The Champion Duke fully made a name for himself.
Everyone took him to be a moving treasure box, that whoever killed him could claim the wondrous Stellar Sword and his purple crystal veins. Only now did they realize that their cornucopia of wealth was a bristling porcupine armed to the teeth.
He’d almost killed a third step king with just a dozen talismans. If there was a next time, he was sure to fire back even more strongly!
Enlightenment slammed into cultivators like a bolt of lightning when they witnessed his actions. Given the previous inaccessibility of supplemental dao, there’d been exceedingly few king grade supplemental treasures available throughout the realm. This was no longer the case as such items were readily available in both the Haotian Tower and Immortal Pagoda!
If the Champion Duke could blow up and cripple a third step king with just a few king grade Detonation Talismans, why couldn’t someone else do the same??
The talismans cost six hundred thousand premium purple crystals in the Immortal Pagoda, but only three hundred thousand in the Haotian Tower!
It seemed a steep price, but all Hongmeng kings carried at least a dozen to a couple hundred premium crystal veins on them. Apart from the crystals they needed to cultivate, they could trade the rest for king grade treasures and be similarly outfitted!
Thus, a new mass of cultivators rushed for the Haotian Tower and Immortal Pagoda.
The Immortal Pagoda welcomed the increase in demand. Lu Yun had refined five thousand supplemental grandmaster puppets before he left, making them out of materials from Origin World’s vaults. Though Jin Naluo had taken his first batch of one hundred, that didn’t matter.
An endless supply of supplemental treasures streamed through transportation formations from the Immortal Pagoda in Multitude City to the one in Cloudexit City.
Naturally, the Haotian Tower fearlessly met the challenge as well.
Though the Supplemental Dao Alliance had exercised a monopoly for countless years, their supplemental kings never stopped refining treasures. Everything they completed was stored in warehouses, collecting dust like trash.
Relaxing their grip on the market was a chance to clean out their overladen shelves of nearly forgotten king grade treasures.
Cloudexit City rose in prominence and increasing numbers of people wanted to charge into Starspace Region to do battle. The Immortal Pagoda suddenly issued a mission at this time.
In order to strengthen the Hongmeng’s resolve against the ghosts, the Immortal Pagoda would award great sums of purple crystals to any brave warrior who killed a ghost!
With crystal residue as proof, one chunk of inferior crystal could be traded for a common purple crystal. A chunk of common ghost crystal could be traded for a premium purple crystal, and a chunk of premium ghost crystal could be traded for one fang of premium purple crystal!
If one killed a ghost king and obtained their crystal core, they could trade that for a premium crystal vein!
The information came from the Immortal Pagoda’s headquarters in Multitude City, shocking all of the third realm!
In their age-long conflict with the ghosts, Hongmeng beings had always taken a passive approach. They reacted only when invaded, and supplemental kings had concluded after innumerable eons and experimentation that the enemy’s crystal residue was useless. They were like burnt food at the bottom of a pan, unwanted and undesirable for use even when paving a road.
The Immortal Pagoda’s announcement raised Cloudruin morale enormously and motivated cultivators who were indifferent about the ghosts. Filled with drive, they set out for various battlefields in the realm.
……
“What is that Immortal King doing?! Isn’t he afraid of hollowing out Redbud Mountain??” Shenyu stood on the rooftop of Haotian Tower and silently regarded the Immortal Pagoda across the way.
Lu Yun was present on its ninth floor and flashed back gleaming teeth set in a brilliant grin.
“I’m your ancestor when it comes to buying popular support. Keep copying me if you dare!” mouthed the bean soldier Lu Yun.
“Though my Immortal Region possesses deep pockets, our purple crystals aren’t meant to be depleted like this.” Shenyu shook his head wryly. “You win this round.”
He dared to sell all of Haotian Tower’s wares at half price compared to the competition because they were unused surplus to begin with. For the supplemental kings, these items were negligible dross that they’d forgotten ever existed.
Selling them would make them more useful since the alliance would gain purple crystals instead.
In the same vein, Shenyu couldn’t bear to follow his competition and purchase those useless ghost crystals.
“Is the Immortal King buying popular support, or has he unraveled the mystery of the ghost crystals?” Shenyu frowned faintly. “Those ghosts aren’t regular ghosts, their existence violates the order of life in the Hongmeng. The ghost crystals are their core essence, so any being that lives under the Hongmeng’s order of life is unable to refine them.
“Forget it, who cares about him? So what if he’s found a way to refine the ghost crystals? There’s no end to the ghosts of the Hongmeng—even the big dragon in Redbud Mountain can’t withstand this rate of depletion. Trading purple crystals for ghost crystals is a surefire way to a quick death.” Shenyu smiled when his thoughts traveled to this point, an expression echoed by Lu Yun across from him.
……
The idea of tremendous profit stirred the passively defending Cloudexit City into proactively striking out. Seven kings mounted an expedition into Starspace Region, conducting seven operations and reaping several tens of billions of ghost crystals.
Laden with their war spoils, they arrived at the Immortal Pagoda and sent the crystals orbiting around the building with great fanfare.
“Hahaha, wonderful!” laughed the Skyfall King. “You are the first to return for the mission’s bounty! There are a combined fifty-three billion, seven hundred million, nine thousand and three hundred sixty-three ghost crystals here, as well as two king grade crystals. The Immortal Pagoda will trade three premium crystal veins for them!”
He waved a hand and used his sleeve to collect the glittering ghost crystals dancing through the sky. Three premium purple veins rushed out in response and landed in front of the seven kings.
Their eyes widened at the generosity.
“Our thanks, fellow daoist.” They quickly stowed the crystal veins without undue pleasantries; three premium crystal veins were also a small fortune to them. They hadn’t known how true the pagoda’s bounty was, so they’d refrained from penetrating too deeply into Starspace Region. Their ghost crystals were gleaned from several rounds of battle on the outskirts of occupied territory.
Who would’ve thought that the Immortal Pagoda would gift them nearly an entire crystal vein extra because they were the first to respond to the mission? What a pleasant surprise and demonstration of the pagoda’s determination!
Thus, more and more cultivators left the city to rush into Starspace Region. Hongmeng cultivators had once killed ghosts to temper their cultivation or save themselves. Now they did so to earn crystals!
Ghost crystals were an important resource for Lu Yun to nurture his fire of order, so he approached it from a no-expense-spared mindset. Of the thirty million crystal veins that the Redbud King had given him, he’d given ten million to Qing Yu for the Hopeless Major cultivators to use. The remaining twenty million all became mission bounty.
He could collect enough ghost crystals to strengthen this flame if it took all of his wealth!
When the last shard of the fifty-three billion ghost crystals were carefully fed to the tiny flame of order, the ephemeral flame jumped slightly and seemed to be a bit more real than before.
