85: Chapter 85 A Strange Poison Knocks on the Door, The Game Within the Ten Thousand Poisons Pavilion

Yunze Immortal City, at the boundary between the Outer City and the Inner City, Wandu Pavilion.

The air was filled with a complex scent of medicinal herbs, yet it could not suppress a trace of chill seeping out from deep within.

Inside a private room on the third floor, a young Cultivator with fair features, dressed in the inner sect attire of the Danding Sect, threw a jade bottle onto the table with a look of disgust on his face. His name was Yan Ruyu, a Qi Refining 9th Layer practitioner, and he was also a Named Disciple of that poison-obsessed Grand Elder in the Core Formation stage.

"Is this the rare poisonous miasma you spoke of? It is nothing more than the saliva of a second-grade poisonous spider that has been stained with a bit of Death Qi. How dare you bring such jumbled, trashy items to deceive Wandu Pavilion?"

Yan Ruyu's voice was cold. The few Loose Cultivators standing opposite him were trembling with fear, and they scrambled out of the private room.

Yan Ruyu rubbed his brow, a trace of impatience flashing in his eyes. The Grand Elder was at a critical juncture in refining that furnace of Heart-Severing Pills and urgently needed a highly pure, strange poison capable of eroding Life Qi to serve as a medicinal catalyst. Yet, the Loose Cultivators of this Outer City only brought him piles of junk.

Just then, an attendant in gray clothing walked quickly into the private room and whispered, "Steward Yan, a new-faced Body Cultivator has arrived downstairs. He claims to have a top-grade strange poison in his possession and insists that someone knowledgeable must appraise it. He refuses to leave even when driven away, and he even crushed our hall's bluestone counter."

Yan Ruyu's gaze turned cold. "Causing trouble? Make him scram."

"But... a trace of poisonous Qi leaking from his body withered the Three-Leaf Green Lotus used for poison testing in the main hall." The attendant swallowed hard.

Yan Ruyu stood up abruptly, a flash of intense light bursting in his eyes.

"Invite him up!"

A moment later, the door to the private room was pushed open.

A burly Body Cultivator with dark skin, a face full of flabby flesh, and a hideous scar on his jaw strode into the room. His body radiated the thick, robust Qi and blood of a Peak Qi Refinement Level 6, and his eyes were as fierce as a lone wolf. It was none other than Gu Shen, who had disguised himself.

"So you are the one with the strange poison?" Yan Ruyu did not waste words, his Divine Sense sweeping over Gu Shen like a blade, yet he only detected extremely dense muscle, Qi, and blood.

"This kind of savage most likely went to some extremely dangerous place and luckily picked up a windfall." Yan Ruyu immediately labeled Gu Shen in his heart.

Gu Shen sat on the chair with an imposing posture, without a single word of pleasantries.

With a flip of his wrist, a jade box covered in isolation Talismans appeared on the table.

"Whether you know your stuff or not, see for yourself," Gu Shen said coldly.

A flash of anger crossed Yan Ruyu's eyes, but he still extended two fingers and extremely cautiously peeled back the corner of a Talisman.

Sss—!

A strand of extremely eerie, pale green aura with no fluctuations of Spiritual Qi leaked out through the gap.

Yan Ruyu instinctively circulated his mana shield. However, when that pale green aura touched his cyan mana, it actually emitted a hissing sound. It was not the corrosion of ordinary poisonous fog, but an extremely overbearing "withering" and "obliteration" of the Spiritual Qi itself!

"This..."

Yan Ruyu's pupils constricted sharply. He suddenly pulled out a silver needle Magical Artifact capable of testing all poisons below the third grade and probed it through the gap.

The moment he pulled it out, that expensive silver needle Magical Artifact had actually turned into lifeless black powder, falling away in pieces.

"There is no evil or sinister Qi, no Demonic Qi! What kind of extreme Yin object is this that it can directly obliterate the Life Qi of the Five Elements?!"

A tempestuous storm raged in Yan Ruyu's heart.

Such a strange poison, let alone serving as a medicinal catalyst, if refined into a killing Magical Artifact, could even pierce through the Protective Aura of a Foundation Establishment Stage Cultivator!

