On that endless ocean, a massive bird-like flying puppet was traveling at a high speed.
“There is nothing on this endless ocean. After flying for ten days and ten nights, we have not seen even a ghost.”
There was a wooden house on the back of the flying puppet, which was indeed the puppet house Ye Chen had found in the ruins. Although it was not too big, it was perfectly fitting on the back of the flying puppet. Ye Chen and Murong Qingcheng were lying in the house while drinking tea and eating fruits.
After taking a bite of the pear, Murong Qingcheng said, “Regardless if it were humans or beasts, there are all living in packs. The ocean is so big, so it might be normal to not see anything after all.”
Spitting out the seed of the pear, Ye Chen chuckled. “Luckily you are here with me. Otherwise, it would be quite boring.” When traveling alone, there was basically nothing to do but train all the time. Actually, training without a purpose would be meaningless most of the time.
As he spoke, Ye Chen’s right hand that was holding her slipped into her clothes…
…
Another four-five days had gone past.
On that day, Ye Chen and Murong Qingcheng finally saw a human.
“Brother, why don’t you come over to chill?”
Ye Chen walked out of the puppet house and stood on the head of the puppet, speaking in a mild voice.
Hearing him, that human flew over from afar.
He was not weak either, just like Ye Chen at late Sea of Souls realm. He was in his forties, and his eyes were full of caution. He stopped a couple of miles away.
“My name is Ye Chen. I wonder what your name is!” Ye Chen smiled.
“My name is Liu Hai.”
“Brother Liu, I see.” Ye Chen held his fists together.
Liu Hai saw that Ye Chen did not look like a bad person, so he hurried to return the greetings.
Ye Chen glanced behind Liu Hai and asked, “Brother Liu, I saw that you were quite in a hurry before, but there was nothing really chasing after you. I have to be frank, I am quite confused.”
Liu Hai forced a smile, “Brother Ye, this is your first time here, isn’t it?”
“Indeed!” Ye Chen nodded.
After being silent for a couple of moments, Liu Hai said, “This is an evil place. I suggest you leave immediately.”
“An evil place?” Ye Chen looked confused, “Brother Liu, why is this place evil? I am really curious.”
“Have you heard the legend of the Devouring island?”
“No, I do not believe so.” Ye Chen shook his head.
“Within hundreds of miles, legend says that there lies a Devouring island. Whoever gets eaten by the island would not make it out for sure. I wonder if it was just a coincidence or is there some kind of a spell. Although this place is still unknown, there are quite a lot of treasure here. A lot of the lucky ones had gotten endless valuable treasures from here. I won’t hide it from you, I only came here for trying out my luck. But, I heard some strange noises just now, which was why I was in a hurry just now. Sorry if I have startled you, brother Ye!” Liu Hai explained.
“The Devouring Island and countless treasures, right? Interesting!” Ye Chen touched his chin.
“Brother Ye, if you don’t have anything, I will go now.” Liu Hai said.
“Alright, thank you!”
“Excuse me!” Liu Hai held his fists together to greet before turning into a beam of light and disappearing into the sky.
Bending his body slowly as he entered the puppet house, Ye Chen said to Murong Qingcheng, “I wonder if it is real or not.”
Murong Qingcheng said, “Perhaps it would not be much different from the foggy forbidden zone.”
“Yeah, that kind of place should be avoided.” No one would voluntarily walk into those dangerous places with no way out. A couple of years ago, Ye Chen had entered that forbidden place without a choice as well. If it were a normal day out, he would definitely not have done that.
…
Just like Liu Hai had said, the treasures near the island had attracted a lot of warriors. After flying for hundreds of meters, Ye Chen saw a green island which had countless buildings as well as a huge number of trees.
“Let’s go check it out.” Ye Chen controlled his flying puppet to approach.
“It is indeed really busy.”
Above the islands, Ye Chen was a bit surprised. The island was not a temporary place obviously, as it had grown into a special town in which even the weakest warriors were at Astral Reaching Realm. Some mysterious half step king warriors could be seen from time to time as well.
“Ye Chen, let’s go down.”
It had been months since they got to eat a hot meal, so Murong Qingcheng suggested.
“Sounds good!”
Putting away his flying puppet, Ye Chen and Murong Qingcheng went down onto the ground.
There were a lot of people selling things on the busy street.
“Extreme rank water soul stone for three million top rank spirit stones! Come quickly if interested!”
“Ten demi extreme rank fire cloud stones for one million and five hundred thousand top rank spirit stones! Hurry up!”
Although the counters were plain looking, what they were shouting had shocked them.
“How strange!” Murong Qingcheng could not help but comment.
“Indeed! Aren’t they afraid of being robbed?” At lawless places like this, revealing what one had would be a very stupid thing to do unless one was super confident of one’s power. But, Ye Chen did not think these vendors had the power to secure their own goods. Even the one with the highest cultivation was only at peak level Late Sea of Souls Realm.
