Chapter 997 - Great Buddha
Chapter 997 Great Buddha
Plans? For now, Wang Zhong had not thought that far. Ever since the incident with Carolyn, he had seen Old Cow’s flower shop as his home. He had already decided that he would accompany Old Cow until his death. He would think about what he would do after that when the time came.
When darkness fell, he changed into his black cloak and went to wolf goblin Basir’s house. There was no ambiguity in Basir’s actions. He did not even have the time to sell the three burly female slaves and simply tied them up at his courtyard. He had busied himself throughout the day with selling the Loying Fruit.
Just as Wang Zhong had imagined, the auction would not accept just one Loying Fruit variant. Although this was rare, it could not be considered valuable. Others threw batches of Loying Fruit into their elixirs, so what use was this single fruit? It would not be appropriate to throw this to an auction with countless other treasures. Thus, Basir looked for an elixir shop to sell the fruit and obtained 120 Star Coins.
“Senior, this fruit is too little, and I simply cannot sell it for much.” Basir was slightly uneasy. He thought that he would have been able to sell it for 150 Star Coins. “I spent a Herculean effort on this, and I used…”
Wang Zhong received the money and did not care about the nonsense Basir was going to continue with. Indeed, a single Loying Fruit was not easy to sell. There was some value to it, but he could not sell it for a high price or accept a low price. As someone who ran a business selling flowers and plants, he understood the prices. In his original plan, it was decent enough if he could sell this for 100 Star Coins.
“Not bad.” Wang Zhong simply threw 12 Star Coins in front of him. “This is your commission. This is only the beginning, so don’t run around at the end of the month.”
“Yes, yes, yes! Senior, relax. At the end of every month, regardless of whether I am busy, I will not go out, even if I am beaten to death!” Basir was overjoyed. Although he was only doing a small business, it was evident that he did not care about the 12 Star Coins he had received. What made him excited was that the cloaked expert spoke with enthusiasm, as well as the steady work he might receive in the future. It looked like he had passed Senior’s test.
The 100 Star Coins felt heavy in his hands. With money, he instantly felt different. The next morning, he made a trip to the wholesale market. There were many things he could buy with 100 Star Coins, but Wang Zhong eventually chose half a box of Loying Fruit seeds.
Firstly, the Loying Fruit had the shortest period of growth. He would only be able to satisfy his large consumption if they grew quickly. Secondly, other fruits had too many side-effects in the divine territory. If they were not refined by alchemists, the richer the spiritual influence that they contained, the more powerful these side-effects would be. He was very clear on the notable efficiency, medicinal properties, and side-effects that the Loying Fruit had on his body. Even his body had adjusted to the Loying Fruit. There was no doubt that there would be a new risk if he randomly switched to other materials now, and the effects might not be as good.
Back then, he was willing to take the risk as he had nowhere else to go. But now, since he had a stable and highly efficient passageway, arbitrarily changing paths would be a foolish move. He would first maximize the functions of the Loying Fruit before thinking of anything else.
Half a box of high-quality Loying Fruit seedlings were only 50 Star Coins. At the same time, he bought two rune boxes that were specialized for storing spirit fruits from Boss Hu. These boxes were not of superior quality, but they had the advantage of being large. Typical low-leveled spirit fruits could be kept fresh for at least three months in these boxes. Although the 100 Star Coins he had just obtained were instantly used up, Lao Wang did not even bat an eyelid.
However, it was a pity that the fragment world was just too small as it only had a surface area of five to six square meters. Regardless of how densely he planted the seeds, he reached his limit after planting 40 to 50 seeds. Wang Zhong even felt as if there was nowhere for him to step on in the space. However, it felt as if the more seeds he planted, the faster they would grow. The mysterious fragment world completely violated a normal train of thought. These Loying Fruit plants had already borne fruit after just two days.
Compared to the previous batch of Loying Fruit, there was no doubt that the quality of these seeds were better. After all, Wang Zhong had learned from Old Cow and carefully selected these seeds. However, when he finally harvested the fruits, there was no significant improvement in quality. They looked exactly the same as the previous batch of Loying Fruit: fist-sized golden fruits.
This seemed to be the limit of this Loying Fruit variety. If the quality of the seeds was poor, the fragment world had plant recovery functions that could make up for the lack of quality. If the quality of the seeds was good, there was nothing to make up for. When the fruit grew, the outcome would still be the same.
After two or three days of not “eating”, his body was longing for the fruit. The golden fruits that filled the space emitted a fragrance that caused him to drool with greed and enticed Wang Zhong’s numb taste buds. Time to dig in!
As the strength of his body increased and his Soul Sea transformed, his body’s tolerance for spiritual power became higher. He remembered that on his first day of cultivation, five Loying Fruits were able to fill him up. But now, he did not reach his peak even when he ate 10 Loying Fruits a day. Furthermore, he could predict that as his body and power strengthened, the pace at which he consumed the fruits would continue to increase. The fruits that his fragment world, which was only five to six square meters large, was able to hold would eventually not be enough for a meal.
