Longevity starts with choosing Hextech enhancement

Chapter 249: Occasionally Hearing the Red Moon Dew and Arriving at Tingtao Sea
"Alas, this fellow Taoist is wrong!"

The storyteller folded up the folding fan in his hand and tapped it against his palm: "Although spiritual weapons are sharp, they must be used with ease to show their true power."

"But since you mentioned the mysteries of spiritual weapons..."

He deliberately dragged out his tone: "As you all know, the most amazing person in this competition has to be the Eight Vajras from Qianji Valley!"

After hearing the new story, the noise around them instantly died down a lot, and even the monk who had just challenged them pricked up his ears.

"The name Eight Vajra is a strange one. At first glance it sounds like there are eight people."

"Then you've misunderstood. This is actually referring to the Thousand Machines Chief, who brought with him eight Vajra puppets."

"This Vajra Puppet is truly extraordinary. It possesses all five elements and three talents."

"No matter who you fight, there's always a puppet that can defeat you!"

Some people in the audience gasped when they heard it for the first time.

"Old man, please don't lie!" A clear female voice came from the private room on the second floor: "If you are really that powerful, how could you only make it to the semi-finals?"

The storyteller smiled, raised his hand, and twirled his beard with his orchid finger: "Good question! Guess what?"

"On the day of the semi-finals, the Eight Vajra Kings happened to meet a freak."

As he spoke, he raised his hand and picked up the cloud tea on the table, blowing on it and then sipping it slowly.

Immediately, a cultivator from the audience threw a spiritual stone up and said, "Old sir, tell me quickly, who is that freak?"

Many monks also urged.

The storyteller waved his sleeves and put all the more than ten spirit stones flying towards him into his arms, and immediately became more agile.

He immediately put down the teacup and said, "He is the former head of Yuntao Sword Pavilion and the only direct disciple of the current True Lord Lushuang. His Dharma name is True Lord Tianjian."

"He has a flying sword that is his own life, so his origin is even more extraordinary."

"It is actually made of a strange stone left by a meteorite from outer space. It does not belong to the five elements, and the three talents are difficult to determine. It just happens to be immune to the Thousand Machine Puppet."

When everyone heard this, most of them were surprised.

However, someone questioned, "Even if it's difficult to restrain them, why not just let the eight puppets rush forward? Tian Jian Zhenren doesn't have three heads and six arms, so can he really fight eight alone?"

Upon hearing this, everyone nodded and asked further questions.

"This fellow Taoist has asked the right question!"

The storyteller unfolded the folding fan with a swish, and it turned into an ink-and-wash painting of a puppet.

"Qianji Valley has an exclusive secret technique called 'Dividing the Spirit'. It is best used to transform spiritual consciousness into silk threads, which can be used to precisely control the puppet's every move."

As he spoke, he moved his fingertips across the air, creating a spider-web-like white thread as a demonstration.

Then he changed the subject: "It's a pity that the Eight Vajra are still young. At present, they can only control three puppets at the most."

"Plus, the sword cultivator was extremely skilled in attacking, and he instantly broke through the protective mystical light. He didn't have time to rely on the puppets to fight and was unfortunately defeated."

Xiao Chen had also heard about this.

In the art of puppetry, there are two approaches, like Qiu Fanghui’s previous approach, which relies purely on quantity to win, and there are also approaches that focus on meticulous craftsmanship and quality.

To be honest, he has never really understood the latter approach.

Since we have chosen the puppet path, we must make use of our numerical advantage.

But today I heard that this is actually a secret of Qianji Valley, so I think it must have its unique features.

If you meet the Yuanying Zhenjun of Qianji Valley in the future, you must pay special attention to his puppets.

"Hmph, what are the Eight Vajra? I think they are just empty names!"

The cultivator from before once again commented loudly: "It's just that he has the support of his master and the help of the elders in building the puppet."

"That puppet alone is worth hundreds of thousands of spirit stones. Who can afford to build it by themselves?"

"To put it bluntly, he and the Thunderbolt Spear both rely on external objects and can't be considered real skills."

His arrogance immediately aroused the disgust of the monks around him.

