Chapter 291: Crazy Virtual Item Trading (Bonus for Leader 0 Yu Xiao Mo 0)

On this day, every faction bordering the Great Jin Empire fell utterly silent, and those who had initially followed the cloud-shrouded domain of Yundian in suppressing the Wuwei Daoist Alliance now inexplicably chose neutrality.

Overnight, the geopolitical landscape across the entire continent seemed to undergo a profound transformation!

Even the surrounding petty kingdoms and minor forces, which had previously been restless and eager to stir up trouble, now settled down obediently, not daring to make another single move.

The Taixi Sect.

An elderly man clad in a white robe embroidered with golden threads sat cross-legged by the lakeside, his hookless fishing line submerged in the water, as he quietly watched the fish playing below; had this not been within the Taixi Sect, anyone might have mistaken him for a perfectly ordinary old fisherman.

At that moment, a disciple approached in a highly respectful yet hurried manner.

"The Yundian domain has been defeated?!" Before the disciple could even speak, the elder asked in a serene tone.

"You..." The disciple looked at him in sheer horror. "You already knew?"

He stroked his beard and smiled faintly, as though everything remained completely within his grasp: "If the faction supporting them did not possess even this level of capability, how would the Wuwei Daoist Alliance, even if it were a golden carp, ever dare to leap out of this great lake?"

"Good, very good!" The elder laughed. "This old man would like to see just how much ability you truly possess!"

"Are we not going to intervene?" the disciple asked.

"Gongshu Kuo and Gongyang Jun have been captured, and things have come to such a pass." The elder laughed in spite of himself. "The Yundian domain, the Gongyi family... by now, they probably can no longer sit still!"

...

To the west of the Great Jin Empire, amidst that most affluent cluster of mountains known as the Yundian Upper Domain, stood one monolithic mountain city after another.

This place gathered a vast multitude of cultivator forces and aristocratic clans, great and small alike, and had always been the blessed land that the world's cultivators yearned for!

Yet now, two of the four great aristocratic clans were gone; for the entire Yundian domain, this was nothing short of a massive earthquake!

Within Yujing, that most dazzling pearl among cities.

Gongyi Xiu, his head covered in silver hair, had not allowed time to leave many traces upon his face; at a sudden glance, he appeared to be in his thirties or forties, looking more like a cultivator of the younger generation.

Beside him, the Patriarch of the Gongsun Clan appeared hoary and white-haired, like an old man with one foot in the grave, and had it not been for a pair of clear, bright, and spirited eyes that gave his entire being a profound and deep aura, perhaps no one would believe that he was the Patriarch of the second greatest clan in the Yundian domain.

If one did not look closely, they might mistake them for grandfather and grandson; of course, no one in this world dared to make such a joke.

"Gongshu Kuo and Gongyang Jun have been captured... the third and fourth great clans of our Yundian domain joined forces to crusade against a mere kingdom of martial artists, yet they were actually defeated and taken prisoner..." Gongsun Chui's voice was low. "The people of those two families have truly degenerated as they aged!"

"No matter how much they have degenerated..." Gongyi Xiu said, "the likes of Gongshu Kuo and Gongyang Jun should not have been so utterly helpless against a mere Great Jin Empire that they could not even flee if they failed to win."

Gongyi Xiu shook his head and said, "There is likely something strange afoot here; that faction supporting the Wuwei Daoist Alliance seems, by the look of it, to be not quite so simple."

"Oh?" Although Gongsun Chui was somewhat displeased by the other's contradiction, the speaker was Gongyi Xiu, whose opinion naturally could not be ignored. "Does Patriarch Gongyi feel that there could be anything strange about a nonsensical little faction that suddenly cropped up in this tiny Great Jin Empire? Could it be that they truly believe themselves to be another cultivation domain?"

Gongsun Chui clearly did not believe there could be any faction capable of rivaling the Three Sacred Sects.

After all, the sacred reputation of the Three Sacred Sects had endured for so many years, which was naturally not something a random, newly emerged faction could compare to.

Gongyi Xiu analyzed: "When we initially put pressure on the Wuwei Daoist Alliance, we assumed it was impossible for them to defy our wishes, and what was the result?"

"That was merely the Wuwei Daoist Alliance being short-sighted," Gongsun Chui sneered.

Gongyi Xiu continued, "Afterwards, we believed that under our economic suppression, the Wuwei Daoist Alliance would be crushed in no time, and what was the result?"

