Chapter 297: Take a Gamble and Cut the Rock!
Translator: Sparrow Translations Editor: Sparrow Translations
Yue Hongyan’s crowning as the champion of the Foundation Establishment Stage competition left many people unhappy.
But the matter of fact was, the result would be the same even if Wang Lin fought Yue Hongyan, as he could not enter the Destructive Stage of the River of Styx.
However, most of the people did not recognize this point. Many of them lamented, "Dao Yuting should just be the winner."
Before Wang Lin sparred with Dao Yuting, a huge portion of the people had wished for Dao Yuting to defeat Wang Lin and Yue Hongyan.
One reason was that they did not want the Celestial Sect of Wonders to be too dominant and allowed the final to be an internal competition.
Another reason was that many of them wanted to see a fight between Yue Hongyan and Dao Yuting.
Yue Hongyan was a passionate fighter, who first overcame the sword duo of the Sun Moon Sword Sect. After that, she gained an advantage over her equally special junior, Yang Qing. Following that, she defeated Shi Shaogan from the Great Qin Empire.
Yue Hongyan’s journey to the final was intense and got even more exciting along the way. At the end, she was unstoppable as she blazed through to the final.
Whereas Dao Yuting was a very cool person. Similarly, she defeated a sword pairing of the Sun Moon Sword Sect in the first round. After that, she overcame an arch-enemy cultivator from the Northern Tribes using the Burning Ice.
The battle with Wang Lin enabled her to push to her limits, as she tapped on her Song of the Volcano. Eventually, she only lost by a slim margin to Wang Lin.
Dao Yuting’s performance was equally eye-catching. Many people were regretful that they could not witness a battle between Yue Hongyan and Dao Yuting.
After looking at Dao Yuting, Lin Feng turned his attention to the Great Qin Empire camp. Over there, Dao Zhiqiang lowered his head and dared not look at Dao Yuting.
On the other side, Shi Shaogan was blocked by Shi Xingyun. He was unhappy, which was pretty amusing.
But Lin Feng was more focused on Shi Shaogan rather than Dao Yuting.
It was not only him. Many of the Immortal Soul Stage Elders were also focusing their attention on Shi Shaogan.
He actually had some dealings with the Great Void Sect, which made many people confused. Although Shi Shaogan was only in the cultivation of the advanced stage of the Foundation Establishment Stage, his status was uncommon due to his blood relation with Prince Anliang, Shi Zongyue.
Prince Anliang’s family and the orthodox royal family of the Great Qin Empire always had a close relationship.
Lin Feng had noticed before that when Shi Shaogan displayed the Dimension-less Transformation, the Vivant Joy Holy Man and the Gambling Holy Man from the Great Qin Empire were shocked. It seemed like they were unaware of it.
Only Prince Anliang, Shi Zongyue, was not shocked, which showed that he knew about it already.
"Is this just a small ploy by the Great Void Sect, or do they have something in mind?" Lin Feng pondered, "Are they being conservative or are they hurrying things?"
As he was pondering, Lin Feng and the rest of the Immortal Soul Stage Elders followed behind Shi Zongyue, as they flew above the Sea of the Northern Winds.
Although it was Lin Feng’s first time joining the Spiritual Conference of Huanghai, it was not the first time that it was organized. Regarding news of the Ancient Huanghai World, Lin Feng had already heard of them.
The opening of the Ancient Huanghai World was at the deepest point of the Sea of the Northern Winds. After the opening was unlocked, cultivators below the cultivation of the Nascent Soul Stage could enter.
On the other side of the opening was the deepest point of the boundless Huanghai Ocean of the Ancient Huanghai World.
It was an extremely deep water body and the water pressure was immense. Even with the powers of a cultivator in the Aurous Core Stage, he might not even be able to handle the pressure. Cultivators in the Foundation Establishment Stage and below would be crushed.
In the Sea of the Northern Winds of the Greater Worlds, it was still more manageable. The dimensional power of the boundaries of the two worlds curbed the water pressure of the Huanghai Ocean, but across space and into the Ancient Huanghai World, such a problem would exist again.
At this point, the Dragon Boat of the Great Qin Empire that was just completed had to be used. Using the Dragon Boat to cross the boundless ocean would allow for the view of the sky in the Ancient Huanghai World.
Furthermore, the huge resources of the Ancient Huanghai World were all contained within the ocean. The Dragon Boat was therefore needed to gather these resources.
As Shi Zongyue placed his palms together, a wave rose on the water surface of the Sea of the Northern winds. Eight Dragon Boats started to show on the water surface and they were as big as loaches.
These Dragon Boats were not that big and were at most twenty meters in length. But Lin Feng could feel the strong surge of mana from within. The body of the Dragon Boat contained a line of charms that were used to resist the water pressure.
At this point, Shi Zongyue said, "My friends, every one of you shall command one Dragon Boat and use your powers to master it. After returning your disciples from the Ancient Huanghai World, please kindly return them to my Great Qin Empire."
Lin Feng and the rest nodded in agreement. This was necessary as it was pertinent for them to know how to control the Dragon Boat since their disciples were going to be ferried in it. Otherwise, if it was controlled by the Great Qin Empire, any accidents that occurred in the deep sea would be indisputable.
