The trading palace was always extremely busy, full of people. The one place that had the most treasures in the whole South Rudra Region would be the trading palace in the Martial City. They had the most weapons and the widest selection of medicinal plants. Although all the other huge nations also had similar cities full of warriors, compared to the Martial City, they were still ten or twenty percent weaker."Mid rank great weapon, the Lightning Spear… It was collected in the Blood Demon Battle Field. The bid starts at thirty thousand mid-rank soul stones. Whoever makes the highest bid wins."
On entering the trading hall, Ye Chen saw someone selling a mid-rank great weapon, which was a colorful long spear with a very s.h.i.+ny tip. It gave people a feeling of being unbreakable. It was definitely the top of the mid-rank great weaponry.
""What? Mid-rank weapon? Let me go have a look.""
""The stuff from the Blood Demon Battlefield would not be sh*t. It is a place with both opportunities and dangers. Countless treasures are hidden all over the place.""
The seller yelled, and soon, his stand had been surrounded by four or five Astral Reaching Realm warriors.
The Blood Demon Battle Field! Ye Chen had heard about it. It was similar to the Heavenly Dream Ancient Place, which had existed since the ancient time. Many blood demons lived within, separated into Entrance Level, low rank, mid rank, and high-rank Blood Demons, along with the extremely horrifying Blood Demon warriors and the Blood Demon Emperor. Instead of calling the place a battlefield, it should be referred as a small contained s.p.a.ce. But of course, it was way much bigger than the Heavenly Dream Ancient Place, divided into two levels. The first level was full of low and mid-rank Blood Demons, while the second level had more powerful ones.
"Although it is a bit more complicated, now that I have reached the Astral Reaching Realm, I think I should change the Star Scar Sword. Perhaps, I will go there next then."
Making up his mind, he planned to go to the Blood Demon Battlefield to find a mid-rank great sword, which would be able to increase his attacking power by thirty to forty percent. He knew that it was something he would surely need.
The trading hall was enormous, more than miles big, which could compare to a relatively small town.
""Ah! It is a pelleting purifier!""
Arriving at the center of the trading hall, Ye Chen noticed an elder with a white beard. He wore a long robe, with a flaming pellet rod pattern st.i.tched on it. It was obvious what he did for a living. In front of him was a crystal stand, which was full of all kinds of different pellets. There were the ones that could recover zhen yuan, and the ones that could fix broken meridians. There were also ones that could speed up the healing process. There was even this one kind of pellet that had a different kind of s.h.i.+ne, and Ye Chen had no idea what it was for.
There were already a lot of Astral Reaching Realm warriors in front of the stand, all seeming extremely respectful. They were not even daring to speak in a loud voice. Judging from this, it was not hard to tell that this pellet trainer, who was in his sixties, was a tough character.
""Pellet Elder, give me a bottle of meridian repairing potion.""
""Elder, I still owe you one thousand mid-rank soul stones. I would like to pay them off now.""
Just as they were talking, Ye Chen approached.
"Is this the Earth Astral Pellet?" Ye Chen pointed at the thumb-sized pellet with an asteroid s.h.i.+ne inside the crystal stand as he asked.
The elder lifted up his head, "Indeed, the Earth Astral Pellet would be able to increase the Astral Reaching Realm warrior"s cultivation, but it cannot help you make a breakthrough. My young friend, would you like to buy it?"
Ye Chen looked at the price - one thousand mid-rank soul stones for one. It was indeed very expensive, but he did not care about money. In this power oriented world, only the things serving the purpose of increasing power mattered.
"Give me five, and I would like to have two bottles each for three other medicines."
The elder was a bit surprised, Ye Chen seemed so young, but he was able to afford so many things already. With all these pellets added together, it would cost him more than ten thousand mid-rank soul stones. But obviously, the more Ye Chen bought, the happier he would be. He said with a smile, ""Five Earth Astral Pellet would be five thousand mid-rank soul stones. Two bottles of Seven Star Pellets that can recover zhen yuan would be one thousand and two hundred mid-rank soul stones, while two bottles of Speed Recovering Pellets would be one thousand five hundred mid-rank soul stones, and two bottles of Magic Pellets that can repair meridians would be three thousand mid-rank soul stones. It would be ten thousand seven hundred mid-rank soul stones in total. Since it is your first time buying them from me, then I will reduce the seven hundred mid-rank soul stones and charge you ten thousand mid-rank soul stones.""
""Alright! Here.""
Ye Chen took out a box full of mid-rank soul stones from his storage ring and put it on the ground in front of the elder.
After the trade, he walked around, and after not seeing anything suitable, he left the trading palace and arrived in the hall of the training rooms.
Behind the host desk was still that beautiful lad. It was her first time seeing such a young Astral Reaching Realm warrior who was actually kind of familiar, but she was not sure about it. She said respectfully, ""Would you like to have a high-rank training room or top rank training room, sir?""
The training rooms were separated into four different ranks, low rank, mid-rank, high rank, and top rank. Only Astral Reaching Realm warriors would be allowed to use the high rank and top rank ones. Anyone who was below the Astral Reaching Realm would be denied entry, no matter how many soul stones they had. It was the rule of the Martial City.
Ye Chen said, "How many soul stones for the top ones?"
"Top rank training room would cost thirty thousand low-rank soul stones. If you would like to pay in mid-rank soul stones, then it would be five hundred, sir."" The beautiful lad said truthfully.
