Chapter 70: Shadow Mountain Troops

Since someone wanted to eat up his fifteen kilograms of starsilver essence, Su Chen had no qualms playing around with them.

On the second day, Su Chen and Li Shu went to the Flying Immortal Palace. Li Shu found the Golden Name Workshop’s head storekeeper and discussed the sale with him again and, under Su Chen’s orders, he specifically raised the price to 450,000 Origin Stones. After discussing for a long time, the other party actually agreed.

At that moment, Li Shu had confirmed that the other party wasn’t willing to pay money. Only someone unwilling to pay would agree so quickly.

He made an agreement with the head storekeeper that they would make the exchange at the Golden Name Workshop half a month later.

However, that same night Su Chen sold the starsilver essences to the Thousand Treasures Pavilion for 250,000 low-grade Origin Stones. He was missing thirty thousand because he had also setup a VIP card. He only needed to pay three hundred thousand Origin Stones to get an additional two hundred thousand Origin Stones worth of credit. This was also what the Thousand Treasures Pavilion had promised him before. However, Su Chen had only bought one item at the moment.

Su Chen went to search for Night Demon after returning to Northface City with his Origin Stones and his goods.

As soon as Night Demon appeared, she said unhappily, “Why are you looking for me again? It can’t be that you want to borrow Origin Tools to go to the Scarlet Mountain Range again?”

Su Chen laughed, “I’m in no hurry to go to the Scarlet Mountain Range. However, I do need to borrow your Origin Tools again.”

Night Demon opened her eyes wide.

Su Chen waved his hand and said, “Relax, relax. Is it not enough if I pay to rent it?”

Night Demon’s expression became more pleasant upon hearing this. “How much will you pay?”

Su Chen replied, “Two hundred low-grade Origin Stones every day. I will rent three items - the blunderbuss, the battle blade and the armor. I won’t need the boots anymore.”

The Cloud-Stepping Battle boots were already quite old. After Su Chen had used them twice, they were getting closer and closer to breaking. Who knows when they would break completely. Thus, Su Chen decided not to rent that one, only renting three of them instead. While the Flaming Hunter Blunderbuss had terrible accuracy, it was still quite effective against people who were unaware of it when used in a critical moment. Thus, Su Chen decided to keep it.

Two hundred low-grade Origin Stones to rent three Origin Tools for a day was not a shabby price. Night Demon’s expression became even less hostile. “This, we can consider.”

Su Chen continued, “I will also need to borrow some people.”

“Borrow people?” Night Demon’s eyes once again opened wide. “Why do you need to borrow people? Can you not hold off for a bit? Do you think we are easy people to take advantage of......”

“I will also pay for them, eight times the normal amount,” Su Chen replied.

Night Demon instantly shut her mouth.

Because Origin Stones were something that every Origin Qi Scholar could create, each one would also have their own corresponding reference value.

As a simple example, a Qi Drawing Realm Origin Qi Scholar with ten yellow stars could produce an Origin Stone every day. Thus, their reference value was one Origin Stone. This meant that to hire this Origin Qi Scholar to work for someone else required a payment of at least one Origin Stone a day. Otherwise, they could simply infuse any empty Origin Stone that they had without much effort. Why waste their effort working for someone else?

This was what a reference value entailed!

A reference value also meant that placing a price tag on an Origin Qi Scholar was also quite easy. One only needed to calculate the other party’s reference value and then consider the multiplier.

Without a multiplier, Origin Qi Scholars would not be willing to be hired, and how large this multiplier was depended on the person’s individual value and negotiation.

The lowest was two times, while the highest was unlimited.

Su Chen offered a multiplier of eight. This number was not too high, nor was it too low. It could only be considered normal. Although the Immortal Palace was rich and imposing and might not care too much about a thousand Origin Stones, business was still business. If they were unwilling to diligently earn small amounts of money, they would never be able to make a large haul.

In addition, they still had intentions of building up a relationship with Su Chen.

Thus, when Su Chen spoke, Night Demon’s tone also changed.

“What kind of people do you want to borrow?”

“I want at least two Blood Boiling Realm cultivators and three high-layer Qi Drawing Realm cultivators to help me.”

“Who is your opponent? What is their strength like?”

“The Golden Name Workshop. I’m not too clear about their strength.”

“Then how do you know two Blood Boiling Realm and three high-layer Qi Drawing Realm cultivators will be enough to take care of the problem?”

“I don’t know, but I can’t just ask for Yang Opening, Light-Shaking, or even a Spirit Burning Realm [1. Just to recap and clear things up: after one steps into the Origin Qi Scholar level, there are seven different levels of Origin Qi Scholars. As far as I can tell, each level has nine different layers (pretty similar to most other cultivation novels), which depend on the amount of Origin energy that one has accumulated. Qi Drawing is the first realm, followed by Blood Boiling, Yang Opening, Light-Shaking, and Spirit Burning, in that order. We still don’t know what the sixth and seventh levels are, and it is entirely possible that in the future more levels may appear - we shall see. For more clarity, here is a fan-made chart that might help with conversion of stars to cultivation base levels.] cultivator, can I?”

“Why do you need to fight with them?”

“I have some goods that they want to take for free.”

“Can you avoid selling it?”

“I don’t want to miss the beautiful sight of blacker consuming black.”