Someone immediately asked, "You look down on this one, you look down on that one, so tell me, who is the most powerful in this competition?"

The people around immediately agreed: "That's right, tell me who has the real talent?"

Xiao Chen also looked over curiously, and saw that the other person was wearing an open-chested black vest and tightly tied linen pants.

Listening to the questions from people around him, he raised his fist as big as a sandbag.

He raised his thumb towards his chin and said, "Of course I'm the best..."

"The current senior brother of the Tiangang Sect, the second place winner of this competition - Master Kaiyue."

Good guy, Xiao Chen thought he was going to talk about himself.

The people around him immediately became unhappy when they heard this: "That's ridiculous! The fact that your Tiangang Sect was able to take second place is just due to good luck, isn't it?"

"If you had met that Heavenly Sword Master earlier, you would still have been eliminated early on."

Xiao Chen now understood that Yuntao Sword House won first place in this competition.

Qianji Valley and Mozhang Sect ranked third and fourth respectively.

In other words, the Cangming Immortal Sect became the fifth from the bottom.

Afterwards, naturally no one in Lingtong Pavilion was convinced and they were all shouting and threatening to fight.

Xiao Chen was no longer interested in the noise, so he turned around and left to go outside to get spiritual materials.

The Moshi Market covers a fairly large area and houses a wide variety of shops.

After visiting seven shops in a row in the afternoon, he successfully collected most of the common spiritual materials.

"This altar is really not cheap."

Xiao Chen sighed and sorted the 119 spiritual objects he had just acquired into different categories.

These auxiliary materials alone cost him a full 893,000 spirit stones.

Based on this cost estimate, the final cost will definitely not exceed one million.

It is estimated to cost around two million spirit stones, which is no cheaper than the cost of the Eight Vajras.

No wonder Su Li thought this was a very difficult task. After all, the high cost of spirit stones alone was a sky-high price that ordinary cultivators could not afford.

Even for Yuanying Zhenjun, this is not a small amount of money.

As a casual cultivator without the support of a sect, Xiao Chen's best option is generally to give up such an expensive way of breakthrough.

Fortunately, he had saved a lot of money and hardly spent any money after coming to the Eastern Region.

In addition, there are always enthusiastic fellow Taoists who come to him to ask for help.

A few days ago, I was also at the Moshi Market and earned a little over two million by selling spiritual weapons and sundries, so I was able to afford this huge expense.

"It's still missing the same coarse-grained twisted leaves."

In order to prevent himself from getting confused, Xiao Chen also made a list on paper.

Finally, the auxiliary material, Moshi, happened to be out of stock in the market, but it’s not a big problem. If you pay attention at the auction, you should be able to solve the problem.

According to the original plan, he should leave after purchasing the spiritual objects.

However, there are several more days left, so Xiao Chen is not in a hurry to leave.

Instead, he went to the largest restaurant in the city, ready to try his luck.
.
The most effective way to collect all kinds of gossip, besides buying directly, is usually to visit places like this.

Usually, you can hear a lot of legends about recent major events.

As expected, as soon as he entered the door, Xiao Chen heard two foundation-building masters discussing the Guiyun Secret Realm.

"No wonder I haven't seen Lao Qi these days since I came back from Guiyun Secret Realm. Turns out he's gone to Tingtao Sea?"

"Of course I did. I went to ask about it. Although the name of Red Moon Dew sounds ordinary, it is actually very valuable."

"I've never heard of this kind of thing. Could it possibly be sold for 100,000 spirit stones?"

"Humph, with your vision, one hundred thousand spirit stones are nothing!"

The man next to him held up three fingers and said, "I saw in ancient books that it's a rare treasure that even Jindan Zhenren would scramble to get. It's worth at least three times as much."

……

What followed was the exclamations of my classmates, but it no longer mattered.

Xiao Chen's eyes flashed, and he was also very happy.

Although he was not able to buy the Red Moon Dew here in advance, it sounded like that 'Old Qi' had gone to the auction, so he was not afraid of competing with others for the price.

And it sounds like the other party is just a lucky foundation-building cultivator.

