Chapter Ninety-Five: Blood of Shadows, the Lingbo Trading Guild

The vessel came to shore, and several great cities could be seen in the distance.

The entire island lay shrouded in dark clouds, its world below dim and sullen, like the gray sky at dusk when the sun has set.

Thunderstorms flashed from time to time.

The pale, ghastly light made the land flicker between brightness and gloom.

The cities below looked especially eerie.

Scores of large merchant ships lay nearby.

Their sails snapped in the wind, while cinnabar arrays had been painted upon them; scarlet magical light flickered wildly.

Along the shore stood a wharf, alive with voices, where countless laborers in black short jackets hauled cargo.

They loaded goods onto wagons or carried them onto small boats.

Black canopied boats, heavy with cargo, glided inward toward the island.

"Those are the merchant guild's cargo ships. That one belongs to Mistwave Pavilion, that one to Lingbo Tower..." Master Tao explained.

As he stepped off the boat, the Smoke Ghost suddenly cast Lu Qian a cold glance, then dissolved into a wisp of green smoke and vanished.

Lu Qian had meant to stop him, but he had fled too quickly.

The Talismansword also disembarked.

The boatman barked out a hoarse chant, and vanished into the mist.

Only Master Tao and Lu Qian remained.

"Fellow Daoist Fish-Dragon, this place is strange and unfamiliar to you. Why not come with me? My place is just ahead in Blackwater City."

Master Tao pointed to the city before them.

The lofty city had dozens of small rivers running through it.

At the great gates, figures could be seen coming and going in a steady stream.

"Very well!" Lu Qian agreed.

"Would the two Daoists care for a boat ride? Just one or two broken pieces of gold. Or anything else, a flower or a blade of grass will do. Medicinal pills, beast bones, all are acceptable."

At that moment, a black canopied boat glided up. At its stern stood an old boatman with white hair, wearing a bamboo hat and darkened skin.

"Ha, you old fox, asking for the moon, are you? Medicinal pills and beast bones too?"

Master Tao leapt aboard and casually tossed him a broken nugget of gold.

For cultivators, gold and silver were not particularly precious.

In places where the earth's energy was strange, there might even be mountain upon mountain of gold that could not be hauled away in a hundred years.

"All aboard!"

With a shove of the bamboo pole, the boatman set the ripples dancing.

The farther they went into the depths, the more intricate the network of waterways became.

Other black canopied boats passed by, carrying Daoists dressed in all manner of garb.

Blackwater City came ever clearer into view, and above it black smoke curled in layers.

The water beneath their boat had been clear at first, but the farther inward they traveled, the more turbid it became.

Gray-black water floated with all manner of household refuse.

By the water's edge, ragged folk were still scavenging the trash.

Dark green waterweed grew along the banks, rising to about half a man's height.

"How bold! That was the old man's find!"

"Beast! Did you not even ask around about the name of my Dark Wolf Hall, daring to steal from us?"

"Enough talk, fellows, all together!"

At that moment, cries and uproar burst from the shore several hundred paces away.

Following the blood-red light, they saw a sky full of crimson glare and surging sinister wind.

Dark ghostly creatures were locked in battle with azure-eyed wolves; Daoists who unleashed nether flames, burly men wielding soul bells to command the wolves.

More than a dozen people were surrounding one person and killing him.

The man in the center wore a black Daoist robe. His eyes were shut, his face was iron-blue, and he drew no breath; he seemed to have been dead for a long time.

"He must be a spirit-nurturing Daoist whose soul wandered astray. If they had used a soul-summoning art in time, there might still be hope. Now it's too late."

Master Tao wore the expression of a man enjoying a spectacle.

The old fellow looked every inch a merchant, but after all he was also a late-stage Qi Refinement Daoist, and his eyes were sharp enough.

"Ah, I see now," Lu Qian said, suddenly understanding.

The two sides had stumbled upon a windfall; they must have discovered that spirit-nurturing corpse by accident, and conflict had broken out over it.

