"Luo Chen, our yield of Jade Marrow Pills this month seems a bit low!"
Near the end of the month, Gu Caiyi sought out Luo Chen with a look of deep concern.
"How much?"
Gu Caiyi cited a number—it was nearly ten percent lower than the previous month!
It might not sound like much, but sold on the market, that was a difference of two to three thousand spirit stones.
No wonder she was so anxious.
Luo Chen pondered for a long while before slowly shaking his head. "It doesn't matter. Earning a bit less won't hurt."
Gu Caiyi was taken aback.
Wasn't earning as many spirit stones as possible the whole point?
In the past, Luo Chen had cared about their revenue more than anyone.
Luo Chen sighed. "Earning too much easily invites envy."
Hearing him put it that way, Gu Caiyi began to understand.
The current Luotian Association was not like the bloated Mountain Breaker Gang of the past. Its roster was streamlined, and its structure was simple. The upside was vastly lower personnel overhead, but the downside was that certain things were far too easy for outsiders to figure out.
For instance, the cost of making Jade Marrow Pills!
Back then, shielded by the Mountain Breaker Gang's nine halls and backed by a self-sufficient Medicine Hall, outsiders had had a hard time divining the true cost of a Jade Marrow Pill.
Now, things were different.
Most of the primary and auxiliary ingredients were purchased directly from the Great River Gang and the Lianyun Merchant Alliance. Anyone with a mind to could easily piece the numbers together and calculate their exact production cost. Then, by factoring in the wages paid to the Luotian Association's cultivators alongside their retail price and sales volume, one could readily deduce the profit margin on every pill. Even if the estimate was off by a fraction, it would be close to the mark.
If word got out that a tiny outfit like the Luotian Association was raking in tens of thousands of spirit stones every month, it would inevitably paint a target on their backs.
*Is Luo Chen deliberately suppressing the output of Jade Marrow Pills to curb other people's greed?* Gu Caiyi wondered.
Luo Chen spoke with her for a few more moments about the sales situation, then hurried out the door.
Today was delivery day.
The Zhenlong Black Market was held as scheduled.
Guided by Wang Yanchang, Luo Chen took his familiar seat. Wang Yanchang was the cultivator who had offered him words of advice the very first time he visited the black market. Having crossed paths numerous times since, they had grown quite acquainted.
"Master Tianxingzi might be a bit tied up today, so please bear with us and wait a while," Wang Yanchang said as he poured Luo Chen a cup of hot tea.
A bit tied up?
Luo Chen's thoughts stirred.
Soon enough, he saw what "a bit tied up" meant.
A beam of light fell upon the stage, illuminating a palm-sized pure white crane fluttering its wings as it hovered through the air. It flew at a leisurely, remarkably steady pace.
Suddenly, spiritual energy surged into it, and in a flash of blinding speed, it streaked across the hall in a full circle.
The onlookers craned their necks, yet none could track its flight.
Only Luo Chen, spiritual light glowing in his eyes, caught a faint lingering trace.
All at once, the crane halted, alighting upon an aged hand.
Tianxingzi's voice finally drifted across the chamber.
"A voice transmission paper crane—a mid-grade tier-one magical artifact!"
The crowd blinked in surprise. That crane was actually made of paper?
And for voice transmission?
Tianxingzi looked around at the audience and smiled. "As everyone knows, transmission arts primarily rely on voice transmission talismans and voice transmission jade tokens. Yet talismans are constrained by the limits of their ink and paper, giving them a very short range. They can usually only be used within a single cave abode or compound, useless for reaching people across long distances. As for voice transmission jade tokens, they are prohibitively expensive and strictly one-to-one, typically reserved for Foundation Establishment True Cultivators."
"The voice transmission paper crane in my hand, however, is an entirely different story."
"Crafted from talisman materials, infused with dual arrays of concealment and supreme speed, and finally forged through the art of artifact refining. With this artifact in hand, one can swiftly contact others within a generous radius. What is more, you need not worry about interception. During the demonstration just now, I doubt many of you could even trace its shadow!"
Murmurs of excitement rippled through the hall.
The effect was truly impressive.
It could transmit messages over long distances without fear of the contents being intercepted.
In his subsequent explanation, Tianxingzi even mentioned that the paper crane could self-ignite to preserve the secrecy of its message. Better yet, unlike single-use talismans, this artifact was reusable.
"When deploying it, aside from recording your message, it is best to insert a low-grade spirit stone as a power source. At one stone per use, it is hardly expensive. To direct it to its destination, a dedicated paired crane nest must be set up to guide its flight."
As he spoke, Tianxingzi produced two matching crane nests. He tossed one into a distant corner and set the other on the stage.
He cast the paper crane into the air, and it glided straight toward the corner. Then, without any spiritual energy being channeled into it, relying solely on the spirit stone embedded in its underbelly, it slowly flew back to the nest on the stage.