Then things would undoubtedly be simpler.

There are very few Jindan cultivators who will attach exchange conditions other than spirit stones to particularly valuable items.

However, the needs of foundation-building cultivators can basically be met with spirit stones, and even if there are additional conditions, they are not difficult to meet.

"Seniors, what would you like to drink?"

Seeing someone standing at the door, a bartender immediately came over to greet them: "If you think it's too noisy downstairs, we have a private room upstairs with a soundproof formation."

"No need." Xiao Chen waved his hand: "I'm alone, just sit down."

"Bring up a pot of your best wine, and two side dishes."

I seem to be lucky today and things are going well.

So he decided to stay here for a while to see if there was any other good news.

"I can assure you that I'm not lying!"

At the table on the left, a young man in red, who was in the early stages of foundation building, said seriously, "At that time, a group of great golden elixir monsters really did swim past the side of the spirit ship. There were at least two or three of them."

The blue-clothed companion next to him retorted, "Impossible!"

"I've read in the sect's texts that there are no schools of golden elixir sea fish in our Mercy Sea."

"I heard that only the Jindan seniors who went to the eastern part of the Endless Sea could see such a grand spectacle."

Another person laughed and said, "It seems that Junior Brother Liu can't drink much. He has started to make up stories."

……

They were laughing, but Xiao Chen suddenly remembered when he was looking for magic weapons before.

In just three days, he encountered twelve golden elixir sea fish in succession.

Although those demon pills have now been successfully transformed into true essence, it is also a good thing.

But if you think about it carefully, this matter itself is indeed a bit strange.

In addition, he was purchasing other spiritual objects in the Moshi Market today.

I also vaguely noticed that the prices of various spiritual items related to the Golden Dan Sea Fish, such as spiritual fish meat and fish bones, seemed to have generally dropped by about 10%.

Xiao Chen didn’t take it seriously at first, after all, market prices are bound to fluctuate.

But now there seems to be another explanation, that is, the number of golden dan sea fish has increased to the point that their original price has been impacted.

That’s great!

The more monster materials, the better, and the cheaper the better.

If the number of Golden Dan Sea Fish increases, the prices of the corresponding spiritual wines and spiritual foods will also be reduced.

Xiao Chen can spend fewer spirit stones to buy spirit wine like the White Jade Little Green Dragon to assist in his cultivation.

In addition, he can obtain sea fish meat and demon pills more conveniently.

This is undoubtedly beneficial for the practice of flawless golden elixir.

Even though Xiao Chen has made great progress in body training and has successfully surpassed others, he will not relax in his practice of magic.

One more path means twice the strength and one more guarantee.

If I hadn't chosen the path of body refinement back then, I wouldn't have been able to enjoy the benefits of blood crystals. Similarly, in the future, perhaps in other places, the path of Dharma cultivation could play a greater role.

"Sir, your food and drinks are here."

The innkeeper brought up an exquisite jade pot: "We have the best red mulberry jade liquid here. It's the only one in the entire Mercy Sea!"

He gave a thumbs-up and put down four side dishes: "These two extra side dishes are free, please enjoy them."

Xiao Chen took a glance and found that they were dried meat and slices made from spirit beast meat.

He tried it and felt that the free side dish seemed to taste a little better.

"Come on, come on, fill up Fellow Daoist Yan's glass!"

At the table on the right, two new cultivators in the early stage of the Golden Core stage arrived. "Long time no see, where have you been making your fortune these past two years, fellow Daoist?"

"Hey, Fellow Daoist Wu, please stop teasing me."

Fellow Daoist Yan smiled wryly, "I have a relative in Cangming Market. I heard they were short of people two years ago."

"I asked him three times last year, and I couldn't refuse, so I went to take a look."

"I regret it so much."

Fellow Daoist Wu, who was standing nearby, heard this and asked in surprise, "That's impossible. We're all family. How could they possibly treat you unfairly?"

"If this kind of thing really happens, I can't stand it anymore."

Fellow Daoist Yan shook his head and said, "That's not the reason."

Then he lowered his voice intentionally: "Fellow Daoist Wu, you may not know that things have been very strange in Cangming Market these past two years."