Boom!

The sky gave a thunderous roar.

A mass of black-red blood clouds swept over from afar, and within them lurked a blood-soaked fiend with a blue face and tusks.

"Haha, little ones of the Heart-Guarding Dao, I only killed a man. Was it really necessary to chase this old man for thousands of miles?"

"Demon, die!"

Behind it followed a streak of pure white divine light of ice, from within which came a clear and ringing voice.

The people below immediately felt baleful aura rushing at their faces, killing intent like cold steel stabbing straight at the brow.

It was actually a Daoist who had nurtured the spirit and condensed sinister energy.

"To think that in this island of myriad phenomena, battles between spirit-nurturers are seen everywhere," Lu Qian said in amazement.

If one spoke of the number and quality of experts within a single power, then the Cloud-Sweeping Temple, overlord of the region for a thousand li in every direction, was certainly far stronger.

Looking at the whole picture, however, the island of myriad phenomena probably had more experts at and above the spirit-nurturing stage.

After all, cultivators from both the northern and southern reaches of the Transcendent River gathered here.

Still, scattered cultivators were far inferior to the great sects.

They had no systematic cultivation method, no inherited lineage of the same school; their forces were bound together by profit, and their cohesion was much weaker than that of a proper sect.

"Indeed. This place lacks nothing so much as experts, and nothing so much as dead experts. Still, for us wandering cultivators, we should rarely need to deal with them."

The boat entered the city.

Blackwater City truly lived up to its name.

Dense black waterways formed the city's streets.

On both sides, the stone foundations rose high, carpeted with green moss.

Upon those foundations stood several tiers of wooden pavilions, their air foul, their facades weathered.

Of course, not all of it was waterways. Some streets were paved with blue stone slabs and looked quite clean.

Master Tao told him that those were the strongholds of major powers, where ordinary people were not permitted to enter.

The island of myriad phenomena was divided into three strata.

At the very bottom were the common folk, doing the most exhausting and bitter labor; above them were scattered cultivators in twos and threes.

At the top were the halls and market districts formed by wandering cultivators, as well as the forces of cultivator clans.

They had their own territory, resources, cave dwellings, and more.

Lu Qian noticed a long queue forming beside one street.

Most were ordinary people in black short jackets with dark skin.

At the head of the line stood a blue desk, upon which lay several blood-stained tools.

An old Daoist in gray robes, his aura gloomy and sinister, sat in a chair.

"Sell water, or sell parts?" the old Daoist said to the man with the short beard in front of him, his eyes half closed.

"Sell water... I want to buy water..." the bearded man said awkwardly, rubbing his hands together.

The old Daoist suddenly picked up a small knife and drew a cut across the man's wrist.

Blood gushed out at once, filling a white jade bowl.

"Next!"

The man's face turned swiftly pale. Then the old Daoist brushed over the wound with a talisman, and it vanished in an instant, before tossing him a lump of gold.

"My lord, I want to sell a kidney," said a young man of about twenty.

The old Daoist split open his abdomen and removed the kidney; with a talismanic sweep, the wound vanished.

He was clearly highly experienced, for only after the kidney had been dug out did the young man begin screaming.

Two copper talisman coins were flung over.

"Take it. There are more people selling kidneys now, so it's only worth two talisman coins. Next time, just sell your heart directly. I'll give you five times the price, a thousand taels of gold. Your family will live well on that money."

The old Daoist gazed greedily at those ordinary people.

If the major powers did not forbid the indiscriminate slaughter of common folk, he would long ago have been killing them, dismembering them, and stripping their souls.

"Two is enough," the young man said, his eyes burning. "After all, you only have two kidneys. At last I've scraped together enough for my little sister to learn magic. Our family is going to live good days now."

Seeing this, Lu Qian gained a deeper understanding of the place.

Here, cultivators stood above all; countless commoners stretched their necks and sharpened their minds, desperate to climb upward.

It was not like the Daoist temples, where everything was concealed and gradual. Here, the harvest was direct and brutal.

