Chapter 1449: A Complicated Trade

Qin Sang glanced outside and drew his gaze back.

Earth-based evasion techniques were the rarest of the five-elemental evasion techniques, and most of them served for slipping away through the earth, concealing the body and suppressing one's aura. What this man wanted was a technique of flight and escape, something along the lines of Lightning Evasion or Wind Evasion.

Qin Sang cast back through the secret techniques and arts he had collected over the years and found nothing of the sort.

He did know sword evasion and Lightning Evasion, but the first had come from his own bitter years of comprehending the Sword Dao, and the second was a supernatural ability granted by the blood and essence of the Azure Luan. Neither could be passed to anyone else, or the man would have been delighted beyond words.

So either he waited to see whether anyone else offered an earth-based evasion technique, or he found another way in.

Qin Sang sent his spiritual consciousness into his Mustard Seed Pouch, swept it across the four spiritual herbs, and settled on one of them, a vine no thicker than a thumb and black through and through.

Its surface was rough and studded with swollen nodules, and a black sap seemed to be flowing inside them, on the verge of bursting out.

The thing was called Dark Malevolent Bramble.

As far as Qin Sang knew, there was a spiritual pill named the Mystic Density Pill whose principal ingredient was Nether Malevolent Bramble. A cultivator practicing earth-based arts who took it would find the true essence in his body condensed, gaining a measure of depth that would greatly benefit his later cultivation and his breakthroughs.

Unfortunately, the Mystic Density Pill was something Qin Sang had only learned of from old texts, and its formula was probably harder to come by than the bramble itself.

Before setting out he had traded for whatever ancient formulas might prove useful to him, and the Mystic Density Pill had not been among them. He had no idea whether the Taiyi Core Sect held a copy in its vaults either.

Pill Cauldron Mountain almost certainly did not.

By the time Qin Sang had taken out the Nether Malevolent Bramble, a good number of people were already speaking up, trying to haggle with the owner of the Seven-Master Buddha Seal.

Body cultivators were scarce in this world, and a body cultivator's supernatural ability at the Spiritual Infant Realm was just as rare. Plenty of them would have been glad to take it if the price came cheap.

But by the rules of the trade fair, each art or secret technique could only enter a single transaction per assembly, so the owner of the Seven-Master Buddha Seal held firm.

Seeing that he had no intention of coming down at all, the crowd lost most of its interest, and only a scant few kept at it, trying to talk him into loosening his terms.

"One whole Nether Malevolent Bramble!" Qin Sang gripped his jade token and spoke in a low voice. He gave a brief account of what the Mystic Density Pill could do, then added, "You could also refine the bramble directly. Your true essence would take in the Dark Malevolent Yin Qi, and it would catch an enemy off guard."

Refining it that way was, in truth, something of a waste.

"Does the Mystic Density Pill really have such an effect?"

"Daoist, do you know how to refine it?"

"If this is true, I can offer you something better than he can..."

The words had barely left his mouth. The owner of the Seven-Master Buddha Seal had not yet responded, but the other cultivators who practiced earth-based arts could no longer sit still, and they broke in all at once with eager questions.

Venerable Zhongtai cleared his throat and pressed the noise down. "Perhaps some of you have forgotten these few rules. This is his time now, so please be patient. There will be free exchange at the end!"

Quiet returned to the island at the center of the lake.

Only then did the owner of the Seven-Master Buddha Seal speak, still hesitant. "Do you have the formula for the Mystic Density Pill?"

"No." Qin Sang sighed inwardly. That was exactly where the trouble lay.

After a pause he added, "If you don't mind, I can introduce you to a grandmaster of the Dao of pills once the trade fair ends. Or give me some time and I'll ask around among my friends, though I can't promise I'll find it."

What Qin Sang had in mind was returning to Beichen Realm to ask. He had crossed the storm belt once already and would not be reduced to the same sorry state as last time. But it meant the two of them would have to stay in contact privately.

