All Tricks

The city's schemes ran deep; Wang Chen wanted to go back to the countryside!

According to Manager Jin, Vajra Butter was an essential supplementary medicine for cultivating the "Heavenly Dragon Vajra Righteous Dharma."

Smearing this special medicinal oil over the entire body could stimulate Qi and Blood Power to the greatest extent. Not only did it greatly increase cultivation speed, it also produced exceptional results.

It was not as if one could not cultivate the "Heavenly Dragon Vajra Righteous Dharma" without Vajra Butter.

But its efficiency and power would inevitably be greatly reduced!

In that case, choosing another body-tempering technique would be more suitable.

The Four Seas Chamber of Commerce sold Vajra Butter.

One bottle cost ten Lower Spirit Stones.

And it was only enough for a single cultivation session!

After hearing this, Wang Chen truly had no strength left to complain.

Wasn't this the same trick the Japanese used to sell printers back on Earth?

It could not be called merely similar—they were completely identical!

The Japanese sold high-quality printers at cabbage prices, taking losses to seize the market and squeeze out their competitors.

Then they made a fortune selling expensive consumables.

A set of original consumables might cost one-fifth of the printer's price, or even more.

The sense of déjà vu was overwhelming.

Those thieving baldies were detestable!

Yet Wang Chen could not say that the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce had cheated him.

They had used an open scheme.

In fact, the transaction between them had not yet been completed. The technique Jade Slip was still in Manager Jin's hands.

Wang Chen could certainly refuse.

The problem was that the "Heavenly Dragon Vajra Righteous Dharma" perfectly suited his current needs.

First, this technique possessed formidable body-tempering power. It was easy to begin and affordable. Although requiring Vajra Butter was somewhat of a trap, it was not entirely unacceptable as a supplementary cultivation technique.

Suppressing the pain in his heart, Wang Chen took out fifty Lower Spirit Stones and bought the first three levels of the "Heavenly Dragon Vajra Righteous Dharma."

As well as two bottles of Vajra Butter.

He intended to try the technique first. If it truly did not work out, the loss would not be too great.

Wang Chen also bought a Spirit Eye Technique and an Object Manipulation Technique.

Both the Spirit Eye Technique and Object Manipulation Technique were low Qi Condensation stage spells, so they were very cheap.

The Spirit Eye Technique could be used to investigate the cultivation levels of cultivators, demons, and Evil Spirits. Its detection range was determined by one's own cultivation and the spell's level, and it could be countered by techniques such as the Breath Concealment Technique, so it was not guaranteed to be effective.

But practically every cultivator knew this spell.

The original owner had failed to master it mainly because he had been poor.

The original owner had even believed that, as a spirit plant farmer, he only needed to honestly till the fields and grow crops, and had no need to learn the Spirit Eye Technique.

That notion left Wang Chen speechless.

So he bought it as well.

As for the Object Manipulation Technique, as its name implied, it was a spell for controlling objects or Magic Tools.

It was worth mentioning that the Object Manipulation Technique was a prerequisite skill for the Sword Control Technique.

To learn the Sword Control Technique,

one had to cultivate the Object Manipulation Technique to at least the proficient level!

Moreover, the Object Manipulation Technique had great versatility and was quite affordable, so Wang Chen would not miss out on it.

Wang Chen had actually wanted to buy several offensive spells as well.

Unfortunately, he had very few Spirit Stones left, so he could only wait until his next visit.

When he left the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce, his Storage Bag held seventy fewer Lower Spirit Stones and two additional bottles of Vajra Butter.

Meanwhile, three more Law Seeds had appeared in his Sea of Consciousness.

These three Law Seeds were likewise bound by Oath Seal Curses.

The techniques and spells sold by the Four Seas Chamber of Commerce, like those exchanged from sects, all came with Oath Seal Curses.

It was said that in ancient times, cultivation techniques and manuals had mostly been recorded in books.

The Library Pavilions of sects and great schools housed genuine secret books and manuals.