"...That." Gongsun Chui stroked his beard, a cold gleam appearing in his eyes as he said, "That was because their luck was good, and they discovered a new method of artifact smithing called Enchantment, which can be applied to finished Dharma artifacts."

Gongyi Xiu nodded: "Therefore, holding onto this thought, we launched our third offensive, not even hesitating to employ military force; and what was the subsequent result?"

"...This." Gongsun Chui was visibly at a loss for words; whether it was due to carelessness or coincidence, a thing might happen once or twice, but certainly not three times.

And now, it had already happened three times consecutively!

Even if their eyes were higher than the heavens, even if they had never spared a glance for forces like the Great Jin Empire and the Wuwei Daoist Alliance, even if in their eyes, the Great Jin Empire and the Wuwei Daoist Alliance were merely ants beneath their feet that they would never bother to look at, they were gradually beginning to scent that something was amiss.

"Perhaps this faction truly possesses some ability," Gongsun Chui had to admit. "However, this is likely already their limit."

Gongsun Chui clearly belonged to the hawkish faction: "Could it be that Patriarch Gongyi has become afraid?"

"Afraid?" Gongyi Xiu let out a cold laugh and stood up from his seat. "Even if the three Grand Venerables of the Three Sacred Sects were here, they could not make me, Gongyi Xiu, utter the word 'afraid'!"

"Then what does Patriarch Gongyi wish to do?" Gongsun Chui asked. "How about this old man exerts a bit of effort to make a trip with Patriarch Gongyi to the Great Jin Empire and wipe that faction out?"

"Patriarch Gongsun!" Gongyi Xiu fixed his gaze upon Gongsun Chui and said, "If that faction were really so easy to destroy, Feng Xi, the envoy of the Taixi Sect, wouldn't have needed to come looking for us!"

"Into whose hands the Demon Suppressing Cauldron has now fallen... I refuse to believe that Patriarch Gongsun has received no news of it." Gongyi Xiu narrowed his eyes, a sharp gleam flashing within them. "Patriarch Gongsun need not test me anymore; to live long in this world, the most important thing is that one's intellect must keep pace with the shifting times."

"Although the two patriarchs, Gongshu Kuo and Gongyang Jun, were carelessly captured, they are still men of our Yundian domain after all." Gongyi Xiu said, "I will send someone to negotiate with the Great Jin Empire's side to ransom them back."

"As for whether we fight or make peace afterward..." Gongyi Xiu said, "the two of us will go take a look at the shop opened by that faction, and then we shall make our plans."

"Go in person?"

"Of course we go in person!" Gongyi Xiu said with absolute resolution. "The intelligence the scouts reported back consists entirely of playing games and raising cultivation bases; how could I, Gongyi Xiu, ever lack such intelligence?"

"This time, I, Gongyi Xiu, will personally go and see what exactly is going on with this shop!" Gongyi Xiu said coldly.

Clearly, he had already determined that whether it was the Great Jin Empire or the Wuwei Daoist Alliance, the shadow of a certain shop loomed behind them, and it was mostly this shop that was causing trouble.

"Since that is the case, this old man shall accompany Patriarch Gongyi on this trip!"

...

Meanwhile, on the other side, within the Half-City.

Both inside and outside the internet cafe, even the cultivators of Half-City who had not participated in the war and were located countless thousands of miles away had begun to gossip fervently.

"It's said that the State of Jin went off to fight a war these past few days?" a cultivator in the shop spoke up. "And they even beat a great faction composed entirely of cultivators into a thoroughly wretched, scurrying mess?"

"Cultivators beaten into a scurrying mess by an army of martial artists? Just how weak could they be?" another cultivator remarked with some disdain.

"You can't put it that way." A well-informed cultivator clad in black, evidently one of the Black Demons, spoke up, "It's said that though their cultivator army wasn't large in number, a True Lake Realm cultivator used a Magic Shield to block a heavy strike from a True Treasure wielded by a late-stage Divine Ocean Realm cultivator! And a concentrated volley of Lightning Skill almost instantly killed the opponent's Divine Ocean Grand Cultivator!"

"For real?" the other cultivator asked in astonishment. "The Magic Shield is that strong? I saw a skill book for it the day before yesterday, and it was only two hundred spirit crystals!"

"You didn't buy it for two hundred spirit crystals?" The black-robed cultivator laughed. "It's almost two thousand now!"

"Ah!?" The man was instantly dumbfounded.

"Books like Holy Armor Skill, Soul Shield, and Assassination are all around a thousand now!"