Huangyuan Marketplace had a specially designated area for Independent Cultivators to trade. The daily stall fee was just one Spirit Crystal, equivalent to a tenth of a Spirit Stone.
With the Law Enforcement Team maintaining order, both Independent Cultivators and those from cultivator families in the surrounding area would come here to trade.
Yang Jing sold nearly all his Talisman Paper from a simple, mobile stall he set up here. Today, even after selling out, he lingered, for he was looking for someone.
Dressed in a straw cloak, he feigned the air of a bored Independent Cultivator just wandering about. His eyes, however, were purposefully scanning the other Cultivators on the street, searching for his target.
Suddenly, Yang Jing's eyes lit up. He had spotted his target.
It was an inconspicuous stall tucked away in a corner. Behind it sat a decrepit old man, his face as sallow as parchment. He was hunched over and exuded the musty odor characteristic of old age.
The old man's stall was covered in a pile of unremarkable odds and ends: herbs picked from nearby Huangyuan Mountain, unidentifiable ores, fragments of Magical Artifacts, and a few hand-written, thread-bound books. At his feet lay a small black puppy on an iron chain.
The black puppy looked to be only about twenty days old, with a stocky head and chubby limbs, its tail curled into a ball. Two spots of yellow fur above its brows made it look as if it had four eyes. A ring of yellow fur encircled its muzzle, and while most of its coat was black, its chest and four paws were yellow.
Yang Jing casually ambled over with the crowd, even stopping at a nearby stall to haggle over and purchase a bottle of Fasting Pills.
He stopped before the old man's stall, first examining the quality of the herbs. They were all common plants, of limited use to Cultivators. The ore was a chunk of Iron Mother encased in a layer of ordinary Iron Ore, making it appear mundane. If refined with a Spiritual Fire, it could likely yield a few pounds of Iron Essence, worth at least twenty Spirit Stones.
In the game *Nine Heavens*, players had access to much safer trading platforms, and their transaction volume was dozens of times greater than that of Cultivators. This meant that as a veteran player, Yang Jing's eye for appraisal was far superior to that of the average Independent Cultivator.
"What's this book?"
He looked at the thread-bound book by the old man's hand with great interest.
"The Twenty-Four Solar Terms Swordsmanship."
"A Sword Cultivator's Technique? Amazing. May I have a look at a few pages?"
The old man explained, a hint of obsequiousness in his voice.
"It's not a Sword Cultivator's Technique. It's a Mortal Sword Technique I created myself."
Yang Jing's expression immediately soured, his interest clearly waning.
Using the Spiritual Eye Technique within the Marketplace would make one a suspected Tribulation Cultivator. And when one was practicing Spiritual Concealment, it was nearly impossible to tell the difference between a Cultivator and an Innate Martial Artist.
There were quite a few Innate Martial Artists in Huangyuan Marketplace. Cultivators in the Early Stage of Qi Cultivation had limited Magical Power, so without using Talismans or Magical Artifacts, there was no fundamental gap in power between them and Innate Martial Artists. For this reason, Cultivators would sometimes hire Innate Martial Artists to hunt Demons and gather Spirit Plants with them.
"I created this Twenty-four Solar Terms Sword based on a fragmented Sword Cultivator manual. Its power is unmatched among Innate Martial Arts. I only wish to trade it for a Qi Cultivation Stage Cultivation Technique. If, by some stroke of luck, my children or grandchildren are born with a Spirit Root, it would give them a chance to rise far above their station."
A look of fervent hope appeared on the old man's face.
"Some of the younger generation in my family lack a Spirit Root, so a powerful Sword Technique would certainly be useful. But a Mortal Sword Technique is not worth a Cultivation Technique."
Yang Jing shook his head.
'Even though he knew the trade was worth it, this old man was no simple character. Agreeing too quickly would only make him suspicious. Besides, the Twenty-four Solar Terms Sword wasn't his main objective.'
He knew the old man's true story. He was no charitable soul, nor did he have any descendants. The old man's real name was Li Jixun, and he was a member of the Wei Kingdom's Royal Family.
Though Li Jixun lacked a Spirit Root, his Talent for Martial Arts was nothing short of legendary, allowing him to reach the Innate Realm before the age of twenty. Unfortunately, the path of Martial Arts was a dead end. After a century, even an Innate Martial Artist would be nothing but a pile of yellow earth.
