Chapter 303 Negotiation

Chapter 303: Negotiation

However, the Deity Transformation stage demon cultivators knew best that the Soul-Wandering Trees currently growing in the demon clan's territory still couldn't withstand pruning. They could only be used for soul-wandering once every fifty to sixty years, and each time only one person could soul-wander. Moreover, where one would end up was completely unknowable. If one soul-wandered for too long, there was a risk of soul damage or even difficulty returning to the body.

Based on their experience, soul-wandering was uncontrollable.

No clan among the demon races could allow over twenty Deity Transformation stage cultivators to soul-wander simultaneously.

They discussed back and forth, then began speculating whether the Sea-Subduing Flag and Kunze Lamp were made of Soul-Wandering Wood.

But soon, those Deity Transformation stage demon cultivators who had actually come into contact with real Soul-Wandering Wood denied it again.

Listening to their discussion, Shang Yunduo wanted to tell them that while Soul-Wandering Wood was mysterious, it wasn't actually that mysterious, and of course it couldn't be refined into the Sea-Subduing Flag or Kunze Lamp.

The largest one he'd ever seen had a trunk about an arm's length in diameter.

It was a type of amphibious tree that grew at the edge of the Endless Sea. Like mangroves, it could soak in seawater, with roots that penetrated deep through the water and into the rocky seabed, drawing nutrients from certain minerals.

This tree also bore small, bright red fruits that looked somewhat like little berries. They tasted quite sour with a slight saltiness—not unpleasant, but not particularly good either.

However, once they ripened and fell into the sea, soaking in the saltwater would make them slightly sweeter—a strange, sweet-and-salty flavor.

Eating these fruits could nourish the soul. During the ripening season, many races from both land and sea would come to the shores to pick and eat them. But the reason this tree was called the Mirage Dragon Tree was not only because the Mirage Dragons could use its wood for soul-wandering, but also because the Mirage Dragons had a peculiar way of eating—

They would ferment the ripe fruits with a type of small clam meat, and the resulting paste was ex-tre-mely re-fres-hing, ex-tre-mely dis-gus-ting!

It was a dark cuisine that struck straight at the soul, unforgettable for eternity. It was so foul that if even a tiny bit drifted into the seawater, anyone who happened to swallow some diluted water would dry-heave for a long while.

The Mirage Dragons used this effect to feed it to their young.

Every young Mirage Dragon learning soul-wandering had to take a bite before their first attempt, which would prevent them from getting lost during the process.

Of course, the most valuable part of the Mirage Dragon Wood was the root.

True Mirage Dragon Wood used to assist soul-wandering required roots from trees over a thousand years old, refined with a rare mineral sand found only in cold seabeds, various marine spiritual herbs, several types of sea shells, fish bones, and the skull of a sea beast that could also create illusions.

Roughly speaking, the mineral sand was used to nourish the wood and amplify the Illusion effect; the spiritual herbs, shells, and fish bones were mixed to balance and neutralize the hallucinogenic properties; and the sea beast skull was used to store mirage scenes. After careful refinement by adult Mirage Dragons, true Mirage Dragon Wood was complete.

Without the sea beast skull refinement, Mirage Dragon Wood could still assist soul-wandering, but it couldn't store mirage scenes created by the Mirage Dragons themselves.

If left unrefined, relying only on the tree itself, one's soul could indeed enter certain illusion-like fragments, but they couldn't truly enter fragments of time and space like the Mirage Dragon Clan could, nor could they control it freely. In the Mirage Dragons' view, that wasn't soul-wandering—that was dreaming.

But dreaming like this too often carried risks, like eating poisonous mushrooms for the sake of experiencing hallucinations.

Throughout the entire sea race, only the Mirage Dragon Clan was immune to this "poison." To them, this "poison" helped them enter a slightly intoxicated state, making soul-wandering easier.

To enhance the effect, the Mirage Dragons would also mine mineral sand to use as fertilizer for the trees. However, this seabed mineral sand had a very low melting point—once exposed to sunlight after low tide, it would melt and flow around the tree roots like blood.

The legend of "Mirage Dragon blood nourishing the Mirage Dragon Wood" probably originated from this.

Because only the Mirage Dragons bothered to fuss over these trees, and because the mineral sand was difficult to obtain and rare, the Mirage Dragons often had to wait nearby until the ore completely melted and was absorbed by the roots before leaving. Sometimes, while waiting, drowsy Mirage Dragons would accidentally get melted ore on themselves, and many land races had witnessed this—which was probably how the story gradually spread into something about watering with blood.