"There's a wall of wealth there. You should have heard of it, right?"

"In the past six months alone, I've personally witnessed the disappearance of seven fellow Jindan Daoists among those offered bounties."

In the world of cultivation, there are always many unexpected things.

Therefore, Taoist Wu asked curiously, "If he's just missing, then maybe he's trapped in some secret ruins. That wouldn't be surprising, right?"

Not to mention that a Jindan cultivator is missing for a year, it is just like an ordinary person being lost for two months.

Sometimes he would suddenly have an adventure, or temporarily become a robber cultivator and hide quietly.

Then after a few years when the rumors died down, many monks came back on their own.

"This time is different."

Fellow Daoist Yan's tone was filled with fear as he spoke: "Those people didn't disappear all at once, they disappeared piecemeal."

"That's fine. There are only a few of them on the surface, but there are actually far more than that."

He held up two fingers. "Many people don't offer rewards. According to insider information I've heard, at least 20 to 30 of our fellow practitioners have disappeared in the past two years."

Hearing so many fellow travelers are missing.

Fellow Daoist Wu was also obviously a little surprised: "Is your inside information accurate? What happened?"

Fellow Daoist Yan said confidently, "My friend's brother is on duty at the Cangming Immortal Sect. He told me this himself."

"Besides, my relative opened a small shop in the market."

"During festivals and holidays, we usually have to give a 10% share of the profits to the Golden-Faced Tiger in the market. But at the end of December last year, I heard that the Tiger Lord disappeared for no apparent reason."

Hearing the specific example, Fellow Daoist Wu was shocked: "Hiss~, something big must have happened secretly."

"That's right!" Fellow Daoist Yan nodded. "So this year I found an excuse to come back here. I won't go back anymore."

……

Originally, Xiao Chen was listening very attentively and was curious whether there was really any problem here.

He had heard discussions before that a large number of Jindan cultivators had disappeared one after another, which was indeed very suspicious.

Suddenly, a familiar name popped up.

Although he didn't know who the Golden-faced Tiger was, he had a hunch that the Tiger Lord they were talking about was the one who blackmailed him on the road.

After all, there are only a few people who have the ability to act tyrannically.

The bad thing about gossip is that it always exaggerates the facts, and some things are even distorted beyond recognition.

Therefore, Xiao Chen did not take the so-called disappearance of a large number of Jindan cultivators to heart.

After satisfying my appetite briefly, I went to the inn opposite the restaurant to have a good night's rest.

The next morning, we left the market town and headed straight for Tingtaohai.

"Hey, why is there fog here?"

Halfway through the journey, Xiao Chen suddenly noticed a large mass of thick white fog in front of him.

He opened the nautical chart in his hand to check, but found that four months ago, this was still a safe area.

In fact, this was the third time he had encountered evil spirits.

It also means that another relic somewhere in the Sea of ​​Mercy is about to be opened.

"I don't know if Ting Taohai has any reliable sources of intelligence. If it's convenient, I can go and take a look at this good news."

Xiao Chen secretly took note of this matter, but he was not in a hurry.

The most urgent task is to collect the remaining spiritual objects.

No matter what, we have to wait until the auction is over before making any other plans.

"Luckily, I left enough time to travel, just in case there were any accidents."

After avoiding the disaster caused by the evil spirits, no other unexpected situations occurred along the way.

So sixteen days later, at noon on March 14th, Xiao Chen successfully arrived at Tingtao Sea.

In order to successfully hold this large-scale auction that had been prepared for three years, Yuntao Sword House and the largest local Feiye Chamber of Commerce made many arrangements.

Since the Chinese New Year, throughout the entire Tingtao Sea.

Wherever there were people, they sent their disciples to post big red notices.

Therefore, Xiao Chen saw the notice without any effort.

In the upper part of the notice, several well-known auction items are listed.

Among them are talismans of no less than fourth grade, as well as rare treasures such as Yundao crystals. It is also specially marked that there will be mysterious fourth-grade elixirs participating in the auction.

Many of the items were deliberately only half introduced, for example, the talismans were deliberately not marked as defensive.