A back-and-forth flight like this allowed for targeted point-to-point communication.
"This artifact comes from the hands of the renowned master craftsman of Tianfan City, Grandmaster Huyan Zhuo!"
"I trust many of you have heard his name! Celebrated for boundless ingenuity and divine craftsmanship, he delights in devising all manner of unconventional magical artifacts and treasures. Anything bearing his touch is invariably an exceptional piece."
At this point, Tianxingzi surveyed the hundreds of cultivators before him and saw the eager looks on their faces. He wasted no more breath.
"I recommend purchasing at least a pair—one for yourself, and one for the other party. That way, staying in touch becomes effortless. Very well, the starting bid follows the usual rules for mid-grade artifacts: five hundred spirit stones. Each increment must be no less than ten spirit stones."
The moment his voice fell, bids rang out!
"One thousand spirit stones! I want a pair!"
"Eleven hundred, I'll take a pair too!"
...
Seated near the far edge of the hall, Luo Chen watched with keen interest as the crowd vied for the voice transmission paper cranes.
Back in the day, he had grumbled about the Mountain Breaker Gang's woefully inefficient methods of communication, earning himself a massive eye-roll from Mi Junping. Who would have thought that someone would actually devise an intermediate transmission artifact bridging the gap between talismans and jade tokens?
Moreover, from its description, aside from the travel time required to deliver a message, it had virtually no drawbacks!
Even Luo Chen was tempted to pick up a pair.
A pair, not just one!
That was evident from the fact that everyone in the crowd was bidding in pairs. A single crane was far less useful, after all; with one nest on each side, only the person holding the crane could initiate contact. If both parties held one, they could message each other freely.
*It's almost like a dedicated telephone line from Earth in my past life.*
*If I acquire a few pairs, communication within the Luotian Association will become far more convenient.*
And it was not just convenience!
Luo Chen recalled how the Mountain Breaker Gang's various halls had been picked off one by one. If they had possessed artifacts like this back then, the situation might not have grown so dire. At the very least, when the first hall was attacked, the others would have received word immediately.
He moved to join the bidding, but his ear twitched, and he checked himself.
Before long, the first pair of paper cranes sold for a hefty price of fifteen hundred spirit stones.
Broken down, that meant a single crane fetched seven hundred and fifty spirit stones!
Mid-grade artifacts started at five hundred. Generally, only those with exceptional offensive power or defensive properties could cross the seven-hundred-stone threshold. In other words, by virtue of long-distance transmission alone, this pair of cranes had commanded prices rivaling defensive artifacts!
Just as the crowd looked on with envy at the cultivator who had won the treasure, Tianxingzi flicked his wrist, and another pair of paper cranes appeared on the platform.
"Starting bid: five hundred spirit stones each!"
The crowd paused in surprise, then another wave of bidding erupted.
Soon, the second pair sold for fourteen hundred spirit stones. The slight drop in price was because people suspected Tianxingzi had more than just a couple of pairs on hand, prompting some to hold back and wait.
Their instincts were spot on!
Over the course of the auction, Tianxingzi brought out seven more pairs of voice transmission paper cranes. Every single pair found a buyer! Not one went unsold!
Only then did he conclude the sale of the paper cranes and move on to auctioning other items as usual.
Watching this unfold, Luo Chen's thoughts churned.
These artifacts were claimed to be crafted by Grandmaster Huyan Zhuo, yet the more he looked, the less likely that seemed!
Huyan Zhuo was a Golden Core master craftsman capable of forging magical treasures! How could he possibly find the leisure to churn out so many mid-grade artifacts? The profit margin was undeniably substantial, of course; the cranes' primary material was that white paper akin to talisman parchment, which could not cost much, and even with the formations and two nests factored in, the expense remained low. The exorbitant price was largely due to their unique function. In truth, the paper cranes could be considered unconventional artifacts.
Even so, Huyan Zhuo was a grandmaster! A figure of his caliber ought to pursue formidable magical treasures or esoteric treasures. Take Luo Chen's Four Symbols Cauldron, for instance; its original concept had been a magical treasure combining five functions into one. That was the sort of craft a master would strive for.
*Therefore, these paper cranes—so uniform in specification—could not possibly have been personally crafted by Huyan Zhuo.*
*Perhaps he contributed to their research and design, but the actual forging was definitely carried out by lower-realm disciples of Tianfan City... And there is another point!*
*Tianfan City borders the Jade Cauldron Domain, but it is vast distances away from an outlying backwater like Dahe Market. If these things have already made their way here, imagine how many must be circulating elsewhere. In other words, their output is immense; even within Tianfan City, this must be a large-scale mass production!*
Having reached this conclusion, Luo Chen felt a twinge of unease.
