Early in the morning, the air was cold, and the mist was like a heavenly bridge.
Luo Shuihan stayed up all night and sent dispatches everywhere to gather all of the materials on the list, and put them into a dozen large bronze boxes.
Zhang Ruochen went through the list one by one and nodded satisfyingly.
There were some materials on the list that were extremely rare, and Zhang Ruochen had never heard of them before and thought that there were no such things in Kunlun Realm. He was immediately impressed. “The Martial Market Bank sure is resourceful.”
As expected of a faction that lived through the great upheaval a hundred thousand years ago, and their background is far beyond Zhang Ruochen’s initial estimations.
In the Middle Ages, the Martial Market Bank was a top faction among the behemoths of the Kunlun Realm and had more than one god behind them.
After paying a large number of saint stones, Zhang Ruochen asked Luo Shuihan, “Does the Martial Market Bank have any Tears of the Void?”
Helping the Ancient Abyssal Sword converge its form was something Zhang Ruochen had to do next.
The rest of the materials were all ready, but he still lacked a few more Tears of the Void. Zhang Ruochen did not expect the Martial Market Bank to have the item, and had only asked to try just try his luck.
Luo Shuihan frowned as she said. “That’s a legendary treasure, and I’ve only seen them in ancient tomes. I’m not sure whether the Martial Market Bank has them or not, but of course, I can ask for you.”
“Okay, then I’ll be troubling you for that. Let me know if there are any news. We can discuss the price in saint stones later.”
Zhang Ruochen placed the dozen bronze chests into his Dimensional Ring, before going to Lei Jing to bid his farewells. Immediately after, he left the Qianshui royal city.
Moyin drove the Golden Dragon Carriage and rushed towards Luoshui.
Since he was trusted with the matter, he would see it through.
In any case, The Fane of Youshen should not be able to break into the Royal Mountains for the time being, and he had ample of time. At the same time, Zhang Ruochen was also a little curious, not only because of both Luo Xu and Luo Shuihan’s opportunities, but also the God-Defiance Stele.
The power of the God-Defiance Stele was the most bizarre of powers Zhang Ruochen had ever seen, and it must have quite the history to it.
And half of that stele was actually salvaged from Luoshui.
An hour later, Zhang Ruochen arrived at the bay of Luoshui.
Several years ago, Zhang Ruochen had stayed here to train the Luoshui Fist technique and to unravel the secrets of Luoshui. When he came to Luoshui again, he could barely recognize it and thought that he had come to the wrong place.
Was this still Luoshui?
Before him was the endless blue waves like an ancient ocean.
The Luoshui in the past was definitely not that vast.
Plus, a faint mist floated on the surface of the waters, and mysterious powers flowed with in it, blocking Zhang Ruochen’s vision and spiritual senses, leaving him only able to see the waters within a hundred miles, and any further away it was a patchy blur.
Zhang Ruochen unfolded a pair of dragon wings, and like a human-shaped goose, he flew into the water and headed toward the depths of the water.
As he walked upon the waves, he went ahead for a hundred miles.
Zhang Ruochen smelled a faint fragrance, and it smelt like tulips.
Soon, Zhang Ruochen actually saw a tulip several miles away that was the size of a tower, and each piece of the petal looked like it was carved out of rubies, and was crystal clear. Beneath the shining sun, it looked particularly gorgeous.
“That’s one-hundred-thousand-year-old sacred medicine.”
Zhang Ruochen was extremely surprised, and his emotions went out of control and got exceedingly excited.
Luoshui was not only filled with both heavenly and earthly saint Qi, and even the heavenly and earthly precepts were all active. How did a-hundred-thousand-year-old ancient sacred medicine like this appear?
It was too abnormal.
What sort of changes had taken place at Luoshui? Was it the same as the Royal Mountains, and was it an awakened location?
“Master, be careful. It’s not a simple tulip and is probably a Malevolent Plant, a Demonic Tulip. The fragrance it emits is extremely stimulating and seductive, and could affect the mind and emotions of a cultivator with flesh and blood.” Moyin said.
Zhang Ruochen immediately stopped as he held his breath and mobilized the Divine Purification Flames and refined the fragrance he had inhaled into his body.
There were problems indeed.
With his deep cultivation, how could he not control his own emotions?
After refining the fragrance in his body, Zhang Ruochen’s thoughts cleared, and he immediately backed away upon sensing a dangerous aura.
The Demonic Tulip, among the Malevolent Plants, was not much weaker than the Saint Devourer. It was proficient in spiritual attacks, and even if it was only ten thousand years old, it could use its fragrance and spiritual powers to affect living beings in a radius of thousands of miles. Of course, the mortals here referred to creatures like snakes, insects, rats, and the like.
However, the one before him was a hundred thousand years old Demonic Tulip.
Even if Zhang Ruochen was a Saint King, should he get close, he would probably die.
“Crap.”
Zhang Ruochen noticed that the petals of the Demonic Tulip exuding a blood-red brilliance.
Whoosh!!
A blood light blasted out in all directions, and immediately dyeing the sky and waters red, and even more terrifying was a powerful spiritual power was carried within the blood light.
Zhang Ruochen looked over and saw thousands of blood-red Demonic Knights rushing towards him as deafening roars and the sounds of slaughter rang in his ears, shaking his saint soul so hard that it threatened to fly out of his body.
“It’s a spiritual attack.”
Zhang Ruochen immediately took out the Pearls of Vanity and held it in his palm.
The saint Qi in his body started to circulate frantically as they converged towards the Pearls of Vanity.