Later, when the Endless Sea dried up, the Mirage Dragon Trees lost their habitat and naturally all died.

Shang Yunduo didn't know where the demon clan's single surviving sapling came from, but if they couldn't raise it well, it was probably because the environment wasn't right.

And thankfully the environment was wrong and it didn't grow well—otherwise, with their Cultivation level, using the tree for reckless soul-wandering would have been very dangerous.

The demon cultivators who didn't know how to tend trees, in order to guess at his abilities, had even established voice transmission links with the human cultivators.

The human Deity Transformation stage cultivators, who were quite proficient in Artifact Refining, also denied that the Sea-Subduing Flag and Kunze Lamp were related to Soul-Wandering Wood. Moreover, the human race had no artifact with such effects, had never heard of similar Techniques, nor any family with such soul-related abilities...

They discussed animatedly, the rift between the two races seeming to melt away. Shang Yunduo thought, why bother with voice transmission—why not just open your mouths and ask directly?

They'd excluded him, Pei Jie, and Pei Ke from the conversation.

Now Pei Ke had also started voice-transmitting to Pei Jie, guessing along the same lines as the others.

However, Soul-Wandering Wood was ultimately a demon clan treasure, protected so tightly that outsiders could hardly approach it. Even Pei Jie and Pei Ke didn't know that the current Soul-Wandering Tree could only be used once every few decades.

When Pei Jie had discussed things with Shang Yunduo, he had greatly overestimated the effects of Soul-Wandering Wood.

What a loss.

A huge loss.

If he'd known, he would have said three days for ten years!!

The Deity Transformation stage cultivators, now polite again, asked: "Friend, when you say three days, do you mean three days in this realm, or three days in the soul-wandering?"

Shang Yunduo replied grumpily: "Three days is three days—of course it's three days on both sides. What, you want to live out a whole lifetime in the illusion with just three days? Why don't you just try to achieve Ascension in there while you're at it?"

He couldn't be bothered to expose the trap hidden in their deliberately vague question. He simply didn't deny the soul-wandering part, letting them guess away—the more outrageous their guesses, the better.

One person said: "Three days is still too short."

Another said: "And one person is too few."

Shang Yunduo: "Three days is three days! One person is one person! I even think I said too long—do you have any idea how much consumption three days takes? I'd be working for nothing the rest of the time. And you have the nerve to complain. If you hadn't come at me with soul-searching without any justification, maybe I could have added another person. But you used up all the power I'd painstakingly accumulated! And you still want more people? Dream on!"

The few exchanged glances. "What Friend seems to need isn't spiritual power."

Shang Yunduo: "There's no spiritual power in this flag—where would I use it?"

"So you're saying Friend can also use spiritual power?"

Shang Yunduo: "Obviously."

Sure enough, they immediately connected this to the news that had come from the direction of Wentian City a few days ago.

And looking at who now held the Sea-Subduing Flag, and who was stirring up trouble over there while they were away, the answer was obvious.

The three human Deity Transformation stage cultivators from sect territories near Wentian City had already begun voice-transmitting. One said: "What 'demon cultivator infiltrating and destroying spiritual veins'—I said all along that the target had to be the Sea-Subduing Flag."

If they had been there, they would have caught the culprit long ago. Those Nascent Soul trash really couldn't be counted on for anything.

This unknown brat had probably been stealing spiritual power while destroying the spiritual stone mines.

Shang Yunduo was quite pleased they thought that way—this way, Wen Fei and the others could be completely dissociated from the destruction of the spiritual stone mines.

Even if the truth came out, following the conventions of the cultivation world, once Deity Transformation stage cultivators had made their final judgment, it would naturally be considered that mortals had been deceived by him.

And now he was the human-shaped artifact that Deity Transformation stage cultivators were fighting over, the honored guest—having drawn all the hostility, those sects could only stare helplessly.

If they came after him, he could just run to the demon clan, and then the human Deity Transformation stage cultivators would have a headache figuring out how to invite him back.

However, regardless of how the sects whose spiritual stone mines had been destroyed around Wentian City felt, to the Deity Transformation stage cultivators, Shang Yunduo's actions weren't necessarily a bad thing—being able to use spiritual stones was better than not being able to.

They could even estimate his consumption needs based on how many spiritual stone mines he had destroyed.

Just as Pei Jie had anticipated, someone asked, "If we provide spirit stones, can we add more people?"

Shang Yunduo: "No, it still depends on my mood."

