Success!

Jade Dragon City.

As a coastal city backed by the Jade Dragon Sect, it was garrisoned by the Green Flood Dragon Army and the Xiantian Battalion. Naturally, it drew island forces from all across the East Sea's nearby waters, as well as rogue cultivators, who came to trade treasures for what they needed.

At the same time, whether one was traveling from the East Sea into the heart of the Great Xia Dynasty or from the inland regions to the East Sea, Jade Dragon City was an excellent place to rest and gather news from both sides.

The East City Treasure Exchange was where the greatest number of cultivators in Jade Dragon City gathered.

Of course, true powerhouses could fly hundreds of thousands of miles in a day on their magical treasures. They had no reason to stop here, so most of those who came were Xiantian Lifeforms, with Purple Mansion Cultivators being the strongest among them.

"Old Lu, thanks for your patronage this time!"

A young man with a round face and smiling eyes saw a middle-aged man out of the shop.

"Our squad's stationed in Jade Dragon City this month, so I'll be at the shop. If you find any other good stuff, we can talk about the price."

Only after the middle-aged man had gone far away did the round-faced young man turn and head back into the shop.

"Shen Nan." A voice spoke directly in the young man's ear.

A voice transmission using true essence?

So secretive. Could a big deal be coming?

The round-faced young man, Shen Nan, turned to look. A middle-aged man and a youth stood in a nearby corner.

"Uncle Mo Er?" Shen Nan was taken aback. "Uncle Mo Er, what brings you here? Does the old clan leader have some instructions?"

"The Xia Clan is no more. I'm the only one who managed to escape with the young master.

"The old clan leader and the clan leader—they're all dead."

Uncle Mo Er's face was pale, but his eyes remained fixed on Shen Nan.

"What!? The old clan leader, and the Xia Clan..." Shen Nan's eyes reddened at once, tears welling up. In a single step, he was beside Uncle Mo Er. "Who did it? Who killed the old clan leader and wiped out the Xia Clan? Who?!"

"It was the Shang Clan of Shangma Island. That old bastard Shang Youde used an invitation to a banquet as an excuse to summon the old clan leader and the clan leader. Then..." Seeing that Shen Nan's grief was genuine, Uncle Mo Er finally felt his hanging heart settle a little.

"The Shang Clan! Shang Youde!!!" Shen Nan spat out each word through gritted teeth. Veins bulged on his forehead, and his eyes blazed with fury.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Uncle Mo Er was just as shaken. He broke into a coughing fit, and there was blood between his teeth. Shen Nan hurried to support him, channeling a stream of gentle Xiantian True Essence into his body to stabilize his injuries.

"You're safe here. No matter how brazen the Shang Clan is, they wouldn't dare cause trouble in Jade Dragon City." Shen Nan looked at the youth, who stood in silence, his expression unchanged from beginning to end. "Are you Young Master Jie?"

Xia Jie nodded.

Seeing the lively boy he'd known years ago reduced to this, Shen Nan felt even more anguish.

He was an orphan.

If not for the old clan leader of the Xia Clan on Xiama Island, even if he'd managed to grow up, he might have been nothing more than an ordinary fisherman.

It was the old clan leader and the Xia Clan who had given him cultivation techniques and set him on the path of cultivation.

After Shen Nan had reached the Xiantian realm and joined the Xiantian Battalion in Jade Dragon City, it was the old clan leader's support that had allowed him to open this Sea Treasure Pavilion in the East City Treasure Exchange.

The old clan leader and the Xia Clan were, in a way, the only family Shen Nan had.

"Young Master Jie, I, Shen Nan, won't let what happened to the old clan leader and the Xia Clan go! As long as I draw breath, I won't let anyone harm you!" Shen Nan said gravely.

Hearing Shen Nan's words, which were almost a promise, Xia Jie finally showed a hint of emotion.

"Brother Shen Nan," Xia Jie said, "I want to cultivate. I want to avenge Grandfather and the others."

"Good. I've earned quite a few Origin Stones over the years. If that's not enough, I'll sell this shop to gather the resources you need for cultivation." Shen Nan nodded, then asked directly, "Young Master Jie, what do you need me to do?"

"I need one hundred and eight Demon Refining Needles, ten cubic feet of Blood Refined Nether Fire, and the heart's blood essence of a Xiantian great demon," Xia Jie said softly.

"What?" Shen Nan was shocked to hear the list. "Young Master Jie, are you planning to cultivate the Blood Demon Indestructible Body?"

