Having made up his mind, white light flashed from Han Li's hand, and the jade box disappeared.
After that, he sat down on the bed and entered a meditative state.
For three consecutive days, Han Li stayed in the room without leaving even once.
On this day, just as he was cultivating with golden light shimmering from his entire body, he suddenly opened his eyes and flipped his hand over to produce the Myriad Distance Talisman that Qian Jizi had given to him.
On the white surface of the talisman, a line of small text had appeared.
After reading the message on the talisman, Han Li stowed it away expressionlessly before making his way out of the room.
Half a day later, he found himself within a certain cave abode on the Dream Cloud Mountain of the Eight Cloud Mountains, and he was inspecting the cave abode with a pleased look on his face.
The abundance of spiritual Qi in this cave abode was not inferior in the slightest compared to Jia Tianmu's cave abode on the Iridescent Cloud Mountain. Furthermore, the cave abode came complete with a pill refinement chamber, tool refinement chamber, medicine garden, as well as a variety of other facilities. There were even some commonly used spirit medicines that had been planted in the medicine garden, and he was very satisfied with his new home.
However, Han Li didn't immediately begin cultivating. Instead, he used his spiritual sense to scan through every single nook and cranny of the cave abode, then set up a dozen or so restrictions of different sizes.
Having done all that, even a Body Integration Stage being wouldn't be able to force their way into his cave abode in a short time.
After that, he transferred some of the spirit medicines and spirit herbs that he required into the medicine garden before busying himself with pill refinement.
His plan was to refine a large number of Rising Dragon Pills, most of which would be reserved for his own consumption, while the rest would be taken to the markets to be exchanged for top-grade spirit stones.
After all, both his sentient puppet and the super teleportation formation required an incredible amount of spirit stones to function, and he wouldn't be able to exchange for enough of them even through selling all of his Myriad Year Spirit Medicines.
Furthermore, selling too many Myriad Year Spirit Medicines would attract a lot of attention, so it was better to sell Rising Dragon Pills instead.
With the immense power of these pills, he was sure that the upper race beings of Cloud City would be willing to pay astronomic prices for them.
Of course, he wasn't going to sell too many of them, and he had to conceal his own identity in the process. If he were to only sell the pills on two or three occasions, that shouldn't be enough to attract the attention of the holy race beings in the city. If he still couldn't gather enough top-grade spirit stones through doing that, then he'd have to consider selling his Golden Lightning Bamboo.
Given how rare Golden Lightning Bamboo was in the Spirit Realm, just one plant would most definitely be enough to get him sufficient top-grade spirit stones.
Han Li had already devised a plan to gather enough top-grade spirit stones while refining his Rising Dragon Pills, and Qian Jizi most likely would've never imagined that Han Li would be capable of doing something that he thought to be impossible in such a short time.
This was only a minor inconvenience to Han Li, rather than the insurmountable roadblock that Qian Jizi had assumed that this would be.
As Qian Jizi was leading him to his new cave abode, the former disclosed to him that he had secured the agreement of the other races for him to use the teleportation formation. As for conditions, they didn't state some, but they weren't very stringent; most of them merely asked for a usage fee from him.
The only slightly troublesome condition was raised by the Stone Cocoon Race; they asked him to search for a tool refinement material that could only be found in the Vast Glacial Realm.
They had a map on which the place where this material could be found had been annotated, and all he had to do was act as the errand boy of the Stone Cocoon Race after entering the Vast Glacial Realm.
This condition was naturally rather dangerous to him, but this material seemed to be extremely important to the Stone Cocoon Race, as evidenced by the fact that they stipulated this condition to be non-negotiable.
Thus, Han Li agreed to it as well after a brief contemplation.
If he only had to head to a designated location to secure an ingredient, then this was a risk that wasn't too big for him to take.
Hence, Han Li had arrived at an official agreement with the Heavenly Cloud Races. As soon as he returned from the Vast Glacial Realm, he'd be granted a one-time usage pass of the super teleportation formation.
After that, Han Li stayed in his cave abode for more than an entire year. During this time, he refined his pills while taking some Rising Dragon Pills to cultivate his Provenance True Devil Arts. Even though this wasn't a very long time, his Provenance True Devil Projection was looking slightly more substantial than it did over a year ago, which was a further testament to just how potent Rising Dragon Pills were.
However, what was rather surprising to Han Li was that the Crystal woman by the name of Xian Xian hadn't contacted using the Myriad Distance Talisman he'd left her during this time. It was as if she'd completely forgotten about him.
Han Li was rather perplexed, but he didn't go to find her.
On this day, Han Li finally emerged from his cave abode, and after taking a cursory glance around him, he flew down the mountain as a streak of azure light.
Coincidentally or by design, there just so happened to be another streak of white light flying down from the summit of the mountain at the same time, and the streak of light reached the foot of the mountain along with Han Li almost in unison.
The white and azure lights faded, revealing Han Li and a bald man.
The bald man had a set of sinister facial features, and his skin was of a greyish-white color.
The two of them both looked at one another with a hint of surprise in their eyes.
