Clangs sounded out as a large pile of items formed on the ground. There was an assortment of items from bottles to beast hides and horns.
The shriveled man bent down and took a palm-sized wood box into his hand.
“Take a look at this. This is an earth wyrm tendon that we acquired after killing it with a few other body refiners. Not only is it thin, but it is also incredibly durable and fully flexible. It is rather easy to withdraw and extend.”
“An earth wyrm?”
Han Li didn’t know what kind of demon beast this earth wyrm was, but it appeared to be a kind of low-grade demon beast. However, he didn’t reveal his confusion on his face when he opened the box.
He saw a thin yellow object tightly wrapped into a ball by a red rope.
Han Li bluntly tugged at the red rope and tore it to pieces.
With a pop, the ball of beast tendons flung out and shot at Han Li’s face.
Han Li raised his hand, but it appeared he was too slow. Nevertheless, he managed to grab an end of the tendons with his fingers and instantly turned it soft and limp with a twist of his fingers.
Then, Han Li brought it before his eyes and noticed it was six meters long.
When the shriveled man saw Han Li’s swift actions, he couldn't help but exchange a glance with the large man.
At that moment, Han Li was giving the wyrm tendon a thorough examination.
Having killed a myriad of low-grade demon beasts in the past, he was able to tell the characteristics of the tendon at a glance as well as how it could be used.
He fiddled with it a moment longer before shaking it with a single hand.
The tendon blurred as it twisted and danced through the air. Then, it coiled around his arm to form a faint yellow bracelet.
With that, he rolled his sleeve over it where it was well concealed.
Han Li looked at the two and said, “It isn’t bad. It truly is a rare material from a low-grade demon beast. Although this item isn’t very useful to cultivators and is most suitably used as a bowstring, it is quite useful towards me. So long as you aren’t too greedy, I’ll agree to your price.”
The shriveled man’s harsh face broke out in a smile and he chuckled, “It appears you really are a body refiner. In that case, we’ll settle the bill with spirit stones. I want thirty spirit stones for that tendon!”
“Thirty spirit stones? That’s a bit high, but I’ll pay it. Take it.”
From his conversation with Liu’er and the others, he learned that although gold and silver were still used as currency by mortals in the mortal realm, body refiners used spirit stones for notable transactions as they used large numbers of spirit stones in their spirit tools.
However, the low-grade spirit stones in the spirit realm weren’t nearly as large as those in the mortal realm.
Regardless of what the spirit stones were used for, mid and high grade spirit stones were treated with the most importance. After all, top-grade spirit stone veins were possible in this world due to the greater density of spiritual Qi, but most of them belonged to a few high-grade cultivators and superpowers.
Even so, thirty low-grade spirit stones was still a bit much for a minor material from a low-grade demon beast.
On the day Han Li hid all of his storage pouches and treasures in the desert, he hadn’t forgotten the significance of spirit stones in the spirit realm. For the sake of carefulness, he left behind a dozen mid-grade spirit stones on his body just in case.
Now, he reached into his robes and tossed a yellow spirit stone over to him.
The long-haired man took a step forward and caught it. After he looked at it, he nodded with satisfaction.
When the shriveled man saw this, he smiled and took out a small leather pouch. He poured out seventy spirit stones from it and used a beast hide on the ground to wrap them up before tossing it to Han Li.
The shriveled man chuckled and said, “Here is your change. Since you are so straightforward, how about we join together if there is a chance?”
“Perhaps there may be an opportunity in the future. But I am preoccupied for the time being, so I must take my leave.” Han Li saluted the two with a smile and calmly walked away.
When Han Li departed from the alley, the large man looked at the mid-grade spirit stone in his hand and took another look at the alley entrance. An ominous glint flashed from his eye and he softly said, “Big Brother Bao, his face is unfamiliar and he is quite wealthy. Should we...?”
The shriveled man’s face sank and he said, “Don’t think about it. Didn’t you see he wasn’t wearing any spirit tools? Body refiners who do this are either too poor, or they feel their cultivation is too high for normal spirit tools to be of assistance. Which one do you think he belongs to?”
The large man hesitated and doubtfully said, “This man can’t be poor since he was able to take out a mid-grade spirit stone, but why did he buy that wyrm tendon from us?”
The man surnamed Bao was silent for a moment before letting out a cold laugh, “Brother Xin, are you certain he bought the tendon to be used as a weapon? He might’ve bought it as material to create a particular spirit tool. Currently, An Yuan City is overflowing with body refiners from the outside. There is no lack of those possessing fearsome talent. Although we aren’t weak ourselves, it's best that we don’t risk it. After all, we only have one life.”
The shriveled man’s words seemed to calm down the large man surnamed Xin, but soon he wore an embarrassed expression and said, “Big Brother’s words are reasonable. I am being too greedy for spirit stones, but in the upcoming beast tide, if we don’t have low and mid-grade spirit stones to replenish our spirit tools, we’ll be put in danger.”
