Chapter 21: Black Market
'It looks like an underground night market!'
As Wang Zijia's thoughts wandered, the old man led him to an entrance of an underground hall.
The old man stopped at the entrance, indicating that they had arrived. Seeing this, Wang Zijia took out ten taels of gold. Finally, the old man showed a faint smile, bowed to Wang Zijia, and hurriedly left. Wang Zijia then stepped into the hall.
To call it a hall was somewhat inappropriate, it was a long tunnel, resembling the subway tunnels of his past life but several times larger.
Therefore, as soon as he entered, he felt like he was in an underground hall.
A variety of strange crystals were embedded in the ceiling, providing illumination. However, the lighting was dim, making everything around him somewhat blurry and indistinct. Of course, Wang Zijia, with his innate cultivation, was not greatly affected, and neither were the other cultivators.
It seemed that only ordinary people who happened to receive news of this place would find it difficult to navigate, serving as a kind of implicit screening mechanism.
Many people set up stalls, creating a lively atmosphere. In fact, this place was already semi-official, as the management of the sects knew about it, but enforcement teams rarely came to check.
Compared to the flea market frequented by the loose cultivators in the west of the city, the scale here was smaller, but it was more convenient. Because here, the origin of the goods was not questioned, and some unconventional items were sold.
However, it wasn't easy to buy contraband items, especially those with the mark of the Wan Yu Sect's disciples like "Blood-stained" items; they couldn't be dealt with here, or they would be traced.
But one could find some more secretive and darker circles here, such as exchange meetings where origins were not questioned.
"Peak-grade childe realm magical weapons, personally refined by Master Ji Jiu!"
"A low-level broken ritual realm artifact, price negotiable!"
"Third-grade talisman treasures on sale!"
Wang Zijia looked at the signs on each stall, unable to suppress the twitch of his mouth!
A broken sword devoid of spiritual energy, dare to claim it's a second-grade magical artifact??? Most exaggerated of all, they're even selling talisman treasures. That piece of torn yellow paper would probably feel too stiff to use even for wiping one's bottom, are you serious?
In this semi-black market , could there really be treasures of the childe rank?
And talisman treasures? I haven't even mastered basic talisman crafting yet!
After browsing for a while, Wang Zijia roughly understood the situation here. Generally speaking, most of the items catered to the needs of junior cultivators, so one had to be discerning.
"How much for a set of talisman card?" After a while, Wang Zijia chose a stall selling talismans and asked.
The stall owner, like Wang Zijia, wore a black straw hat. After glancing at Wang Zijia, he said, "Four pieces for one spirit coin."
"This price is not bad!" Wang Zijia's eyebrows raised, immediately asking, "Do you accept returns?"
"Seven pieces for one spirit coin." The stall owner replied in the same tone, calmly.
"This is too much!" Without another word, Wang Zijia turned and left.
He continued to browse several stalls, inquiring about returns at each one. He found that most were buying talisman card at six or seven pieces per spirit coin, significantly higher than the five pieces at the sect's shops.
But setting up a stall was profitable, selling four pieces for one spirit coin.
However, there weren't many loose cultivators specializing in talisman crafting, which resulted in few buyers for talisman card. Most were purchasing talismans. Those who needed talisman cards would buy one or two pieces at a time, even willing to pay with gold.
If Wang Zijia were to handle talisman card like this, it would be inefficient and seriously affect his cultivation progress.
Eventually, after browsing half the stalls, he found a stall owner who seemed decent.
The stall owner was a middle-aged man who appeared somewhat prosperous, his features obscured through the straw hat.
Among the many talisman stalls, his stall was the most professional, perhaps even a junior talisman crafter. Because he didn't sell talisman card at his stall.
"Do you accept long-term returns for talisman card?" Wang Zijia got straight to the point.
The man's eyes lit up at the question. "I do!"
"What's the price?" Wang Zijia asked in a calm tone.
The man glanced at Wang Zijia before saying, "Thirty-five pieces for six spirit coins."
Compared to others, he seemed the most sincere, but bargaining was still possible. After some negotiation, Wang Zijia sold his 32 cards for six spirit coins. It was slightly lower than the sect's buyback price, but he couldn't sell them there now.
At least until he obtained spiritual roots, he couldn't be so high-profile.
The reason he could negotiate this price was because the man saw that Wang Zijia admitted to making the talisman cards himself and verbally agreed to sell at this price in the future.
It was safe to assume that he was either a talisman crafter or studying related arts.
After selling the talisman cards, Wang Zijia breathed a sigh of relief, holding the seven spirit coins in his pocket.
This marked the end of his days of living off his salary; he had opened up a new source of income!
The urgent financial situation was finally alleviated.
Instead of leaving immediately, he wandered around for a while, familiarizing himself with the area while comparing the prices and differences between various low-grade spiritual materials and those in the shops, learning various useful or useless knowledge.
After a long stroll, Wang Zijia felt it was time to leave. When he arrived on the street, it was already late at night.
He changed into a new outfit at home before setting out again, beginning his hunting operation for the night.
This was already the third night of chaos, and the number of battles around him had noticeably decreased. But it didn't mean that the contamination had been completely cleared; on the contrary, it was just the beginning.
A peak Ritual master realm demon, almost reaching the 'True person' realm, would definitely leave behind means of counterattack before dying. How could it end so easily?
The reason for the reduced activity was that most of the people who had gone insane directly were found by now.
But those who were in a state of frenzy or mental illness due to contamination, and even those who had become evil cultivators but still retained some intelligence, were not easily discovered.
It was like entering a dormancy period.
To restore peace to the city, these entities also needed to be cleaned up. Otherwise, they would be like tumors, becoming more and more serious, and perhaps one day, another demon like the one from those nights would emerge.
Wang Zijia once again transformed into a shadow, swiftly traversing the streets and alleys, his internal energy acting like a radar, detecting the lurking contamination spawns.
If there was no danger, he would quietly approach and eliminate them. If he sensed danger, he would create a disturbance and then retreat.
Encountering battles, he would quietly observe, hoping to scavenge something.
Because his qi had been contaminated and cleansed several times, becoming increasingly peculiar, Wang Zijia attempted to extract the spawns of contamination, seal them, and not immediately absorb them. It would be safer to deal with them at home, and there would be a higher chance of stealing some of the law enforcement team's corpses. Unfortunately, he failed.
He also noticed a strange thing at night: after the law enforcement team killed someone, they no longer left the contaminated behind as they did the previous two nights, where the city guards would handle them. Now, there was at least one disciple watching over and handling them, as if afraid of someone stealing the corpses.
This discovery left Wang Zijia speechless!
As a result, he didn't succeed in scavenging a single corpse that night. He only managed to kill two crazy people, gaining 83 points of value, all of which he exchanged for cultivation, allowing him to absorb two hundred years' worth of innate qi.
But apart from his qi becoming richer, there was no substantial change.
Cultivation: Innate (184/?)
Martial Arts: Shadow Submersion
Technique: Nineteen Cuts of the Wandering Dragon Blade
Spells: Talisman Card Crafting technique(Minor Accomplishment 516/1000)
Similarly, until dawn, Wang Zijia returned to his bedroom, quietly falling asleep.
(End of this chapter)