Chapter 761 – Towards the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom
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In the early morning, the sun had not yet risen and Divine Phoenix Island was enveloped in a thin morning mist. Lin Ming bid his farewell to his parents, Qin Xingxuan, and Mu Qianyu, then he brought Demonshine along with him as he followed Li Yifeng and his entourage out towards the four Divine Kingdoms.
In Li Yifeng’s group of four, there was Qing’er and the quiet young nun that Lin Ming had seen before, as well as an unusually pretty young boy who wore all white.
This beautiful youth was like Li Yifeng and both of them favored folding fans. However, with just a glance at this youth’s pale face, delicate hands, and lack of an adam’s apple, it was obvious that this was a woman dressed up as a man.
“You’re already acquainted with Qing’er, Brother Lin. As for this young nun, her Buddhist name is Jingchan, and this young sir here is Sir Murong.” Li Yifeng introduced Lin Ming to his companions. He grinned as he heavily accentuated the words ‘Sir Murong’, causing that ‘beautiful young man’ to squint her eyes.
Lin Ming thought this was funny. In truth, once a martial artist reached a certain boundary it was extremely easy to distinguish between men and women, much less even mortal commoners could tell that this ‘Sir Murong’ was a girl. Unless one had extremely skillful appearance changing techniques it was near impossible to fool others. Since this ‘Sir Murong’ knew all this perfectly well but still dressed as a man, the only explanation was that she liked this sort of dressing up.
It wasn’t strange for extraordinary young elites to have unusual hobbies like this.
Lin Ming didn’t bother ruining her fun. He cupped his hands across his chest and said, “Young Master Jingyuan, Sir Murong, well met.”
Seeing Lin Ming being so respectful, Sir Murong actually had a rare favorable impression of Lin Ming and cupped her hands in return. As for Jingyuan, she gathered her hands together and spoke some Buddhist sutras.
“Brother Lin, during this journey to the four Divine Kingdoms we will have to travel several million miles. First we’ll go north to the Great Zen Region and then enter the River Region and from there we can go to the Profound Canary Province… although most of this journey will be made through transmission arrays, we’ll still have to spend a month or two in my spirit boat. During this time, Brother Lin may feel free to do as you wish. You can enjoy the scenery or you can close up in training.”
Li Yifeng’s spirit boat was 10 times larger than a normal spirit boat and the interior was lavishly decorated. The tables and chairs were all made of spirit wood and the floors and beds were all covered with rare and precious beast skins. Every room gave off an atmosphere of opulence and grace. It was apparent that Li Yifeng had spent a great deal of time and effort on this spirit boat.
“Brother Li, is your Seven Star Divine Kingdom a great distance away from the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom?”
These past days, Lin Ming had also asked about the basic situation of the four Divine Kingdoms. The four Divine Kingdoms were divided into the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom, Sublime Smelting Divine Kingdom, Asura Divine Kingdom, and Seven Star Divine Kingdom.
These four great Divine Kingdoms held over a dozen well known and famous Emperor powerhouses. In addition to all those other Emperor level powerhouses that remained hidden in the world, every Divine Kingdom had nearly 10 Emperor level powerhouses, or perhaps even more.
Of the four Divine Kingdoms, the strongest was the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom. The Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom was famed for its alchemy techniques and the entire country was rich in wood spirit jade and all sorts of heavenly materials that were useful for alchemy. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say that nearly every martial artist within the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom was familiar with alchemy. Even if they weren’t an alchemist they would still have some superficial knowledge of alchemy.
Second to the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom was the Sublime Smelting Divine Kingdom; they were famous for their refining techniques and their lands held all sort of deposits of precious metals and minerals. Within the Sublime Smelting Divine Kingdom, nine out of 10 martial artists were refining masters. Nearly every inherited heaven-step treasure of the Sky Spill Continent that didn’t originate from ancient times came from the Sublime Smelting Divine Kingdom.
