Cautiously Cultivating Immortality in a Strange World

Chapter 55: Guyuan Market

Glancing at the storage pouch on the young man's waist, Chen Lin spoke, "I am Lin San, here to participate in the trading conference. I heard from the locals that the cultivator market is here, so I came to take a look. May I know your esteemed name? Are you a local cultivator?"

He casually made up a name and then bowed.

"Ha ha, no problem. I am He Xiao from the Mountain Sect. I was invited by the Zhao Merchant House to participate in the security matters of this trading conference. Daoist, you've arrived a bit early, but there should be some other fellow daoists who have come early as well. Let's go in together!"

"So, you're from the Mountain Sect. Then I'll follow your lead!" Chen Lin clasped his fists and walked towards the gatehouse with the other man, a faint trace of surprise flickering in his eyes.

He hadn't expected it to be so coincidental; this person turned out to be a disciple of the Mountain Sect, and his cultivation was unfathomable, probably a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator.

He wondered about this person's relationship with Li Ziqing and whether Li Ziqing was also here. However, now that he had changed his appearance, even if he encountered him, it wouldn't matter. He could just pretend not to know him.

While thinking about it, the two arrived at the gatehouse.

He Xiao reached out and touched a giant stone at the entrance, causing the white mist at the gate to dissipate, and the bustling noise suddenly reached his ears

Seeing the surprise on Chen Lin's face, He Xiao smiled and asked, "Daoist Lin, is this your first time at Guyuan Market?"

Chen Lin nodded, "I won't hide it from Daoist He. I just broke through to the mid-stage of Qi Refining. I've been cultivating at home and rarely go out."

"It's no wonder then. This stone is a sensing stone mainly used to identify whether someone is a cultivator. As long as you supply a little spiritual energy, you can open the gate of the market. Otherwise, if you enter the white mist, you will be teleported elsewhere."

"Of course, this is just a low-level illusion array. It can be easily penetrated with the use of insight techniques. A mid-stage Qi Refining cultivator can easily break in, but it's not very friendly and may attract the attention of the guards inside the market."

He Xiao patiently explained.

Chen Lin quickly expressed his gratitude, "I see. Thank you, Daoist He, for enlightening me."

He Xiao waved his hand, "It's nothing. We're all fellow cultivators. I'll be in the market until the trading conference ends. If you have any questions, feel free to come to me. Well, you can explore on your own now. I have to go to the Zhao Merchant House."

"Ah, please go ahead, Daoist He."

Chen Lin clasped his fists and watched the other man leave before sizing up the market.

The market wasn't small in size, but there weren't many buildings, just a dozen or so, with the rest being stalls.

The most luxurious building was in the middle of the street, with a golden plaque hanging above it, bearing the four characters "Zhao Merchant House."

At the moment, there weren't many cultivators outside the stalls, making it seem a bit deserted.

As Chen Lin walked and looked around, he found that the items being sold were also quite low-grade, mostly talisman paper, ordinary herbs, or low-grade minerals, with barely any higher-grade items.

After browsing through all the scattered stalls, he couldn't help but feel disappointed.

The items here were worse than the slums of Kaiyuan City, let alone the inner city.

Losing interest in continuing to browse through the stalls, he casually walked into a shop.

The shop was called Ruyi Pavilion. Although it wasn't as grand as the Zhao Merchant House, it wasn't small either, and the interior was well-lit.

Entering Ruyi Pavilion, the shop was very quiet. Apart from him, there was only an elderly cultivator placing items on the counter.

"What does this Daoist want to buy?" A young female cultivator at the Qi Refining Stage approached, but she looked ordinary.

"Oh, I'm just browsing." Chen Lin waved his hand, indicating that she didn't need to bother him, and then went to the counter to take a look.

After looking for a while, he couldn't help but furrow his brows.

There were too few items, and they were too low-grade.

Although they were slightly better than the ones sold outside, they still weren't impressive.

He didn't even see a single spiritual herb, let alone high-grade pills and pill formulas.

"Shopkeeper, is this all you have?" Chen Lin couldn't help but ask, feeling a huge gap between his expectations and reality.

