Sage of Humanity

Cultivators begin dealing with the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union as soon as they step onto the path of cultivation, a necessity no one can avoid.

Take Lu Ye for example, not long after he entered the Spirit Stream battlefield, he started buying and selling goods through the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union. It's true he could also trade with other cultivators, but that's not as convenient and cost-effective as doing business with the mercantile union.

If one can't do business with the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union, many things would become complicated.

The lower a cultivator's cultivation, the greater their reliance on the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union. The union's decision brought trouble to those two Ten Thousand Demons Ridge sects, and it was no small trouble.

It had been many years since anyone caused trouble within the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union. For this generation of cultivators, the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union seemed just a place to buy and sell goods, until now, when the cultivators suddenly realized that to some extent, it was an entity no less powerful than the Haotian Alliance or any faction of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge.

Usually, this massive entity maintained a neutral stance, not involving itself or interfering in the power struggles between the two big factions. But if its rules were broken within its domain, it would bare its barghest fangs.

And compared to the Haotian Alliance and Ten Thousand Demons Ridge, this massive entity had its own unique advantages in some areas...

All sorts of rumors surfaced in the minds of the cultivators, making everyone realize one thing, that the past interesting rumors were not just rumors, but events that had occurred during a certain period in the past.

Just like this particular incident...

Perhaps in a decade or several decades, the next generation of cultivators would consider today's events as mere rumors, but those who witnessed what happened today knew it was more than just rumors.

The decisive and ruthless way the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union handled this matter surprised Lu Ye. He had only intended to delay things a bit, waiting for a powerful figure from the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union to appear so that he could be safe.

But on second thought, maybe the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union saw this as an excellent opportunity to assert its power. If it wanted to assert itself, the more ruthless the method, the more pronounced the effect.

After today, he believed no one would dare to misbehave within the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union for a long time to come.

As for revenge... he supposed that as long as those cultivators from the two Ten Thousand Demons Ridge powers had functioning brains, they wouldn't entertain thoughts of vengeance against the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union.

The brief turmoil settled down, attendants from the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union rushed over to drag away the three corpses, swiftly cleaning up the blood on the ground. In just a moment, they had cleaned the Heaven's Augury Hall spotless, as if nothing had happened.

Only the lingering smell of blood at the tip of their noses reminded everyone that what had happened was no illusion.

The middle-aged cultivator then said, "A slight mishap, I hope it has not alarmed you, friends."

As a peak True Lake Realm powerhouse, both his cultivation and age were evident. Referring to a group of Cloud River Realm individuals as friends was not inappropriate.

He took his leave, casting a deliberate yet casual glance towards Lu Ye on his way out.

After a moment of silence, the Heaven's Augury Hall buzzed with activity once again.

Lu Ye suddenly remembered the time when he was chased by Dong Shuye in the Spirit Stream battlefield. Back then, there was a significant gap in cultivation between them, and he, cornered with no other choice, fled to seek refuge with the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union. An elderly man who intervened from the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union at the time displayed only the power of Spirit Stream Level 9. In the outskirts of the Spirit Stream battlefield, Level 9 was undoubtedly very powerful.

But thinking back now, was that elder truly just at Level 9? Heaven only knows if that old man was actually a cultivator of the Cloud River Realm or even the True Lake Realm in disguise...

He warned himself to be more cautious in future dealings with people from the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union. Protected by Heaven's Augury, the strength they showed in certain specific circumstances might just be an illusion.

Casting aside the miscellaneous thoughts in his mind, Lu Ye placed his hand on the Heaven's Augury Pillar, immersed his mind, and connected with the Heaven's Augury treasure vault.

He was in luck. The previously sold-out Earth's Core Fire was available in over a dozen units.

One unit of Earth's Core Fire cost two hundred merits. In the early days, this price wasn't cheap for Lu Ye, since merits were hard to come by. But now, this price was extremely affordable. If there had been more stock in the Heaven's Augury treasure vault, he would have bought as many as possible.

The Talent Tree had an immense demand for uncanny fires like the Earth's Core Fire. Sometimes Lu Ye wondered what it would look like if all the leaves on the Talent Tree were ignited.

But this was, after all, just a thought. Up till now, although he had lit many leaves, it was still less than ten percent of the whole.

But he believed that one day, he would be able to set the entire Talent Tree ablaze.

After purchasing the Earth's Core Fire, Lu Ye looked for other items that were suitable for the Talent Tree to devour and that were not too expensive, such as pill fires and the like.

He ended up spending over ten thousand merits.

The auction for the spirit fortune sticks was about to begin as well.

As before, Lu Ye collected an item from the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union to participate in the spirit fortune stick auction, which looked like a jade finger. As long as one was within the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union, they could enter a special space through this item to partake in the auction of spirit fortune sticks.

After half a stick of incense had burned, cultivators from various locations within the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union opened their eyes, their expressions grim.

