Inquiries

Shen Gui found an empty spot in the open space at the center of Qingluan City and sat down.

If he wanted to gather information, he naturally could not simply ask around directly.

As mentioned before, cultivators in the Primordial Wilderness rarely interacted with one another. If he rashly approached someone to strike up a conversation, there was an eighty to ninety percent chance that they would suspect him of harboring ill intentions.

Moreover, the Primordial Wilderness naturally had nothing like intelligence organizations at present, so even if he wanted to buy information, there was nowhere to do so.

However, since Shen Gui had come here, he naturally had his own plans.

With a wave of his hand, a small pile of pure white crystals radiating dense heaven and earth spiritual energy appeared before him.

This was something he had condensed from heaven and earth spiritual energy. In the Primordial Wilderness, it was called Origin Crystals, meaning crystals formed from heaven and earth spiritual energy.

Normally, if a Heavenly Immortal did not cultivate, they could condense roughly one Origin Crystal from heaven and earth spiritual energy in a year. True Immortals were ten times faster than Heavenly Immortals, while Mystic Immortals were ten times faster than True Immortals. As for Golden Immortals, they were a hundred times faster than Mystic Immortals. If a Golden Immortal focused solely on condensing Origin Crystals without cultivating, they could produce ten thousand in a year.

Origin Crystals were truly useful things.

First of all, Origin Crystals were condensed from the purest heaven and earth spiritual energy. If one possessed a large number of Origin Crystals, directly drawing spiritual energy from them to cultivate would undoubtedly be much faster than absorbing spiritual energy from the world.

Furthermore, Origin Crystals could help one rapidly restore magic power, and they could sometimes be used in setting up formations as well.

In other words, Origin Crystals were something everyone needed and everyone could use.

Shen Gui felt that, given enough time, Origin Crystals might well become the common currency of the Primordial Wilderness.

The pile Shen Gui had placed before him contained several dozen Origin Crystals, which he had casually condensed whenever he had nothing better to do.

After all, the rates of condensing Origin Crystals mentioned earlier only applied to cultivators of ordinary aptitude.

Origin Crystals were formed from condensed heaven and earth spiritual energy, so the speed at which one could condense them naturally depended on the speed at which one absorbed heaven and earth spiritual energy.

But could cultivators of ordinary foundations possibly compare with Primordial Deities like the Three Pure Ones and Nuwa in their rate of absorbing heaven and earth spiritual energy, even at the same realm?

The same was true for Shen Gui.

What was more, spiritual treasures could accelerate the gathering of heaven and earth spiritual energy. Shen Gui not only possessed the Heaven and Earth Mysterious Yellow Pagoda, but also his accompanying spiritual treasure—the Top-grade Primordial Spiritual Treasure, Taixu Armor. Thus, condensing Origin Crystals was actually quite easy for Shen Gui.

His method of gathering intelligence was to place a pile of Origin Crystals in an open area of the city.

Anyone who could provide the information he wanted could take a certain amount of Origin Crystals.

Of course, when he had gathered intelligence in other small cities before, it was not as though there had never been people tempted by wealth who followed him out of the city, intending to rob and kill him.

But people whose greed could be stirred by a mere pile of Origin Crystals wanted to rob a genuine Golden Immortal?

Shen Gui's response was, "I'll stand still. If you can even break through my defenses, I'll consider it my loss."

Sure enough, after Shen Gui found a place to sit and laid out a pile of Origin Crystals before him, the dense heaven and earth spiritual energy emitted by those crystals immediately drew many gazes. However, no one came forward to ask about them right away.

Seeing this, Shen Gui was not in a hurry.

He had gathered intelligence this way throughout his journey, so he had great confidence in this method.

After all, compared to the basic, common-knowledge information he needed—things one could learn merely by living long enough—these Origin Crystals were practically being given away for free.

Therefore, since no one came forward to ask, Shen Gui simply closed his eyes and rested.

Fortunately, there would always be people unable to suppress their curiosity.

Shen Gui did not have to wait long before a young man dressed in a gaudy green-and-red robe approached him. "Fellow Daoist, what is the meaning of this?"

Hearing this, Shen Gui slowly opened his eyes.

At the same time, many cultivators who had been watching the situation closely pricked up their ears.

After glancing at the young man before him, Shen Gui slowly said, "I have only been in the Central Continent for a short while and am unfamiliar with its circumstances. I heard that beneath Mount Buzhou lies Heavenly Demon City, established by Great Sage Fuxi and Empress Nuwa to shelter a portion of the Demon Race, so I wished to see it for myself. However, I do not understand the situation in Heavenly Demon City, and I fear that I might offend some taboo upon arriving there. Thus, I wish to inquire about Heavenly Demon City beforehand. If any of you understand Heavenly Demon City and can provide useful information about it, you may take a certain amount of Origin Crystals."

The young man's eyes lit up when he heard Shen Gui's words. "Is that true?"

Shen Gui nodded. "Naturally."