Night Demon sucked in a breath of cold air.

After a long while, she said, “I will go back and consult with them.”

Su Chen made a ‘do whatever you want’ gesture.

This time, Night Demon was gone for three days.

Three days later, she said as soon as she saw Su Chen, “This store is owned by Li Mingtang.”

“Li Mingtang?”

“The commander of the Shadow Mountain Troops.”

Su Chen instantly sat down. “So it was him!”

The Flying Immortal Palace had a mountain called Shadow Mountain. The mountain was densely forested. One end connected with the Black Pine Forest, while the other end connected with the Scarlet Mountain Range.

A horde of bandits lived on the mountain, known as the Shadow Mountain Troops. There were roughly three hundred people, and the bandit leader was the so-called commander of the Shadow Mountain Troops, Li Mingtang.

Of course, he had given himself the title of “commander”. For him to call himself a commander with only three hundred amateur soldiers was extremely laughable. But in the bandit’s circle of influence, this kind of matter was a common occurrence. They relied on nothing but their influence to scare others. Those who didn’t understand the situation would crumble upon hearing the word “commander”. They would give money or grain without hesitation upon being asked, not daring to say no.

The Shadow Mountain Troops had four leaders. The head leader was Li Mingtang, the second was Liu Yuan, the third was Li Zhi, who was the brains of the Shadow Mountain Troops, and the fourth was Li Mingxuan, Li Mingtang’s twin. Li Mintang was already a Yang Opening Realm cultivator at the middle layer. Of the other three leaders, two were in the middle layer of Blood Boiling and one was at the high layer of Qi Drawing. None of them were weaklings. Most importantly, there were rumors that they had connections with an important clan in the Flying Immortal Palace.

This was also why the Shadow Mountain Troops could remain free and unfettered.

This Golden Name Workshop was a scout for the Shadow Mountain Troops. It could be used to find good targets to take action again. This time, they had found Su Chen.

“If the people you had wanted to borrow were to go, they would probably all just be delivered up to Li Mingtang.” Night Demon looked at Su Chen with a disdainful expression.

Su Chen spread out his hands. “How was I supposed to know that the opponent was that strong?”

Yang Opening Realm was the third of seven realms for an Origin Qi Scholar, and could be considered a mid-tier Origin Qi Scholar.

“Stop with the nonsense. Don’t think that I can’t tell that you intentionally said you wanted to borrow people to use us to scout them out for you?” Night Demon harrumphed. This guy just wanted to use their relationship to gather information. One had to know that the organization had spent a significant amount of effort to investigate the Golden Name Workshop.

Su Chen’s face was filled with surprise. “Hm? Your intelligence seems to have increased recently.”

Night Demon gave him a flying kick.

Su Chen gently flashed by. “You’re not ashamed of bullying a disabled person?”

“Your reactions make it seem like you aren’t really blind.” Night Demon slashed out, a streak of light flashing towards Su Chen.

Su Chen closed his eyes and took four steps. Every step that Su Chen took, his body would strangely shake, once again dodging Night Demon’s attacks.

Night Demon was surprised. “What a magnificent footwork technique. I have never heard of the Su Clan possessing such a magnificent footwork.”

He had yet to strike, so Su Chen’s hand finally reached out. His left hand activated the Flaming Tiger Fist and sent it flying towards Night Demon, while the Thunder Blade struck out from his right hand. The sound of thunder forced Night Demon to evade. Most surprisingly, Su Chen had done all of this while his eyes were closed. Although his vision had recovered, Su Chen did not let go of the combat skills that he had gained while he was blind.

After dodging this palm and blade strike combo, Night Demon yelled, “So you have entered the Qi Drawing Realm.”

“Hmph, I thought you’d have discovered this ages ago,” Su Chen laughed.

Su Chen easily shifted forwards. The edge of his palm struck out like a blade. At the same time, his knee flew into the air, displaying the strengths and abilities of the Flowing Wind Body Technique without restraint. When paired with his ability to hear the wind, Su Chen and Night Demon exchanged numerous blows.

Although in the next instant a torrent of Origin Energy exploded out of Night Demon, the impact forced Su Chen to retreat, his figure simply swayed for a moment. He did not seem to have been too affected. She couldn’t help but feel extreme surprise.

“Your Flowing Wind Body Technique has actually reached the stage of small success?”

It had only been four months since Su Chen had obtained the Flowing Wind Body Technique. For Su Chen to reach this point so quickly could be considered divine speed.

The main reason for this was because he trained bitterly every single day.

“Less idle chatter. Since you know the bottom line of the target, then let me borrow people based on the strength of the Shadow Mountain Troops. How does that sound?”

“How do you know we have the strength to deal with the Shadow Mountain Troops? Perhaps we don’t even have any Yang Opening Realm cultivators.”

“You shouldn’t need to use these words to try and fool me, right? If you can carelessly toss me four Origin Tools and call them four pieces of trash from storage, do you dare tell me that your organization doesn’t have a single Yang Opening expert? If you want to rope me in, show me some sincerity so that our collaboration can continue.”

“Collaboration?” Night Demon looked at Su Chen. “You want to discuss a collaboration with us?”

“Wrong. You will be discussing a collaboration with me,” Su Chen leisurely said. “Who else is more qualified than I am to replace Lin Xie?”