Normally, when Tianfan City produced something this good, wouldn't they distribute it through their subsidiary Wanbao Tower shops for controlled retail? Was it simply because Dahe Market's Wanbao Tower had relocated? Or did the Zhenlong Black Market have backing from Tianfan City itself?
For some reason, Luo Chen's past visits to the black market flashed through his mind. Auctions of magical artifacts seemed to happen with remarkable frequency!
*Could the ambush against Pang Renxiong back then have been orchestrated by Tianfan City as well?*
This plausible deduction sent a sudden chill down his spine.
Was Tianfan City not afraid of exposure—of the Jade Cauldron Sword Sect discovering the truth and igniting an all-out war between two Nascent Soul superior sects? If that happened, how many lives would be extinguished?
*Wait, that doesn't add up either!*
*Given Tianfan City's might, dealing with a single Golden Core cultivator wouldn't require such convoluted maneuvering. Especially not across such a vast distance.*
Unable to make sense of it, Luo Chen shook his head.
It was not that he lacked wit; he simply had too little information. With his limited perspective, piercing through the fog of truth was impossible. He only knew that any dealings with Tianxingzi warranted far greater caution.
...
"Little friend, you seemed quite interested in those voice transmission paper cranes?"
"I held back a pair. I'll let you have them at five hundred spirit stones apiece!"
Tianxingzi produced two paper cranes with a genial smile.
Luo Chen voiced his thanks and took them. Without examining them excessively, he put them away immediately, demonstrating his trust in the elder.
Going by auction prices, securing a pair for one thousand stones was undeniably a bargain. And having received a favor, he naturally had to return it in kind.
"These are the Blood Burning Pills my friend refined this month. Twenty in total."
Twenty pills, according to their prior arrangement, amounted to two thousand spirit stones. Subtracting the one thousand for the cranes, Tianxingzi still owed Luo Chen a thousand.
After completing the transaction, Tianxingzi said regretfully, "Only twenty pills a month?"
Luo Chen gave a wry smile. "I know little of the alchemical path, but my friend mentioned that refining Blood Burning Pills is exceedingly intricate. He can hardly manage any more."
"Is that so? What a pity."
Was refining the Blood Burning Pill truly intricate?
In truth, not particularly. Especially now that his proficiency had leveled up, raising his success rate to twenty percent. Luo Chen's soul foundation had swelled considerably, allowing him to squeeze out a bit more refining time each day. He could easily have brewed more Blood Burning Pills.
Yet time was always finite! Aside from Blood Burning Pills, he could not slack on his monthly quota of Jade Marrow Pills. On top of that, he had recently poured a great deal of effort into the Nether-Passage Pill.
All told, he had only produced twenty-eight Blood Burning Pills this past month. He had kept eight for himself just in case. Delivering twenty to Tianxingzi was already more than fair. Because of that, Gu Caiyi had nagged him right before he left today about their Jade Marrow Pill yield being too low.
Seeing Tianxingzi's disappointed expression, Luo Chen's heart gave a sudden stir.
"Actually, it's not entirely impossible to produce more Blood Burning Pills."
"Oh?" Tianxingzi perked up. "Do tell!"
He seemed exceptionally invested in the quantity of Blood Burning Pills!
Luo Chen read the man's intentions accurately. Feigning recollection, he said, "Once, while chatting with my friend, I heard him muttering to himself that the Blood Burning Pill is better suited to water-method refining. But he currently lacks a proper water-method alchemy art; using fire methods, his success rate is simply too low. If he had a suitable water method, he might be able to boost his yield significantly!"
Tianxingzi looked thoughtful upon hearing this.
"A water-method alchemy art?"
He recalled the ingredient list Luo Chen had handed him earlier. Indeed, quite a few of those materials were suited for water alchemy. By that logic, this alchemist friend of 'Murong Yuan' likely did not hail from a major sect. After all, alchemists groomed by great sects—regardless of their skill—generally mastered at least a few foundational methods.
In the cultivation world, the most common refining disciplines were fire and water methods. Concoctions like Golden Quality Jade Liquid, Lucid Fluid, and Mending and Nourishing Meridian Liquid were all fruits of water alchemy.
*A loose cultivator alchemist, then?*
Tianxingzi pondered for a moment, then retrieved a jade slip from his storage bag.
In an instant, Luo Chen's gaze locked onto it.
"This is...?"
"A water-method alchemy art, applicable to most tier-one through tier-three pills."
Luo Chen was stunned. "That formidable!"
Small wonder he was so astonished. Most alchemy methods had defined scopes of application. For example, the fire method he currently commanded was merely the most common tier-one variant found on the market, capable of refining only tier-one pills. If he wished to refine tier-two pills, he would have to learn the tier-two fire method recorded in the *Qingyuan Alchemy Exposition*.
