Walking alone with a sword, slaying ghosts and gods

Chapter 415: A Century of Prosperity and a Century of Popularity

As the sea of ​​clouds on the top of the Black Mountain peaks was dyed golden red by the glow of the setting sun, Tao Zewen was stroking the black gold token in his sleeve with his calloused fingers.

This admission ticket, which was worth four hundred spirit stones, almost cost a year's savings for a casual foundation-building cultivator like him.

"My fellow Daoist, please turn left to verify your card." Inside the pavilion, the patrolling monk in robes raised his hand to gesture, neither humble nor arrogant, and there was no sense of condescension as might be expected.

Turning around the forbidden corridor, Tao Zewen subconsciously took a deep breath at the spiritual energy that came towards him, and in front of him.

The nine-story circular auction hall was suspended above the clouds, with thousands of jade tables scattered around like stars.

The ordinary seats at the bottom level that had no restrictions were now filled with monks of various appearances: the water creatures with tortoise shells on their backs were whispering with the fire creatures with long red hair, and several scaly and toothy fishmen were drinking spiritual tea with the human monks.

The box higher up was shrouded in a hazy light, and the occasional wisp of breath that leaked out made Tao Zewen feel fear and awe.

"Gui 762 seat, please follow me, Immortal Master." Tao Zewen was awakened by the voice of the maid who led the way.

He stumbled after the beautiful maid until he was placed in front of a jade table in the southwest corner. In the jade cup on the table, three "Spiritual Mist Tea Pills" were slowly dissolving, mixed with spiritual energy that could nourish the cultivator's physical body.

"The first item for auction is the Millennium Cold Marrow provided by the Black Sea Aquatics..."

When the auctioneer's voice came from the central jade platform, Tao Zewen was staring at the teacup in a daze. This kind of spiritual tea, which is enough to cause a fight among the lower-level casual cultivators in the outside world, is just the most basic hospitality here. The prosperity of the Black Mountain Market can be vaguely seen.

“…The starting price is eight thousand spirit stones!”

Amid the waves of bidding, Tao Zewen noticed the cloaked monk in front of him on the right.

Every time the other party raised his skinny fingers, the "Black Mountain Tongbao" inlaid on the edge of the table would light up - this was an anonymous bidding tool created by the market, and it was said that even Nascent Soul cultivators could not see through it.

After several rounds of bidding, the price had already reached a fairly high level, and the old voice coming from a box farther away made the whole audience silent:
"Sixty thousand."

The teacup in Tao Zewen's hand trembled slightly, because this price was enough to buy the entire assets of a small immortal cultivation family, and the auction had just begun.

One, two, three...

When the seventh lot, "Earth Core Flame Iron", came on the stage, Tao Zewen could not help but take out the jade slip that recorded it.

These high-level spiritual materials, which are usually monopolized by various forces, are now available for anyone to choose like cabbages in the vegetable market.

He trembled as he wrote down every transaction price, thinking about how to sell the news to small chambers of commerce that could not reach the threshold of the auction and make a profit from it.

Tao Zewen is here to do this, not to participate in the auction.

The crumbs left by giant whales after hunting are enough to provide food and clothing for countless krill. For giant whales, these krill can also help them clean themselves, so they don't care.

At the same time, Lu Cheng stood with his hands behind his back in front of the jade railing of the Zhaixing Pavilion, overlooking the prosperous market below which had already become the "Black Mountain City".

The ruined archway from a hundred years ago has long since turned into a thirty-three-meter-high black iron city gate. The two words "Taiqing" on it are outlined in gold lacquer with thunder patterns, emitting a terrifying aura in the morning light.

On the outer edge of the city defense formation, twelve giant ships were slowly descending.

These ships pulled by giant cloud whales can fly short distances, but most of the time they still sail in the sea, because long-distance sailing consumes too much of the cloud whale's physical strength. At this time, these foreign merchant ships lined up in a long queue and entered the East Market Wharf in an orderly manner under the guidance of the Black Mountain Square patrol monks.

A steady stream of goods is injected into it like blood.

"Brother, this is the third large-scale caravan this month." Chu Yibai came over holding an account book. She was wearing a high-level robe covered in red and green, and had profound magical powers. A hundred years of life had also made her look noble.

"The Red Scale Tribe just exchanged a thousand kilograms of deep-sea cold iron for twenty ships of spiritual grains. Junior Brother Yan Xiao said that if the trade continues like this, the fishmen in the Black Sea will become too fat to swim."

"Fathead fish? That's auspicious."

Lu Cheng chuckled when he heard this and turned his gaze towards the West Market.

Among the thousands of stone buildings there, hundreds of aquatic creatures carrying tortoise shells were bargaining with human merchants.

