Chapter 1421: Azure Shifting Fruit
Han Li immediately followed a wave of Tian Peng beings toward a certain shop close to the second level.
After withdrawing his wings, he entered through the door as if he really were a Tian Peng being.
After entering through the door, Han Li was immediately greeted by a lively and bustling scene.
He had arrived at a small plaza with an area of several thousand feet, and shops of different sizes stood around the entire plaza. At present, there were several hundred Tian Peng beings filing in and out of those shops.
At the exact center of the plaza stood a bluestone pole that was over 100 feet tall. Light was shimmering atop the pole, and there seemed to be something engraved on the very top.
There were around a dozen people looking up at the pole and discussing quietly among themselves. Han Li made his way over to them with curiosity in his eyes.
At the foot of the pole, he discovered that its surface had been split into two halves down the center. Both halves were riddled with text, and one side was shimmering with a red color while the other half gleamed with a green hue.
Han Li focused his gaze on the two different texts to find that they were all names for items, some of which were very familiar while others were quite alien.
Furthermore, these lines of texts surfaced and vanished intermittently. There was also a middle-aged man who appeared to be a guard seated at the foot of the pole with his eyes half-closed.
At this moment, a man suddenly forced his way out of the crowd, then strode forward and offered a few spirit stones to the guard sitting by the pole.
The middle-aged guard opened his eyes before nodding and handing over a short red stick to this man.
The man picked up the red stick and rapidly swished it toward a certain blank patch on the stone pillar.
Even though the man was moving extremely quickly, Han Li was able to glean his actions using his spirit eyes.
As the short stick swished through the air, a few shimmering red characters appeared before vanishing into the stone pillar in a flash.
Moments later, those red characters surfaced on that same spot.
Han Li was rather surprised to see this.
After a while, someone else strode forward. However, that person completely ignored the middle-aged guard. He merely spread his wings and flew up several tens of feet, then tapped a finger against a few green characters on the stone pillar.
All of a sudden, those characters began to glow with a green light, then quickly disappeared into his finger, making his entire body shimmer with brilliant spiritual light.
Meanwhile, the Tian Peng being that had traced these characters with fingers cocked his head to the side with narrowed eyes, seemingly receiving some kind of information. After a while, he withdrew his finger and turned before flying directly toward the entrance of the hall.
After that, a few more people emulated the first two, either inscribing something on the stone pillar or directly flying toward the pillar to trace the red and green characters.
Han Li stroked his chin upon seeing this, and he finally figured out what was happening.
In order to confirm his speculation, he strode forward and extended a finger toward a line of green text that appeared near the bottom of the stone pillar.
Green light immediately flashed from those characters as a cold sensation traveled straight into his mind, bringing with it a line of information.
"Selling first-grade Flowing Light Wood, no purchase limit per person, each block costs 30,000 spirit stones, find me on the fourth level, fifth hall, 31st shop." Han Li's lips twitched and he moved to the other half of the stone pillar, then placed his finger over a line of red text.
A similar string of information appeared in his mind.
"Seeking the complete carcass of a Phoenix-Tailed Beast, price will be negotiated face to face, find me on the ninth level, second hall, 10th shop!"
A peculiar look appeared on Han Li's face.
He didn't think that the Tian Peng Race facilitated transactions in such a manner.
It was quite clear that the lines of text on this stone pillar were all essentially advertisements for people selling or seeking precious items.
As such, the pillar acted as a universal directory that made things a lot more convenient for both buyers and sellers.
Furthermore, this setup didn't appear to be very difficult to replicate, and there was no reason why it couldn't be implemented in human markets as well. With that in mind, Han Li took a few steps backward and began to carefully inspect the green lines of text, which were advertising items that were being sold.
He was planning to read through this information to see if there were any items that were appealing to him.
Due to the differences between the human and Tian Peng races, many items were referred to as different names here compared to in the human race. However, for some reason, most of the precious items were still known by the same or similar names. In particular, some materials that were extremely valuable to both races were referred to with identical names.
This came as quite a surprise to Han Li when he had first mastered the language of the Flying Spirit Race. However, even though he found this to be rather perplexing, he naturally wasn't going to go around searching for an answer.
He merely appraised the stone pillar in silence, looking for anything that caught his eye.
All of a sudden, Han Li focused his gaze on a line of green text that had just appeared on the stone pillar, and his heart rate abruptly accelerated.
"Azure Shifting Fruit! Who would've thought that something like this would be sold here?" An excited flush appeared on Han Li's face. This fruit was the main ingredient, for a legendary pill, the Heavenshifting Pill, and it was most definitely among the spirit fruits that were most sought after to Han Li.
This spirit pill wasn't as extraordinary as the Black Flame Pills, but three of those pills could improve the probability of a breakthrough for late-Spatial Tempering cultivators by several tens of percentage points. As such, they were most definitely more valuable than Black Flame Pills in the eyes of the majority of high-grade cultivators, including even some powerful beings at or above the Body Integration Stage.
