Aspiring to the Immortal Path
Aspiring to the Immortal Path - Chapter 683: Exchange

The battle between Silver Eyes and Thunder Blade soon had all of fiend territory in an uproar.

It became even greater when the gruesome details got out: Silver Eyes had lost a life, Thunder Blade had been heavily injured, and the Little Thunder Emperor had died, along with four fiend kings.

Firstly, the Iron Blood Empire issued a statement criticizing the Silver Eyes Fiend Emperor for his unbridled and arrogant ways, provoking tensions on the border and killing innocents. The Thunder Blade Fiend Emperor had been compelled to act in order to save his son, and now, he had to avenge the death of his son, so the relations between the Silver Eyes and Thunder Blade Empires were bound to become like fire and water. All of this was Silver Eyes Wu Qianshan's fault.

The border conflicts between the Iron Blood Empire and Silver Eyes Empire had been worsening as of late, and the intent behind this statement was clearly to give Thunder Blade a hand.

The Silver Eyes Empire responded in kind, retorting that the Iron Blood Fiend Emperor was shameless, to say such things. The Iron Blood Fiend Emperor had attained the Dao through Slaughter, and the Iron Blood Fiend Emperor had always been the most bloodthirsty and murderous of the Five Fiend Emperors.

The Blackwater Fiend Emperor then came forward, stating that the fiends were a family and should be united against the humans. But such words were meaningless. If they had been threatened by some powerful enemy, the fiends might really have united, putting aside any internal conflicts. The problem was that the humans were weak and isolated in a corner of the world, so they couldn't be considered a powerful foe at all, so why should they put aside their grudges to deal with the humans? It wasn't for no reason that larger factions were more liable to be ruined by internal conflicts. An organization was like a deep sea creature. Without outside pressure, compressing them, they would burst apart from their internal pressure.

Finally, the leader of the Five Fiend Emperors, the Aurora Fiend Emperor, finally spoke. He harshly criticized the two Fiend Emperors for disregarding the overarching situation and quarreling over such a minor matter, causing the fiends to lose strength. This was a dereliction of duty to the fiend race. He then expressed sorrow for the deceased, even saying that the Little Thunder Emperor was a talented genius and a rare good child, so his death was a great pity. Finally, he said that Silver Eyes should apologize and ask to be punished in order to resolve this grudge.

Although the Aurora Fiend Emperor's words radiated fairness and impartiality, being biased toward no one, absolute fairness was itself a sort of unfairness. After all, Silver Eyes was Aurora's son-in-law, so it was normal for him to speak up for Silver Eyes. And everyone could tell that there was something wrong in the Aurora Fiend Emperor's words. It seemed like Aurora was somewhat discontent with Silver Eyes.

This discontent was precisely why he had said the above, appearing fair while actually putting Silver Eyes in a tough spot—having Silver Eyes seek forgiveness from Thunder Blade would be even more insufferable than having him killed.

Considering this, some people realized that the rumor that Silver Eyes had recently made a human his favorite consort was probably true. Why else would Aurora indirectly criticize Silver Eyes like this?

But it was hard to say if such words had any effect, for Silver Eyes made no public reaction to this—Tang Jie was too busy laying down his teleportation formation.

Of course, this wasn't the extreme long-distance teleportation formation, but a formation between the lands of Silver Eyes and Thunder Blade so that Tang Jie could go between them and handle affairs. The teleportation formations were placed in the cultivation chambers, the most secretive place for any cultivator that even one's closest confidants couldn't enter, and whose other formations would normally cover up the existence of the teleportation formation.

The cost for a teleportation formation covering this distance was much smaller, and there had been such formations in all of the major sects of the Rosecloud Domain. While fiends weren't good at formations, captive human formation masters had laid them out on their behalf. But the fiend empires were on guard against each other and normally didn't allow teleportation between empires.

Tang Jie also installed two more teleportation formations, one of which led to the Inkcloud Abyss. What had happened to Yiyi had left Tang Jie paranoid, and he was no longer willing to let Little Three and the others casually travel around fiend territory. The other was located in the vicinity of Dongjin Pass. His identity as Tang Jie still had meaning among humans, so when he needed to, he would visit and do some trading.

Tang Jie had once done well as an inter-domain trader, so becoming an inter-race trader wasn't out of the question. At worst, the profit margins were smaller, but at least there was still profit.

So long as there was profit, Tang Jie didn't mind making more money.

Not even mentioning his original body's appetite, the Mountain River State Diagram alone could swallow up all of the Verdant Cloud Domain without blinking.

After setting up the teleportation formations, Tang Jie really did pay a visit to Dongjin Pass.

Seeing Tang Jie return safely, the anxious Shentu Yuan and company finally sighed in relief.

Tang Jie returned with the Umbra Cactus Flower. As agreed, he split up the five petals, one petal per person, and the other four were deeply grateful. It had to be understood that no one knew that Sun Shuming had taken the flower, and nobody would have been the wiser if Tang Jie had remained silent.

After staying for a few days, Tang Jie mentioned that he had a way of getting resources unique to fiend territory and that he wondered if the four of them had any way of selling them.

The other four were all tempted by this business deal. As scions of great clans of Fengshan, they had many avenues to exploit. And after asking what Tang Jie had, they were even more delighted.

"Ever since the Peak of the Divine was occupied by fiends, the Rainbow Stone vein there was seized, and we humans were no longer able to get Rainbow Stones. I didn't think Brother Tang was capable enough to get some," Shentu Yuan excitedly said. "This thing can increase a puppet's recovery ability by at least 10%."

