Forty Millenniums of Cultivation

Li Yao and Li Jialing did not go straight to the “Commodity Market”.

As a place where Jin Yuyan appeared every other day, the market certainly had the most thorough safety measures. It was not unusual that 50% of the crowd in the market were plain-clothes guards. Barging in recklessly and alarming the enemy was certainly not a good idea.

The two of them went to the entrance of the ventilation tube, the manhole, and the public toilet that Li Jialing found just now and secretly set up a few Cosmos Rings that could automatically retrieve magical equipment in the blind angles of the surveillance cameras.

Then, they found a few trash cans and inconspicuous corners and put down a few Cosmos Rings as fast as before.

Those Cosmos Rings had been modified by Li Yao, Xiaoming, and Wenwen with tiny, remote-control chips. When necessary, they could eject all the items stored inside at Li Yao’s command.

Inside most of the Cosmos Rings, Li Yao had stored nonlethal crystal bombs, including the smoke grenades made of the ink sacs of the Black Gel Fish Dragon, the stun grenades that might cause intense dizziness and temporary loss of hearing and sight, and the shriek bombs that could unleash supersonic waves and disrupt the nervous system.

In case of an accident, those items would be the best help for them to escape or to sneak in.

It took them two hours before they found the perfect spots to plant the Cosmos Rings around the Commodity Market. After finishing the preparations, Li Yao brought Li Jialing to a lackluster, unattractive store three blocks away.

Looking at the top of the store where the patterns of muscular men were drawn by colorful lights that were now bright and now dim in cracking noises, Li Yao knew that he had come to the right place.

According to Zuo Tianying, it was the best store of strengthening drugs and high-energy nutrition drugs in the Seven Seas Grand Market, maybe even in all the peripheral worlds of the Imperium.

Such a store was naturally not a retailer but mainly focused on bulk sales on the Spiritual Nexus. They did not bother to look at the businesses whose amounts were below a million free coins.

However, when it came to the high-end strengthening drugs and nutrition drugs, such as those provided for the experts in the Core Formation Stage or the Nascent Soul Stage to advance into higher levels, it seemed inappropriate to trade such critical things on the Spiritual Nexus.

Therefore, the merchant still established a store in reality. It was some sort of “experience center for high-end clientele”, where the VIPs could examine goods in person. If they found the food satisfactory, they could purchase in bulk and become stable, long-term clients.

Li Yao and Li Jialing pushed the door and walked in. The decoration inside was as shabby as the outside of the store, as if it were a restaurant with barely any business. The only person inside the store was an indifferent old man with extremely long eyebrows, who was sitting behind the counter. Although two customers had just entered, he was as casual as before and showed no intention of greeting them at all.

Naturally, Li Yao and Li Jialing did not have the VIP cards of this place, but they did carry the super VIP cards that were universally applicable. Li Yao moved forward and extended his index finger flamboyantly, playing with an extravagant-looking Cosmos Ring. Then, he retrieved more than ten translucent, colorful marrow crystals from his Cosmos Ring and listed them on the counter.

Those marrow crystals rolled on the counter, colliding with each other into a brilliance that was almost concrete. The air seemed to have become an ocean of colors. The light and shadow of the marrow crystals condensed into countless raging, splendid dragons.

The colorful dragons crawled into the old man’s face. Even the experienced manager was lost for a moment. Although he got control of himself very soon, his slightly shivering eyebrows still revealed the shock in his heart.

Li Yao smiled and extended his finger again, retrieving the marrow crystals into the Cosmos Ring one after another, but he snapped the last one into the old man’s hands.

The old man grasped it subconsciously, with greed on his face. Realizing that he had lost control of himself again, he couldn’t help but get upset. There was no telling he was mumbling to himself or showing friendliness to Li Yao. “What nice ‘Nine-Colored Dragon Chasing Crystals’. It’s been years since I last saw such pure, good items. How may I help you, honorable guests?”

“I need to kill someone in the near future.”

Li Yao went to the topic straightforwardly without further ado. “My enemy is between the middle level and the high level of the Nascent Soul Stage, with two to three ultimate crystal suits. I do not intend to ask anybody to do the job but want to complete it on my own. I’m afraid that I would be heavily wounded in the process. My friend told me that you had all kinds of drugs. That’s why I’m here to take a look. Is there any drug that can make my combat ability soar and keep the state for at least six hours?”

The old man observed the “Nine-Colored Dragon Chasing Crystal” again and again before he retreated it into his Cosmos Ring. Turning more amiable, he nodded his head and said, “Yes. There’s a new drug named ‘Tiger Demon Bone Exploding Pill’, which can improve the explosive strength of the experts in the Nascent Soul Stage by more than 5% for eight to ten hours. There will be some sequela in three days after the medicine is taken, but there won’t be any long-term side effects if it is taken with our other neutralization drugs.”

