Cultivating in a Bizarre World

Ren Qing felt as if the passersby were incorporeal, their physical forms completely intangible. It was truly peculiar.

No wonder it was called the Ghost Market.

He then noticed that all the shops in the Ghost Market had their doors tightly shut. A Forbidden Guard would enter, and the door would close again behind them, which made him curious.

"Old Huang, are all these shops run by the Great Dream True Man?"

"You’ll understand when you see him."

As he spoke, Huang Ziwang stopped in front of a seemingly ordinary shop. The plaque prominently displayed the words "Great Dream Pavilion."

Ren Qing sized up the Great Dream Pavilion. On the surface, it didn’t look much different from Butcher Zhang’s small, dilapidated shop.

There were indeed quite a few Forbidden Guards coming and going, and none of them made any effort to hide their faces.

’Aren’t they afraid of being targeted?’

Huang Ziwang said with a smile, "Go on in and take a look. I’ll wait for you out here."

Just as Ren Qing was about to ask something, Huang Ziwang gave him a hard shove.

He stumbled into the room, and in that instant, it was as if he had entered another world. Even his consciousness wavered for a moment.

Ren Qing couldn’t help but look around the room. The furnishings were magnificent, but they also had a strange, unreal quality.

The beast head mounted on the wall was a deer’s one moment, but in the next, it had changed into a lion’s. The other paintings and calligraphy on display were doing the same.

What surprised Ren Qing the most was that although several people had entered the Great Dream Pavilion, he was now the only one inside the massive shop.

Ren Qing’s gaze fell upon the materials displayed on the counter, and his expression immediately became complicated.

There were lizard tails, fish scales, bone fragments, beast claws...

Suddenly, the light in the room began to flicker erratically.

A figure appeared before Ren Qing, but it wasn’t human. It was composed of countless twisting lights and shadows, and staring at it for too long made him dizzy.

This must be the Great Dream True Man that Huang Ziwang had mentioned. Its form was likely a projection of the Dream Butterfly Skill within the Illusion Realm, which was why it was so far beyond imagination.

Ren Qing’s eyes rested on a piece of grayish-black fur on the counter for a few moments. A throbbing pain suddenly bloomed in his mind, and he learned the material’s price.

[Three Dou, Seven Sheng]

Ren Qing looked as if he’d seen a ghost. Before he could even react, the fur was in his hand, its tough texture palpable against his fingertips.

The Information Flow surged.

[Beast Hide Technique: Created by the Heavenly Incomplete Taoist. Cultivating this technique requires one to possess Beast Blood, flay one’s own skin, and then suture the beast hide in its place to master it.]

He instinctively tried to grab it, but the fur returned to the counter.

As if in a dream!!

’So this is the Great Dream True Man?’

Even though he was wide awake in the real world, the experience felt like a dream to Ren Qing—intensely unreal.

Ren Qing stood there stunned for a long while. The figure of light and shadow seemed to grow impatient, and with a wave of its hand, he was back outside the bustling shop.

A few Forbidden Guards who saw this started laughing. It wasn’t mockery; rather, it was because nearly everyone had a similar first experience.

Huang Ziwang asked teasingly, "So, how was that ’perfectly ordinary’ shop?"

He even put special emphasis on the words "perfectly ordinary."

Ren Qing replied with a wry smile, "Truly worthy of an elder Forbidden Guard at Yin Messenger Realm Perfection. His Divine Powers are unimaginable."

"Hahahahaha."

Huang Ziwang roared with laughter. It was amusing to finally see Ren Qing, who’d had such smooth sailing until now, get taken down a peg.

Ren Qing, coming to his senses, asked, "Why do I get the feeling that the materials sold in the Great Dream Pavilion were originally parts of a Cultivator’s body?"

"That’s right."

Huang Ziwang said with a strange laugh, "Only a small portion comes from the corpses of Cultivators who died in the Forbidden Soldier Hall. The main source is Magic Techniques."

Ren Qing had a sudden realization. "The Forbidden Guards are selling parts of themselves?"

For example, those scales on the counter probably came from some Cultivator who could simply rest and recuperate to grow them back.

The lizard tails must come from a gecko-mutated Cultivator with regenerative abilities.