Coming in third was the Asura Divine Kingdom. They were a relatively isolated and independent Divine Kingdom. Although they were far weaker than the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom and the Sublime Smelting Divine Kingdom, this was mainly due to the fact that there weren’t any special resources located within their borders. The Asura Divine Kingdom was a land of mostly demonic path martial artists and the social customs within were considered quite barbaric. In fact, publicly killing someone on the streets couldn’t be considered uncommon or exciting.
And last of all was the Seven Star Divine Kingdom. They too didn’t have any special resources, causing the development of their Divine Kingdom to be greatly limited. The Seven Star Divine Kingdom was well known for their array formations, but no matter how strong array formations were, they were still auxiliary skills. In terms of enhancing a martial artist’s cultivation, they were naturally inferior to the mass production capabilities of alchemical techniques.
“Brother Lin wishes to go to the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom?” Li Yifeng wasn’t too surprised to hear of Lin Ming’s request. The Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom was known as a land with abundant treasures and lucky chances around every corner. Every year, a massive number of martial artists would sojourn to the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom in hopes that they would stumble upon some divine heavenly treasure that would allow them to ascend into glory with a single leap. However, the areas that were fraught with lucky chances were all under strict control; Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom wouldn’t easily allow outsiders to obtain them.
Even so, a great number martial artists still came to experience the varied martial Holy Lands of the Sky Spill Continent.
“That’s the plan. I want to go to the Nine Furnace Divine Kingdom to look for some wood spirit jade.” Lin Ming honestly said. There wasn’t anything to hide and if he spoke with Li Yifeng, perhaps this Prince might even know some channels he could access.
“Wood spirit jade?” After Li Yifeng heard this his eyes brightened, “So Brother Lin was also a lover of jade, hm!”
Li Yifeng said. Then, he swiped his spatial ring and took out a foot long wooden square box. As he opened this box, a very light but pure wood origin energy suddenly emerged. As Lin Ming peered within, he could see four pieces of rough-looking irregularly-shaped green stone. They seemed to be uncarved jade stones; without a doubt, these were wood spirit jades.
In addition, beside these four rough pieces of wood spirit jade was also an exquisitely carved jade horse. The material used to create this was also wood spirit jade.
“A jade horse carved from wood spirit jade?”
Lin Ming was startled. Within the memories of the Realm of the Gods’ Supreme Elders, there were many recollections of wood spirit jade carvings, accessories, utensils, and so forth. Lin Ming had only glanced over these things. After all, these sorts of artistic treasures didn’t have much use in one’s martial arts cultivation. What he cared about had only been alchemical techniques from the Realm of the Gods.
He never thought that the wood spirit jade carvings within the Realm of the Gods would also exist in the Sky Spill Continent.
“Haha, this jade horse of mine is quite good, right? I spent a sky high price to win this at an auction. This is an ancient treasure carved by an expert from 10,000 years ago!”
Li Yifeng puffed up, full of pride and wanting to show off to Lin Ming. He obviously held an inordinate amount of love for this jade carving.
But at this moment, a discordant voice suddenly stuck its foot in, “Li Yifeng, I can’t believe you used a great amount of the Divine Kingdom’s spirit essence stones to secretly buy a wood spirit jade horse! I will report this matter to Sir Shangchen!”
Lin Ming looked up, seeing that the one snappily speaking was that ‘Sir Murong’. He couldn’t help but chuckle in his heart. A spirit essence stone was a type of spirit stone even better than true essence stones for cultivation. A low-grade spirit essence stone’s value was about approximate to a top quality true essence stone.
Li Yifeng’s smile froze on his face, “You fake Murong tomboy! If you mess with me I’ll bring you down with me!”
“Humph, the spirit essence stones that Sir Shangchen gave you were for you to cultivate, not for you to buy toys!” Murong argued back.
“Who said that wood spirit jade can’t be used for training? A wood spirit jade carving is certainly expensive as an accessory, but it also has the effect of enhancing the soul. The further one’s cultivation is the more important the role of the soul is! Someone like you simply couldn’t understand this!”
