The blazing sun shone down on a long, narrow valley. On the two peaks surrounding it grew strange, towering plants shaped like cacti, except they were ash-white. Under the sunlight, these plants grew wildly at a rate visible to the naked eye.
More than eight hundred li from this valley lay a swamp formed from accumulated filth. Countless scraps of robes whose colors could no longer be discerned, along with rotting flesh and carcasses left behind by unknown demonic beasts, bobbed within it. A foul stench wafted out.
On the slope along one side of the valley, beneath several strange cactus-like plants that had already grown more than ten zhang tall, stood an extremely crude stone hut piled together from rocks. Before it sat a sickly-looking young man of about twenty-seven or twenty-eight, seated in a bamboo chair.
More than thirty cultivators had gathered before this pale-faced young man, whose hands were tucked inside the sleeves of a long gray leather robe.
"A single Qi Replenishing Pill costs twenty Low-grade Spirit Stones. Fellow Daoist, your price is simply too outrageous." At this moment, the thirty-odd cultivators were all cursing angrily, while several even spat furiously onto the ground.
Yet this sickly-looking young man seemed long accustomed to such scenes. After waiting until they had nearly finished cursing, he smiled faintly. "Everyone, just as things before the sky dome shattered were prized for their rarity, these pills are valuable because they are scarce. I am sure you all understand that within tens of thousands of li, there is likely nowhere else to obtain Qi Replenishing Pills. This is my price now, but elsewhere on the Tianxuan Continent, they may well cost even more."
"But your price is still far too high. Now that the sky dome of our Tianxuan Continent has