Goodness gracious. Putting the future aside, even now, if he were to bring these Loying Fruits for Basir to sell, he would earn 120 Star Coins per fruit. What did it mean for him to eat 10 fruits a day? Lao Wang occasionally had the jitters when he calculated this as it would amount to over 1,000 Star Coins. He recalled the Star Stone Company that had gathered all the resources in the Holy City. When he left, they had about 10,000 Star Coins worth in their inventory. With this method of cultivation, he would be able to eat all the wealth that the entire human race possessed in less than half a month!
In the divine territory, it was said that money was secondary, and cultivating techniques were still of utmost importance. However, this was not a small sum of money.
This was not cultivation. This was simply consuming money!
But as long as he had money to devour, it was truly comfortable.
The strength of his body was rapidly increasing at a visible speed. As he understood more about the medicinal properties of the Loying Fruit, he became more skillful with the Devouring Heaven Technique. He progressed at a tremendous pace. He could not measure or estimate his own Spiritual Energy Value, but he could feel that in the short span of half a month, his Soul Sea had transformed into a standard Spirit Sea.
The illusory feeling he had when he looked inwards at his own Soul Sea was no longer present. In fact, he did not even have to intentionally look inwards. Wang Zhong simply had to close his eyes, and he would clearly feel that his entire inner body was being engulfed by a warm and vast sea. His Soul Power turned from gas to liquid. Drops of Soul Power gathered in his body and integrated with his blood, permeating his entire body through his blood vessels.
As a result, the blood in his body became extremely vigorous, as if he always had endless energy and stamina. The gravity and spiritual pressure in the world had become so weak that he could no longer feel them. Furthermore, once he overcame the restrictions that this gravity had on him, the instincts he had cultivated back at home gradually returned. Although he still could not directly activate the spiritual influence in this world for his own use, with the support of his own spiritual power, he could feel that his body was light, as if he could fly.
When one’s blood was vigorous, it could usually be seen from the outside in one’s muscles, bones, and veins. As a result, their muscles would be firm; their cheeks would be rosy, and they would have a powerful aura.
However, Wang Zhong was different, seemingly because of the Devouring Heaven Technique. Not only was the vigorous blood in his body not visible on the outside, it even felt as if this vitality was intentionally hiding inside his body. The capacity of his divine cells was endless, and the vigorous power in his blood was concealed inside his divine cells. On the surface, he still looked skinny and did not have a lot of muscles. If he did not take off his clothes or accumulate his vitality to fight, he would look as if he could be blown away by a gust of wind. Even Little Lost Fox and Old Cow, who interacted with Wang Zhong regularly, could not sense any changes in him.
However, it was a pity that no matter how rapid his progress in cultivation was, he was still unable to derive any comprehension about forming his Core and did not know whether he had accumulated enough Spiritual Energy Value. Just like Old Cow had said, forming his Core and his Spiritual Energy Value did not have a direct relationship with each other. Instead, forming his Core was a result of understanding his realm and a transition in class. Thus, he would have to draw reference from others. However, this was not urgent. He would wait until he had reached a high enough Spiritual Energy Value before thinking of a way to sell the spirit fruits for money to buy techniques or to pay an expert for guidance. It would definitely result in fewer detours compared to if he did this himself.
He had grown several thousand Loying Fruits. He collected 50 fruits every two or three days. Other than his daily consumption of fruits, Wang Zhong kept the rest of the fruits in the two massive rune boxes. He had now accumulated several hundred fruits, but for now, he had no plans to look for Basir to make money from them. He was making tremendous progress in his cultivation. The stronger he was, the safer it would be for him to buy and sell products. He felt that he was very strong, but he did not have any powerful figures to compare to. After all, the wolf goblin was simply a merchant in the bottom class and was not a combat type. In any case, these boxes would be able to keep the fruits fresh for a period of time. This batch of resources would be enough for his current rate of cultivation. He did not need to panic.
Wang Zhong had also been paying attention to what was happening on Heavenly Treasures Street. The talks between the Chamber of Commerce and the Procuress Sea Race eventually fell through. After all, there were only between 100 to 200 shops in Heavenly Treasures Street, less than half of which were part of the Chamber of Commerce. For a sum of 200,000 Star Coins, each person would have had to pay 2,000 to 3,000 in “tribute” to the Procuress Sea Race. Large shops like Old Cow’s would have been able to grit their teeth and pay up, but a few small shops were truly helpless. Many shops announced their retreat, while others were hopelessly poor. Some wanted to rely on others while enjoying themselves. In addition, there were still those who truly dreaded the Shell Shade Faction and were only willing to shout from the side but were unwilling to actually step up. They were all over the place. In the end, they could not accumulate 100,000 Star Coins, let alone 200,000 Star Coins.
Since they could not ask the Procuress Sea Race to help, they had also asked for help from various other great powers in Catanlyke District. However, it was evident that the Chamber of Commerce could not gather enough money to pay the price required. Would these powers stand up on behalf of them and go against the Shell Shade Faction for a few thousand Star Coins? In the past, some great powers might have casually agreed to this. But now, Yin Jiao had joined the Heavenly Gates array and had unlimited potential. It was not that others were not willing to provoke him, but since the price they were being paid was not high enough, no one was willing to upset him.
However, the Heavenly Treasures Chamber of Commerce did not stop with their struggle. They went about begging for help. In the end, they invited a great Buddha.
It was Crocodile God Mugthol!