan put the jade slip away safely and continued to wander through the trading area.
For the better part of the day, he scoured almost the entire trading area.
Array-Stabilizing Copper Essence. Bought.
Stabilizing Spirit Sand. Bought.
He bought up every one of the dozens of low and middle-tier auxiliary medicines for the Upper Element Pill formula that he came across at the stalls.
Body Refining pills, whether it was Tier One Qi Blood Pills or Tier Two Iron Wall Pills, he bought them as long as the price was right.
He didn’t pass up on broken Array Disc bases, scrapped Artifact Refining waste, or even a few fragments of Spirit-Guiding Stones being sold as scrap metal. After being melted down, all these things could be repurposed.
Because the trade fair had a concentrated supply of goods that exceeded demand, a large number of Cultivators were desperate to sell their items for life-saving Spirit Stones. As a result, the prices of almost all materials were twenty to thirty percent lower than usual.
Li Yuan was an extremely decisive buyer. If he saw something he wanted, he paid with Spirit Stones directly, without haggling. The sellers were happy to take the money, and neither side wasted any time.
Toward the end, he stopped spending Spirit Stones altogether. Instead, he took out an ironwood box from his storage bag and lifted the lid.
Inside, more than twenty high-quality Fire Evil Stones shimmered with a dark red luster under the light of the array lamps.
"This batch of Fire Evil Stones has an extremely uniform fusion of Fire Spiritual Power and Evil Qi. Their quality meets the standard for Tier Two Artifact Refining materials." Li Yuan pushed the ironwood box in front of a Loose Cultivator who was an Artifact Refiner. "I’ll trade them for the Mystic Wind Iron and Red Patterned Iron you have."
The Loose Cultivator picked up a Fire Evil Stone and examined it over and over for a long time. Finally, gritting his teeth, he pushed over most of the Artifact Refining materials on his stall.
Li Yuan traded with the Fire Evil Stones for three rounds, and the Artifact Refining materials he received filled half a corner of his storage bag.
As evening approached, he ran into Ji Huaiyuan at the eastern entrance of the trading area.
Two young disciples of the Ji family followed behind Ji Huaiyuan, each carrying a heavy cloth sack.
"Perfect timing." Li Yuan waved him over, pulling Ji Huaiyuan to an empty stall nearby.
He took out the batch of Artifact Refining materials he had acquired today by trading the Fire Evil Stones and laid them out in a row on the stall.
Mystic Wind Iron, Red Patterned Iron, Melting Spirit Sand, and Earth Marrow Stone—they were the very items Ji Huaiyuan had listed for him last time. The quantity wasn’t huge, but the quality of each was medium-grade or higher.
Ji Huaiyuan’s gaze swept over the materials, a flash of pleasant surprise in his eyes.
"You got all of these?"
"I traded for them at the fair. I’m prepared to sell a portion to the Ji family."
Ji Huaiyuan didn’t hesitate, immediately counting out Spirit Stones to complete the transaction. The two disciples packed the materials into their storage bags.
He had spent a huge amount of Spirit Stones, but the things he got in return were far more valuable.
Body Refining Techniques, array materials, pill-making ingredients, Artifact Refining scraps—every single item was a hard asset for his future cultivation and business endeavors.
As darkness fell, the bustle of the trade fair’s first day gradually died down. Li Yuan got a temporary room at an inn in Yunyang Marketplace, closed and bolted the door, and sat cross-legged on the bed.
He took the coarse jade slip from his storage bag, sent his Divine Sense into it, and began to carefully study every detail of the Mystic Iron Bone Forging Skill’s cultivation method.