There was a young boy with a tortoise shell holding tightly onto a bag of magical rice, and he refused to let go even when an old turtle man beside him hit him on the head with a bone stick - these aquatic creatures, which once treasured even brown rice, have now learned to be picky about the quality of the magical rice.

Most turtles are gentle in temperament, and in recent years Black Mountain Market has also been interested in conducting more trade and cooperation with this aquatic tribe.

Whether it is the holding of the auction or the scene before them, it shows that the efforts of Lu Cheng and others over the past hundred years have not been in vain, and this market town has indeed become extremely prosperous.

At the same time, it also brought an endless supply of spiritual resources to Lu Cheng and others.

"Now that this place is prosperous and stable, I should leave. Of course, I have to finish everything I need to do before leaving, so as not to leave too much trouble for Yibai, Yanxiao and the others."

In the Black Mountain Market, inside the best sixth-level spiritual vein cave.

Zhenjun Nong Yan sat cross-legged on the cushion, raised his head and swallowed a handful of magic sand in his hand. In his dantian, a miniature fiery red infant of Zhenjun Nong Yan was spewing out a fire dragon to temper the yellowish magic sand.

The magic sand was burned into pieces, emitting faint golden light that fell on the body of Master Nong Yan.

"These are the last of the divine earth sands. As long as I refine them, I will be able to preserve my true physical form and enjoy at least another two hundred years of immortal bliss..."

The main cultivation method of the Yanhuo Clan is not very advanced. Moreover, after they reached the Nascent Soul stage, they have been fighting with other alien races for years for the sake of their race.

As a result, although Master Nong Yan lived for more than three thousand years, his magical powers were only at the middle stage of the Nascent Soul Realm, and the internal injuries he suffered in his early years seriously affected his lifespan.

After a defeat in a war, he should have been held accountable and punished.

The leader of the Yanhuo tribe sent him to the Black Mountain Market because he had fought for his tribe all his life and made great contributions. He thought it was a remote place where he could spend the rest of his life, but he did not expect that it would be a blessing in disguise. In just over a hundred years, Master Nongyan watched the Black Mountain Market expand seven times and become more and more prosperous.

He also purchased the precious sixth-rank spiritual object, the Wu Earth Magic Sand, through trade routes. With the help of the Wu Earth essence inside, he stabilized the Nascent Soul and allowed True Lord Nong Yan to extend his lifespan.

If he wants to increase his magic power, he must refine the essence of Yi Wood. If he wants to stabilize his physical body and Nascent Soul and prolong his life, he must refine the essence of Wu Earth. There are principles of the operation of the Five Elements in this.

"After two lifetimes of cultivation, I still don't have a chance to achieve the Divine Transformation. What's the use of achieving the Divine Transformation and attaining immortality? Most of them will die under the Three Calamities and Nine Tribulations. It's better to hide away in a straw pile, drink and sleep."

Knowing that his chances of recovering from his internal injuries and breaking through to a higher realm in the future are slim, Master Nong Yan has let it go and only wants to enjoy the rest of his life and fortune.

Several years later, the night was as dark as ink, in a secret cave deep in the Black Mountain peaks.

The Black-Hearted Master sat cross-legged on a throne made of animal bones. His gray, corpse-skin-like face looked even more eerie under the dim green lamplight.

He tapped the armrest with his fingertips, making a dull "thump, thump" sound. The six trusted cultivators in the early and middle Nascent Soul stages below all stood in silence with their heads bowed. A suffocating depression filled the air in the cave.

If it were in the human world, seven Nascent Soul True Lords would be the scale and foundation of a sixth-order large sect. Even in the earthly immortal world, this is also a very impressive force.

"Brothers," the Blackhearted Master suddenly spoke, his voice like sharp objects rubbing against each other, "Heishan Market has been overfed over the past hundred years. How about we go and share some of the money and property for Mr. Lu in a few days?"

The black-robed one-eyed monk on the left laughed grimly, "Big brother is right! We have robbed many of their caravans over the years, and Black Mountain Square dared not even fart. This time, we might as well destroy their lair and let the Taiqing Sect know how powerful we are..."

Hearing the three words "Taiqing Sect", everyone present looked a little stern.

Among them, a middle-aged monk in white robes stepped forward and said:
"Brother, Black Mountain Square has been providing us with abundant offerings over the years. Moreover, robbing the passing caravans is one thing, but if we attack Black Mountain Square, I'm afraid the Taiqing Sect will strike back."

Hearing this, the Blackhearted Master laughed and said:

"As a monk, there is no place without danger. If we want to be safe, we can just go home and hug our women to sleep. Why do we need to practice robbery?
The reason why I stayed in Black Mountain Square for a hundred years is because I saw that Lu Cheng was a man who could get things done. I kept him to accumulate wealth for us. Now the harvest season has come. As long as we can make this deal, we will return to the depths of the Black Sea to practice for hundreds of years, and each of us can make great progress in our paths. How dare the high-level cultivators of the Taiqing Sect enter the depths of the Black Sea and gamble their lives with us?"

