Every time he made a deal with Guan Zhenyan he definitely felt like he was on the losing end. Even so, each of the transactions had been beneficial for him, it’s just that Guan Zhenyan always gained far more out of it. I suppose that’s the nature of business, isn’t it? Everyone should benefit. The best businessmen just get far more out of it than others.

Sage looked at Guan Zhenyan with narrowed eyes. It’s gotta be that smug face of his. Always looking so good without any effort, and looking at everyone else with contempt.

He stood up and shooed the projection out of his chambers, “Out, out. Don’t break the rules again or you’ll be taking up my old job testing poisons.”

After kicking the projection out, Sage took his sweet time taking a shower and creating a new outfit with the Wardrobe Spider that he wore around his waist. Having made Guan Zhenyan wait a few more hours, Sage finally exited his chambers and went into the kitchen area. He started preparing some food, asking the projection offhand, “To make a deal, you need to have something I want up for trade. What might you be offering?”

“As the seller, shouldn’t you be setting prices?”

Sage continued his food preparation, chopping up a few treasure plants like vegetables. They grew on his Inner World in great volume, and without Guan Zhenyan providing a trade channel, he had many tons of them in storage. Sage had only ever earned a single star as a Chef, but with his current strength it wasn’t too difficult to work with the materials of a two or three star. He was inevitably wasting some, but it was good enough.

“You really don’t want me to find out the normal value of these Psionic Crystals. Interesting. They must be quite valuable!”

Guan Zhenyan tried to keep a poker face, but Sage could tell from the lack of response that he was guessing in the right direction. He used a knife to push the herbs into a cauldron, “Since you won’t name a starting price, I’ll begin. I need a method to get back from this Hidden Domain, and I need a way to modify what the Memory Seed has recorded. These should be easy problems to solve for you. I’ll be generous and pay you two Psionic Crystals, one per problem.”

Guan Zhenyan laughed, “Ahh, is that all? I have a dozen ways to do each of those things, but one measly Psionic Crystal is not going to cut it. For such rare and important knowledge you’ll need to pay one thousand crystals each.”

Sage laughed, “Is that so? What a coincidence that as soon as I acquire thousands of Psionic Crystals, the knowledge I wish to exchange for requires thousands of Psionic Crystals. How lucky I must be.”

Mocking the projection, Sage ignored Guan Zhenyan for a while and added more ingredients to the cauldron. Then he channeled his Qi into a Heavenly Material, pouring a brilliant green water in. Green Lifewater mixed with a little bit of the dark water from the Eye of the World. Once everything was ready he placed a lid onto the cauldron and ignited a Fire Stone beneath it. Then he called over a Hoplite to take over monitoring the heat and stirring the soup.

Sage sat down at a table and smiled at Guan Zhenyan’s projection. The man was forced to wait for him to say more. As the seller, Sage had the power in this situation, especially since Guan Zhenyan was trapped in a locked chamber far away, suppressed by the Universe Ring.

“Your counter offer was quite aggressive, especially considering you know I have no idea of the Psionic Crystal’s true value. Yet, I will be generous because of our past relationship. You’ll give me the method to modify the Memory Seed without a trace as a gift, because if you don’t, I can’t even give so many of the Psionic Crystals to you in the first place. You’ve probably already counted them more times than I have. You should know there’s around four thousand of them. If I hand over seventy-five percent of them to the Thundercloud Sect then that leaves me with only a thousand.”

Guan Zhenyan’s projection took a puff from his projected pipe, “What matter of it is mine whether or not you keep a deal with another party? Do I care if you have a method to head to another world? You’ve conveniently trapped me in partial stasis. I just have to wait until you die of old age and I’ll head back on my own.”

“Such a tough guy. You can speak of sitting in an empty room for thousands of years all alone with such a straight face. My lifespan has already extended to the range of ten thousand years by breaking through into Nascent Soul. I also have the Green Lifewater and a beast body. How many thousands of years will you be able to hold out? Let’s not mess around. I’ll give you a thousand Psionic Crystals and you’ll tell me how to get back, and also give me the methods to modify the Memory Seed.”

Sage thought about being more harsh in the negotiation, but he was bargaining for knowledge and information. If he didn’t satisfy the other party, he might get told incorrect information, or taught techniques with flaws in them. While he was sure he was being ripped off, he just wished to haggle the price down as much as possible before upsetting the other party. Even if Guan Zhenyan was trapped, the man seemed to want to stay, so Sage still felt he could deal with the man without being harmed, at least in the short term. Despite having him locked up, Guan Zhenyan did not seem resentful or angry, otherwise Sage wouldn’t even think of making deals with the man.

Guan Zhenyan smiled, “Wonderful! One thousand Psionic Crystals it is! Bring them out, I’ll pick them out right now.”

There was a little glint in Sage’s eye, “Aha, I knew it! The crystals are not all equal are they. No sense in hiding it. Tell me the differences between them, and also everything about the ‘Divine Egg’. I’ll split the most valuable ones with you fifty-fifty.”

“Now you’re learning! I told you before of the method to properly absorb a Psionic Crystal, but that was only the most correct method for the first one you absorb.”

Scoundrel!

“The patterns that appear within the core of your spirit cultivation can be directed. The largest symbols are the forms that Spirit Power can take. When absorbing a Psionic Crystal that energy can be directed into one of the symbols that appear. The following symbols that appear will be related to the path you have channeled the power into. Without any direction you will add power to them equally, and as you’ve likely seen each level takes twice as many crystals to achieve as the last.”

Sage quickly sent his consciousness within to examine the changes. As a Nascent Soul he instinctively understood his changed state. His Dantian, Soul, and Spiritual Sea had been combined together to build the Nascent Soul. The Soul was now the outer shell containing its own version of a Dantian and Spiritual Sea. When inhabiting his body it was like they were connected by invisible wires to power up his body with Qi and Spirit Power. Inside his Spiritual Sea, things were also quite different. The featureless grey fog border was gone, the creepy view of the unknown was now a glowing green wall. If anyone wished to enter his Spiritual Sea now they had to penetrate that green wall, the ‘skin’ of his Nascent Soul.

The sea below was far more calm than it had been in the past and the skies were quite clear. A cultivator that had formed their Nascent Soul had deep insight into the laws of the world, and their state of mind was far more resistant to outside influence. The fortress that had dominated the center of the Spiritual Sea had moved. The island it used to sit on was gone completely and that fortress now floated in the sky on a huge cloud. Moving inside, Sage reached the center in just an instant and examined the symbols that Guan Zhenyan mentioned. Now aware of what to look for, he instantly recognized a pattern.

Four circles, each of them overlapping each other and placed in the cardinal directions.