"Those damned brokers of the spirit world only know how to peddle this sort of thing," Master Tao said bitterly, glaring at them, though there was also a trace of envy in his eyes. "They buy low and sell high at three or four times the price; even robbery isn't that fast."

This was hardly hatred of evil for righteousness's sake. He was plainly envious of their ability to make money.

Soon, the black canopied boat docked by the shore.

Before them stood a small storefront, and the plaque above it, bearing the words "Rare Goods," looked as though it had been there for many years.

The shop was not large at all, far less impressive than Master Tao had boasted.

The two of them leapt ashore, and three young Daoist attendants in blue robes came out to greet them.

"Little Two, Little Five, Little Full; come and pay your respects to Daoist Fish-Dragon," Master Tao called.

"Greetings, Daoist Fish-Dragon!"

"No need for ceremony. By the way, fellow Daoist, do you have a channel for selling medicinal potions?" Lu Qian asked Master Tao.

"Of course. This old man can take them directly. How many do you have?"

Lu Qian thought for a moment. "More than two hundred sets."

Master Tao's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he hurriedly asked, "Fellow Daoist, are you a medicine-maker? Can you refine pills?"

Wherever one went, talent in medicine-making and pill-refining was a scarce resource.

"I know a little."

Master Tao grew even more interested. It seemed he had truly stumbled upon a treasure on this trip.

"Fellow Daoist, why not stay with me? Free lodging and meals, I provide the herbs, you refine the pills. After deducting costs, how about we split fifty-fifty?"

"Those things are not important. Let me ask you this: are there any spirit-nurturing methods for sale in the city?"

This city was chaotic and hidden, but also extremely dangerous.

At present, Lu Qian was only at late-stage Qi Refinement, and his body tempering had only just begun.

Until he reached spirit-nurturing, he remained nothing but food on the chopping block.

"That..." Master Tao stroked his beard. "A bit difficult. Still, fellow Daoist, with your pill-making skill, you could join some major power and receive a cultivation method."

But one would need to swear a blood curse and have a split soul extracted before it was granted.

Lu Qian was certainly unwilling to do that.

"There is another way. Though it doesn't provide a cultivation method, it can still lead one into spirit-nurturing," Master Tao said again. "That is by taking Netherblood Soul-Refining Pills."

The early stage of spirit-nurturing was nothing more than the soul leaving the body and attaching itself to objects.

As long as the soul could leave the body, that was spirit-nurturing.

Aside from cultivation methods, medicinal pills could produce the same effect.

This method had no real side effects; it could only bring one to the early stage of spirit-nurturing. Any further progress would require a cultivation method.

"Where can I buy them? I can pay," Lu Qian said.

However one looked at it, it was still spirit-nurturing.

After Qi Refinement and spirit-nurturing, the next step would be body tempering into blood transformation throughout the entire body, making one several times stronger than others of the same realm.

"You can't buy them. The formula and the pills are monopolized by the major powers; no amount of money will get you any."

Lu Qian frowned in thought, his mood turning somewhat bleak.

Scattered cultivators truly had a hard life, and many things had to be obtained by their own efforts.

Outside, the world was not like the stories, where immortal ruins and ancient cave mansions appeared everywhere.

"Still, this old man does have another path," Master Tao said.

"Please, go on."

"The Lingbo Tower Merchant Guild is recruiting a batch of medicine-making and pill-refining artisans. They sign an eight-year contract and must complete fixed pill-refining tasks each year," Master Tao added. "Among the rewards is the Netherblood Soul-Refining Pill."

"Eight years, then?" Lu Qian considered it.

Eight years was not unacceptable if the task was merely pill-refining.

For cultivators, eight years was only the time needed to retreat in meditation several times.

He would probably be staying here even longer.

"Then I must trouble you to make the introduction, old sir. Once this is done, I will certainly not shortchange you on the reward."

Still, it would be better to speak in person and see the terms.

The next day, the two of them went to Lingbo Tower.