He had once received cultivation techniques from the old clan leader of the Xia Clan, and was familiar with several of the techniques the Xia Clan had collected.

The Demon Refining Needles, Blood Refined Nether Fire, and a great demon's heart's blood essence were clearly among the essentials for the fast-track method recorded in the Blood Demon Indestructible Body.

At the beginning of cultivating the Blood Demon Indestructible Body, one had to inscribe demonic patterns on the body using a great demon's heart's blood essence, then draw the Nether Fire into oneself every day to temper the body. It was excruciating.

The fast-track method required driving one hundred and eight Demon Refining Needles into the body's major acupoints and constantly channeling the Nether Fire from within to temper the body. It was a hundred times more painful than normal cultivation.

But the advantage was that, if one could endure the boundless agony, one could theoretically reach the Xiantian realm in as little as eighty-one days.

If one could endure three years of torment like being tortured in hell, one could even reach the Purple Mansion realm. Once mastered, the cultivator's body would be like a blood shadow, impervious to magical treasures and flying swords. They would only need to hurl themselves at an enemy to devour all their flesh and soul, strengthening their own cultivation in the process.

It was an intensely painful, perilous, yet astonishingly swift demonic body-refining technique.

Since ancient times, many tribes and factions had obtained this technique. Yet few could endure its torment and reach the Xiantian Lifeform stage, while those who cultivated it all the way to the Purple Mansion realm were rarer still.

"All right." Shen Nan watched the madness flickering in Xia Jie's eyes for a long while before finally nodding.

The one hundred and eight Demon Refining Needles were only ordinary, unranked magical treasures. The Blood Refined Nether Fire and a great demon's heart's blood essence weren't especially valuable either. He figured that after Xia Jie had tried it and learned just how agonizing it was, he could talk him out of it.

"By the way, Brother Shen Nan, you're in the Xiantian Battalion too. Do you know a commander named Zhou Hao?" Now that Shen Nan had agreed, some of the madness in Xia Jie's eyes faded.

"Commander Zhou?" Shen Nan was taken aback, not understanding why Xia Jie had brought up Zhou Hao.

Still, it was a good thing to talk about something else and keep Xia Jie from sinking into his hatred.

Shen Nan ushered the two of them into the shop, speaking as they walked:

"The Xiantian Battalion has since been renamed the Jade Dragon Army. Commander Zhou leads its newly formed Fifth Squad. He's a real expert, cultivating the first body-refinement technique among the god-devil arts, the Chiming Nine Heavens Map."

"When the Jade Dragon Army held its martial arts competition to choose a new commander, Commander Zhou bet that he could destroy a Purple Mansion-level Vine Wood Puppet. He staked twelve High-Grade Origin Stones, which he'd traded for something from me..."

Within the Red Dust Immortal Mansion, amid a vast pond of red lotuses.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Hundreds of black beams, each as thick as a child's arm, streaked across the sky.

Wherever the black beams passed, the chill that seeped into the red lotuses in the pond turned them into lumps of ice in an instant.

"It worked!"

Watching over a hundred Mystic Yin Extinction Divine Light Beams fly all the way to the pond's edge and slam into the red barrier raised by the Immortal Mansion's formation, leaving countless ripples on its surface, Zhou Hao raised his eyebrows. At last, a smile appeared on his face.

"Monster!"

"Not only do you cultivate so quickly, you even comprehended a sliver of the True Meaning of the Dao of Water while still a Xiantian Lifeform. And your soul is so powerful, you can casually fire off over a hundred beams. You really are a monster!"

Ou Huang, lying off to one side, had been so stunned by Zhou Hao's successive displays of freakish talent that he didn't know what to say. His mind held only one word: monster.

To cultivate the Great Five Elements Extinction Divine Light, successfully planting Cold Sha in the Purple Mansion was only the first step. Without comprehending the corresponding True Meaning of the Dao, even the simplest task of combining Cold Sha Qi with Origin Power to condense a Divine Light Beam would be extremely difficult.

But Zhou Hao... Damn it, he'd mastered it in less than a day!

And that wasn't all. He could casually fire off a hundred beams.

At that number, even a Myriad Phenomena True Person wouldn't be able to do any better.

"Given how freakishly talented he is, as long as he doesn't die along the way, reaching the Primordial Spirit and becoming an Earth Immortal will be child's play."

