The Other Side

In order to promote the product, Li Qi initially collected some samples of the Holy Flame as display items.

In the Sacred Flame Tribe's power system, being able to enter a certain rank is already considered an extremely powerful individual, so a ninth-rank Holy Flame is actually considered a strong individual.

There are very few people of the eighth rank, at most no more than one hundred.

As for the seventh rank... there are only four or five people there.

The only sixth-rank official was that Sacred King, and he was in a semi-crippled state.

This is also why Li Qi wants to revitalize the Sacred Flame Realm.

Only a prosperous Sacred Flame Realm can provide a continuous supply of Holy Flame. Li Qi does not want to rule the world. Most of the resources in the Sacred Flame Realm are difficult for him to handle and cannot be converted into wealth. It would be best if they could all be converted into Holy Flame.

After taking out the ninth-grade holy flame, Liu Shenzhi accepted it and asked, "What is the value of this?"

"It's a bit more expensive than the remnants of demonic Demon Beast, but that's mainly because we can't beat the slaughterhouse," Li Qi said.

It should actually be cheaper.

From the perspective of the production process, Holy Flame is not only more numerous than Remnant Soul, but also of higher quality.

As products of pure spiritual resonance, they possess excellent spiritual activity and can be reproduced repeatedly.

A ninth-grade Demon Beast can only produce a ninth-grade remnant soul once in its lifetime. A ninth-grade Sacred Flame Tribe, if well-rested and well-nourished, can produce more than ten ninth-grade Holy Flames in a year.

In theory, Holy Flame should be cheaper.

But there's nothing I can do...

There are just too many remnants of Human Path Demon Beast souls...

Unlike the Shaman Path that lets animals grow naturally and allows humans and Demon Beast to compete on their own, treating them equally, the Human Path actually runs farms and slaughterhouses.

Leaving aside other places, just in Chang'an, millions of Demon Beast are slaughtered and dismembered every day, and their body parts are then displayed in the market for people to buy.

One year can easily amount to hundreds of millions of broken souls.

Meat comes from other animals. The hundreds of millions of people in Chang'an eat meat every day, cultivate, and have so many Law Treasure. It's not something that can be conjured up.

Therefore, the number of Demon Beast remnant souls is extremely large. Such a huge quantity is enough to reduce costs, so the price of Demon Beast remnant souls is actually a little cheaper than that of holy flames.

However, Li Qi felt that the first sales channel had been found.

Admittedly, the Holy Flame cannot completely replace the remnant soul, because the remnant soul has other uses and can be used in various places. If all else fails, it can be burned as fuel, but the Holy Flame cannot be burned.

But when it comes to feeding the Witchcraft Silkworm, the Holy Flame is far better than the Remnant Soul.

Therefore, even if the price is higher, he believes Liu Shenzhi will still choose Holy Flame.

"A little more expensive...that's fine too. Brother Li, how much of this can you provide for me? I don't need much, after all, you know, research isn't about large-scale production." Liu Shenzhi understood Li Qi's meaning and made his request straightforwardly.

But Li Qi had no intention of accepting the money.

He said, "No need. It's just some ninth-grade holy flames. Why not give it to Brother Liu? Besides, I'm also quite interested in your Witchcraft Silkworm. This thing may not be so simple in the future. I wonder if Brother Liu, can this thing bear the wisdom of the two of us?"

Upon hearing Li Qi's words, Liu Shenzhi was first taken aback, then overjoyed!

"Of course! With Brother Li's help, the Witchcraft Silkworm will surely achieve great success!"

Just then, a voice came from outside. It was Liu Junyi's voice. "Shenzhi, your uncle wants you to bring Li Qi to have a drink together."

"Okay! Coming right away!" Liu Shenzhi was overjoyed and immediately agreed.

If a young master were to invest his resources and wisdom into the Witchcraft Silkworm, it might truly serve as the foundation for his advancement to the seventh rank!

It should be noted that although Liu Shenzhi possessed methods for cultivating the Human Path—

But in essence, he is a practitioner of Reason Way.

Li Qi smiled and simply tossed the Holy Flame to Liu Shenzhi.

All that could be heard was the faint crackling of the holy flame, as it shone its own light for the first time in the world.

It is a ray of hope, the birth of a new technology, a new method.

