Chapter 169 - 146: Monk

Chapter 169: Chapter 146: Monk

Taking the suspension lift past the third level, the Labor Heart Abyss, Zhang Ji arrived at the fourth level of the Abyss of Eternity: the Yijin Abyss.

This was the largest market in the entire Abyss of Eternity.

Anyone could come here to set up a stall and sell their wares. You could also rent a shop for long-term sales. The goods sold here were of all kinds, including some that were considered contraband up above.

Because of its unique nature, even the nobles from the Thirty-Three Heavens would come down to offload illicit goods or purchase contraband.

So, from a certain perspective, this place could also be called a "black market."

Zhang Ji discreetly reined in his Spirit particles, as did most others here. Some wore clothing that concealed their faces, while others used a standard face-altering Magical Artifact: the [Myriad Visage Mask].

In a place like this, identity couldn’t be trusted.

If you got swindled, you had only yourself to blame.

Zhang Ji hadn’t come here to buy just anything. He was after a jade slip of the *Great Thousand Chronicles*, a text that was nearly universal in the Thirty-Three Heavens.

This thing was considered a basic textbook used in the Thirty-Three Heavens.

However, it was, to a certain extent, contraband. It was copyrighted and not meant to be freely distributed.

Of course, even if it was distributed, no one bothered to enforce it.

Investigating it was a difficult and thankless task; the effort wasn’t worth the reward.

It existed in a gray area where even if you reported it, no law enforcement would come to deal with it.

Zhang Ji strode into a shop that sold miscellaneous goods.

From the outside, the shop looked like a small hut, but the inside held a world of its own. It was instantly much larger, resembling a massive hall.

Countless goods were arranged on rows of shelves, all shrunk by "Item-Shrinking Arrays." The largest item was a Tier Three Spiritual Ship.

A Spiritual Artifact on par with the Core Formation Stage.

That thing was placed in the most central location, one of the items the owner used to show off their financial might.

There was a projection screen in the shop, which served as an operable search bar.

However, Zhang Ji didn’t know how to use it, so he could only rely on his memories from playing the game to find what he was looking for.

The *Great Thousand Chronicles* was a basic commodity, and most shops carried it. Zhang Ji quickly found it in the outermost area where miscellaneous goods were displayed.

The shop was unattended. The goods were all protected by Arrays, and purchases could be made by directly transferring funds with a Consciousness Communicator or by inserting coins.

It was a bit like an automated vending machine.

This was much better than the stalls outside.

Out there, the stall owners had to watch their own goods.

Not only were the prices cheap, but sitting outside wasn’t very dignified either.

The *Great Thousand Chronicles* jade slip was very cheap, costing only ten Level Two Spirit Coins.

Zhang Ji inserted a Level Five Spirit Coin, and the machine even gave change.

However, the shop’s change-making rate wasn’t like the black market exchange, where trading high-level Spirit Coins for low-level ones would get you a premium.

Once the change was dispensed, the corresponding protective Array deactivated, spitting the item out from the shelf and into the collection bay.

With a casual flick of his will, Zhang Ji used his Spirit particles to retrieve it from the bay and take it into his hand.

It was a verdant green jade strip, about the length of an index finger.

This was the jade slip of this world.

The characters for *Great Thousand Chronicles* were inscribed on it.

They looked somewhat familiar to Zhang Ji.

It was one of the few scripts he could recognize.

The writing system was somewhat similar to that of Origin Star, just leaning more toward ancient scripts and with much more complex strokes.

This was because Origin Star and this world had a certain connection, so the evolution of their writing systems also shared many similarities.

Placing the green jade strip against his forehead, Zhang Ji extended his Spirit particles into it. In the next instant, he was reading the information within.

There was no need for translation; it was the foundational knowledge of an entire system.

Images, text, and even some audio information were all automatically decompressed and entered Zhang Ji’s mind as his Spirit particles swept over them.

He quickly mastered the basic local script and a great deal of common knowledge.

This learning efficiency far surpassed that of an ordinary person from Origin Star, who would have to read through a textbook bit by bit.

In this world, as long as one formally entered the Qi Cultivation Stage, they could use a communicator that amplified Divine Sense to operate Spiritual Artifacts and rapidly scan and acquire knowledge.

Acquiring knowledge wasn’t the difficult part here.

The difficulty lay in purchasing knowledge, digesting and absorbing it, applying it, and then combining it in new ways.

The amount of information in the *Great Thousand Chronicles* was still quite substantial; it took Zhang Ji about thirteen minutes to read through it all.

Now, he had mastered several local scripts, could identify various local things, and had a solid grasp of basic common knowledge.

He could easily pass for a semi-local; at the very least, communication would no longer be a barrier.

"Next, I’ll buy a communicator. Then I can make contact with that sludge from the Blood and Flesh Ascetic Order," Zhang Ji spoke in the Celestial Essence language.

The power structure of the Celestial Essence Realm was both complex and simple.

In short, there were four powers at the very top.

The [Celestial Sword Group], [Shennong Biotechnology], [Nine Nether Deep Technology], and [Celestial Secret City Technology].

These four factions had deep foundations and each possessed S-class experts at the Divinity Transformation Stage, making them organizations that were leagues ahead of everyone else.

They formed the Celestial Dao Alliance. Their core philosophy was for the four of them to pool all resources and act on behalf of the heavens.

And in their current state, these four organizations were indeed not so different from the Celestial Dao itself.

The entire world was basically under their control, with ninety-nine percent of all resources regulated and distributed by them.

Below them were organizations with A-class cultivators at the Nascent Soul Stage.

Although nominally independent, they were each attached to one of the four organizations of the Celestial Dao Alliance.