Chapter 373 - 361: Transition

Chapter 373: Chapter 361: Transition

The marketplace expansion project proceeded more smoothly than expected.

Li Yuan personally laid out the Defensive Arrays on the south and east sides. The empowerment from the Earth Vein’s spiritual hub made setting up the arrays incredibly fast; he compressed what should have been ten days of work into just five. The newly expanded area was large enough to accommodate over twenty shops and residences for more than a hundred people.

For management, he selected a few efficient Loose Cultivators from the marketplace’s current population to serve as temporary deacons, their monthly salaries paid directly from the marketplace’s revenue. The guard force was supplemented with the best candidates from the Wang family and the newly arrived refugee Cultivators, who were then integrated into the patrol rotations.

Just as Chen Yi had said, the Sect had reassigned two of his administrative deacons and a team of patrol Cultivators. However, the daily operations of Mist Forest Marketplace were not significantly affected. The management framework Li Yuan had established was already capable of running on its own.

After the expansion was complete, Xu Zhang’s branch of the Mingyuan Commerce Association officially moved onto the main street of the eastern district. Sun Henian’s Talisman shop also relocated to a larger storefront. The two new shops were right next to each other, with long lines forming at their doors every day.

The marketplace’s production figures broke records again this month.

The monthly output of Fire Evil Stones nearly quadrupled after the refined ore vein went into production. The Talisman inventory became so abundant that they began wholesaling to outsiders. The pill supply not only covered the daily consumption of all resident Cultivators but also left a surplus to be sold back to Yunyang Marketplace.

Everything was steadily improving.

Li Yuan dedicated most of his energy to cultivating two types of space Magic.

His progress with Spatial Rend was the fastest.

His spatial awareness, enhanced by the Teleportation Stone, allowed him to clearly perceive every fold in the fabric of space, greatly improving the precision of his Spiritual Power injection. It took him less than ten days to go from creating a three-inch rift that lasted for half a breath to stably producing a foot-long spatial blade.

The panel appeared.

[Spatial Rend: Initiate (0/200)]

After reaching the Initiate level, Spatial Rend’s power was already quite formidable. Though the foot-long spatial rift was fleeting, its cutting power was immense. Li Yuan tested it on a discarded Tier Two Magical Artifact fragment in a cavern. The rift easily split it in two, leaving a cut surface as smooth as a mirror.

Cultivating the Teleportation Skill, however, was much more difficult.

Spatial Rend was an external attack, where he only needed to manipulate the Spiritual Power in a small area of space in front of his fingertips. The Teleportation Skill, on the other hand, required enveloping his entire body in a spatial passage to move. This demanded an order of magnitude more precision and control over his Spiritual Power.

For the first five days, Li Yuan couldn’t even successfully tear open a spatial passage large enough to fit through. Every attempt collapsed the instant it formed due to an uneven distribution of Spiritual Power.

He adjusted his strategy. Instead of trying to achieve it all in one go, he started by repeatedly practicing the basic action of tearing open the passage. He focused all five of his Divine Sense Lines on stabilizing the edges of the spatial passage, expanding its diameter bit by bit.

On the eighth day, he successfully tore open a spatial passage that held for a single breath.

On the twelfth day, he completed his first spatial jump. The distance was only about twenty feet, and he staggered a few steps upon landing, but he had indeed vanished from his original spot and reappeared twenty feet away.

[Teleportation Skill: Initiate (0/200)]

He had reached the Initiate level in both space Magic techniques simultaneously.

At the same time, he was also conducting combat drills with the Netherworld Lock Array.

During an excursion to clear out Demon Beasts, Li Yuan encountered a Tier Two Low Grade Iron Armor Centipede. Instead of killing it outright, he first quickly set up a miniaturized version of the Netherworld Lock Array in the centipede’s path.

The moment the centipede entered the Array’s range, gray-black Spiritual Power Lock Chains erupted from the ground, coiling around and binding it. Yin-attribute Evil Qi seeped into the centipede’s body through the chains, suppressing the flow of its Spiritual Power.

The once ferocious Iron Armor Centipede struggled more and more slowly under the chains’ restraint. The Spiritual Light armor on its body also gradually dimmed as the Yin-attribute Evil Qi corroded it.

Li Yuan stood outside the Array and observed for a moment. After confirming the Array’s suppression effect was as expected, he sent an Evil Qi Cone piercing through the centipede’s head, ending the battle.

The secondary slowing effect of "Netherworld Lag" also played a part in this strike. The instant the Evil Qi Cone hit, the remaining Spiritual Power circulating in the centipede’s body was slowed for another moment, making even its final death throes half a beat too slow.

An enemy trapped by the Array and slowed by an attack—a double suppression.

Not even counting the bonuses from other attributes, this combination was more than enough to handle opponents of the same tier, or even half a tier higher, in actual combat.

His cultivation of the Golden Body Skill had not been neglected either.

Every three days, Li Yuan would undergo a medicinal bath in his stone house to break through his limits. The enhanced meridian resilience from "Solidify Origin, Condense Meridians" allowed him to withstand more violent surges of Spiritual Power, and his proficiency with the Golden Body Skill grew slowly but steadily.

Strengthening his sinews and tendons was a long process that couldn’t be rushed.

The materials for his Lifebound Spiritual Artifact’s embryo were also gradually being acquired.

Three taels of Profound Iron Essence were purchased from Xu Zhang’s commerce association shop. Half a catty of Flowing Silver Ore was acquired from a Loose Cultivator he ran into at a stall—a refugee who had fled from the mining area in Mozhou and happened to have a high-quality piece.

He was still missing the Soft Jade Marrow and Flame Core Sand. Li Yuan posted a request for them on the commerce association’s long-term acquisition board, waiting for a fated seller to show up.

He was also simultaneously gathering repair materials for the hidden teleportation node.

Spatial-type Array Stones and Spirit-Conducting Copper Plates were common materials that could be bought in Yunyang Marketplace. The Spiritual Power paste required a special formula, so Li Yuan refined a batch himself.

The only difficult item was the Space Crystal Stone.

This type of Crystal Stone was extremely rare and was a core consumable for spatial Arrays. Yunyang Marketplace had none in stock, and Xu Zhang also reported that the inventory in Jingzhou was depleted and couldn’t be resupplied anytime soon.

Li Yuan set the problem aside for the time being. He would figure something out when the next merchant caravan arrived.

「Day after day passed in a blur of cultivation and administrative tasks.」

His Spatial Rend steadily progressed beyond the Initiate level. The length of the rift grew from one foot to three, and its duration extended from two breaths to four.

The range of his Teleportation Skill expanded from the initial twenty feet to fifty feet. He no longer staggered upon landing, but the Spiritual Power consumption was still immense; he needed to meditate and recover after using it just twice in a row.

The marketplace’s population continued to grow.

Every few days, new Loose Cultivators and small families would pour in from the direction of Yunzhou, bringing the latest news from the front lines. The Demon Cultivators were putting more and more pressure on the Liangzhou border, and several smaller marketplaces had already started asking to purchase Defense Talismans and battle-ready pills from Mist Forest Marketplace.

Mist Forest Marketplace was evolving from a border transit point into a regional distribution hub for supplies.

Li Yuan stood before his stone house, his expression calm as he watched the bustling crowds on the main street.

He had the marketplace under control, and his cultivation progress was steady.

’Next, it’s time to deal with that contact point.’