Having already thought of the matter, the shriveled man said, “What are you afraid of? The city lord will surely employ all the body refiners in the city to deal with the beast torrent. They’ll give us a sum of spirit stones of course. So long as we save enough, we’ll be able to preserve our lives.”
When the large man heard this, his spirits were roused. “That’s right. According to the agreement between the three sovereigns and the seven demon kings, cultivators at the Core Formation stage and above aren’t allowed to assist large cities in blocking beast torrents. If they wish to protect the city, who else do they have to rely on aside from us?”
The shriveled man sighed, “So long as you know. In truth, the agreement also stated that the beast torrent can’t have any demon beasts higher than grade five as well. It is hard to say who has more to gain from the agreement.”
The large man then remained silent in thought.
Not long after, the two put away the items on the ground and walked back to the main street where they disappeared into a sea of people.
Chapter 1276: Beast Torrent
When Han Li departed from the alley, he continued his stroll.
Not long after, Han Li eventually discovered his main objective for departing from the Heavenly East Enterprise, a store that specialized in selling records.
Han Li walked into it without batting an eye.
The bookstore was on the larger side and was abundant with books, covering topics ranging from astronomy to miscellaneous topics.
But since it was a bookstore for mortals, it didn’t contain any jade slips or records of cultivation.
Han Li only had eyes on the records that were useful to him, particularly those covering the customs and circumstances in the spirit realm.
It is only with this that he’ll be able to take his first step into understanding the spirit realm.
He bluntly scooped up several books and picked out a map of the nearby surroundings.
As Han Li didn’t have any gold or silver on him, he could only pay using a low-grade spirit stone. The store owner was overjoyed by this and hurried back to give him his change in silver.
With the books in hand, he sought out a restaurant and sat in an unremarkable corner. After ordering a few common dishes, he began to look through the books.
> Although Han Li’s spiritual sense wasn’t able to leave his body, he still possessed his amazing memory. Despite how impressively thick a few of the books were, Han Li calmly flipped through them at astonishing speeds and imprinted each and every word in his mind.
During this time, his face remained unphased, but he continued to turn through the books with an understanding of everything he read.
Let alone anything else, merely the detailed descriptions relating to the spirit realm’s circumstances left him shocked.
The Heavenly Origin Region that the Heavenly East Enterprise mentioned was actually one of the human territories ruled by one of the three human sovereigns, the Heavenly Origin Sage.
The other territories that were occupied by humans are the North Sky Hegemon’s Black Tortoise Mirror, and Emperor Heavenwonder’s Heavenly Spirit Region. These two sovereigns were respectively known as the ‘Hegemon’ and ‘Spirit Emperor’. The human body refiners originated from the Heavenly Origin Sage, and later founded the Confucian school as well, earning him the name of the ‘Scholar Emperor’. He ruled over the Heavenly Origin Region and had the social customs that were most similar to Han Li’s mortal realm.
This was quite fortunate for him.
The three human clans occupied a vast region, containing anywhere from several hundred settlements to over a thousand.
According to the book, a city of a hundred million people was considered a small city in the spirit realm. Other large cities far exceeded the land and scope of An Yuan City. Heavenly Origin City in particular where the Heavenly Origin Sage resides was nearly the size of a small country.
However, Heavenly Origin City was also the most ordinary of the three human capital cities.
The Hegemon’s Black Tortoise City was constructed on the back of a tremendous huge tortoise known as Can Ling. It was a huge city that could slowly move through the sea. And the Spirit Emperor’s Heavenly Spirit City was even more miraculous. It was built on a tree over fifty kilometers wide. It was said to be able to reach the Immortal Realm.
When Han Li read this, he was shocked as one could imagine. But what amazed him even more was what he read next.
According to the record’s introduction, in addition to the region of the three sovereigns, there were also the neighboring lands of the seven demon kings. The demon clan and the human clans could be said to have a half friendly half hostile relationship.
The reason why this was the case was that the area the three human sovereigns and the seven demon kings ruled over was only a small drop the sea known as the spirit realm.
The land outside their domain was ruled by the clans of other creatures.
Most of these creatures were indigenous to the spirit realm. There were also countless types ranging from savage ancient beasts to giants and even pseudo humans. In addition, there were also other creatures that arrived at the spirit realm by ripping open spatial tears. Although there aren’t many of these clans, they were a powerful force that was hostile towards humans and demons alike. They also possessed their own unique abilities, allowing them to rival humans and demons in power.
In addition to this, there were also many powerful individuals in the spirit realm as one might expect. There were the mythical beasts of legends, fearsome existences like true dragons that could ignore the laws of the world.
Although many vastly powerful characters emerged from the demons and humans, they were only capable of having a standing the spirit realm. Although humans and demons viewed each other with hostility normally, when they faced an even larger threat, they had no choice but to cooperate.
This led to an official founding of the lands they controlled.
In the past, many extraordinary individuals emerged from the human and demon clans, joining together to erect an exceedingly large spell formation, covering the territories of the humans and the demons.
