In truth, only a small part of the spirituality in the Jade Pearl Stone had dissipated. Stone monsters found it difficult to gather spirit, but what they did gather would not easily fade.
The real reason was the stone canvas that had formed on the largest piece of Jade Pearl Stone. It had sucked up all the essence, leaving nothing to be refined into Softscent Jade. Without this largest part, there were only small chunks left, and processing used up so much that the amount of Softscent Jade obtained would inevitably drop.
“That’s good too. One block is five thousand coins, and four blocks is twenty thousand.” Wei Tianchong rubbed his hands. “My puppet will be invincible!”
He laughed as he began to daydream about taking his puppet and sweeping through the world.
Tang Jie bluntly said, “You plan on using it all? One block is five thousand! You’re only making one Rank 3 puppet, so even half a block is too much. Leave the rest. I have uses for them.”
Wei Tianchong became frantic. “Why only give me half a block? At least give me an entire block. At worst, I’ll just pay you for the rest of it.”
Tang Jie replied, “It’s not that I don’t want to give it to you, but Softscent Jade is a high-class spiritual material that could even be used in a Rank 7 or 8 puppet. Using it on a Rank 3 puppet is too much of a waste, so leaving some for the future will be better. Moreover, Softscent Jade isn’t particularly tough, so using too much will only lower the toughness of your puppet.”
“Fine,” Wei Tianchong said, forced to agree with Tang Jie’s words.
Shi Meng came up and said, “What about me?”
Looking at the shameless look on his face, Tang Jie chuckled and said, “How is your progress on the Three Corpses Conversion Secret Art that Luo Yue taught you?”
“That secret art is just too difficult, and cultivating it damages the body to little effect. I don’t like it.”
“I’ll give you half a block, but you have to diligently cultivate the Three Corpses Conversion Art. I will need your help soon.”
“With what?”
“You’ll know when the time comes.”
As the three were talking, they gathered up all the Jade Pearl Stone, and it was only after that was done that they left Horserest Lake and returned to the Ayia.
The recent incident had made the Ayia very respectful toward Tang Jie’s group, with some of them even offering gifts as a sign of friendship. Tang Jie and the others took them without much ceremony. While they wouldn’t steal, they wouldn’t push away presents either. With this tribute, they managed to make a small profit even before reaching Watcher River, and their financial situation became much more comfortable.
Everyone proceeded toward Watcher River.
The convoy proceeded west, and not long after leaving Horserest Lake, they spotted a small town, Watcher River Town.
Past Watcher River Town were the Knob Mountains, where violet gold was mined.
The Knob Mountains were an extremely barren region where not even trees grew. All that was there were hillocks of dirt, whence came its name. It was only later on, when a violet gold vein was discovered, that the Knob Mountains became lively. As many miners came, the ordinary Watcher River Village developed into a town.
The discovery of a violet gold vein brought both wealth and bloodshed to the region.
The Knob Mountains had originally belonged to a small sect of Duskland, the Minor Essence Sect, not the Seven Absolutions Sect. After all, while the six major sects ruled the world, it wasn’t like they could deny those small sects a place to put their feet down. In truth, they only occupied the best resource production areas, leaving the vast majority of the land to the minor sects. The minor sects would manage this land and offer tribute.
Jealous for the rich source of violet gold but hindered by the laws set down by the six major sects, the Seven Absolutions Sect secretly incited other sects into attacking the Minor Essence Sect to steal its wealth, and so battle after battle played out in this region. The Minor Essence Sect ultimately couldn’t hold out against the pressure and was forced to give a full account to the Seven Absolutions Sect. It was willing to hand over the ore vein to the Seven Absolutions Sect and take only half of the annual profits.
For half of the profits, the Minor Essence Sect still had to send people every year to supervise the mines. Perhaps this was precisely why the Minor Essence Sect was not particularly strict in its supervision, causing some of the violet gold to be lost every year.
Major sects often did such things. When it had business that couldn’t see the light of day, it would just have other people do the dirty work.
The Heavenly Extinction Sect played this role for the Basking Moon Sect, or else the Basking Moon Sect would not have tolerated it for so long.
When the convoy arrived, as it was the big market season, the entire town was quite bustling. But Tang Jie’s group wasn’t worried about this. The public market wouldn’t have what they sought. Only the secret market would have violet gold.
And to take part in the secret market, they would still have to depend on the merchant convoy.
On their way, Tang Jie had already conversed with the several Ayia caravan masters, and he had learned that the secret market opened at night. Thus, he was in no rush, choosing to stroll around town and find a place to process the Jade Pearl Stone.
Tang Jie had explained that it was probably better to sell off the stone rather than process it. After all, the biggest piece actually couldn’t be processed. But since they were borrowing the Ayia to take part in the secret market, and swindling someone would only bring trouble to the Ayia, they decided to give up on that idea.
Processing the stone wasn’t difficult, and it was a skill belonging to the material extraction field of the Dao of Tools. Tang Jie had been in the Forging Platform for three years, and all he had done was extract materials. Thus, processing this stone was just an appetizer for him.
After four hours, all the Jade Pearl Stone had been processed into several dozen variously sized chunks of Softscent Jade. Tang Jie made some rough calculations and estimated that there were 4.2 blocks.