"I am Tie Jian of the Stone Cocoon Race. You look rather unfamiliar, Fellow Daoist; did you only move in recently?" The man was a little menacing to behold, but he spoke in quite a polite voice.
Han Li swept his spiritual sense toward the man to find that he was a being at the pinnacle of the Spatial Tempering Stage, and his heart jolted slightly with shock, but he merely smiled as he replied, "My surname is Han, and I did indeed only move in recently."
"Oh, so it's Fellow Daoist Han. I heard that last year, an outsider activated a Vast Glacial Badge, and he also had the Han surname; could you be that outsider, Fellow Daoist Han?" The man immediately guessed Han Li's identity after hearing his surname.
A hint of surprise flashed through Han Li's eyes, but he smiled as he replied, "I was indeed the one activated the Vast Glacial Badge a year ago. I didn't think that I would be so renowned in these parts."
"Haha, you're the first outsider to have activated a Vast Glacial Badge in our Heavenly Cloud Races, so you're naturally quite well-known by everyone. Are you going out now because you also heard about the precious auction items being offered in the Four Races Auction?"
"Four Races Auction?" Han Li drew a complete blank upon hearing this.
"Oh? Do you not know about this, Fellow Daoist Han? Then again, that's no surprise, seeing as you've only just recently come to our Cloud City. The Four Races Auction is something that's held by four of our 13 races once every decade to try and increase the popularity of Cloud City. All of the auction items are precious treasures that aren't normally sold during auctions, so the event always attracts many high-grade beings to Cloud City. On this occasion, our 13 races have been forced onto the back foot by the invasion of the Jiao Chi Race, so the auction items are even more prestigious than usual in order to boost morale. Among the auction items, there are even going to be Myriad Wonder Pills being sold; those pills are ideal for helping Spatial Tempering cultivators like us break through bottlenecks. Only the top pill refinement masters of the Crystal Race are capable of refining those pills, and they've never appeared in the past editions of the auction," Tie Jian explained.
Han Li's heart stirred upon hearing this. "Myriad Wonder Pill, eh? I've also heard of these pills before."
Back when he was at Green Light City, those foreign Spatial Tempering Stage beings had mentioned this pill, and they seemed to be even more valuable than sentient puppets.
If they really were useful for Spatial Tempering cultivators, then it would naturally be very beneficial to him if he could obtain the pill or its refinement method.
With that in mind, Han Li was quite intrigued as he said, "It wouldn't be right for me to miss such an auspicious occasion."
"In that case, why don't we go together, Fellow Daoist? Truth be told, I'll very likely be part of the group of beings selected to enter the Vast Glacial Realm on this occasion; perhaps we'll be in the same group together! If that happens, I'll have to trouble you to look out for me," the bald man chuckled.
"Surely you jest, Fellow Daoist! You're a ninth-tier upper race being, so your cultivation base far outstrips mine. However, I really am rather unfamiliar with Cloud City, so I'll be counting on you to lead the way, Brother Tie," Han Li replied.
Tie Jian merely smiled and didn't respond. Instead, he raised a hand to hail one of the beast-drawn carriages parked at the foot of the mountain, then invited Han Li onto the carriage first.
Han Li accepted the invitation, climbing onto the carriage first, followed by Tie Jian, who then turned to the driver, and instructed, "Take us to the Cloud Intent Auction House."
The driver gave an affirmative response before spurring the beast-drawn carriage into motion.
Inside the carriage, Han Li made further inquiries about the Four Races Auction, and only then did he learn that the auction had actually already been running for a few days, but the truly precious auction items that were of the highest caliber were being sold today.
In order to obtain a Myriad Wonder Pill, Tie Jian had even borrowed a large batch of spirit stones from his friends.
Han Li heard from Tie Jian that there were going to be two sentient puppets from the Myriad Ancient Race that were also going to be sold during the auction, and he was quite tempted by that prospect.
After traveling for over two hours, the beast-drawn carriage changed directions and diverged onto a very wide street.
The number of beast-drawn carriages on this street increased dramatically compared to elsewhere, and there were also many powerful cultivators there as well.
In the end, the beast-drawn carriage came to an abrupt halt near the end of the street, where it was in the company of several tens of other beast-drawn carriages.
Han Li and Tie Jian disembarked before looking around, and Han Li discovered that there was a massive square building up ahead that was close to 10,000 feet wide and over 1,000 feet tall.
At the pinnacle of the building was a cylindrical altar, above which a yellow ring with a diameter of over 100 feet was hovering. The ring was constructed from an unknown material that was neither metallic nor wooden in nature, and it was slowly rotating while emitting a cold light that encompassed the entire hall down below.
There were rows of armored warriors standing around the hall in a stationary manner, and all of them were actually powerful puppets.
The hall had a total of three entrances, one large and two small, with over 20 blue-robed guards situated outside them.
All of these guards were Spatial Tempering Stage beings!
At this moment, there weren't many people entering the hall through the largest main entrance. Instead, the two smaller entrances were being used quite frequently, presenting a lively and bustling scene to behold.
Just as Han Li was assessing the situation, Tie Jian turned to him, and asked, "Fellow Daoist Han, I have some things that I want to sell in the side hall to get some more spirit stones; would you like to come with me?"