Lying quietly inside the jade box was exactly what Gu Shen had refined from the Mutant Matriarch on the third underground level: Wasteland nuclear contamination essence—Mutated Poison Crystal.

Gu Shen closed the jade box with a decisive "clack" and pressed the Talisman back down tightly.

"Seen enough? Name a price. I'm in a hurry to go have some fun." Gu Shen looked full of impatience, portraying a crude and greedy Loose Cultivator perfectly.

Yan Ruyu took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the shock in his heart, his gaze becoming extremely profound.

"Fellow Daoist, this poison crystal is of excellent quality. Three hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, Wandu Pavilion will take it." Yan Ruyu tentatively offered a high price, while staring fixedly at Gu Shen's eyes.

Gu Shen grabbed the jade box and stood up to leave.

"Three hundred? Do you take me for a beggar? This kind of marvelous object that can break through mana shields, if taken to the underground black market for auction, even Demonic Cultivators would fight over it for five hundred! Farewell!"

"Wait!"

Yan Ruyu stepped forward abruptly, blocking the door. This strange poison was extremely important to the Grand Elder; he absolutely could not let it get away.

"Fellow Daoist, don't be hasty. Since it is a rare item, Wandu Pavilion naturally will not treat you unfairly. Six hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, final price! This is the highest price that can be offered in Yunze Immortal City; even if you went to the underground dark assembly, you would be heavily taxed."

Yan Ruyu stared fixedly at Gu Shen's face, which was covered in flabby flesh, trying to find even a trace of a flaw.

Gu Shen stopped, feigning a look of extreme greed and temptation, hesitated for a moment, and then snorted coldly with a raspy voice.

"Deal. Pay up!"

Yan Ruyu breathed a sigh of relief, flicked his large sleeve, and six extremely heavy Spirit Stone bags landed on the table.

Gu Shen took the Spirit Stone bags and swept them with his Divine Sense; there were exactly six hundred Low-Grade Spirit Stones, no more, no less. He pushed the jade box to Yan Ruyu, turned around, and strode out of the private room.

Until Gu Shen's heavy footsteps disappeared around the corner of the stairs.

The gentle smile on Yan Ruyu's face vanished instantly, replaced by an extremely icy chill.

"Come here."

A black shadow flashed out from behind the screen like a ghost: "Steward Yan."

"This person has none of the earthy smell of deep mountains and vast marshes; such a rare, strange poison is definitely not something a savage at Qi Refinement Level 6 could hunt. On him, or in the lair behind him, there must definitely be more of these poisonous items!"

Yan Ruyu's eyes were extremely greedy as he gave the order in a low voice, "Follow him. See where he settles down. Remember, this is the territory of the Danding Sect; do not make a move in the Outer City. Find out his background, and wait until he leaves the city... transmit a message immediately!"

"Yes!" The black shadow melted into the air without a sound.

...

Outside Wandu Pavilion, the bustling market street.

Gu Shen blended into the crowd, a cold arc appearing at the corner of his mouth.

He did not need to wake up the Crab, which was in a standalone silent state at all. Relying on his keen Divine Sense at the Peak of Qi Refining Level 7, he had already detected that faint, lingering, cold aura a hundred paces behind him.

"Six hundred Spirit Stones. My funds can be considered ample now."

Gu Shen calculated in his heart. He did not intend to sell the mutated heavy water bead as well. One trump card from the Wasteland was enough to exchange for money; revealing all his trump cards would only invite fatal disaster.

"The people from Wandu Pavilion want to be the oriole. Unfortunately, there is more than just your family acting as the oriole in this Immortal City."

Just as Gu Shen passed by a bustling Spirit Medicine shop.

He extremely keenly sensed that at the street corner, two Loose Cultivators, from whom an aura of blood fiends faintly emanated, had their gazes locked firmly on his burly back.

That was the net cast by Leng Wuhen.

"The dark agents of the Blood Fiend Sect have also targeted me?"

Gu Shen was not panicked at all; instead, he slowed his pace, like a crude man strolling about.

"Two groups tailing me. Very good. The waters of this Yunze Immortal City should be even muddier, so that I, this fat sheep, can better fish in troubled waters at the Blood River Dark Assembly."

Gu Shen tucked his hands into his sleeves and walked unhurriedly toward the most chaotic Loose Cultivator shantytown in the Outer City.