To break through the limits of a mortal, he had secretly built a great prison in the Wei Kingdom, capturing Martial Artists to conduct all sorts of human experiments. A few Independent Cultivators in the Early Stage of Qi Cultivation were even among his victims. Over several decades, more than three hundred people fell prey to him, but his deeds only caused a major uproar when a direct descendant of the Li Family—a Cultivation Great Race in the Wei Kingdom—was killed.
By that time, however, Li Jixun had already used a Pioneer Order from the Six Great Sects to escape to the Chen Kingdom.
The Li Family was the Royal Family of the Wei Kingdom. The murdered princess possessed an Upper Grade Water Spirit Root and, by generation, was considered Li Jixun's own niece. He had attacked her because he was trying to develop a technique to transplant Spirit Roots.
Naturally, the technique failed. For millennia, countless mighty experts with knowledge and resources far surpassing Li Jixun's had tried and failed. For a mere mortal Martial Artist to think he could develop a Spirit Root transplant technique in just a few decades was pure fantasy.
But Li Jixun was an indomitable man. After failing to transplant a Cultivator's Spirit Root, he didn't give up. Instead, he turned his sights to Demons. If he couldn't become a Cultivator, then he would stop being human. Becoming a Demon was another way to transcend the limits of life and achieve immortality.
Upon arriving in the Chen Kingdom, he secretly slipped past the Six Passes Defense Line and ventured into the wilderness to throw in his lot with the demon tribes.
His Secret Technique for transplanting Spirit Roots had failed, but when he changed his approach to a Secret Technique for transplanting Demon Blood, he saw a glimmer of hope.
Yang Jing knew that this currently inconspicuous Li Jixun would succeed in fifteen years, transforming into a full-fledged Demon. The demons would then use his Secret Technique to lure and convert large numbers of Innate Martial Artists and Independent Cultivators, completely upsetting the balance of power on both sides of the Six Passes Defense Line.
A century later, Li Jixun himself would become a Demon King powerful enough to rival Golden Core Cultivators, and he would go on to annihilate the Li Family of Wei.
In the game *Nine Heavens*, without the intervention of a massive number of players, the Six Great Sects of the Western Continent would have been utterly destroyed.
Right now, however, Li Jixun was merely a spy for the demons, under orders from a Great Demon to gather intelligence on the Chen Kingdom.
Because he had presented his research materials from the Wei Kingdom, he was held in high regard by the Great Demon. To facilitate his investigation of Arrays, the Great Demon had even gifted him a Mingyi Dog pup.
Yang Jing's eyes inconspicuously swept over the little black puppy.
[Name]: Mingyi Dog (Celestial Demon Descendant)
[Species Level]: Rare
[Power]: Mortal Body
[Talent]: Bright Qi (Legendary), High-level True Demon Body (Rare)
[Cultivation Technique]: None
[Skill]: None
[Affinity]: 8
'This was from the little game he used to play, *Beast Taming Battle*. The main gameplay involved contracting various Guardian Beasts to battle online.'
For a Rare-level Guardian Beast like the Mingyi Dog to possess a Legendary-level Talent was exceptionally precious.
The reason Yang Jing went to such great lengths to approach a dangerous figure like Li Jixun was precisely for this Mingyi Dog. A Mingyi Dog possessed the Bright Qi Talent, an innate ability to distinguish subtle differences between various types of Spiritual Qi and perceive Spiritual Mechanisms. By bringing it into Huangyuan Marketplace, Li Jixun could use it to covertly monitor the flow of Spiritual Qi in the Array and find its weaknesses.
Although the Mingyi Dog's ancestry included a Celestial Demon who had succeeded in Breaking the Boundary and ascending, fortune rarely lasts more than five generations. The bloodline had long since declined and withered, forcing them to rely on the protection of a Demon King.
This newborn pup naturally didn't have such abilities yet. However, for an Innate Martial Artist like Li Jixun, carrying a Little Demon around would be far too conspicuous. A newborn puppy, on the other hand, was perfectly normal.
A Mingyi Dog with no Demon Qi in its body was virtually indistinguishable from an ordinary mutt and wouldn't attract the attention of the Cultivators at the Six Passes Defense Line.
"I have a Cultivation Technique called the Five Talisman Scripture. Anyone can practice it, regardless of their Spirit Root or Talent. If you can add another eight Spirit Stones to the deal, I'll trade with you."