"It is not necessarily that each of you will make great progress in your path, but Fellow Daoist Blackheart should have almost enough resources to reach the Divine Transformation stage. If you are ruthless enough to eat up all the loot from the thieves, you will still have a lot of spirit stones in your hands even after you are promoted to the Divine Transformation stage." A clear voice came from the side. Fellow Daoist Blackheart was startled. When he looked sideways, he found that a handsome Taoist was not far away from him.

"Lu Cheng from Heishanfang, how come he suddenly appeared in my secret cave?"

"Go ahead, kill him!" the black-hearted master suddenly gave the order.

However, the cave was eerily silent.

Seeing this, the black-hearted master suddenly turned around and looked at his six confidants. He suddenly laughed wildly and waved his skinny hand violently:
"Okay, okay! I have raised a bunch of ungrateful wolves, but I just can't figure out how many spirit stones did this Lu Fangzhu give you to make you sell me out so unanimously?"

"Do it!"

The six trusted monks of the Black-Hearted Master suddenly shouted in unison, and each of them summoned their own magical weapon to attack their former leader.

The flying sword summoned by the one-eyed monk in black was emitting a bloody stench, and thirty-six bone-piercing nails shot out from the sleeve of the female monk on the right. There were also two people who directly burned their blood and essence to perform forbidden magic techniques!

Among the eight people present, the six who had just betrayed Black Hearted Master wanted him to die the most, because they knew how cruel he was to betrayers.

"You are courting your own death!" The black-hearted man's hair and beard stood up, and a white bone magic ring suddenly flew out from his sleeve.

The Ten Thousand Bones Ring is a top-notch magic weapon. It is rumored that in order to refine it, one must collect the bones of ten thousand successful cultivators, as well as a large amount of essence and blood. After it is refined, it will be extremely powerful. Except for being easy to backfire on its owner, it has both offensive and defensive capabilities, and its magic powers are strange and difficult to defend against.

At this moment, the Ten Thousand Bone Ring swelled to a height of several meters in the wind, with skeletons and souls of tens of thousands of monks flying in it, shrilly screams, and spewing out monstrous black evil.

The one-eyed monk who rushed over first was touched by the black evil, and his defensive magic weapon was unable to stop it. His flesh and skin melted away in an instant, revealing his white bones.

Lu Cheng lightly stroked his fingertips to create a series of barriers, and the next moment the Ten Thousand Bone Ring, with layers of phantoms, fell in front of him as expected.

As long as he killed Lu Cheng, his crisis would be resolved immediately. With the scheming of a black-hearted man, how could he not understand this?
However, Lu Cheng was not careless at all. He set up layer upon layer of defensive talismans and retreated. The black-hearted master wanted to chase and kill him, but the six former trusted subordinates behind him attacked him frantically and held him tightly.

"Ahh! You're looking for death!"

After the robbery of the Black Mountain Market in the past and the meditation and cultivation over the past hundred years, Black Heart Master's magic power has been upgraded to the late Nascent Soul stage.

For a cultivator in cultivation, the late stage of any realm is a great suppression to the early and middle stages.

Because you cannot be sure whether he has taken only one step or has already taken ninety-nine steps, and is only one step away from reaching the next great realm.

boom.

The elegant middle-aged monk in white was the first to be beaten into pieces by the black-hearted master's Ten Thousand Bone Ring.

This guy is the most thoughtful, and the black-hearted people are most wary of him, so naturally they will kill him first.

The second person to die was the beautiful female cultivator who wielded the bone-piercing needle. She had practiced the art of seduction with the Black-Hearted Master and could be considered a couple for a hundred days. Unfortunately, there was a secret door in the protective spell that the Black-Hearted Master gave her, and she failed to detect it. She was provoked during the fight and died instantly.

"Ah!" Another trusted monk had his dantian crushed by the Ten Thousand Bone Ring. Before he died, he inserted his natal flying sword into the shoulder of the Black-Hearted Master.

The old demon roared in pain, and with his backhand claw he crushed the guy's crown. Red and white stuff splashed on the rock wall with a sizzling sound, indicating that he had been poisoned.

Although the Black-hearted Master did not practice both Dharma and body, it was obvious that he had used some secret method to refine his body, so his body was strong and quite impressive.

At the end of the battle, all six of Jie Xiu's trusted monks were killed, and the floor of the cave was covered with broken flesh and bones.

The black-hearted man leaned against the stone wall and panted violently, but he still stared at Lu Cheng and said hatefully: "Young man, tell me, how did you make these people so devoted to you? Let me learn from you."

