Black Market Purchase of Century-Old Whale Glue!

He was twenty-five now, level twelve.

But at his current cultivation speed, breaking through to a three-ring Soul Elder before forty was not impossible.

Attempting to reach a four-ring Soul Ancestor before sixty might not be a fool's dream either.

And even beyond that...

He shook his head and pushed down those overly distant thoughts.

Thinking too much was useless. Taking things one solid step at a time was the proper path.

He stood up, walked to the back courtyard, sat cross-legged among the Blue Silver Grass, and closed his eyes to enter meditation.

Soul power flowed through his meridians, its speed more than a step faster than when he had been in the village.

The improvement that a same-origin soul ring brought to the quality of his martial soul was showing its effects day by day. He could feel his foundation being tempered bit by bit, growing more solid.

At this rate, his breakthrough from level twelve to level thirteen should come within the next month or two.

Moonlight spilled like water over the courtyard full of Blue Silver Grass.

Dewdrops on the leaves reflected silvery-white light, like countless tiny stars fallen among the grass.

Lan Tian immersed himself in cultivation, his mind clear and empty.

After an unknown length of time, he suddenly caught a trace of an unusual aura with keen precision.

The aura was extremely faint, barely there, as if drifting over from some faraway place. Yet a certain quality contained within it made the fine hairs all over his body rise slightly.

He slowly opened his eyes and looked around.

The courtyard was silent. There was nothing there.

But that wisp of aura had truly existed. It had not been an illusion.

Lan Tian frowned and sensed carefully for a moment, but the aura vanished without a trace again, as if it had never appeared.

He pondered for a while, then did not pursue it further.

The waters of this world ran very deep. Right now, he was only a one-ring Soul Master. Some things were still far beyond his reach.

For now, the urgent matter was still to improve himself.

He closed his eyes again and continued meditating, temporarily putting that strange trace of aura to the back of his mind.

The night deepened, and the medical clinic's back courtyard returned to complete silence.

Only the Blue Silver Grass covering the ground swayed gently in the night wind, the leaves rubbing together with a faint rustling sound, as if this land itself were breathing.

For several days after the banquet, Lan Tian kept thinking about one matter.

The strange aura he had sensed in the courtyard that night had never appeared again. It seemed like an illusion, and yet also like something he still could not understand at present.

Since he could not figure it out, he simply stopped dwelling on it and put all his energy into cultivation and running the medical clinic.

But another thought had grown clearer and clearer over the past few days.

When he had read the novel in his previous life, he remembered something called Whale Glue, produced by deep-sea soul beasts, an excellent treasure for strengthening the body.

That thing had been mentioned several times in the original work. It seemed that because it was troublesome to process and had a foul, fishy stench, most people only regarded it as some low-grade obscene object and did not think much of it at all.

But in his memory, the true value of Whale Glue went far beyond that.

If he could get some, then combined with his current physical training and soul power cultivation, it would definitely let him achieve twice the result with half the effort.

The problem was that this thing could not be bought openly on the market at all.

For one thing, production was rare. For another, its reputation was bad. What proper merchant would be willing to stock this kind of thing and put it in their shop?

But if he wanted to look, it was not as if there were no channels at all.

Every city had an underground black market.

Nuoding City was not exactly large, but a place like that definitely existed here too.

Lan Tian spent two days making indirect inquiries through several patients, and finally figured out the black market's location.

It was behind an abandoned warehouse in the west of the city. The market only opened at dusk on even-numbered days, and most of the people who went there were dealers who could not bear the light of day.

That evening, he changed into an inconspicuous set of coarse cloth clothes, covered his face with a half-mask that hid everything above the bridge of his nose, tucked a pouch of Gold Soul Coins into his robe, and silently left the house.

Few people went to the warehouse area in the west of the city on ordinary days. The ruined brick walls and collapsed shed roofs made the place look like a corner forgotten by the city.

But when he arrived, there were already three or five dark figures moving in the shadows.

Lan Tian pressed down the edge of his mask and quickly walked in.

The black market was not large. A few stalls were scattered around, all selling items of unclear origin.

Rusted fragments of soul tools, beast bones of uncertain authenticity, and several bottles of suspiciously colored medicine.

The stall owners were all expressionless, their wary gazes sweeping over every passerby.

Lan Tian did not linger at the outer stalls, but walked straight to a corner in the very back.

There sat a thin, shriveled old man. In front of him was only a piece of tattered cloth, with several items placed on it. Among them was a fist-sized, murky yellow lump that looked like solidified grease. A thin layer of dust covered its surface; clearly, it had been sitting there for a long time.

Lan Tian crouched down and reached out to pick up the object.

It felt heavy in his hand, sticky and greasy to the touch. He brought it closer and gave it a sniff.

A thick, fishy stench rushed straight into his nostrils, nearly knocking the breath out of him.

But it was precisely that smell that confirmed it in his heart.

That was right. It was Whale Glue.

When the old man saw him pick up the Whale Glue, he did not even lift his eyelids. He only said lazily, "That thing's fishy as hell. Even if you buy it as a medicinal primer, the smell's too much. If you want it, I'll sell it cheap."

Lan Tian turned the Whale Glue over and over, then weighed it in his hand. After estimating inwardly, he figured this piece was about a pound or so.

And judging from the degree of weathering on the surface, it was at least hundred-year-old Whale Glue. It had also been stored for quite some time, so its medicinal effects should have settled rather fully.

"How long has this been sitting here?" he asked in a lowered voice.

"At least three to five years," the old man said with a curl of his lip. "A medicine merchant ordered it at first, but after taking it back, he found it couldn't be used in medicine at all. It stank so badly even mice wouldn't eat it, so he returned it to me. If you want it, take it for one Gold Soul Coin."

One Gold Soul Coin.

Lan Tian laughed inwardly.

If someone who knew their goods learned about this thing, forget one Gold Soul Coin—even at a hundred Gold Soul Coins per pound, people would fight until their heads bled over it.

But in this era, the vast majority of people had no idea what its true use was. They only regarded it as a useless, fishy, stinking waste, so its price was naturally pitifully low.

He did not haggle. He simply took out a Gold Soul Coin and handed it over. "I'll take it."

The old man froze for a moment, probably not expecting someone to actually be willing to spend a Gold Soul Coin on this stinking thing. But since the money was in hand, he did not ask any more questions and waved for him to take it away.

Lan Tian wrapped up the Whale Glue and tucked it into his clothes, then rose and quickly left the black market.

He returned to the medical hall without incident. After closing the door and lighting the oil lamp, he took out the piece of Whale Glue and placed it on the table.

Under the dim yellow lamplight, the patterns on the surface of the Whale Glue were faintly visible. Although the fishy stench was still piercing, the more Lan Tian looked at it, the more satisfied he felt.

He remembered clearly from his previous life that Whale Glue had to be roasted at a high temperature until it turned liquid before its effects could be brought out. Gnawing on it raw was useless. Not only would it be impossible to absorb, it would also easily upset one's stomach.

Carrying the Whale Glue, he went into the kitchen, lit the stove, set an iron pot on it, then found a clean ceramic bowl and placed it in the pot to heat it over water.

Flames licked the bottom of the pot. As the water temperature gradually rose, the Whale Glue in the ceramic bowl began to slowly melt.

That fishy stench grew even stronger as the temperature climbed, spreading through the entire kitchen and forcing Lan Tian to cover his mouth and nose with a cloth.

But he gritted his teeth and endured it, staring unblinkingly at the changes inside the bowl.