The source for Beast Blood is even more convenient. The Blood Dog Gang can probably obtain several thousand jin a month, though of course, they aren’t qualified to enter the Forbidden Soldier Hall.

Seeing this, Huang Ziwang reminded him, "But only those Cultivators with no hope of advancement would drain the pond to get the fish. Mutilating yourself like that will damage your foundation."

Ren Qing, of course, understood. Repeatedly cutting off parts of your body in a short period and then using Magic Techniques to stimulate healing...

It probably wasn’t as simple as just damaging one’s foundation. The biggest fear was uncontrolled mutation. The gain truly wasn’t worth the loss.

"Alright, go on into the Great Dream Pavilion and buy your resources. I’m off to get a drink."

After explaining the pros and cons, Huang Ziwang turned and disappeared into the depths of the Ghost Market.

Besides the Great Dream Pavilion, the other shops in the Ghost Market also looked lively, especially the tavern, where more than a dozen Forbidden Guards had gathered outside.

Ren Qing started to speak but then stopped himself. ’Logically speaking,’ he thought, ’my Magic Technique doesn’t seem to be one I can use to earn Blood Crystals.’

’I feel like I’m at a huge loss for not choosing to be a Hundred-eyed Man. If I could just pop out a few eyeballs to sell now and then, I’d be able to break even.’

’Wait a minute, wouldn’t a Bone Maker be able to sell bones...?’

’No, no.’

Ren Qing forcibly suppressed these stray thoughts.

He had already made a plan to use his Spine User abilities to refine a special Magical Artifact, which might help compensate for his shortcomings.

Ren Qing stepped into the Great Dream Pavilion once more. The decor inside had changed slightly, and some of the materials on the counter had been swapped out as well.

He began to browse.

The benefits of the Information Flow were now apparent; he could use it to determine the quality of the materials.

The prices of the materials varied, with the most expensive ones reaching up to a Hundred Stones.

[Life Soul Skill: Originating from the Hundred Souls Taoist. During cultivation, the Three Souls and Seven Spirits automatically condense into a grass seed. It sprouts and emits a strange fragrance that attracts beasts. It can only be mastered after growing for forty-nine days.]

[If harvested before the Soul has fully grown, it can be condensed into Life Soul Grass. Consuming it stabilizes the Soul.]

Stabilizing one’s Soul was extremely useful. It could increase one’s chances of survival when facing tribulations during Realm advancement.

However, to Ren Qing’s disappointment, there were no Beast Eyes on the counter.

He looked at the illusion of the Great Dream True Man and asked cautiously, "Elder Daming, do you have any eyeballs?"

All the materials on the counter vanished, replaced by a large number of jars and pots, all filled with various kinds of eyeballs floating in liquid.

Ren Qing swallowed hard, nearly overwhelmed by the sheer variety.

He noticed that among the types of eyeballs, there was a large quantity of Hundred-eyed Man eyeballs, likely because the No-Eyes Technique was widely circulated.

Of course, their price was also the lowest; one sheng of Blood Crystal could buy quite a few.

Ren Qing wasn’t interested. The materials came from a different mutation path of the same Magic Technique, and who knew what kind of side effects consuming them might cause.

He spent the better part of an hour before finally finding a cost-effective type of eyeball.

This eyeball had a stone-like texture and looked extremely hard. The price wasn’t expensive either.

[Three Sheng]

[Stone Spirit Technique: Created by a stone man. Cultivation requires replacing all the bones in one’s body with rock. When used, it can bestow Spiritual Wisdom upon stone.]

Ren Qing immediately bought a Stone Eye.

He toyed with it for a moment, still hesitant. The Stone Eye looked no different from an ordinary rock. ’Can I even eat this thing?’

The Stone Eye was dug out from a rock that had become a living Creature, so in theory, it shouldn’t be an inanimate object.

After a moment of hesitation, Ren Qing swallowed it. As the Stone Eye slid down into his stomach, a wave of heat far more intense than that from a Beast Eye surged through him.

He made a quick estimation: it would take at least ten days to fully digest the Stone Eye.

’I wonder how much Life Extension it will grant?’

Ren Qing nodded in satisfaction. He would first see if there were any suitable materials for his Lifebound Spiritual Artifact before deciding how many more Stone Eyes to buy.