“Hehe…You two are new here, right?” Right next to them, a middle-aged man asked friendly.
“Indeed! We just arrived at this island.” Ye Chen answered.
“This island is called the crystal island. You two might not know this yet, but this place is not lawless. Instead, there is a very detailed strict set of rules here. The power party that controls this island is called the Black water alliance. Within it, there are at least twenty rank 5 parties and hundreds of rank 6 ones as well. If you dare to cause troubles here, you will be hunted by them for sure.” The middle-aged man explained.
“I see.” Ye Chen nodded even though he still had doubts. He thought to himself that even though it was very safe here, there was no need for such out-in-the-open trading.
The man seemed to have read his mind, so he continued to explain, “The reason that these vendors are selling out this fast for top rank spirit stones is because the Black water alliance has found the method to create Zhen yuan crystals and are selling them as well. As long as you have enough spirit stones, you can buy as many as you want.”
“Selling Zhen yuan crystals!” Ye Chen was shocked at what he had heard.
It would be hard for half step king warriors to create Zhen yuan crystals. Only life and death realm warriors could do so easily, but they would not sell it for sure, since they were not in lack of spirit stones, and did not have extra manpower to create that many to make a profit.
Zhen yuan crystals could be used for many things. If used for training, they could increase the training speed and progress. The Zhen yuan crystal was definitely something that had more demand than actual supply. No martial institutions would be willing to sell theirs.
“The deep ocean is indeed a strange place.” Ye Chen shook his head and forced a laugh.
Murong Qingcheng said to the middle-aged man, “Can we really buy the Zhen yuan crystals with top rank spirit stones? How many of them for one?”
“Since it is too valuable, there is no standard price for it. On the Crystal island, ten thousand top rank spirit stones could exchange for one low rank Zhen yuan crystal, and one million can exchange for a mid rank one. As for the top rank ones, they do not make those actually.”
There were rankings for the Zhen yuan crystals as well. For warriors who had just entered the life and death realm, they would be able to make low rank Zhen yuan crystals only. Only warriors with more than one thousand years of experience could create mid rank ones.
“I wonder where we could exchange for it?” Ye Chen wanted to check it out.
“There is a tower over there. Do you see? Powerful warriors from the black water alliance are running the place. Once you enter, there will be people greeting you.” The middle-aged man pointed at a tower at the end of the street.
“Thank you for sharing all this information!”
Ye Chen and Murong Qingcheng said goodbye to the old man and walked toward the tower.
There were no guards outside, so the two walked right in. However, there seemed to be senses of powerful warriors upstairs.
“You guys are new, right? Come here for registration first.”
The bulky looking warrior took out a crystal which had a layer of halo. He scanned around Ye Chen and Murong Qingcheng, who squinted their eyes. They knew that their images had been saved into that crystal, and there seemed to be a date of some sort along with it as well.
“Alright.”
Putting away that crystal, that bulky looking man said, “Since you guys have not been here a year yet, you guys can only exchange ten low rank Zhen yuan crystals per month per person.”
“Didn’t that guy say that you can exchange as many as you want?” Ye Chen said.
“He definitely did not explain it well. These are our rules here. But, if you guys are willing to take on our alliance’s missions, then you could not only get rid of that one year rule, but also enjoy a ninety percent discount when making the exchange.”
“Missions? What kind of missions?”
“On the first day of each month, there will be missions being listed on the notice board at the center of the palace. By then, you guys can decide which mission to take.”
“Since that is the case, could you give us twenty of the low rank Zhen yuan crystals?” Ye Chen took out twenty cases of top rank spirit stones and laid them on the ground.
“Exact number!”
The bulky looking man opened each case and nodded, then took out twenty glowing crystals and handed them over to Ye Chen.
After leaving the tower, Ye Chen said, “I did not expect to see such an island inside the deep sea area.”
“There are always more things out there, I guess. Ye Chen, should we stay here for a while?” Murong Qingcheng played with the Zhen yuan crystals in her hand and asked.
“Since we do not have much going on right now, let’s just stay here for a while then.” Ye Chen said.
Hence, they found a hotel and checked in, and Ye Chen soon started to train with his Zhen yuan crystals.
The Zhen yuan crystals were Zhen yuan formed into solid objects. It did not mean that one could simply compress their Zhen yuan into crystals, as one would have to take out the element within as well. If everyone could do so themselves, then there would be no point in cultivating crystals. If the warrior cultivated the mud element Zhen yuan and he compressed it himself, then it would form mud element Zhen yuan crystals. That would not only have low stability, but would be easy to shatter as well. It would have much more limitation.
However, the Zhen yuan crystals were indeed up to their reputation. He had only used five of them, and had cultivated his late Sea of souls realm to the peak level. If they were top rank spirit stones, it would at least take him a few months to do so.