Beyond the endless realms, in the Sacred Flame Realm.

The holy flames shone brightly in the darkness.

Bai Gaga... no, it's Gaga. He has given up that surname, so we can't call him that anymore.

Gaa, standing in a pool of blood, surrounded by four or five holy flames that were burning and quietly emitting light.

Amidst this mountain of corpses and sea of blood, the holy flames seemed to emanate a light of despair.

The Holy Flame is a product of the spiritual resonance of the Sacred Flame Tribe, and spiritual resonance is strongest in two situations.

One type is what the Green Mountain God desires, namely the resonance generated during large-scale group worship, where everyone worships the same deity. The sacred flames produced by such resonance are of extremely high quality.

Another one is... the battlefield, or rather, the slaughterhouse.

Death, despair, fear, rage, murderous intent—countless negative emotions resonate together, giving birth to the Holy Flame.

The holy flames produced by the two are not significantly different, and their applicability is essentially the same, although they may actually cause different emotions.

Sacred flames in large-scale sacrificial rites or prayers contain positive emotions, such as hope and longing.

Holy flames born from battlefields or carnage can make people irritable.

However, the negative or positive emotions contained within... actually seem pretty much the same to practitioners.

External emotions are all bad, whether positive or negative; they're all garbage.

Joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness must come from one's own heart. Although the Holy Flame's overly intense emotions enhance its activity, they also cause the user to be affected by the emotions within it.

Of course, the impact is not significant. If you can't even control your external emotions, then you shouldn't bother with cultivation; go back to farming.

Therefore, in the eyes of Li Qi and others, there was no difference between the two kinds of holy flames.

However, the Sacred Flame Tribe themselves see a significant difference.

Caga walked across the battlefield, the entire plain seemingly splashed with the blood of the Sacred Flame Tribe.

Countless corpses were trampled over and over by Technique Method and the crowd, turning dark red after being trampled several times, and even becoming sticky when stepped on.

Walking through the streets, one can understand what it means to "give one's all."

He didn't even want to touch those holy flames.

But... there's no way to avoid it.

Because, ever since he obtained that Cultivation Method, he has known one thing.

The Cultivation Method condensed into a 'door' within his body.

He can pour holy flames into this door to unlock different Technique Method and martial arts techniques.

Of course, unlocking doesn't mean learning directly, but rather that it will give him a certain memory, and learning from that memory will be much more efficient.

If it were Li Qi, he would be very familiar with this method.

The most common method for spreading Cultivation Method throughout the world is the Divine Will Inheritance.

This Cultivation Method seems to be some kind of insatiable devouring machine, capable of consuming any amount of holy flame. The more it offers, the more it receives in return.

It was with such blessings that he was able to survive until today, and to survive in this chaotic world, and even in the heart of the battlefield just now.

However, his individual strength could only allow him to survive alone.

There is a certain difference in cosmic time between the Sacred Flame Realm and the rest of the world; roughly one day is equivalent to two days.

In the endless outer realms, this is a fairly normal deviation in cosmic light, because cosmic light is a relative value, not an absolute value.

Li Qi felt that a month had passed, but in reality, two months had already passed for Gaga.

These past two months... have been like hell.

A Sixth-Rank World with a population of over a hundred billion, the Sacred Flame Tribe's footprints are all over this world, and he doesn't know what the places he hasn't seen look like.

But at least for now, all he sees is the pain of falling to the bottom.

Many members of the Sacred Flame Tribe starved to death, or went mad with hunger and chose to take desperate measures. In every place, hundreds or thousands of disaster victims cried out and begged for help.

The roads are filled with exiles, and the streets are strewn with corpses.

A chilling wind howled, and ghostly phosphorescence filled the air.

Some eat their own children, and some eat the soil.

Some people groaned like ghosts by the roadside, while others couldn't even groan and could only lie frozen on the road waiting to die.

Good people passing by these starving corpses will turn a blind eye.

But some people who pass by these starving corpses will carry them back with them.

It wasn't a burial, but a meal.

This scenario has happened countless times, and naturally, someone will step forward.

Near Gaga, there is a powerful Ge Gu, who, according to the immortals' classification, is called a ninth-rank... according to the Sacred Flame Realm, is called a 'formal martial artist'.