Softscent Jade was white in color and soft in texture, so it seemed more like white clay than jade. Unlike other materials, it was not refined through fire. Just placing the chunks together would cause them to merge.
This substance was attracted to jade and stone, and so it couldn’t be stored in a jade box, only a metal box. This was its greatest flaw. It was precisely because it could absorb stone that it had a powerful recovery ability, but its defensive properties were lacking, so it was only good for puppets that used stone as their primary material.
Of course, if not for these drawbacks, it would have been worth far more than five thousand coins.
Wei Tianchong’s puppet used White Radiastone as the main material. This stone was tougher than Violet Sandstone, its toughness comparable to metal, but it was lighter. This meant that it was more formidable on defense while also taking less energy, though spiritual energy flowed less smoothly through it than Violet Sandstone.
The result of this was that it became too hard to exhibit the power of the refining formation and had higher demands on the controller.
But these two flaws had never been a problem to Tang Jie and Wei Tianchong. For the former, there was Tang Jie, who could now lay down Grade 4 formations, so he could make a refining formation for a Grade 3 puppet without a problem. As for the latter, there was the Blackwater Soul Possession, which gave Wei Tianchong sufficient control over the puppet.
Once the processing was done, Tang Jie gave half a block to Wei Tianchong, who was overjoyed. With some Violet Gold, his Grade 3 puppet would be unprecedentedly strong.
Night fell, and the secret market that Tang Jie and Wei Tianchong had been looking forward to finally opened.
To their surprise, the secret market wasn’t actually held in the town, but in a manor on the outskirts. This was the property of the Evil Dragon Gang, and in fact, the entire secret market was operated by this gang.
Tang Jie’s group followed the Ayia caravan masters to the manor, which was brightly lit. Two stalwart men stood at the gate, but despite their fierce appearances, they were just mortals.
Yet behind the manor’s ordinary appearance, Tang Jie could still sense faint ripples of spiritual energy from within.
This was normal. The secret market was a place where contraband was sold, and the vast majority of the contraband was actually cultivation resources. Tang Jie would never believe that the Evil Dragon Gang could open a secret market here if they didn’t have a cultivator.
Entering the manor, Tang Jie’s group felt like they were walking into a different world. The manor was vast, and there were stalls set up everywhere. Many things that normally couldn’t see the light of day were on display, their prices clearly marked, and there were numerous people walking around and looking for the items they wanted.
The Ayia had their own things that they needed to buy, so Tang Jie’s group split off from them and began to look around the market, seeing many new and interesting items along the way.
“Tang Jie, look.” Shi Meng pointed at a person passing by.
This man had a face of two colors, split at the bridge of his nose. The left half of his face was indigo while the right half was mauve. It was quite the horrifying face, all in all.
Tang Jie whispered, “Don’t point. That’s rude. He’s a wandering cultivator.”
In this secret market, second only to the merchant caravans were wandering cultivators.
These wandering cultivators had no sect or faction and normally cultivated using methods they had found from some place, with the slightest lack of caution bound to send them down the path of energy corruption. If they didn’t die, they would often suffer from various deformities. This was precisely why there were many strange-looking people among wandering cultivators.
There were some who only reached Spirit Spring after the age of fifty, some were so tall and burly that they seemed more like martial artists than cultivators, and some were horrifyingly deformed. Of course, there were also the richly dressed and fat merchants who were also cultivators…
Shi Meng and Wei Tianchong had been in school for four years and had had barely any chance to interact with wandering cultivators, so this was their first time seeing one. Their understanding of many things was being completely overturned, and they couldn’t help but be amazed.
Wei Tianchong spotted a cultivator in the distance and pointed. “Tang Jie, look! A toad is coming!”
In the direction of Wei Tianchong’s finger was a short and fat man, his face covered in many sores from poisons. He was revolting to behold, and it was no wonder Wei Tianchong had called him a toad.
But Wei Tianchong had clearly spoken too loudly, and that short fatty had heard him.
He looked at Wei Tianchong and shouted, “Seeking death!”
He pointed his finger, and a green liquid shot at Wei Tianchong.
Wei Tianchong was about to block it when Tang Jie pulled him to the side. The green liquid splattered against the ground with a hiss, melting holes through the paving stones.
“Poison?” Wei Tianchong grimaced.
Tang Jie said, “Daoist friend, this young master of mine was rude just now. He was wrong to do this, but this is a little too ruthless and a little harsh of a response, no? As it was my young master who started it, I won’t make trouble, so let’s just let this entire thing go. After all, this is the territory of the Evil Dragons. Getting into a fight will benefit none of us.”
The short fatty was clearly fearful of the Evil Dragons, so after glaring at Tang Jie and Wei Tianchong, he left in a huff.
Wei Tianchong pouted. “So intimidating, and for what!?”
“Shut your mouth,” Tang Jie shot back. “We only just got here and you’re already starting trouble!”
Wei Tianchong knew that he had done wrong, so he could only mutter, “Hey, I’m still your young master. Is that how you speak to your master?”
Tang Jie ignored him and began to look for the things he needed among the stalls.
