Immortality and Cultivation: Starting with Harvesting the Talents of Demonic Beasts

Chapter 80 The Black Market in the Valley
Lin Changheng's eyes flickered slightly. He squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil, and tried to communicate with the Yuan Ding in his mind, but there was no response.

He couldn't help but shake his head.

Even with a deep breath, I couldn't smell a trace of the lingering scent of demonic beast blood. Perhaps it had all dissipated over the past century, or perhaps the whole thing was just a fabrication.

"Fellow Daoist, please hand over the spirit stones in the market."

After walking a few more steps, a faint voice came from behind. Lin Changheng then discovered that a group of short-robed cultivators with at least mid-stage Qi Refining cultivation were guarding behind a rock.

They all covered their faces, but their eyes were sharp and they exuded a menacing aura, making them difficult to deal with.

Behind the group was a quiet valley, devoid of any human presence.

However, Lin Changheng was able to sense the subtle fluctuations of the formation.

"it is good."

Lin Changheng had already pieced together the general situation in the teahouse and had a clear understanding of it. After paying the spirit stones, he entered the formation.

After a ripple on the water, everything changed instantly.

The area in front of us had transformed into a vast red clay square.

Long tables were arranged in a U-shape, one end to the other, with various goods displayed on them. Behind each table stood a person, forming a stall.

At a glance, there must be sixty or seventy of them.

A passageway was left in the middle for people to walk through.

A quick glance revealed at least several dozen people walking around and picking through the items.

But they all had one thing in common: they wore loose robes, masks, and straw hats, making it impossible to see their original figures and cover their faces.

They were all very cautious.

Even if close friends and family are present, they often cannot tell the difference.

Lin Changheng approached directly and began to observe the stall.

There are quite a few varieties.

Talismans, magical artifacts, poisons, materials from demonic beasts...

Array diagrams, pill formulas, cultivation techniques, weapon crafting tips...

Aside from genuine elixirs, we have everything else.

After all, elixirs are ingested, and even a non-alchemist can hardly distinguish them easily. What if one takes the wrong one, or is poisoned? This is no joke.

Therefore, no one dared to buy pills on the black market; they still had to buy them from legitimate shops.

Over time, an unspoken rule formed in the black market: they stopped selling elixirs.

Lin Changheng had a sudden thought. He reached out and picked up a page of the prescription from the stall. After glancing at it a few times, he silently put it down.

There's really a lot more to this than meets the eye!

It's half true and half false, a mixture of truth and falsehood. Not only will you lose everything if you try to refine it, but the probability of the furnace exploding is as high as 80%.

I don't know where the stall owner got it from, and the price wasn't low either, daring to quote twenty low-grade spirit stones.

This immediately dashed his hopes of buying knowledge books such as alchemical formulas and array diagrams from the black market.

He shook his head and looked around.

Soon, he followed the smell of blood to a stall.

The stall owner was an extremely burly man wearing a straw hat.

On the long table lay the meat of a slaughtered demon beast, already cut into eight pieces, the exact composition of which was unclear.

"What kind of demonic beast is this? Does it contain demonic beast essence or blood?"

Lin Changheng lowered his voice and asked coldly.

The stall owner didn't even look up, picking at the calluses on his hands, and said in a hoarse voice, "This is a miscellaneous demonic beast, the Golden Mountain Ape. Hmm, it also has essence blood."

As he spoke, he took out a bottle of pale golden essence blood and pushed it onto the table.

Do you have any Fire Lizard essence blood?

Lin Changheng checked it and found it to be genuine, then asked with interest, "I need some."

"No."

The stall owner finally looked up at Lin Changheng, still indifferent, "Only the essence blood of the Golden Mountain Ape."

"Do you have the higher-level Turbid Fiend Essence Blood?" Upon hearing this, the stall owner rolled his eyes and simply remained silent.

One must be at least in the late stage of Qi Refining to attempt to hunt a demon beast with the Turbid Bloodline, while he is only in the mid-stage of Qi Refining. The risk of hunting such a beast is extremely high, so how could he possibly succeed?

Large quantities can only be supplied if they are raised by large families.

If it weren't for the monk's earnest words and composed movements, he wouldn't have thought the man was deliberately making fun of him, and would have waved him away.

Lin Changheng sighed softly, realizing he had said too much. He silently reminded himself and continued forward.

I visited about seven or eight stalls.

An even stronger stench of blood filled his nostrils. He glanced to the side and saw that the stall did not sell materials or essence blood of demonic beasts, but rather magical artifacts, talismans, hairpins, jade pendants, necklaces, and other miscellaneous items that cultivators carry.

It was still stained with blood to varying degrees.

Some were old, stained with blood, while others were quite fresh, clearly recently stained.

Lin Changheng's lips twitched slightly under his straw hat. Could these be deliberately applied by the stall owner? How could every item have them?

In the past life, antiques were artificially aged; in this life, items are smeared with blood.

Does this imply that the goods were obtained through murder and robbery to increase the credibility of the product's authenticity?

"Fellow Daoist, is there anything you like?"

The skinny stall owner behind the stall called out in a low, shrill voice.

"No……"

Lin Changheng shook his head and continued forward.

Actually, the black market sells quite a lot of things, including some good ones, but they were useless to Lin Changheng, so he gave up on buying them.

His goal was clear: no matter how good something was, if he couldn't use it, it would just end up gathering dust in his storage bag.

Having long since seen through the consumer traps, he wouldn't do such a thing.

Once inside the "回" (return) shaped stall area, Lin Changheng's increasingly disappointed and desolate heart was finally stirred by a pebble thrown into it.

"Fire Lizard essence blood? Yes, I have it."

An old man with disheveled hair, wrapped in a red robe, revealed his ruddy old face without any concealment, causing Lin Changheng's pupils to shrink immediately.

In this black market, not hiding one's tracks makes one stand out so incongruously.

Upon hearing Lin Changheng's question, the red-robed elder smiled, fiddled with his storage bag for a moment, and then took out a small wooden box and pushed it over.

Lin Changheng suppressed his surprise and opened the bottle. Inside were two rows of twenty bottles of deep red essence blood.

"good."

Lin Changheng carefully checked everything and, after confirming it was true, asked, "How many spirit stones?"

The old man in red robes didn't speak, but pointed to a sign on the side: "Essence blood of mortal demon beasts, eighty spirit sands per serving."

Below it was engraved a line of small print: Small business, no bargaining.

Lin Changheng concealed himself with his sleeve, took out sixteen spirit stones, placed them on the table, and left without saying a word. He simply put away the wooden box.

"If you still need anything, you may come again in three days."

Suddenly, a wisp of sound transmitted through him entered Lin Changheng's ears; it was none other than the voice of the old man in the red robe from before.

Upon hearing this, the cultivator in the bamboo hat quickened his pace considerably, and the old man in the red robe, noticing this, shook his head and chuckled.

Was I the one who scared you?
These young cultivators these days are really timid...

Then he lay down on the stall table and closed his eyes to rest, looking like he didn't care at all.

……

After leaving the stall, Lin Changheng had no intention of returning in three days and continued to quickly scan the remaining stalls.

After obtaining ten more portions of Fire Lizard essence blood from a certain stall, Lin Changheng chose to leave immediately.

They did not linger.

But shortly after he left, three figures also left the black market one after the other.

They looked at the lone figure in the straw hat in the distance, exchanged glances, and a look of greed and ruthlessness flashed across their faces.

(End of this chapter)