"..." The ever-composed Deity Transformation cultivators automatically extracted the useful information:

This means it's fine as long as there are spirit stones.

The demon clan was the first to speak: "Friend, just come back to the Sacred Clan, that's all. Our clan has spirit stones to spare—however many you need, we have them. If it's not enough, we can just mine some more."

The human clans' spirit stones were almost entirely held within their sects, and sect leadership changes weren't as frequent or chaotic as demon clan territorial squabbles. Nor could they, like the demon clan, just grab whatever wasn't theirs and call it their own. So they couldn't easily take spirit stones from other sects, nor could they make promises on everyone's behalf. Thus, they very tactfully negotiated with Shang Yunduo:

"Since our friend said we'd follow the earlier arrangement, how about we just add a few more spots? How about each of us brings whatever spirit stones are needed?"

The demon clan found this acceptable too. After all, they had more Deity Transformation cultivators than the human race, so they wouldn't come out on the losing end. They wanted to snatch Shang Yunduo away for the demon clan's exclusive use, but the humans likely wouldn't agree. If it blew up into the humans marching a bunch of Nascent Soul cultivators over to the other side of the border mountain, it would be more loss than gain.

Shang Yunduo threw cold water on that idea: "A few more spots? Then you'll have to wait patiently. Once I cultivate up to the Deity Transformation stage myself, I can add more for you. Do you think this is like stooping to pull up weeds—just say the word and another one pops up? The more people, the more risk!"

No matter what they said after that, Shang Yunduo wouldn't budge an inch, sticking stubbornly to just one.

With things at this impasse, it was a good time for Pei Jie to step in and negotiate for Shang Yunduo.

With his involvement, progress was finally made. Since Pei Jie was badly hurt and his recovery was the top priority, Shang Yunduo "grudgingly" gave up the slot that was "supposed to be for Pei Jie."

Every last one of the Deity Transformation cultivators grumbled inwardly: A mere Nascent Soul cultivator, still far from advancing to Divine Transformation—what the hell is he doing researching Ascension?

And yet, even as they grumbled, they had to politely lobby Pei Jie to talk Shang Yunduo around. "Daoist Pei is still young, no need to rush. Why not think about what you need right now?"

"This old man has some pills here that Daoist Pei would surely find useful."

"I also have some healing pills."

Not mentioning the injury was fine, but the moment they did, Shang Yunduo couldn't help glancing at Chi Jiang again and again. What he truly wanted wasn't pills, spirit stones, or artifacts.

But the conflict between Chi Jiang and Pei Jie was essentially a conflict between the demon clan's Deity Transformation stage and the human clan's Deity Transformation stage. Push it further, and all Deity Transformation cultivators had issues. Reality was stronger than his wishes, so Shang Yunduo could only nurse his grudge while demanding hefty compensation. With Kong Yu guiding him sentence by sentence, he and Pei Jie worked in tandem, pushing right up against the Deity Transformation cultivators' limits to fleece them for everything useful to Pei Jie.

After all, he was only at the Foundation Establishment stage—he couldn't ask for anything valuable anyway, so he might as well get more for Pei Jie.

And Pei Jie, casually listing names of pills and materials, drew sidelong glances from all the Deity Transformation cultivators.

They hadn't dealt with him in years and had forgotten what a troublesome figure he was.

Everything he asked for were items they had gone to great lengths to obtain during their Nascent Soul stage—even resorting to duels, battles, and secret realm expeditions—but now that they'd reached the Deity Transformation stage, they no longer needed them. Giving them away would sting.

It was true that cultivating the Five Spirit Roots consumed massive resources, but this was asking for far too much. They even began to suspect whether Pei Ke and the Taiyuan Sect had some scheme behind it.

And when Shang Yunduo demanded spirit stones, he was equally outrageous.

He asked for the output of three spirit stone veins at once, or two if they were large veins.

Though they didn't mind the cost, they had to consider their sects and clans. After bargaining, the spirit stones remained the same, but the experience duration increased from three days to five.

And the contract clauses kept piling up—one restriction added after another, occasionally setting small traps for Shang Yunduo.

Without Kong Yu and Pei Jie, he wouldn't even know he was being deceived.

But when he heard the clause phrased euphemistically yet meaning plainly—that this compensation was limited to Shang Yunduo and Pei Jie only, not to be gifted, traded, or given to the Taiyuan Sect—Shang Yunduo thought to himself, this restriction is well placed!

And when he heard the clause that followed, he nearly burst out laughing.

Pei Ke frowned: "What do you mean they can't return to the Taiyuan Sect?"