""I will pay with low-rank soul stones. Here is the fee for three days."" Ye Chen thought about it before deciding to pay with low-rank soul stones. The mid-rank soul stones seemed to be cheaper, as five hundred mid-rank soul stones would be equal to twenty-five thousand low-rank soul stones. But for him, there was barely any chance to use his low rank soul stones, and the mid-rank soul stones had much greater usage. Sometimes, even five hundred low-rank soul stones would not be able to exchange for one mid-rank soul stone.
Of course, for most Astral Reaching Realm warriors, Ye Chen"s mid-rank soul stones were astonis.h.i.+ng and enviable. He had killed five Astral Reaching Realm warriors, which got him one hundred thousand mid-rank soul stones. Added with the ones he already had, he now had one hundred and sixty thousand mid-rank soul stones. After spending ten thousand soul stones for buying pellets, he still was left with one hundred and fifty thousand of them.
In comparison, Ye Chen had got more low-rank soul stones, piling high as a mountain. He had obtained one million low-rank soul stones from five Astral Reaching Realm warriors. Added with his own, he now had three million and five hundred thousand soul stones. It was a horrifying wealth, which made him richer than a normal rank 9 martial schools, and even some rank 8 martial schools.
After getting the jade tag, he followed the servant towards the training rooms in the back.
"Thirty thousand low-rank soul stones for a day, so ten days would cost about three hundred thousand low-rank soul stones. The training rooms are indeed making quite a lot of money."
As he continued while being lost in his own thoughts, he arrived in a courtyard.
"This is training room number three, master. Please..."" The servant pushed the gate for Ye Chen and bowed to greet him.
Ye Chen nodded before taking out thirty low-rank soul stones for him, ""Here is your tip.""
"Thank you so much!"
The servant was extremely excited.
The top rank training room was a bit bigger than the mid-rank training room. On entering, Ye Chen realized that the temperature around him had risen up. However, he did not feel hot on being inside the room. Instead, he felt nice and cozy. His zhen yuan, which was moving rather slowly, started to boil.
Spreading out his soul power, he was able to tell where the best spot to train was. The gas coming from the ground was not light red color; it was dark red instead. The painting on the wall was also not simple. Once the dark red gas touched it, it was bounced back instantly into the middle of the room, creating a rich ball-shaped area.
"The fire qi here seems to be more than ten times richer than the mid-rank training room. It lives up to its reputation after all. I wonder what would happen if I train closer to the ground flame."
Slowly letting out a breath, he sat in the middle of the room on the ground, then closed his eyes, entering training mode.
After a long time, he opened his eyes, "It seems like I would only need one Earth Astral Pellet after all. I was already not too far away from the peak level Early Astral Reaching Realm. Added with this top rank training room, I am making twice the progress."
Taking out a thumb-sized pellet, he popped it into this mouth.
…
Three days after…
Ye Chen had reached the peak level Early Astral Reaching Realm. His zhen yuan had become fifty percent richer than three days ago. However, its purity had not progressed much, since it could only be improved through the progress of cultivation. From Early Astral Reaching Realm to peak of the same level would not be counted as progress in cultivation.
"The Earth Astral Pellet is indeed mysterious. Besides the fact that it would not be able to help me make a breakthrough in my cultivation, it would make a huge difference in increasing my experience, which would be able to save me a lot of time."
It would be useless if he continued to train, since it would take a long time for him to reach the Mid Astral Reaching Realm. So, his next target would be his sword intent.
The training yard of the top rank training room was humongous. The width would be three to four hundred meters, which was already much bigger than a normal rich family"s yard.
Absorbing the sword intent from the sword-shaped plant, he held the broken sword of the Battle Emperor and threw out a sword attack at the training column in front of him.
Swoos.h.!.+
The material that the training column was made of was close to a low-rank great weapon, so only a one-centimeter deep sword mark appeared on it. His immortal sword intent spread out with the sword mark as the center. Luckily, it stopped before reaching out of the training yard. Otherwise, it would have been quite tricky.
He trained within the mist of his sword intent, and soon, half a month had come and gone.
He opened his eyes, "Yes, just as expected, I am getting closer and closer to the completion of my sword intent. The past half month, I have used eight sword-shaped plants, which only increased my sword intent from ninety-three percent to ninety-five. I wonder how many sword-shaped plants it would take for me to reach my goal."
Without any hesitation, he continued to take out sword-shaped plants to train, as another seven days pa.s.sed by.
"I only have two plants left. Reaching the completion stage might not happen this time, I guess."
Forcing a laugh, he shook his head. Although he had already mentally prepared himself, the difficulty of training the sword intent had still surprised him a bit. No wonder the sword master, who was one of the top ten sword artists in the whole South Rudra Region, was still stuck at ninety percent. He wondered who else in the top ten sword artists had mastered the sword intent, and who had reached even beyond it.
…
The final two plants were finally used up.
As of now, Ye Chen"s sword intent had stopped at ninety-seven percent, and there was only a little gap between him and the completion of sword intent. However, even that tiny gap might take a normal warrior years of training to cover. But of course, Ye Chen"s sword intent had contained immortality which was already enough to compete with the completion of sword intent, it was indeed his advantage.
"It is time to leave. Next stop would be the Blood Demon Battlefield!"
After resting for a day, Ye Chen ended up spending a whole month in the top rank training room in total. He paid nine hundred thousand low-rank soul stones. Fortunately, it was worth the price. Right now, all he needed was an opportunity. Then, he would be able to reach the Mid Astral Reaching Realm.