Qin Sang did not mind that. Apart from the Chaotic Devil Elder, there were few people left who could threaten him.

The question was whether the other man minded.

Sure enough, the owner of the Seven-Master Buddha Seal said, "I'd like to wait a while longer."

The moment they heard Qin Sang's offer, the enthusiasm of the others plunged as well. No wonder, they thought. Who would hand over such a precious spiritual herb for a body cultivator's supernatural ability?

With no strong rival contending for it, Qin Sang felt no urgency to raise his offer and did not press the man. He simply left the Nether Malevolent Bramble sitting out in the open.

The trade had not closed, so Venerable Zhongtai called for the next participant, and a new bamboo lodge shifted forward.

The trade fair went on. One bamboo lodge after another took its turn.

To Qin Sang's delight, the trade fair had not even reached its halfway point before he had spotted three spiritual materials suitable for reforging the Golden Sinking Sword: a piece of Blue-Speckled Gold, a Cotton-Shaped Cloud Crystal, and two drops of Heavenly Crown Heavy Liquid, and that was without counting the ones already sold.

Trade for one or two of them, add the Fallen Phoenix Jade, and with his attainments in artifact refinement he could just barely raise the Golden Sinking Sword to the level of a top-grade astra.

Different materials would lend the sword different properties.

But Qin Sang only wanted its grade raised as quickly as possible, and his other requirements were not demanding. Any material with similar properties would serve.

The Golden Sinking Sword was only a stand-in for the Wandering Sword, used mainly to cast sword evasion and the Seven-Yin-Soul Killing Array, and only at a sufficient grade could it bring out the sword array's full power.

That was why several of the materials would do. Otherwise he would have been in for another long search.

Even so, Qin Sang was in no rush to trade. He watched the rare treasures parade past with real interest, feeling that the day had opened his eyes and the trip had been worth making.

A few of the items stirred him as well.

Unfortunately, compared with the other Spiritual Infant cultivators, his years of cultivation had been far too short and his reserves were thin. The great treasures he had won through his various strokes of fortune could not be put up for trade either, so he had to satisfy his most pressing needs first.

While Qin Sang was making these careful calculations, he suddenly heard the owner of the central bamboo lodge say, "I'm looking to buy an art or secret technique that strengthens spiritual consciousness. I can trade orthodox Daoist arts of metal and wood in exchange, and if you have other terms, we can discuss them."

The words gave Qin Sang pause. A supernatural ability that cultivated spiritual consciousness. Isn't that precisely the Fire Seed Golden Lotus?

He did not need to offer the complete secret technique at all. Putting up the first stage alone would be enough to have many people scrambling for it. In the present age, an incomplete secret technique was the norm.

Nor did he need to worry that the man would come to threaten him once he had mastered it.

As for the risk that letting the Fire Seed Golden Lotus out would lead the Chaotic Devil Elder to connect him with the Devilish Flames of Nine Hells which the Chaotic Devil Elder had fought with in the Buddhist hall, Qin Sang was not afraid of that either.

The treasures this man had traded for a moment ago marked him as a Daoist cultivator.

Once the Myriad Devil Assembly ended and he left Chaotic Devil Island, it would not matter much even if the Chaotic Devil Elder pieced something together.

The problem was that the secret technique carried two great restrictions.

The first was that one had to find a powerful spiritual flame. The second was that cultivating it required a transparent lotus seed, unless the cultivator also possessed something like the Jade Buddha that could steer him clear of the danger.

Qin Sang had condensed his fire seed several times over without ever needing the transparent lotus seed, and it now sat stored away in his Thousand-Jin Ring. But he would not sell it to anyone.

He had only just broken through to the second stage of the Fire Seed Golden Lotus, and his grasp of the ability was still shallow. If the transparent lotus seed turned out to do more than help condense a fire seed, there would be no use crying about it later.

And without a transparent lotus seed, the value of the Fire Seed Golden Lotus would be greatly diminished.

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