A series of Buddha’s shadow flew out from the pearls and surrounded Zhang Ruochen as if over a dozen Golden Arhats and Bodhisattvas were protecting him, reciting a Sanskrit chant in their mouths.
Using the Pearls of Vanity’s spiritual defensive capabilities, Zhang Ruochen fled back to the shore and only stopped until he was hundreds of miles away.
“That’s terrifying. Even with my peak Level 57 spiritual power, I almost could not resist it.” Zhang Ruochen’s face was quite pale, and his spiritual strength was damaged to a certain extent.
After taking a sacred pill for recovering his spiritual powers, Zhang Ruochen took over two hours before fully recovering.
By the time he returned to the Bay of Luoshui, the Demonic Tulip had long since disappeared.
Zhang Ruochen was much more cautious this time around and retracted his aura as he dived deep into the deeper parts of Luoshui, but after several hundred meters down, he encountered another great danger.
His body sank underwater uncontrollably as if there was a hand pulling his legs downwards.
Zhang Ruochen looked down and saw a series of mysterious inscriptions in the water, and these inscriptions were entangling his leg and pulling him down, with his waist sinking into the water.
Whoosh!!
Zhang Ruochen deployed the power of space before he escaped the inscriptions under the water, and escaped back to shore.
Afterward, Zhang Ruochen went to explore several times, and every time he reached about a hundred miles in, he would run into some inscriptions, some would shoot out lightning, some would form sky fires, some would tear apart space.
Those inscriptions were too terrifying, and they were definitely not something arrayed by a being of a Saint King realm. With Zhang Ruochen’s current cultivation level, it was impossible for him to get in.
Of course, Zhang Ruochen still found something and had managed to pick over a dozen precious sacred medicines on the surface of the water.
In one of his attempts, he managed to break into the water region about four hundred miles in and saw several massive black islands floating on the water.
That was right.
They were floating and slowly moving.
The black islands are hemispherical in shape and were quite massive, not that different from a celestial body that fell from the skies. Due to the distance, Zhang Ruochen could not see what was on the island, but he could sense a fleeting yet mighty power there.
Zhang Ruochen dared not continue to rush in, and immediately returned to the shore.
“No wonder Senior sister Luo said that I can’t take Luoshui away. Luoshui is really extraordinary. What actually is the big secret that is hidden here?”
“In the past, there must be a hidden dimension here, and with the recovery of the Kunlun Realm, it had gradually revealed itself. Ah, forget it, I’ll first move the civilians by the shore and resettle them to Qiankun Realm, and that’ll be the fulfillment of my promise to Senior sister Luo.”
The waters of Luoshui seemed to have all turned into a spiritual spring, and mortals that consume them are immune to diseases and have their lifespan prolonged.
Zhang Ruochen marched along the river downstream.
As he arrived at a fishing village near Luoshui, Zhang Ruochen had an ominous feeling even before he entered it.
The village was unusually quiet, and there were no human voices or barking of dogs.
Zhang Ruochen walked into the fishing village and gasped. He only saw all of the villagers there had turned into corpses, or to be precise, stone corpses.
A boy stood at the entrance of the village, his body was so desiccated that only skin and bones were left, and his body petrified.
If not for the clothes he was wearing, Zhang Ruochen would have taken the boy for a statue.
Zhang Ruochen was not a cold-blooded person, and upon seeing this, he was furious. He held his fingers out and pressed against the boy’s forehead and carefully sensed it.
“This… this is the aura of the Infernal Realm’s Stone-Clan cultivators.
BOOM!! BOOM!!
Zhang Ruochen stomped onto the ground in fury, and sinking the ground in a radius of tens of miles, and the entire village was buried under the ground.
As he continued downstream, all of the fishing villages and small towns Zhang Ruochen passed by were in the same state.
There were no survivors, and all of them were petrified.
While Zhang Ruochen was furious, he still maintained his good senses and noticed something suspicious that puzzled him.
Even if these Stone-clan cultivators were to slaughter those fisherfolks, where did all of the blood in their bodies went to?
One needed to know that human blood was practically useless to a Stone-clan cultivator.
Zhang Ruochen quickened his pace and came to an ancient city near Luoshui.
This ancient city was called Luocheng and had a population of about several hundred thousand.
Fortunately, humans in Luocheng have not suffered the same fate.
Zhang Ruochen felt the aura of Sainthood cultivators in Luocheng, and so he wore a mask and retracted his aura as he quietly walked into the city gate.
Since those Stone-clan cultivators had killed all of the fisherfolks around Luoshui, they would definitely not let the humans in Luoshui go.
“I want to see what sort of monster are you?” Zhang Ruochen had the intent to kill, and prepared to wait at Luocheng for his quarry.
Inside Luocheng, the largest restaurant was called Saint Xu Place and was named after Luo Xu had visited the premises.
Zhang Ruochen limped into Saint Xu Place and immediately sensed over a dozen sharp gazes staring at him. After not sensing any saint aura from him, only did those gazes turned away.
“To have so many powerful people gathered at Luocheng, not sure if there are any Infernal Court cultivators hiding among them.” Zhang Ruochen said quietly to himself.
A steward of Saint Xu Place saw that Zhang Ruochen was crippled, and wore an unhappy look as he said. “We are full, and there are no more seats. Sir, you should go somewhere else!”
Zhang Ruochen glanced around the restaurant and saw a table with only two people sitting on it. One had a giant cleaver on his back, looking like a butcher, while another was white and fat with a dull expression.
“Isn’t there a seat over there?” Zhang Ruochen pointed to that table.