Ge Gu, a man who gathered thousands of people in the wilderness, rose up in rebellion at the corner of the city, restoring order to a small area, roughly equivalent to several small towns.

Gaga also works under Ge Gu thinks highly of him and brought him along on this mission.

However, after the battle ended, Gaga remained alone on the battlefield, collecting the holy flames.

The Sacred Flame Tribe themselves loathe these desperate holy flames, considering them a bad omen, and usually leave them to dissipate naturally.

But Gaga needs to use these things to make herself stronger.

Stronger.

Strong enough to speak out in this chaotic world, and have people listen to what he says, just like Ge Gu.

Halfway through collecting the sacred flame, Gaga suddenly heard someone calling him from behind.

A voice rang out. "Hey, Gaa, what are you still doing here? Don't you find it unlucky?"

Gaga turned around and saw that it was Ge Gu.

"Ah, Ge Gu, I just... couldn't bear to leave these holy flames here, so I was going to collect them." Gaga said something against her will.

It's not that noble. He just plans to inject holy flames into the strange entity brought about by the Cultivation Method in his body, and then new martial arts and Technique Method will appear inside, all of which will be suitable for him.

But all of this was so that his voice could be heard in this chaotic world.

"Collect them... that's fine, whatever you want." Sacred Flame Tribe Ge Gu walked up to Gaga and said casually.

He'd seen plenty of strange things, so he didn't ask.

Because in this era, in such a chaotic world, people would go crazy if they didn't have some kind of perseverance.

However, if a person has a strong sense of conviction, then under certain circumstances, he is no different from a madman.

Therefore, Ge Gu had become accustomed to the eccentricities of his companions.

Gaga likes to collect the Holy Flame of Despair. Among his subordinates are those who like to overeat, those who resolutely refuse to eat meat, those who vomit at the sight of raw meat, and those who pray three times a day.

People always need something to rely on in order to maintain the motivation to survive in chaotic times.

Ge Gu never asked where these people's quirks came from, which is why no one disliked him.

Ge Gu didn't dwell on it for long. He quickly got to the point and said to Gaga, "After you've collected everything here, go to the east by yourself. A new city has been built there, and it seems they have a lot of complaints about us."

"Our grain transport team was attacked by many of their mobile armed groups. We repelled them many times, but we didn't capture any prisoners alive."

"Later we found out that they were attacking indiscriminately. They were small groups of soldiers who would loot any place where there might be food, and they didn't even spare the corpses."

"It's too dangerous for this kind of force to stay near us. They don't engage in production, they only plunder. We can't let them live. You're the fastest and best at hiding, go and check out the situation," Ge Gu said to Gaga.

"Okay, I'll go check it out later." Gaga nodded.

This is why Gaga joined Ge Gu's team.

No matter what Ge Gu did, what he chose to do was to take in refugees, reclaim wasteland, restore a certain degree of order, and then promote reproduction.

Instead of being like most people in this world, who only know how to coerce others and constantly plunder their resources to make themselves rich.

This is already quite rare in chaotic times.

In the two months prior, war and famine had destroyed all order and morality, and all the relics of the Sacred Flame Tribe had vanished.

People's only thoughts were eating and killing; hunger and violence dominated everything.

When these negative things accumulate, people become numb to them.

When life is filled with barbarity, cruelty, and terror, people may be frightened at first, but after half a month, they get used to it.

Even Gaga is like that.

The insects crawled out of the child's body, who was still struggling and barely clinging to life, but he was oblivious to them.

The buying and selling of women and children is considered perfectly natural; even selling one's own children is so undesirable that one has to eat them.

People have become so accustomed to all of this that the unimaginable has become commonplace.

What are the rules of society? What are laws? What is civilization? What is fairness and justice?

I don't understand, I don't know.

All that remains is the most primal instinct.

For the first two weeks, Gaga could only see mangled corpses everywhere, bloodstains on the ground, and the living constantly groaning in pain, but many more seemed to have lost their souls.

It was Ge Gu who first established order in the area, restoring things to a less dire state.

Therefore, if a new order must be established, Gaga is willing to contribute to Ge Gu.

"Yes, that's what I came to tell you. It's been two months, and the first batch of fast-growing crops we planted is almost cured. If we can hold on for another month, we can expand eastward and protect more people," Ge Gu said.

"Good thing." Gaga nodded, then packed her things and prepared to leave.