A little abacus seemed to be clattering away in Ou Huang's mind.

"I've got to get on his good side. Whether I'll be able to roam the world freely in the future depends on this kid."

After testing out his newly mastered Divine Light Beams, Zhou Hao was satisfied with their power.

Although he'd only just mastered them, and his Qi Refining cultivation was only at the initial Purple Mansion stage, each beam formed by combining Origin Power with Cold Sha and using the secret technique was already as powerful as a Purple Mansion late-stage, or even peak-stage, Qi Refining cultivator wielding a Human-Rank Magical Treasure flying sword.

The chill carried by the Mystic Yin Cold Sha Light Beams was especially potent. Without a protective magical treasure, even a peak-stage Purple Mansion Qi Refining cultivator struck by one would have the chill invade their body and severely weaken them. The weaker ones would freeze to death outright.

"It'd be even better if I could raise the grade of the Cold Sha," Zhou Hao thought.

Raising his cultivation realm in the short term or advancing his comprehension of the True Meaning of the Dao to the Domain Realm of the Dao would take more time.

After all, even with the Blue Flower Mist, which could put him in a state of "no thought, no desire" for comprehending the Dao, he still needed an initial flash of inspiration before he could make any progress!

The state of "no thought, no desire" could only magnify a flash of inspiration in his mind without limit, allowing him to align himself as closely as possible with the workings of the Heavenly Dao.

Without a foundation, without that spark of inspiration that came from something stirring in his heart, what could he possibly comprehend by forcing himself to sit and meditate?

Aside from advancing his Dao realm, the way to increase the secret technique's power was to work on the Cold Sha planted in his Purple Mansion Origin Sea.

The Cold Sha in his body was only a tiny seedling, merely Ninth-Grade Cold Sha, the weakest tier of Earth-Level Sha Qi. It needed to be nurtured continually with Origin Power or rare treasures of a yin-cold nature.

If he could nurture it to the first grade of the Earth rank, then the Mystic Yin Extinction Divine Light Beams alone would be enough to make him invincible among Myriad Phenomena True Persons.

Nurturing it with Origin Power was possible, but the process was far too slow. By the time he raised it to the first grade of the Earth rank, he'd probably have become a Primordial Spirit Daoist.

Rare treasures of a yin-cold nature would speed things up considerably, but those suitable for nurturing Cold Sha were extremely valuable and hard to find—rarer even than fine magical treasures.

"What a headache," Zhou Hao muttered with a frown. "I still don't know where to find the remaining Metal, Wood, Fire, and Earth Sha Veins. And now, if I want to nurture my Cold Sha quickly, I have to find rare treasures too."

"Rare treasures for nurturing Cold Sha?" Ou Huang's ears twitched. "Would Ten Thousand Year Cold Ice work?"

"It would! Perfectly!" Zhou Hao's eyes lit up. "You have Ten Thousand Year Cold Ice?"

"Follow me."

Ou Huang beckoned a red lotus over, and he and Zhou Hao leapt onto it and flew toward the north side of the pond.

"Red Dust had a block of Ten Thousand Year Cold Ice. It was supposed to be used as the Water element formation treasure for the Five Elements Array, but later he found an even better Heaven-Rank Rare Treasure, so he didn't use it. He casually tossed it into the lotus pond."

Zhou Hao was overjoyed.

It was a good thing it hadn't been used. The more treasures tossed into the pond, the better.

He didn't mind.

"But I should make this clear first: I can't give it all to you." Ou Huang sounded hesitant. "That's my most prized creation."

Creation??

A bad feeling rose in Zhou Hao's heart.

Sure enough, when the red lotus reached the area beneath the floating palace in the north, a giant white cat ice sculpture stood out in the lotus pond. It was over three zhang tall and more than ten zhang long.

"I can give you all those ice fragments. There's quite a bit of it altogether."

Ou Huang raised his little cat paw and pointed beside the ice sculpture.

Dozens of ice blocks of varying sizes were piled in the pond there.

When it came to wasting treasures, no one could beat you... Zhou Hao was speechless.

A block of Ten Thousand Year Cold Ice this big could be used to nurture Cold Sha, sure, but it was more than enough to refine an Earth-Rank or even Heaven-Rank magical treasure!

And you'd gone and squandered it on an ice sculpture!?

I need to cultivate quickly!

Once I make this Immortal Mansion recognize me as its master, I absolutely won't let this dead cat make any more statues.

Not a chance!