149: Chapter 149 Mirage on the Water

The miasma of the Yunmeng Great Swamp was like stagnant, thick ink, blocking out the light of the sky from tens of zhang away.

Gu Shen stepped on a piece of rotten wood half-submerged in the black water, his figure rising and falling with the waves.

He had been traveling through the outer periphery of this swamp for seven days.

The deeper he went, the more chaotic the Five Elements Spiritual Qi became.

The air was filled with the sour, acrid smell of sulfur and rotting water weeds.

"My Lord, at eleven o'clock, five li away. A super-large moving heat source has appeared."

The black iron buckle at his collar emitted a short vibration frequency from Crab, its voice uncharacteristically carrying a hint of rigorous data reporting, "The target is about three hundred zhang long, mass cannot be estimated, and its back carries a high-density thermal energy building complex.

The movement speed is slow, but the kinetic energy of the displaced water has reached a staggering level."

Gu Shen's eyes narrowed slightly. The AI Crystal deep within his brow operated at high speed, diverting a thread to mobilize the power of the Longevity Art to protect his eyes, peering through the layers of miasma.

At the end of his vision, the rolling gray-green mist was roughly torn apart.

A deep cyan giant turtle, resembling a small mountain, was paddling with four limbs like pillars of heaven, crushing its way forward through the mud and black water.

On the giant turtle's shell, it was steadily carrying a huge, seven-story building ship.

The building ship was brightly lit, adorned with carved railings and jade masonry.

A long string of head-sized lanterns emitting a soft yellow light hung around the perimeter, dispersing the miasma for ten li around and carving out a pure land without poisonous fog.

A large black flag with gold threads fluttered loudly at the bow, inscribed with an ancient seal character: "Xiang".

"The Mirage Water Market of the Wanxiang Merchant Alliance."

Gu Shen recalled the Cultivation World classics he had scavenged at the market and the fragments of information he had heard in the Loose Cultivator taverns.

The Cultivation World was not just the Righteous and Demonic paths.

The Wanxiang Merchant Alliance, this super merchant group that stood independent of all Sects and adhered to the principle of "equivalent exchange, no questions asked about origin," was the gray hub where Loose Cultivators, Demonic Cultivators, and even great Yao Beasts laundered supplies and traded with one another.

To avoid the laws of the Danding Sect and the Blood Fiend Sect, the Alliance often set up such large trading markets in lawless lands where Yao Beasts ran rampant, carried by domesticated giant beasts, with no fixed location.

"I was just worrying about having nowhere to sell those metals brought out from the Wasteland, and I am also lacking the Tier 2 Yao Beast bones to repair the Iron Corpse."

A cold light flashed in Gu Shen's eyes.

He did not rush forward rashly.

He rummaged through his Storage Ring for a moment and took out a fragment of titanium-carbon alloy that he had casually cut off in a Spiritless Ruins in the Wasteland.

Lightning flickered at his fingertips, and Geng Metal Sword Qi turned into a carving knife.

With just a few strokes, he whittled the alloy into a half-mask that only covered the upper half of his face.

He stuck it to his face, and the Thousand Faces characteristic activated.

It made the mask fit seamlessly against his skin, giving the half-mask a rustic bronze luster.

The multi-threaded calculation of the AI Crystal started.

Second thread: Lock the wood-type mana belonging to the Longevity Art within the Dantian, not a single drop leaking out.

Third thread: Mobilize the blood energy of the second layer of the Bone Refining Art, Thunder Bone, and disguise it as the pure Body Cultivator aura of someone violent, dull, and accustomed to fighting between life and death for years.

Fourth thread: Mix the unique, radioactive, deadly, and silent aura of the mutated wood marrow from the Wasteland onto his body surface.

After doing all this, Gu Shen was no longer that down-and-out Loose Cultivator, but a wild Body Cultivator named "Iron Face" with a deep and extremely dangerous aura.

The black light of the shadow shoes under his feet flowed.

Gu Shen stepped on the water and moved, like a shadow, drifting toward the giant turtle building ship.

A dozen or so boarding bridges were suspended from the bottom of the building ship.

In front of each boarding bridge stood two Alliance guards clad in heavy armor and holding long halberds.

Their cultivation was all at Qi Refining Level 8.

Gu Shen landed in front of the third boarding bridge.

"The Mirage Water Market does not allow entry without verification of funds."

The guard on the left blocked the way expressionlessly, his gaze coldly sweeping over Gu Shen's half-mask that shimmered with a metallic cold light.

At the edge of this Great Swamp, Cultivators in strange costumes were as numerous as hairs on an ox; they only recognized chips.

Gu Shen did not waste words.

With a flip of his palm, a walnut-sized, purplish-red metal ingot landed in his palm, and he tossed it over.

The guard caught it with one hand, and his originally indifferent eyes paused significantly the moment they touched the metal.

That was the "refined red copper" Gu Shen had extracted from Wasteland cables using the Heaven and Earth Furnace.

The guard's fingers rubbed the surface of the refined red copper, and his brows gradually furrowed.

The refined red copper of the Great Yu Cultivation World was mostly forged by earth fire and would inevitably carry the mixed fluctuations of fire evil energy.

But this piece of metal felt warm and smooth to the touch, and its internal structure was tightly packed to an unreasonable degree.

Most eerily, there was not a single trace of Spiritual Qi residue inside it!

Pure. Pure to the extreme physical attributes.

If such a material were given to an Artifact Refiner to forge a Flying Sword, even the effort of "embryo washing" would be saved.

"Is this thing enough as a knock-on-the-door brick?"