Consuming the Heavenshifting Pill alone could naturally assist a Spatial Tempering cultivator in breaking through a bottleneck, but in reality, most people wouldn't use this spirit pill in such a manner. Most of the people who were seeking this spirit pill intended to consume it in conjunction with other spirit medicines.
This was because not only did the Heavenshifting Pill itself possess an extraordinary effect, it was able to combine perfectly with most spirit medicines without any conflict in medicinal effects. Most incredible of all was that if this pill were to be consumed with other spirit medicines, there was a certain probability that it could enhance the medicinal effect of those complementary pills by 30% to close to 50%.
This meant that if Han Li hypothetically had a spirit pill that could enhance his magic power by the same degree equivalent to the effect of 10 years of arduous cultivation, he could consume it with the Heavenshifting Pill, and there would be a certain probability that he would be a probability that his magic power would be enhanced by the same extent as 12 to 15 years of arduous cultivation. Furthermore, this effect applied to any other pill.
As such, the rarer and more expensive a pill, the more one wanted to consume it with a Heavenshifting Pill. If they were to hit the jackpot and be blessed with the enhancement effect, that would naturally be a vast stroke of fortune.
As for the probability for this enhancement to actually take effect, that was rather difficult to strictly quantify.
There had once been someone who'd consumed three or four of these pills in succession, and every pill managed to enhance the effect of the complementary pill that was taken.
There were also stories of people selling everything they owned to purchase a few Heavenshifting Pills as a final roll of the dice, only to completely fail to be blessed with the enhancement effect, thus leaving them in complete dejection and despair.
Even so, as soon as these spirit pills first appeared, countless cultivators had gone insane over them.
All of the Azure shifting Fruits near the three human regions had been taken in just over 1,000 years, and what was even more frustrating was that these fruits took 5,000 to 6,000 years to reach full maturity.
Furthermore, each spirit tree only bore a single fruit, and after the fruit was plucked, the tree would lose all of its spiritual Qi and be reduced to a normal tree.
As such, many major sects and powers had attempted to nurture this fruit on a large scale, but it simply wasn't worth the investment.
As such, in the coming years, there would occasionally be some people who were able to source a few of these fruits from deep within the primordial world, and each and every Heavenshifting Pill that appeared inevitably led to a bloodbath between high-grade cultivators. Most of them fell into the hands of powerful beings at or above the Body Integration Stage.
When Han Li had first heard about this spirit fruit in Deep Heaven City, he was naturally extremely interested in it, and he dreamed of being able to mass-produce it using his green liquid.
Unfortunately, even Azure Shifting Fruit seeds were an extremely rare type of spirit medicine, and it had a very short shelf-life. As such, not even a single one of these fruits could be found in the three regions and seven territories.
Hence, Han Li could only stifle his excitement and lament his bad luck.
However, now that he was seeing this spirit fruit on this stone pillar, he was so excited that he could barely contain himself.
He disregarded everything else on the stone pillar as he immediately flapped his wings and rose into the air, reaching the middle of the pillar in a flash before laying a finger on that line of text.
Brilliant green light flashed, and a string of information instantly appeared in his mind.
However, after assessing the content of this string of information, Han Li's brows furrowed slightly.
"I have to meet the seller in person? That might be a little troublesome," Han Li murmured to himself as the excitement on his face faded.
However, seeing as there was a chance to secure Azure Shifting Fruits, he naturally couldn't give up regardless of how troublesome the circumstances may be.
As such, after a brief pause for contemplation, Han Li flew away as a streak of azure light.
After exiting the hall, the flew directly upward, all the way to the ninth level before flying ahead along the passageway.
After a while, Han Li glanced at the line of text inscribed above the gates of a certain hall, and he immediately flew in. This hall was identical to the previous one. Both its area and set up were a mirror-image of the hall that Han Li had just left.
However, there were clearly significantly less Tian Peng beings here than on the lower levels, with only around 20 to 30 people here.
Han Li scanned his gaze around the surrounding shops with narrowed eyes, then made his way toward a medium-sized shop situated at a corner of the hall.
This shop was divided up into two floors, and the interior was obscured by a layer of murky azure light. There was a faint red jade plaque hanging above the door, upon which was inscribed the words "Myriad Lightning Shop".
A hint of surprise flashed through Han Li's eyes upon seeing this before his expression instantly reverted back to normal.
He then immediately made his way into the shop beyond the light barrier without any hesitation.
Thus, he arrived in a spacious room that was around 30 to 40 feet in size.
Within the room was a glossy black wooden table and several faint yellow wooden chair, as well as seven or eight wooden shelves that were a little dilapidated. There was a bunch of random merchandise stacked all over the shelves, while a thin middle-aged man who appeared to be the shop owner sat behind the wooden table, along with a pair of Tian Peng beings.
Han Li surreptitiously swept his spiritual sense over these three people, upon which his expression changed slightly.