They had no restrictions from Oath Seal Curses.

Nowadays, however, cultivation technique Jade Slips were used for almost everything.

As for secret manuals and classical texts, they had not disappeared entirely. They were commonly found at black-market stalls, used to fool clueless newcomers.

Anyone with even a little cultivation knowledge would not buy those so-called Divine Skill Secret Manuals.

Because with written cultivation techniques, a difference of one character often led one a thousand miles astray.

False and Incorrect Versions were countless.

If one used them to cultivate, one would not even know how one died!

Although cultivation technique Jade Slips were restricted by Oath Seal Curses, those same Oath Seal Curses, in turn, guaranteed the authenticity of the techniques.

Sect disciples like Wang Chen actually had it quite good. At the very least, they had legitimate channels through which to exchange for authentic techniques.

Rogue Cultivators were the truly miserable ones. They might pay with their lives just to obtain a single cultivation technique!

Furthermore, the higher the level of the technique sealed within a Jade Slip, the fewer times it could be activated.

And cultivation technique Jade Slips could not be copied, while refining them was far from easy.

Thus, among the four essentials of cultivation—Wealth, Dharma, companions, and place—there was a reason Dharma ranked second.

There was still plenty of time, so Wang Chen went to a Blacksmith Shop.

Among the hundred arts of cultivation, artifact refining and craftsmanship formed a major category, and practitioners were everywhere.

Wang Chen was not looking for an Artifact Refiner, nor was he trying to forge a Magic Tool.

He took out a blueprint and explained his requirements to the Hammer Master in the Blacksmith Shop.

Wang Chen had drawn the blueprint several days earlier while recovering from his injuries at home. Since he had lacked suitable paper and pens at the time, it was rather crude, so he had to explain it clearly.

But the item itself was not complicated. After the Hammer Master listened and exchanged a few more words with Wang Chen, he slapped his dark chest and said, "Easy. Come pick it up in half a shichen!"

The price was also very cheap. He only charged Wang Chen one Lower Spirit Stone.

Wang Chen paid on the spot, then ran to a nearby general store and butcher shop to buy some seasonings and spices.

As well as fifty jin of Demonic Beast Meat!

Body tempering required eating meat. Ordinary meat without spiritual energy would not do.

Although he had slaughtered a large number of Earth Rhinoceroses, including quite a few demonized Earth Rhinoceroses,

the insect meat he had obtained was only enough to make a few Rice Balls for ordinary meals.

He had already eaten it all.

Demonic Beast Meat truly was not cheap. Though Wang Chen had bought low-grade meat, it still cost him five Lower Spirit Stones.

That was nearly five times the price of Spirit Grain!

This time, Wang Chen's Storage Bag had been thoroughly emptied. Only two Lower Spirit Stones and several dozen Shattered Spirits remained inside.

He had returned overnight to the days before his transmigration!

When he returned to the Blacksmith Shop, the item he had ordered had already been forged.

Wang Chen tried fitting it together, only to find several minor problems.

The Hammer Master resolved them on the spot.

He was practically a human-shaped machine tool!

What Wang Chen had commissioned here were the main components of a Hand-Crank Rice Milling Machine.

Pounding rice by hand was simply too inefficient. Moreover, if the force was not properly controlled, it produced a great deal of Broken Rice, while separating the Rice Bran required another round of sifting. He could not possibly waste his time on such matters.

As for buying ready-made Spirit Rice in the city, the price difference between grain and rice was more than Wang Chen, with his empty purse, could bear.

So Wang Chen thought of a Rice Milling Machine.

The structure of a Rice Milling Machine was actually very simple. As long as one understood the principles, drawing a blueprint was not difficult.

Wang Chen had been an engineering student in his former life and had majored in mechanical engineering at university, so this naturally posed no challenge to him.

As the saying went, master Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, and you could travel the world without fear.

Even after transmigrating into a cultivation world, it still came in handy!

Before the sun set, Wang Chen took his abundant haul and rode a horse carriage home.