Chapter 487 - 459: Water-Controlling Intent

Chapter 487: Chapter 459: Water-Controlling Intent

Deep within the marketplace, the closer one got to the core area, the higher the tier of items sold at the stalls.

Li Yuan stopped in front of a large, heavily guarded stall. Behind the stall owner stood several tightly sealed glass pillars. Water swirled inside them, and one could faintly make out glowing currents of air, like swimming dragons, moving within.

Spirit Veins.

They were all miniature Water Element Spirit Veins, forcibly extracted from unowned sea regions.

Li Yuan stepped forward to glance at the price, his brow twitching almost imperceptibly.

’I don’t know the auction prices yet. It’s best to wait until after the auction is over to make a purchase.’

Li Yuan didn’t linger and turned to leave.

Walking the streets of the market, Li Yuan suppressed his Spiritual Power fluctuations to the absolute minimum. The perception net from his Dark Evil Insight spread out silently in all directions, like a great, invisible web.

The Kunpeng Alliance accepted all outside Cultivators, which resulted in the auras on the island being incredibly diverse.

In Li Yuan’s perception, besides pure Spiritual Power, the air was also laced with a considerable number of cold, somber fluctuations of Demonic Qi.

Li Yuan carefully distinguished the frequencies of these Demonic Qis.

’These two frequencies... they belong to the Evil Slaying Sect and the Abyss Sect.’

Li Yuan swiftly made a judgment. He was all too familiar with the characteristic auras of these two local Liangzhou Demon Sects.

But at the edge of his perception net, three completely unfamiliar Demon Cultivator auras were also drifting about.

Li Yuan’s steps faltered for a moment.

According to the intelligence he’d previously gathered from Loose Cultivators in the outer seas, there were only two Demon Cultivator island factions of any note in the surrounding sea region.

There were only two known outer sea Demon Cultivator factions, but now three distinct, unknown frequencies of Demonic Qi had appeared. This meant that aside from the two local Demon Sects and the two demon islands of the outer seas, at least one more deeply hidden, third-party faction had infiltrated this peripheral island.

’The undercurrents are rougher than I imagined.’

The night market was drawing to a close, but the crowds on the street had not thinned.

As Li Yuan was preparing to return to the Teleportation Array, he caught a glimpse of something from the corner of his eye. At the mouth of a dark alley up ahead, two cultivators in black robes were handing a bulging bag of Spirit Stones to a stall owner.

The stall owner, in turn, swept a pile of dilapidated Magical Artifacts, which bore black engravings, into a storage bag and handed it to them.

Those black engravings were the same kind Li Yuan had seen on the street earlier.

Li Yuan didn’t get any closer, his gaze simply sweeping over the two black-robed figures from more than a hundred feet away.

The pair’s auras were well-disguised, showing only the Spiritual Power fluctuations of the Early-stage Foundation Establishment on the surface, but Dark Evil Insight easily pierced their facade. Deep within their Qi Seas coiled an extremely pure and violent Demonic Qi from the Evil Slaying Sect.

The two put away the Magical Artifacts and turned, walking quickly toward the edge of the district.

With a flicker, Li Yuan’s figure melted into the shadows of a street corner.

Demon Shadow Step at the Great Success stage.

With no fluctuation of Spiritual Power and no sound of footsteps, Li Yuan was like a weightless phantom, hugging the ground as he darted through the alleys, instantly closing the distance between himself and the pair.

When he was less than ten feet from them, Li Yuan flicked his right index finger.

Li Yuan didn’t use any Magic. He simply used the High-Tier perspective granted by the Profound Nether Bead to mobilize a sliver of extremely condensed Demonic Qi. This wisp of Demonic Qi was compressed until it was nearly transparent, like a mote of dust drifting on the wind, silently attaching to the corner of the rearmost black-robed man’s robe.

It was a pure, Nascent Soul-Level application of high-precision Demonic Qi control; a Demon Cultivator at the Foundation Establishment Stage would have no way of detecting it.

Completely unaware, the pair continued onward, soon disappearing into the night.

Li Yuan didn’t continue to follow them, instead turning and stepping onto the Teleportation Array back to the main island.

After returning to his Green Jade guest room in the Spirit Platform Palace, Li Yuan activated the Array within the room and sat down cross-legged.