Many were not new to the spirit fortune stick auction, so they had a rough estimate of the prices of spirit fortune sticks of various colors. Normally, if the price fluctuated by about ten percent, it was no longer considered a good deal. After all, no one's merits were brought by the wind—each point of merit was earned through life-and-death struggles with enemies, and could truly be said to represent the blood and sweat of hard battles.

Apart from Lu Ye, who was spending his merits like water, every cultivator was meticulous with their own.

But this spirit fortune stick auction took an uneasy turn right from the start...

Who knows which bastard directly pushed the price to a level that made it difficult for everyone to participate.

Consequently, the shortest spirit fortune stick auction in history was born; it had started and ended in less than half the time it takes to drink a cup of tea...

At this moment, Lu Ye had already returned the jade-like prop and went back to his own guest room.

With his current net worth, competing with a group of Cloud River Realm cultivators over spirit fortune sticks was no challenge at all; he obtained all the sticks, from white to purple.

Unfortunately, there weren't many spirit fortune sticks this time, only one purple, two blue, four green, and nine white ones.

It was better than nothing.

He had ascended to the Level 5 realm back in Fox Fairy Valley, and since then he had been busy outwitting cultivators from Ten Thousand Demons Ridge. Although he practiced cultivation during this time, the overall increase in his cultivation was not that significant.

The spirit fortune sticks he had now were not enough to advance him to the Level 6 realm, but they could save him some time.

Lu Ye had learned early on upon his arrival in the Cloud River battlefield that the Cloud River Realm was the stage where cultivators' progress sped up the most.

Indeed, as long as a cultivator had enough spirit fortune sticks, crossing the entire Cloud River Realm didn't take much time at all.

Back when he was in the Spirit Stream battlefield, advancing through each minor realm took him a month at the fastest, or two to three months if slower, especially advancing from Level 8 to Level 9, which took a full four months. Though various unexpected events had caused delays, even without any interruptions, the pace of cultivation wouldn't have been much faster, as each spiritual orifice needed to be opened one by one.

Yet since setting foot in the Cloud River battlefield, it had only been half a year, and he already reached the Cloud River Level 5 realm.

Spectral Shadow was fast enough, arriving at the Cloud River battlefield several months before Lu Ye, yet he was only at Level 3.

By comparison, the speed of Lu Ye's progression was terrifying.

Of course, he had also experienced numerous trials during this period; one could only say that the greater the effort, the greater the reward.

Back in his guest room, Amber was sound asleep, and Yiyi was in the middle of cultivation, so Lu Ye didn't disturb her.

He sat down at one side, took out the Earth's Core Fire and the pill fire he had purchased this time, and started to devour them, leveraging the impressive abilities of the Talent Tree while closely monitoring its reactions.

Over time, Lu Ye had recognized some patterns.

In the process of devouring uncanny fire, if only one leaf on the Talent Tree lit up, there generally wasn't much to look forward to, as the content held within the leaf was likely to be techniques for constructing spirit runes, though there were exceptions.

For instance, Sharpness, and some defensive runes were carried by individual leaves.

If many leaves lit up simultaneously, it was definitely a remarkable spirit rune.

Like the Fire Phoenix, Wings, Sky Prohibition, and even the Bewitchment Divine Runes, they were not sustained by just a single leaf; due to their extremely intricate designs, some runes could not be held by just one leaf and required many to work together.

Moreover, some runes appeared to require devouring particular types of flames to be activated.

When he first activated the Talent Tree to devour the Phoenix True Fire, the Fire Phoenix Spirit Runes were added to the tree.

After slaying the Fox Demon and devouring its pill fire, the Bewitchment Divine Runes were activated.

However, even if most of the leaves on the Talent Tree did not carry complete spirit runes, the many techniques for constructing spirit runes obtained from the Talent Tree greatly assisted Lu Ye.

His current prowess in the Path of Spirit Runes, which far exceeded those of other cultivators at the same level, and being valued and taught by Madam Yun, was largely due to these techniques from the Talent Tree.

Even when he was setting up arrays, he would use such techniques each time.

The Earth's Core Fire and the pill fire, bought for more than ten thousand merits, were swiftly devoured, and several leaves on the Talent Tree blazed up. Lu Ye checked each one and found that he had not obtained any new spirit runes.

He wasn't too disappointed; after all, the number of spirit runes he had mastered was already quite significant, enough to handle most situations.

Only one thing unsettled him, and that was the Void Spirit Runes.

He was certain that the Talent Tree held the Void Spirit Runes, but he didn't know their exact location and could not activate them intentionally.

The more he dealt with the Void Spirit Runes, the more he perceived their numerous applications. Unfortunately, since they weren't activated on the Talent Tree, many of his ideas couldn't be tested.

With just his own ability to construct Void Spirit Runes, it was impossible to verify those ingenious concepts.