Gu Shen stood with his hands behind his back, his voice hoarse.

The guard took a deep look at Gu Shen, put away his halberd, and stepped aside: "Please, honored guest. A Deacon will receive you in the A-grade private room."

Ascending the building ship along the boarding bridge, the noise and miasma of the outside world were completely isolated by a Formation.

The interior space was vast, but the furnishings were not luxurious; instead, they exuded a pragmatic, cold, and hard feeling.

Gu Shen was led by a maid into the A-grade No. 3 private room.

As soon as he sat down, before the maid could serve the Spiritual Tea, the screen behind the private room was quietly pushed open.

A middle-aged Cultivator wearing a dark golden brocade robe, slightly plump, and sporting a handlebar mustache stepped into the room.

He wore a smile of "harmony brings wealth" on his face, but in Gu Shen's AI Crystal radar, the moment this person appeared, the airflow, temperature, and even the subtle distribution of Spiritual Qi in the entire room were faintly pulled by him.

"Golden Core Early Stage."

Gu Shen's eyelids drooped slightly, his dark golden iron bones preparing to exert force under his skin.

"I am Grand Deacon Shang Buhuan, serving as the Head Deacon of this Mirage Water Market."

The plump Cultivator walked to the opposite side of Gu Shen and sat down, placing the walnut-sized piece of refined red copper on the table, tapping it lightly with his fingertip, "Fellow Daoist, this knock-on-the-door brick of yours has a rather thorny weight."

Grand Deacon Shang Buhuan looked at Gu Shen with a smile.

At the very instant this smile bloomed, a wave of Golden Core Stage Divine Sense pressure, transformed into an invisible steel needle, pierced straight into Gu Shen's Sea of Consciousness.

At the same time, an overwhelming Spiritual Pressure crashed toward Gu Shen's chest along the table.

A test, a test without greeting.

The Wanxiang Merchant Alliance did not ask about origins, but they would never conduct large-scale transactions with trash whose background they did not know.

Gu Shen sat steadily in the chair.

Facing the Divine Sense piercing into his Sea of Consciousness, the AI Crystal instantly split off twelve waste threads, guiding this Divine Sense into an idling logic loop, letting it disappear without a trace like a clay ox into the sea.

And facing that overwhelming Spiritual Pressure, Gu Shen did not mobilize any mana to resist.

The foundation of the second layer of the Bone Refining Art, Thunder Bone, at Perfection, forcibly took this pressure.

The sandalwood chair beneath him made an unbearable muffled sound, and the blue bricks on the floor cracked with fine fissures, but Gu Shen's upper body did not even sway in the slightest.

Not only that.

Gu Shen let a wisp of the "deadly radioactive blood energy" extracted from the mutated wood marrow in the Wasteland radiate from his pores.

Grand Deacon Shang Buhuan's originally smiling eyes suddenly contracted the moment they came into contact with this aura.

The Divine Sense and Spiritual Pressure he had extended felt as if they had been bitten and corroded by some unanalyzable, vicious power.

Not only did he fail to test the depth of the opponent, but he also felt a hair-raising sense of rejection.

"Neither living nor dead, not belonging to the Five Elements... This kind of physical blood energy, what kind of evil Body Refining Demonic Technique is this Iron Face person cultivating?"

Grand Deacon Shang Buhuan was inwardly awestruck and immediately withdrew all tests.

The smile on his face instantly gained a few more points of sincerity and awe.

In the Cultivation World, strength is respected.

Someone who could casually take a test from a Golden Core Early Stage Cultivator and possessed such a strange Physical Body was definitely an extremely dangerous outlaw.

"Fellow Daoist, do not blame me. It is the rule of the Alliance that before a large transaction, one must weigh the guest's worth. I admire your physique, Fellow Daoist. May I ask how to address you?"

"Just call me Iron Face."

Gu Shen responded indifferently.

Grand Deacon Shang Buhuan pushed the refined red copper toward Gu Shen and got straight to the point, "Fellow Daoist Iron Face, how much of this top-grade refined red copper without a single impurity do you have?"

Gu Shen's fingers tapped on the table, making a crisp clicking sound.

"Forty-five jin of refined red copper like this."

"Besides that, one hundred and sixty jin of refined iron of the same purity. Plus ten jin of ordinary gold."

Gu Shen's voice had no ups and downs as he reported a string of numbers.

Grand Deacon Shang Buhuan's hand holding the tea paused slightly, and the tea almost spilled.

Forty-five jin of top-grade refined red copper? One hundred and sixty jin of refined iron?

Such purity of metal, even if dozens of Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivators proficient in fire techniques were to refine it day and night for a year, they might not be able to produce so much!

Did this Iron Face person raid the secret vault of some ancient Artifact Refining Sect?

"What does Fellow Daoist want to trade for?"

Grand Deacon Shang Buhuan put down the teacup, his tone becoming extremely solemn.

The scale of this business was already worth his personal follow-up.

Gu Shen leaned forward slightly, his eyes beneath the mask like an abyss.

"I do not want Spirit Stones."

"I want three things."

"First, a set of high-grade underwater Formation diagrams and a full set of Formation Flags capable of withstanding attacks from a Golden Core Middle Stage Cultivator and possessing the function of isolating detection."

"Second, complete skeletons of Tier 2 peak or even Tier 3 Early Stage Yao Beasts, the harder the better, at least fifteen sets."

Gu Shen paused for a moment, his voice dropping low.

"Third, intelligence on high-grade vegetation Essence Spirits in the depths of the Yunmeng Great Swamp."