Chapter 46: Chapter 46: Harvest, Zhao Family Marketplace

Lu Zhao left the previous stall, his gaze sweeping over the noisy plaza before finally settling on a somewhat deserted corner. A faint chill emanated from a small stall, where the Ice Wind Stones he was searching for were on display.

The owner was a female cultivator in green robes with a slender figure. A sheer veil decorated with flowing clouds covered her face, revealing only a pair of clear yet somewhat aloof eyes. Seeing Lu Zhao come to a stop, her gaze shifted to him.

"Daoist, what’s the price for the Ice Wind Stone?" Lu Zhao asked, getting straight to the point.

The female cultivator’s voice was cool and her speech steady. "Ten Spirit Stones a pound. If you have high-quality Talismans, Magical Artifacts, or Pills, we can arrange a partial trade to lower the price."

Lu Zhao said nothing. He simply swiped a hand over his Storage Bag and produced an Ironwood Guard. The heavy body of the Tier One Lower Grade Puppet thudded to the ground before her stall, causing the female cultivator’s gaze to flicker.

"A Tier One Lower Grade Wood and Stone Puppet, the ’Ironwood Guard’," Lu Zhao said, his tone still level. But with the puppet standing before them, his calm words carried more weight. "It has incredible tenacity and can fight a Tier One Middle Stage Demon Beast in close combat. How about we trade this for your ten pounds of Ice Wind Stone?"

The female cultivator’s gaze flickered between the puppet and Lu Zhao’s face for a moment. She didn’t answer right away, pausing for a short while before speaking. "This... is certainly no ordinary item. May I inspect it more closely?"

"Be my guest." Lu Zhao nodded, showing no displeasure as he gave the Ironwood Guard a gentle nudge in her direction.

The woman bent down, saying nothing more. Her slender fingers rested on the puppet’s cold outer shell, pressing and probing inch by inch along the seams of its joints. Occasionally, she would gather a faint wisp of Spiritual Power at her fingertips, infusing it into the key nodes to investigate. Her expression was so focused that she seemed to have forgotten her surroundings entirely.

A half quarter hour passed in a flash. She finally straightened up, her gaze on the imposing war machine on the ground now extremely complex. Her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to say something, but it ended up as a soft sigh. Her voice held a barely perceptible hesitation. "This item... is incredibly valuable, after all. Could you give me a moment more to consider?"

Lu Zhao’s brow furrowed almost imperceptibly, but he did not rush her, simply standing quietly to the side to wait.

Another full hour passed, and the crowd at the Trade Assembly had thinned considerably.

Just as Lu Zhao’s fingertips began to subconsciously tap the edge of his Storage Bag, ’a flicker of impatience rising within him,’ the green-robed female cultivator finally looked up.

All hesitation was gone from her eyes, replaced by a steely, point-of-no-return resolve. She bit her lower lip gently beneath the sheer veil and finally said in a clear voice, "Alright! It’s a deal! I’ll trade for this puppet!"

The tense line of Lu Zhao’s jaw relaxed almost imperceptibly, and he let out a barely audible sigh. "Good. Let’s make the trade."

Visibly relieved, the female cultivator moved quickly yet carefully to store away the Ironwood Guard, an item worth far more than her Ice Wind Stones.

The moment the puppet disappeared into her Storage Bag, her shoulders visibly relaxed. Even through the veil, he could sense the sudden release of her pent-up tension.

Lu Zhao took this in and thought to himself, ’Looks like this trade has finally put a long-standing worry of hers to rest.’

After leaving the Ice Wind Stone stall, Lu Zhao wandered through the bustling trading grounds for a while longer, but nothing else caught his eye. He found Chen Moyang, who wasn’t far off, exchanged a brief greeting, then put the matter aside and headed back.

The moment he stepped into the stone house assigned to him by the camp, the heavy stone door shut with a solid THUD. The humming Avoidance Array activated, cutting him off from any prying from the outside world. Only then did he walk to the stone table in the center of the room, take out the "treasures" he had acquired at the Trade Assembly one by one, and place them carefully on its surface.

The first was the "Earth Spirit Crystal." He cradled it in his palm and channeled a wisp of Spiritual Power into it from his fingertip.

As the Spiritual Power washed over it, the dusty gray layer of camouflage on the crystal’s surface flaked away. It revealed a deeper, warmer, earthy-yellow crystal within, one that seemed to contain an entire miniature earth vein.

[Earth Vein Crystal (Tier One High-Grade spiritual material)]: The information on the Puppet Bead’s panel reconfirmed it.

A distinct smile touched Lu Zhao’s lips.

The Earth Vein Crystal was essentially a superior version of the Earth Spirit Crystal. Their formation processes were similar, both requiring ages of nourishment within an Earth Attribute Spirit Vein.

Earth Spirit Crystals formed on the periphery of a Spirit Vein or after a short period of nourishment, whereas Earth Vein Crystals were hidden deep within the core, requiring a much longer period of immersion in the essence of the Earth Vein.

A small fraction of crystals that have just matured to the Earth Vein Crystal stage look almost identical to regular Earth Spirit Crystals. If he hadn’t seen the real thing before, and without the Puppet Bead’s flawlessly accurate appraisal, it would have been impossible for him to pick this treasure out from a pile of ordinary Earth Spirit Crystals.