“Good.”

Li Yao continued, “After the man is down, I may be faced with the elites under his command, who may be dozens of experts above average. Naturally, it is unnecessary for me to take down all of them, but I have to be at least able to get away from their siege. Therefore, I need a drug that can quickly recover my spiritual energy and physical strength. I’ve tried most of the products on the market but find none of them satisfactory. It doesn’t matter how great the side effects are as long as the drugs can help me through the hunting!”

The old man replied without batting an eye, “We have what you need. Regarding the experts in the Nascent Soul Stage, our store provides dozens of instantaneous recovery drugs of different natures for the VIPs to choose from. They are all the unique products of our store whose prescriptions and ingredients cannot be found on the market.”

Li Yao nodded his head in satisfaction. “Alright. Give me those two drugs and the best high-energy nutrition drugs in your place. Is there any place where I can test the drugs?”

“Of course there is, please follow me, honorable guest.”

The old man finally grew warm and guided Li Yao and Li Jialing to the back of the store. The store might look unattractive, but there was more in the back. It was a private, quiet area with luxurious decorations. The old man brought Li Yao and Li Jialing to a suite with training facilities and automatic test equipment before he presented a dozen of strengthening drugs and high-energy nutrition drugs for them to examine. Then, he turned around and left.

Li Yao told Li Jialing that since a great war was coming, the Seven Seas Grand Market must be heavily guarded and was not half as sloppy as it appeared to be. The hotels around the Commodity Market were particularly guarded. They would likely be discovered if they checked in at a hotel and regarded it as their base.

However, in this place, it was quite normal to spend days testing an ultimate strengthening drug. They could stay here with a perfect excuse without being suspected by anyone.

Being qualified to open the best drug center in the Seven Seas Grand Market, the owner of the store certainly had unquestionable capabilities. The privacy and safety of the customers must’ve been well protected. So, they could take operation without worrying about anything.

Although he was talking about that, Li Yao still scanned the inside and outside of the whole suite with a piece of detection magical equipment, confirming that there wasn’t any crystal camera or bug. He then established his own soundproof and alarm systems. Finally reassured, he retrieved the items that he needed as well as a special helmet that could enhance brainwaves. The helmet was a duplication of the “super brainwave magnifier” that the Nepenthe believers below the capital of the Imperium used. It could expand the range of Li Yao’s remote control, private talk, and other techniques multiple times.

Of course, Li Yao did not turn down the strengthening drugs that the old man offered either. Reading the instructions, he swallowed almost ten dosages to stimulate his brain cells to the maximum.

“Brother Yao—”

Li Jialing asked, “What am I going to do?”

“Read those files first. It will be best if you can memorize all the assassination cases.”

Li Yao tossed over a jade chip. “They’re all about the four greatest assassin groups at the edge of the Imperium, particularly the leaders of the groups. I hope that you can figure out their operation patterns and the styles of their assassinations so that you can find the four most dangerous persons from around.”

For the selfish, dog-eat-dog Immortal Cultivators, each had plenty of enemies. Killing was anything but unusual. Once in a while, everybody would need to earn some money by working as an assassin or hire an assassin to kill someone for themselves. It was a basic, rigid demand.

However, the traditional assassination industry was faced with serious problems, such as obstacles in communication, risks of fraudulence, and the trust crisis between the employers and the assassins.

How to find the suitable assassins, how to be convinced by the assassin’s strength and promise, how to ensure that they would not be killed by the assassin during payment, how to ensure that the assassin would not blackmail them afterward… The problems could barely be resolved and became the genetic deficiencies that blocked the development of the industry.

The good employers couldn’t find good assassins, and the good assassins couldn’t find good employers. The most critical thing of all was that the trades conducted through the crystal coin of the Imperium would certainly leave traces. The killers of the Imperium had been troubled by such problems a hundred years ago.

The birth and rise of the free coin, which was almost tailor-made for the dark fields, stimulated the evolution of the assassins of the Imperium, who abandoned the traditional, obsolete, and low-efficient middleman system. All kinds of convenient and secretive platforms for assassination deals appeared, such as “Daily Killing”, “Thumb Killing”, “Thunderous Killing”, “Have You Killed Him?”, etc., which were in fierce business competitions.

In the end, it was “Daily Killing”, funded and technologically supported by the Business Alliance of Ten Thousand Sectors, that defeated all the competitors and became the largest and most credible platform of assassins.

The four greatest assassin groups who had reached the unprecedented rank of nine platinum daggers, and who were bold enough to kill the people at the peak of the Nascent Soul Stage as long as the payment was enough, were “Black Flag”, “Bloody Skull”, “Life Claimer”, and “Lamp of Death”.