It is said the spell formation is profoundly powerful and was passed down from the Immortal realm. It was said to target extremely powerful members of the foreign creatures. The more powerful they were, the more they were restricted by the formation, rendering them unable to enter the areas affected by the spell formation. However, the formation also wouldn’t have any effect on low and mid-grade demon beasts.
This immense spell formation had over ten formation cores spread throughout the regions of humans and demons.
The book hadn’t mentioned where the formation cores in the demon territories were located, but it did mention how they were located at the three human capitals. Unless they were all destroyed, the spell formation protecting the humans would remain.
Considering how important the formation cores were, they must surely be placed in important areas of the demon territories as well.
If a powerful foreign creature wished to invade the territories of humans and demons, they would have to face the combined power of the ten powerful formation cores.
By relying on this powerful Immortal formation, the human and demon clans were able to prosper and hold a place in the spirit realm.
As for the other areas in the vast realm, humans had never delved too deeply into the world. There were only descriptions of how there were countless lands and distances.
At that point, a trace of doubt appeared in Han Li’s mind. Since the region occupied by humans in the spirit realm was so small, then how were cultivators ascending from the lower realms able to accurately land in the region controlled by humans. It would’ve been incredibly dangerous if he appeared in an area outside the grand Immortal formation.
Han Li felt puzzled, but the book hadn’t mentioned anything else so he could only set the thought aside for the time being.
After going through a few descriptions from the book, Han Li discovered that demons as a whole were more powerful than the human clans, but the humans seemed to possess more powerful cultivators.
As a result, the two clans formed an odd equilibrium and the three sovereigns and seven kings agreed to a defensive pact as well as several other treaties.
One of these agreements noted that high-grade cultivators couldn't arbitrarily suppress low-grade demon beasts of remote areas and couldn't participate in defending human cities from periodic beast torrents. In addition, demons couldn't pillage humans at will and they needed to establish territories where humans could gather and be protected.
When the humans and demons divided their land, the territories of the humans and demons were mixed to a vast degree. Although they chose areas most populated by humans and demons, there were still large numbers of either race that lived in other areas.
The high-grade human and demon cultivators naturally had no problem with this and decided to move them.
However, demon beasts that have yet to gain sentience and ordinary human mortals weren’t able to easily move long distances. They could only continue to live on their original lands and accept the rule of another clan.
From the beginning, there would be wanton slaughter of either side, and war was waged several times. After much turmoil, another agreement was eventually passed.
Of course, the book in Han Li’s possession only detailed the most important points and hadn’t mentioned them in detail. As for matters relating to the beast torrent, he picked out a book for that in particular.
The so-called beast torrents would occur when ordinary beasts would reproduce in too great a number. Since high-grade individuals couldn't interfere as a result of previous agreements, every period of a few years, the demons and humans had no choice but to slay one another to protect their own lives.
However, if there were human settlements in the region, low-grade demon beasts could lead the beast torrent into a human settlement in a half-suicidal charge.
As a result, apart from a few large cities in particular, most human cities would periodically encounter a beast torrent.
Although there weren’t many true attacks on human settlements, each beast torrent would leave a huge number of casualties in their wake.
Because of this, low-grade body refiners and cultivators had their fates tied together. While ordinary mortals would die, it was also a time for cultivators and refiners to break through their bottlenecks and be honed in powerful characters.
With both disaster and fortune simultaneously occurring, the high-grade human cultivators tacitly allowed the beast torrents to continue and held no intention of altering the agreement with the demon clans.
Each beast torrent on a city didn’t follow a strict schedule, but there were two types of beast torrents that were most commonly seen. They would be the wolf waves from grasslands and serpent waves from other regions.
The two types of beasts had powerful reproductive ability and were bound to launch a beast torrent every hundred years or so.
If a city were to encounter two or more types of beasts in a beast torrent, it would be considered a grand beast torrent with far greater danger. In the past, all the breaches into human cities seemed to have occurred with grand beast torrents.
Therefore, if the city knew a grand beast torrent was about to occur, the higher echelon of the city would be struck with fear and do their utmost to gather together the nearby body refiners and low-grade cultivators in preparation for the upcoming battle of survival.
When Han Li saw this, he sighed and slowly closed the book.
There was without question that the city was going to experience another beast torrent. Furthermore, with the grasslands being so close to the city, it will be a wave of wolves. However, the nervousness of the city revealed that this was a grand beast torrent.
He silently picked up the cup of watered wine before him and he narrowed his eyes in thought.
Chapter 1277: Danger of Tribulation
Since he entered the spirit realm, Han Li didn’t have much interest in the beast torrent, but now that he knew it was related to restoring his magic power and breaking the Ice Phoenix’s restriction on his body.
And the beast torrent was just about to happen!
According to the Soaring Sky Beast’s incarnation, Nascent Soul and Deity Transformation-stage cultivators suffer a minor tribulation once every three hundred years. Although he no longer had his magic power, the presence of his cultivation still existed. Who knew when tribulation would strike him.
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