The market price for a Tier One Middle-Grade Earth Spirit Crystal was about fifty Spirit Stones. A Tier One High-Grade Earth Vein Crystal, however, was worth at least two hundred! Furthermore, it was a prime material for refining the Puppet Cores of Tier One High-Grade Earth Element puppets and for setting up powerful Earth Element Formations. Such items were often priceless and impossible to find.

He had acquired it for only fifty Spirit Stones, meaning a net profit of nearly one hundred and fifty! More importantly, this was the first time the Puppet Bead had truly showcased its ability to identify Treasures of Heaven and Earth, an event of extraordinary significance.

Carefully storing away the precious Earth Vein Crystal, Lu Zhao turned his gaze to the pile of frigid Ice Wind Stones.

There was a reason he had been willing to trade a precious Ironwood Guard Puppet for these ten pounds of Ice Wind Stone. He was nearing the peak of a Tier One Lower Grade Puppet Master; his success rate in crafting Ironwood Guard Puppets was steadily rising, and his creation of Flowing Cloud Sparrows and Ice Mouse Puppets was practically flawless. It was time to prepare for his breakthrough to Tier One Middle-Grade Puppet Master.

The first Tier One Middle-Grade Puppet he planned to attempt creating was the "Ice Wind Wolf Puppet" recorded in the legacy he’d inherited.

At Lu Zhao’s thought, the Puppet Bead’s panel displayed the detailed data for the Ice Wind Wolf Puppet:

[Ice Wind Wolf Puppet (Tier One Middle-Grade Puppet)]

Main Materials: One block of Ice Wind Stone, one hundred pounds of Profound Iron, one complete corpse of a Tier One Middle Stage Demon Wolf.

Abilities: High-speed pounce, Icy Wind Claws (Power comparable to a stronger Tier One Middle Stage Demon Beast).

Lu Zhao’s gaze was serene as he looked over the list of requirements. The Ice Wind Stone was one of the core components, and he now had it. He would have to either hunt or purchase a wolf corpse, but he had plenty of Profound Iron in reserve.

The most difficult part of creating this puppet, however, was in-scribing the dual Ice and Wind attribute Spirit Patterns—a challenge he was not yet skilled enough to attempt.

He would need to raise his success rate for the Ironwood Guard to over forty percent before he’d be confident enough to make an attempt.

After taking stock of his gains and formulating a plan, Lu Zhao sat down cross-legged. He began to cultivate the Little Spirit Rain Technique; he had not yet completed his daily practice and needed to seize every moment to grow stronger.

「Three days later.」 The rest period ended, and all the cultivators gradually returned.

「One month later.」 The grand army had finished repairing its damaged Magical Artifacts. The injured cultivators had mostly recovered, and the stores of Pills and Talismans had been replenished.

On this day, the order was given to march on.

The camp gates boomed open, and the Cloud Pattern Cavalry charged out first. They were followed by the Law Enforcement Team and the Honored Guest Elders, while the vassal families and hired Wanderers brought up the rear.

As for the cultivators of the Hundred Arts Camp, they traveled with the Supply Camp at the very end of the procession.

After ten days of marching, a massive Marketplace appeared before them, one no less grand than the Zhou Family Marketplace. This was the Zhao Family Marketplace, one of the Zhao Family’s most important assets in Celestial County.

At this moment, the once-bustling Marketplace was eerily silent, as if completely deserted. However, the earthy-yellow light of a Grand Array had already enveloped it, a clear sign that the cultivators inside were prepared.

Looking at the Grand Array, Lu Zhao recalled the events of three days prior.

Three days ago, the Hundred Arts Camp had informed its cultivators of their target: the Zhao Family Marketplace. They were also given details, including the fact that it was built upon a Tier One High-Grade spiritual vein and protected by a Tier Two Array, the "Profound Stone Rock Light Formation."

When he heard this news, Lu Zhao’s heart had sunk.

Though his knowledge of Arrays was limited, he knew that a Tier Two Array was nearly impossible to break without the help of a Foundation Establishment Cultivator. And with what was sure to be a large number of cultivators defending from within, the task would be even more daunting.

Lu Zhao certainly wasn’t the only one to realize this. A Zhou Family Alchemist about his age—whether out of habit or a failure to grasp the gravity of the situation, it was hard to say—immediately asked the Camp Commander if the Elders and the Elder Ancestor would be making a move.

But the Camp Commander, his face like stone, reprimanded the man and told him not to ask about matters that didn’t concern him. He then announced to the entire camp that the family had a contingency plan and would surely breach the Marketplace’s defenses.

Lu Zhao understood as soon as he heard the words. ’The Foundation Establishment Cultivators probably aren’t going to intervene. It’s going to be up to us—nearly two thousand Qi Cultivators. And as for that contingency plan... only the heavens know if it even exists.’

"I’m afraid even the Hundred Arts Camp cultivators will have to fight this time," Lu Zhao muttered to himself.

This oppressive sense of an impending storm spread through the Hundred Arts Camp like a plague. After the meeting was dismissed, everyone was consumed by anxiety.

And so, several people approached Lu Zhao, hoping to buy an Ironwood Guard from him.

By now, everyone was aware that Lu Zhao could craft not only Flowing Cloud Sparrows and Ice Mouse Puppets, but also a type of Wood and Stone Puppet.

This kind of puppet had powerful defenses, making it a life-saving asset on the battlefield.

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