What Li Yifeng said was quite true; wood spirit jade was indeed a good material for enhancing the soul.
Besides being used in alchemy, wood spirit jade could also be absorbed by a martial artist for training. However, because wood spirit jade was based in wood origin energy, only a wood-attribute martial artist could use it. Otherwise, using wood spirit jade for training would simply be a waste.
Even if one didn’t understand alchemy, a martial artist that wasn’t lucky enough to be of the wood attribute could also carry around the wood spirit jade by their side. Gradually, the rich wood origin energy of the wood spirit jade would permeate into the martial artist and nourish their soul.
However, wood spirit jade in its most basic form was rough and craggy; there were many people that didn’t feel too well carrying something so ugly and unbeautiful by their side all the time. Thus, the skill of carving wood spirit jade slowly spread, and the art of carving this material became increasingly refined and elegant. Now, there were even some martial artists that carried around wood spirit jade carvings to accessorize, not even purchasing them with the intention of helping to nourish their soul.
“Stop with your loquacious sophistry. If you wanted to help nourish your soul then carrying around a piece of uncut wood spirit jade would be just the same, you don’t need to carry around such an expensive jade horse. I will make sure to report this matter to your superiors.” Murong said with a haughty indifference, a serious light on her face.
“Peh, whatever, I’m too lazy to bother with you…” Li Yifeng had a look that he didn’t want to waste his time arguing. Then, he suddenly swiveled around towards Lin Ming, his eyes lighting up, “Haha, Brother Lin, if you like wood spirit jade then let me take you to some famous city squares that specialize in wood spirit jade later so you can open your eyes!”
Li Yifeng obviously held a great understanding of the wood spirit jade market, and immediately began speaking to Lin Ming of several vast wood spirit jade city squares, detailing the advantages and disadvantages of each one. Then, after making great flourishing motions about everything, he finally circled back to his own beloved jade horse.
“Look at this jade horse. The exquisite carving details stem from the hands of a carving grandmaster called Xuan Can. As for the jade, it comes from 250,000 year old ancient river wood spirit jade!”
The older wood spirit jade was, the higher quality it would be and the more expensive it would be. Wood spirit jade had a special characteristic; it was able to independently absorb wood origin energy from the heaven and earth origin energy of the world and use this energy to vitalize itself. Thus, although wood spirit jade would slowly lose some of its origin energy over time, this rate was drastically slowed due to its ability to supplement itself. In addition, as more time went on, the wood origin energy within the wood spirit jade would become increasingly pure in quality.
Lin Ming didn’t care who this Xuan Can was, nor did he have any interest in ancient river wood spirit jade. But, what he could confirm was that this carved jade horse in Li Yifeng’s hands was at most 120,000 to 130,000 years old.
It seemed that Li Yifeng had been suckered by someone.
The truth was that being tricked like this was also normal. It was very difficult to judge the age of wood spirit jade, and even experienced alchemists would make mistakes. The general population probably wouldn’t even be able to distinguish between true and fake wood spirit jade. There were experts out there that could use wood-attribute spirit essence stones and some wood spirit jade powder to create fake wood spirit jade that was nearly impossible to distinguish from the real thing.
“Brother Li, could I have those raw wood spirit jade ores?” Lin Ming had no intention of revealing to Li Yifeng that he had been scammed. After all, it was fine as long as he was happy about his purchase, and Li Yifeng might not believe him to begin with.
The reason Lin Ming asked for these raw stones was because he wanted to try his hand at alchemy. He had already studied alchemy techniques for a very long time, and besides trying low level recipes that didn’t require wood spirit jade, Lin Ming hadn’t yet tried to refine a high level pill.
“Brother Lin wants this raw ore? No problem!” Li Yifeng readily nodded. He liked wood spirit jade, but that was only wood spirit jade carvings. As for that ore, in Li Yifeng’s eyes it was no different to spirit essence stones.