The answer will not be revealed until the auction, in order to arouse the curiosity of more monks.

There are many spiritual objects at the auction. As long as there are enough monks going, there will always be people who will buy things that they may not have originally planned to buy.

In addition, the notice naturally also includes things like inherited martial arts techniques.

But to Xiao Chen, those things don’t matter.

He turned his gaze to the lower half of the notice, where a simple map was drawn, showing the general situation of Tingtao Sea.

The focus of the painting is on Tinglang Island, where the auction is held.

“It wasn’t held on Tingtao Island, but on the adjacent secondary island instead.”

Xiao Chen immediately understood the meaning of this. They were afraid of scaring away some wandering cultivators.

In fact, theoretically speaking, independent cultivators are not the main customers of such large-scale auctions.

Maybe it's more about increasing popularity.

Thanks to the ubiquitous signs guiding the direction, Xiao Chen successfully found Tinglang Island.

This is an oval island that is more than 600 miles long and more than 500 miles wide.

I don't know when it was completely filled up.

The original mountains, rivers, lakes, and beaches were all turned into flat lands of the same height on both sides.

Then large-scale construction began on the flat land.

Xiao Chen looked down from above and saw that the entire island was filled with square, spacious and orderly streets, as well as a large square specially reserved in the middle.

Various houses of different sizes were built in the rest of the area.

The inner circle is mostly filled with various shops, while the outer circle is full of inns with different signs.

Perhaps because a blank piece of paper is easier to paint on, Tinglang Island is almost perfectly planned, with different restrictions on house heights and roof styles.

From a distance, it looks like a work of art.

Fortunately, this is in the world of cultivation, and the people doing the work are all cultivators, otherwise it would be a long and protracted project.

It is worth mentioning that Xiao Chen noticed that in addition to the large square and the auction hall next to it covering several acres.

There are no no-fly zones in other parts of Tinglang Island.

Not only are there no restrictions, there are no traces of any large-scale formations.

The few bits of spiritual light he could see came from the small protective magic circle in the inn.

This is the same reason as the previous location selection, which is to make the monks who come to participate in the auction feel more secure.

Of course, the monks who came here were also quite sensible and did not fly around over the island just because there were no restrictions.

Everyone lowered their flight altitude and landed on the street at the edge of the island.

Then walk to different areas.

In this kind of matter, Xiao Chen did not deliberately act differently, but followed the crowd and landed on the edge, and then walked to the center.

Due to the delay caused by the Yin Spirit Disaster, there are only three days left until the auction day.

Therefore, his first destination was the auction hall.

"I'm sorry, fellow Taoist."

At the entrance of the hall, a beautiful female Jindan cultivator reminded, "The auction will be on the 18th, and we are still preparing."

"If you need to send an auction, please go to the Treasure Appraisal Pavilion on the right."

"It is not convenient to enter here at the moment. Thank you for your understanding."

Facing the Jindan cultivator, the other party seemed very polite.

However, before Xiao Chen stepped into the Treasure Appraisal Pavilion, he saw a newly arrived Foundation Establishment cultivator who wanted to go to the auction hall.

As a result, he was stopped by the guards patrolling outside the hall.

"Senior, please come upstairs!"

Xiao Chen followed the attendant to the quiet room on the second floor, where an appraiser was already waiting.

"I am a senior appraiser of the Feiye Chamber of Commerce. You can call me Xiao Zhao."

To avoid misunderstanding, the other party first revealed his identity, and then asked, "Excuse me, what do you want to auction?"

Xiao Chen took out the Chongyuan Lingxi soil from the Hanhai Ring: "Please help me take a look at this first."

Xiao Zhao put on ice silk gloves and carefully opened the jade box.

……

"Please wait a moment, Senior. I'll go get the master to come over and take a look."

Xiao Zhao bowed respectfully, then walked out quickly to ask for help.

As a senior appraiser, he could easily handle most third-level items.

Being responsible for receiving independent cultivators is actually enough.

Who would have thought that Xiao Chen's first move would be a fourth-level spiritual object? This is obviously beyond the scope!

(End of this chapter)