Furthermore, the specialized techniques he had learned from Qing Yuanzi had their own constraints: the Jade Breaking Hand was restricted to mineral materials, while the Pure Heart Hand was meant for herbs and plants. Each had a circumscribed purview.
Yet the water method Tianxingzi produced covered tier-one through tier-three pills. Even with the caveat of "most," it was extraordinarily precious.
Tianxingzi was unsurprised by Luo Chen's shock. He fixed Luo Chen with a solemn gaze. "I can sell you this method. However, your friend must swear a Great Dao Oath never to pass it on to anyone else by any means, whether intentionally or inadvertently!"
Luo Chen raised a brow. *Such a stringent oath?*
Neither intentionally nor inadvertently! If this technique leaked from his hands by sheer accident, it would still count as a breach of his oath.
Luo Chen was well aware of the consequences of breaking a Great Dao Oath. At lower realms, one might manage to scrape by, but upon attempting a breakthrough to Golden Core or Nascent Soul, the backlash of the oath carried a massive chance of ruining the cultivator. In particular, the fabled Soul Formation realm was invariably accompanied by inner demon tribulations; anyone burdened by an oath's backlash would surely perish within that trial.
In short, while a Great Dao Oath held little sway over low-tier cultivators without ambition, it was an absolute shackle for anyone striving toward longevity.
Luo Chen naturally belonged to the latter camp. Otherwise, he would never have gifted that Foundation Establishment Pill to Qin Liangchen back then. The crux had been that Mi Shuhua never enjoyed a single mid-grade Jade Marrow Pill Luo Chen refined for him, and that Foundation Establishment Pill had rightfully belonged to Qin Liangchen in the first place.
After weighing the pros and cons, Luo Chen chose to follow his true heart, doing what kept his conscience clear!
Faced with this demand, Luo Chen solemnly agreed on the spot.
Tianxingzi was not worried about him cheating. He immediately placed a small spiritual sense restriction on the jade slip. To unlock it, one had to swear the corresponding Great Dao Oath.
"And what is the asking price?" Holding the jade slip, Luo Chen asked with a smile.
Then his smile froze.
Swallowing hard, Luo Chen stared at the fingers Tianxingzi held up.
"Eight thousand?!"
"Why don't you just go rob—"
In the end, Luo Chen gritted his teeth and parted with the spirit stones.
This water-method alchemy art was worth the price! In a sense, secret arts within the myriad cultivation crafts were worth no less than orthodox cultivation manuals. An alchemy method spanning tier one to tier three was easily on par with a manual capable of guiding someone to the Golden Core realm. Eight thousand was actually a bargain!
"Fine, I'm buying it on my friend's behalf anyway. He'll have to pay me back eventually," Luo Chen grumbled as he fished out eight thousand spirit stones. One thousand of them had just been earned from the Blood Burning Pills, barely warm in his pocket.
Tianxingzi accepted the stones, his gaze turning profound. "I hope to see fifty Blood Burning Pills from you next month, little friend."
Luo Chen paused. *Is that a hard requirement from the client?*
He gave an awkward chuckle. "I cannot guarantee that. I can only hope my friend makes swift progress once he studies this technique."
Tianxingzi sighed softly. "Time waits for no man!"
With that, he dismissed the soundproof barrier, signaling that today's transaction had drawn to a close.
No, it was not over yet.
Luo Chen exited the black market hall ahead of the others and stepped outside.
Wang Yanchang was waiting, holding the storage bag Luo Chen had provided in advance.
"Fellow Daoist, all of this month's herbs are inside."
Luo Chen took the storage bag along with an itemized list. Glancing over it, he saw that the jade conpoy, Earth Fire Fiend, snow fox demon blood, and explosive ape demon blood were all accounted for, and he nodded in satisfaction. He then handed over fifteen hundred spirit stones.
With these materials, next month's supply of Nether-Passage Pills and Myriad Wonders Pills would not lack raw ingredients.
After parting with the stones, Luo Chen could barely keep his composure. He had come today to sell Blood Burning Pills, but after this round of give-and-take, he had ended up contributing eighty-five hundred spirit stones to the Zhenlong Black Market instead. Even with his substantial wealth, he could hardly endure this kind of bleeding! All told, he had only fifteen thousand stones left on his person.
Still, if he sold off all the Jade Marrow Pills refined this month, he could recoup several thousand stones. More importantly, today's spending was far from a total loss. Beyond restocking his ingredients, he had secured a water-method alchemy art. From now on, whether refining Emperor Flowing Liquid or other pills requiring water methods, he would no longer be left wanting.
Wang Yanchang personally escorted him to the entrance.
Just as they were about to part ways, that quiet sigh echoed in Luo Chen's mind once more.
*"Time waits for no man!"*
A jolt ran through him, and he called out instinctively, "Fellow Daoist Wang, wait a moment!"
Chapter 171