The shopkeeper was a plump middle-aged man at the third stage of Qi Refining. He walked over and said, "Indeed, there haven't been many good items recently. Everyone is waiting for the trading conference. The better materials are simply not available. If Daoist wants to buy something, you can tell me, and I'll see if I have it in stock”.

The shopkeeper's words made Chen Lin suddenly realize.

He had overlooked this point.

The annual trading conference was about to begin, so everyone was holding onto their good items to sell at that time. These shops were probably doing the same.

It was no wonder Bai Yunyue couldn't buy the Red Marked Ginseng and had to go to Dreambreak Mountain Range to search for it himself.

He felt that he should also refine more Initial Yuan Pills or make more talismans, so that he wouldn't be unable to exchange for what he wanted when the time came.

Moreover, he needed to make more Thunderbolt Beads, especially the Thunderbolt No. 4. This item was currently his most powerful means of attack.

With this in mind, he immediately mentioned several types of materials.

Surprisingly, he managed to buy some Thunderbolt Bead materials and quite a few materials for making Fireball Talismans and Strength Boosting Talismans.

However, he could only find one type of material for making Initial Yuan Pills.

Most importantly, the price of spiritual herbs here was much higher than in Kaiyuan City!

If the shopkeeper hadn't insisted that his prices were absolutely not higher than those of other shops, he would have turned around and left!

After that, Chen Lin went to several other shops, including the Zhao Merchant House, and finally managed to buy enough materials for Thunderbolt Beads and talismans.

He even bought two technique manuals, one being the insight technique mentioned by He Xiao earlier, and the other being Water Arrow Technique.

At this point, he realized that, apart from spiritual herbs, other materials were much cheaper here compared to Kaiyuan City. Especially items like spiritual rice and wine were ridiculously cheap compared to Kaiyuan City.

This phenomenon surprised him.

But after thinking for a while, he figured out a possible reason. Kaiyuan City was deep in the mountains, making it relatively easy to collect spiritual herbs, and there were also many cultivators.

But because Kaiyuan City was a place you could enter but not leave, and was restricted by that strange range, no one would go there to plant spiritual rice or anything else. Materials for weapon refining could only be mined within a certain range, so other materials would become expensive.

This price difference was caused by different geographical locations.

After figuring this out, he couldn't help but regret it. If he had known this earlier, he would have stocked up more on spiritual herbs and even made a small profit.

Unfortunately, it was too late to say anything now. With his previous reserves, he could only barely gather enough materials for ten Initial Yuan Pills and only two types of materials for Enlightenment Pills.

This made him very frustrated.

His Initial Yuan Pills and Enlightenment Pills were not ordinary pill formulas. Even with such low-grade spiritual herbs, he couldn't gather enough. The items in this market were too shabby.

After thinking for a while, Chen Lin felt that the timing was not right. These cunning merchants were all saving the good stuff for the trading conference to sell at high prices!

Fortunately, the trading conference was about to begin, and by then, he should be able to buy everything he needed.

The urgent task now was to buy some Rejuvenating Pills or other pills containing pure spiritual power, in order to re-condense the Nameless Sword Qi.

There weren't many Blood Qi Pills left, and he had to get rid of the Black Essence Gu.

After wandering around the market for a while longer, Chen Lin walked out.

Just as he walked out of the gatehouse, he saw a group of cultivators coming together, both men and women.

He glanced at them, his eyes suddenly startled.

But he quickly concealed his surprise and hurriedly passed by them.

It wasn't until he had walked quite a distance away that he looked back and saw that the group had already entered the market.

"Could it be her?"

Chen Lin confirmed that he hadn't seen wrong. Among the group of people just now, there was a young female cultivator who seemed to be Han Lingyue from the Han Family, one of the Five Great Families!

This person was very famous in Kaiyuan City. She reached the late stage of Qi Refining at the age of eighteen and had top-tier appearance and temperament. She was a star figure in Kaiyuan City.

The original owner had some fantasies about this woman in his memory, but of course, they were just fantasies.