Unless it were their arch-enemies, the Great Qin Empire would not do something so lowly. But no one would dare to place the fate of their lives in the hands of other’s morals.
Lin Feng’s main body remained to master the Dragon Boat. On the other side, his Steel Tree Avatar crept into the crowd in the Hidden Dragon Gorge.
Inside the Hidden Dragon Gorge, it was very crowded at this point. Everyone was engaging in all forms of trade.
There was an array of bustling activities inside the gorge. People were either the buyer or the seller, and they were haggling over the prices. Otherwise, they were quarreling with one another as they targeted the same items to buy.
Besides the Heaven Lake Sect and the Royal House of the Northern Tribes, there were meaningful interactions between the rest of the people.
This was also a main event within the Spiritual Conference of Huanghai, for the facilitation of commercial trade of cultivation resources.
It was different from the Spiritual Conference of Hanhai, organized by the Pavilion of Heavenly Trade within the Shazhou County. In the Spiritual Conference of Hanhai, there was a specialized currency to pay for different goods. Whereas over here, people engaged in barter trade.
Besides this, many of the young cultivators were interacting with one another and expanding their social circle. There could be surprising benefits from making these connections with one another.
Not only was the Spiritual Conference of Huanghai used to display a sect’s talent pool, it was also used for the sect disciples to gain more connections and improve relationships with one another.
Lin Feng observed that his disciples were welcomed by many people.
Many of the Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators gathered around Yue Hongyan and Yang Qing. Even Zhuge Fengling benefited from them being in the limelight.
Some of the people with ulterior motives felt that Yue Hongyan and Yang Qing’s status as Lin Feng’s Immediate Disciple meant that they were less likely to reveal anything about the Celestial Sect of Wonders, as they were likely to be warier. That was why they got close to Zhuge Fengling instead and hoped to fish some of the news within the Celestial Sect of Wonders from her.
This scene left Lin Feng amused and he believed that this group of people were wasting their time asking. He knew that they could not find out anything valuable from her.
This was because Zhuge Fengling was unaware of most of the things in the Celestial Sect of Wonders.
But she was sly. Alternating between reality and falsehood, she managed to draw the attention of many people.
While there were those who welcomed the Celestial Sect of Wonders, there were also those who did not like their presence. For example, the Heaven Lake Sect and the Huo Family did not have a good impression of Xiao Budian, Yue Hongyan, and the rest.
On the contrary, cultivators from the Royal House of the Northern Tribes liked the disciples from the Celestial Sect of Wonders.
Lin Feng scanned the area and saw that Zhu Yi was talking with a Northern Tribe man. It seemed like he saw something he fancied.
Besides Zhu Yi, there were others who were surrounding the Northern Tribe man. All their gazes were fixated on a piece of black volcanic rock at the feet of the man.
The appearance of the black volcanic rock was nothing unusual. But as Lin Feng observed the rock, he knew that there was something special about it.
As he used his supernatural awareness to investigate, he realized that there was something mysterious about it. His awareness was devoured by the black volcanic rock.
This made Lin Feng excited, "Exactly, something that has been spotted by Zhu Yi must be interesting."
He had always guided others in the right direction in terms of such items.
But, who said that these foreign individuals were always simple and honest?
The trading conditions set out by this seemingly crude Northern Tribe man left everyone creasing their brows.
Cutting the rock.
Everyone could tell that this black volcanic rock was the embryo of some form of magic treasure. It was like a volcanic rock that wrapped a piece of beautiful jade within it.
"My friends, please try your luck by cutting this rock. Whoever can cut out the magic treasure within it will get to keep it."
But it was not free. Everyone who cut the rock had to give an item to the Northern Tribe man. If no magic treasure was retrieved, the item would not be returned to them.
This man was making a good deal.
As this trade deal was proposed, it caught the attention of the people around. Everyone creased their brows, but they were competitive too.
Using one’s supernatural awareness was useless, thus no one could confirm the position of the magic treasure in the black volcanic rock. They did not even know the size of the magic treasure, while the black volcanic rock was one square foot long.
If the magic treasure was only the size of a grain of rice, then who knows how many cuts it would take to retrieve it. If their luck was bad, then it would bankrupt everyone before the magic treasure was even cut out.
The man could tell the considerations of the crowd and said hurriedly, "After the rock is cut, the part that separates from the rock will become a normal rock and lose its powers."
As he said, he drew out a long spear and cut a small piece of the rock at its edge. After the small piece of rock was detached, the awareness-engulfing abilities of the rock had disappeared.
As the crowd saw this scene, their interest was piqued again. All of them wanted to try.
Lin Feng looked at the black volcanic rock and nodded his head lightly, "This is much simpler then. Every time the rock is cut, the useless pieces of the rock will be eliminated from the equation. But if one’s luck was really bad, then many cuts will still be needed."
The Northern Tribe man stated his price. He knew that the way he conducted business was a little out of line, that was why his price for each person was not particularly high.
Zhu Yi stepped forward. But before he could speak, a young man in black suddenly approached and whipped out his spear. He attempted to slash the black volcanic rock.
It was the second young master of the Huo Family, Huo Ming.