Closing his eyes, he submerged his consciousness into the Demonic Qi marker he had placed earlier.

The marker sent back a clear sense of direction and location.

A rough topographical map of the Kunpeng Alliance’s peripheral islands appeared in Li Yuan’s mind. The marker had moved to several locations on the island, ultimately leaving behind lingering traces of varying intensity at three different spots.

A tavern, a pawnshop, and a shipyard.

These three seemingly unrelated businesses were the very strongholds the Evil Slaying Sect had secretly established on the periphery of the Kunpeng Alliance’s territory.

When Li Yuan’s consciousness locked onto the stronghold known as the Hai Feng Shipyard via the marker, a peculiar, penetrating vision instantly extended outwards.

[Remnant Nether Demonic Probe] effect triggered.

It pierced through the shipyard’s surface structures, penetrated over a hundred feet of rock and soil, and a clear outline of a dark-red Array Base was reflected in Li Yuan’s sea of consciousness.

It was an active Concealment Array.

The structure of the Array Patterns was not complex and possessed no defensive or offensive power whatsoever. All its pathways pointed to a single core function: reconnaissance and information gathering.

Li Yuan opened his eyes.

’The Evil Slaying Sect is secretly driving stakes into someone else’s territory, setting up this kind of extremely covert intelligence-gathering Array deep underground. Since the Array’s own Spiritual Power fluctuations are incredibly low and it’s buried so deep, it has managed to avoid the Kunpeng Alliance’s grand security array.’

Li Yuan didn’t alert them. ’Since the Evil Slaying Sect is gathering intelligence, these three strongholds are excellent bait. If I leave them be, I might be able to intercept useful information from them in the future.’

After committing the locations of the strongholds to memory, Li Yuan focused his mind and began to cultivate in seclusion.

For the next few days, Li Yuan remained in his room, using the high-purity Spiritual Qi of the Spirit Platform Palace to fully dedicate himself to mastering the Magic he had recently acquired.

The Demonic Qi in his body surged along specific pathways. With each cycle, a sliver of his blood essence was drawn out, condensing into a blurry, blood-red shadow outside his body.

Several days later, a low, muffled boom sounded from within the room.

A blood-red figure with an aura identical to Li Yuan’s, so solid it was almost corporeal, stood before the bed. It lasted for three breaths before dissolving into a pool of Demonic Qi.

[Demon Blood Substitute Skill: Initiate → Adept]

A substitute at the Adept realm condensed faster, and its threshold for withstanding fatal damage was also raised significantly.

With about ten days left until the auction, Li Yuan had no intention of waiting idly in his guest room. The plan to search for a Spirit Vein was moved up on his agenda.

Li Yuan left the Spirit Platform Palace and went to the Sea Market on the main island, a place that specialized in selling Magical Artifacts for sea voyages.

After browsing several large shops, Li Yuan found himself in a store called the "Treasure Pavilion," where his eye was caught by a small black boat displayed in the center of a pedestal.

The boat was crafted entirely from deep-sea blackwood. It could be stored within a special Crystal Stone, shrinking down to a fist-sized object.

Its surface was coated with a layer of waterproof Demon Beast grease. Though only about ten feet long, it was densely covered in Array Patterns, making it appear exceptionally sturdy.

’A green entry.’

Li Yuan looked at the Shopkeeper beside him. "How much for this Waterproof Boat?"

Seeing a potential sale, the Shopkeeper immediately came forward. "Senior, you have a keen eye! This Waterproof Boat is not only extremely fast, but it also has some submersible capability. It can withstand the water pressure at a depth of five hundred feet. Only eighty Mid-grade Spirit Stones."

Li Yuan tossed over a storage bag and put away the Waterproof Boat.

Li Yuan returned to his residence and reached out, lightly touching the edge of the boat’s Crystal Stone.

[Equippable Item Detected: Blackwood Waterproof Boat (Complete)]

[Equipment Entry Preview: Water-Taming Intent (Green)]

[Effect: Grants the ability to control water currents. The strength of this ability is proportional to the user’s cultivation realm.]

[Perma-fusion Condition: Remain equipped for a cumulative total of sixty days in a deep-sea environment.]

’A green entry, and an extremely practical environmental control ability at that.’