"Godtear Grass is a necessity for creating Origin Spirit Pills, and we haven't been able to get it ever since Thousand Illusions Valley was lost, which is why the prices for Origin Spirit Pills have remained so high," Ice Phoenix said. Origin Spirit Pills were a medicine that could improve one's cultivation, a single pill providing a year's worth of energy, and with no side effects! Medicines that could save cultivation time were useful for anyone, but alas, after the valley was lost, they could no longer be refined. Every Origin Spirit Pill used was one lost forever, so the prices kept climbing.

"Astral Trees, the hide of the Violet Mink, the fur of the Bluetail Wolf… These are all excellent materials for making talismans," Ximen Changfeng excitedly said.

The only products that didn't come from fiend territory were the Yellow Springs Water and ghost essences. With Little Three around, Tang Jie could also extract resources from the Nether Domain. Whenever Little Three headed into the Nether Domain, it would come back with some Nether Domain products for him. The simplest of all was the Yellow Springs Water, which one simply needed to scoop out of the Nether River. This extreme Yin substance was extremely rare in the mortal plane, and had innumerable uses. When Tang Jie said he had as much as one might want, Ye Xiao's eyes flew open, and he repeatedly asked what Tang Jie wanted for it.

In truth, Tang Jie didn't find anything special about Fengshan's resources. In his several years among the humans, he had basically gotten everything that he had taken a liking to.

But while Tang Jie had little interest in the natural resources of Fengshan, he cared a lot about its human resources. For example, the Origin Spirit Pill could only be made by the master pill refiners of humanity, and even the fiends would be drooling over them.

Thus, Tang Jie primarily sold the natural resources of fiend territory in exchange for the finished products of human territory. He didn't care about formations and tools, but he did need pills and talismans.

"Origin Spirit Pills, Emptiness Pills, Green Jade Pills, and also Childtalk Talismans and Yin Devouring Talismans… eh? Aren't these talismans meant for dealing with ghosts?" Ice Phoenix remarked with surprise when seeing the list Tang Jie had proffered.

"Senior Sun let in a lot of ghosts through the Nether Gate," Tang Jie replied with a smile.

The Childtalk Talisman and Yin Devouring Talisman were both talismans used against ghosts, but what made them special was that they didn't use pure Yang energy, so ghosts could also use them. These talismans were for Little Three. Little Three went hunting in the Nether Domain alone, and Tang Jie couldn't help it, so he could only try and support it with resources. If the ghost had man-made ghost-extermination talismans, it would have an even easier time hunting ghosts. Besides that, the Emptiness Pill was also one of those rare medicines made for ghosts, one of the few that could make Little Three stronger.

The Green Jade Pill was for Yiyi to improve her cultivation, and the Origin Spirit Pill was for his avatar. As for his original body, it didn't really need anything.

"But the things Brother Tang wants aren't easy to find among humans. Take the Origin Spirit Pill. It required 148 kinds of spiritual materials, and a Celestial Heart pill refiner 49 days of time while using their own Pill Flame, all for a single batch. A single batch is twelve pills, but Brother Tang wants one hundred, and the more, the better… That will be tough." Shentu Yuan shook his head.

The "Pill Fire" referred to the pill refiner using the power of their Celestial Heart Dao Fruit in order to refine truly top-class medicines, using their True Essence to stimulate the medicinal power. And these top-class medicines could only be made through this method.

The amount of this energy consumed depended on the type of medicine. For example, the Origin Spirit Pill required the pill refiner to consume almost a year's worth of energy, and this consumption couldn't be recovered by using pills.

In other words, twelve Origin Spirit Pills not only required more than a hundred kinds of materials, but also one year's worth of cultivation from a Celestial Heart pill refiner.

Tang Jie seemed to have very high standards. Although what he provided was good, he wanted better and more in exchange.

Tang Jie replied, "I know it's not enough, so I've prepared some other things."

He threw over several Mustard Seed Bags.

When the four opened up these bags, they were given a scare. These bags were packed with the fiend pellets, hides, and bones of fiends, and also various kinds of magical tools and materials. While none of them was particularly rare, the quantity was astounding.

Just the number of fiend pellets was dazzling—at least ten thousand.

Shentu Yuan said in a shaky voice, "Where did you kill so many fiends?"

Tang Jie chuckled, "In fiend territory, of course. Alas, General Gu's not going to accept the bill, so I won't be going to see him for any rewards."

Tang Jie had naturally gotten these things from his pillage of Celestial Saber City.

While the treasuries of Silver Eyes and Thunder Blade were focused on value, Celestial Saber City had been more about quantity.

While they were of low quality, there was just a stupendous amount. Tang Jie had already done the calculations, and the goods plus fiends of Celestial Saber City combined were comparable to the treasuries of two Fiend Emperors. While he couldn't empty those treasuries, there was no such concern when it came to the loot from Celestial Saber City.

Moreover, Tang Jie had also put in the four fiend kings. Their bodies were the equivalent of peak Soul Transformation experts, and every part of them was a treasure. Tang Jie himself was unwilling to use them, so he gave them all to Shentu Yuan and company as part of his exchange. All he left for himself were the bodies of the two Fiend Emperors.

It wasn't that Fengshan had nobody who could work them, but if they showed up, everyone would find out that the two Fiend Emperors were dead. Tang Jie couldn't risk this getting out, so he just kept them to himself. As for the bodies of the four fiend kings, Tang Jie had dismembered them so that no one could make out where they had come from.

This was more than enough to buy those Origin Spirit Pills. Tang Jie also indicated that if there was extra money, it could be used to buy more Origin Spirit Pills.

One hundred Origin Spirit Pills were equivalent to one hundred years of cultivation.

Time was the most precious resource. With these pills, the avatar would be able to get on par with the original body.

Tang Jie wasn't done walking the path of being invincible against all beneath the Violet Palace Realm!