"In fact, I didn't pay a single spiritual stone, but you, black-hearted Taoist friend, really don't understand human nature. Over the past hundred years, you have distributed most of the spiritual stones to the six of them, in order to use them today and to obtain the resources for the transformation of the gods, although I think you also intend to kill them all in the end and eat them all for yourself.

But your hundred years of support have made them fat and bloated, but you forgot that a well-fed wolf is just a dog, and only a hungry wolf will bite.

Once they have enough spirit stones, they all want a sense of security. You can never give them that, but I can.

No one wants to keep practicing with you, wandering around, being hunted down by big sects everywhere. They also want to enjoy their wealth and lifespan. Of course, it would be even better if they could enjoy it openly and safely.

Don’t you think so, Fellow Daoist Feng?

Lu Cheng suddenly said these words towards a direction in the cave.

The Blackhearted Master was stunned when he saw this. After a moment, the middle-aged monk in white who was killed by the Blackhearted Master stepped out from a stone. He was not dead. He had just performed a death-substitution secret technique, but was exposed by Lu Cheng.

"Fellow Daoist, there is no need to hide like this. Although I am ruthless, I always keep my promises. Even if you fail to do what we agreed on this time, I will still allow you, a rich man, to do it. As long as you don't commit any more crimes in the future, I will forgive you."

"Thank you, Master. Thank you, Master!"

Feng Xiu Lun saluted repeatedly, but at the same time protected himself with defensive magic weapons to avoid the murderous eyes of the black-hearted master.

"die!"

The Black-Hearted Master took advantage of this conversation to recover a little, and suddenly summoned the Ten Thousand Bones Ring again, striking down on Lu Cheng.

Faced with this, Lu Cheng made a hand gesture, and suddenly the cave was filled with light. One hundred and twenty-four thousand six hundred light talismans emerged from the void, completely destroying the black evil that was gushing out of the Ten Thousand Bones Ring.

A phantom of a platinum pill appeared between his brows, and then the fetus transformed into a Nascent Soul, revealing the image of a shrunken Nascent Soul. This was the manifestation of the Nascent Soul cultivated by the Taiqing Xuanshu Secret Light Talisman Sutra.

“Impossible!” The black-hearted man’s eyes were red with anger. “It’s only been a hundred years since you shattered your golden elixir. When did you become a Nascent Soul… You are a Tribulation Reincarnation cultivator!”

"After all, I am just a calamity cultivator. It is impossible for me to go to Xuandu City to find out my roots. Today, fellow Daoist, just go on your journey with peace of mind."

The old demon suddenly jumped up, and the Ten Thousand Bone Rings transformed into nine magical bone dragons that suddenly pounced on him. At the same time, the old demon took out a magic talisman in his hand, and it was unclear whether it was for attack, defense, or to escape into the void.

Seeing this, Lu Cheng did not dodge or evade, but slipped out a purple lightning talisman from his sleeve. The moment the talisman was activated, the entire cave was illuminated by lightning as bright as day, and in an instant, the nine magical bone dragons were swallowed up.

It was a sixth-level top-grade thunder talisman that could destroy all evil spirits.

Boom!

Amid the roar of the landslide, Lu Cheng's voice could be heard clearly: "...I've been waiting for the night when you all gather together."

When the lightning faded away, most of the cave had collapsed.

The Black-Hearted Master was half-kneeling among the rubble. His Ten Thousand Bone Ring had already fallen to the ground and was seriously damaged. If he had used all his magic power to fight against Lu Cheng, this would not have happened.

The most bizarre thing was that the deity-level talisman in the black-hearted master's hand was not activated. Instead, it greatly devoured his magic power, causing his magic power to backfire.

The Blackhearted Master raised his head tremblingly: "Just now...what secret technique did you use?"

"That's right. The combination of the 'Taiqing Nine-Turn Golden Elixir Technique' and the 'Taiqing Mysterious Pivot Secret Bright Talisman Sutra', what I have cultivated in the Nascent Soul Realm is 'Talisman Transforms the Heaven and Earth, the All-Purpose Talisman Body'. If you use the talisman in front of me in your current state, the backlash of your magic power is inevitable."

Hearing this, the black-hearted man finally spat out his last mouthful of black blood. He never believed in fate in his life, and at the last moment he refused to believe that he died by destiny. Lu Cheng respected his merits and deeds in this life and gave him the real answer.

"Let's go. From now on, you will be the chief inspector of Black Mountain Square. As long as you work hard, I will promise you a prosperous Feng family."

"I will serve you at your service and will not hesitate to die for you!" Feng Xiu Lun bowed repeatedly, showing his utmost respect and humility.

(End of this chapter)