Commanding Wind and Cloud
chapter-177

When the caravans approached a forked road, Fatty Leong who had already jumped onto the leading caravan pointed at the path on the right, and the caravans continued moving forward slowly.

"Why are we talking the small path?" Abela frowned and pouted. She said very unhappily. "The bigger and smoother road was right there, and you chose this one! Fatty Leong, do you know that your caravans are very uncomfortable to sit on? Now it’s even more bumps."

Qian Jin glanced through the merchandise in the caravans and was sure that this Fatty Leong wasn’t doing honest business. From the marks on the map, the bigger road was the only path to the closest town, and the smaller path was leading to a former demon village!

The reason it was a former village was because the demons in that village all moved to the town on the map, and that was why this small path of full of grass and weeds.

The series of caravans full of merchandise were heading to a village where no demon lived and was not a proper town. The intent was obvious, the fatty Leong wanted to dodge the scouts and undercover warriors of the Zence Empire!

What kind of transactions required hiding from scouts and undercovers of the Zence Empire? Prohibited goods of course!

Duren Burg and Fanta Kunge both looked at Qian Jin with a smile. They were trying to find a way to escape from the caravans and the monitoring of the demons after entering the town and head to the mission location, but now it seemed like it wouldn't require that much effort. Since Boss Leong had secrets that he couldn’t share with people, he led the caravans towards the direction where the Dark Group was very active.

It was already midnight when the caravans arrived at the abandoned village. The dark clouds had covered up the half moon and shining stars in the sky. It created complete darkness in the world.

Standing at the entrance of the village, everyone felt a chill going up their spines as if a bunch of undead would rush out of the village. There were only the crackling noises coming from the torch that was burning pine oil, and these torches lit up the areas around the caravans.

Boss Leong took a deep breath and said with a rare excited tone, "Come on, let's go in!"

The noises of the wooden wheels rolling on the ground were the only sounds that were resonating in this quiet abandoned village, and the noise sounded extra scary in this atmosphere.

When the caravans were about to reach the center of the village, three dog barks sounded from afar, to be more accurate, they were three imitation dog barks.

The mercenaries drew out their weapons under pressure and looked around with their guards up. They were trying to find the precise location of where the noise came from.

"Don’t worry. Those demons didn’t pull out their weapons." Qian Jin’s deep voice attracted the curious looks from the mercenaries. "In this pitch dark night, he is able to see that far and deep into the darkness?" they thought.

Zachery on the other hand stared at Qian Jin in shock. "What is this kid made out of? I, a Demon Capturer, didn’t even see the shadows of the demons, how did he see them?" he thought to himself.

Boss Leong didn’t pay attention to Qian Jin as he also imitated three dog barks. More than a dozen torches instantly lit up cross the road, and more than thirty Belia Demons showed themselves. The demon who was leading them was a Mamen Demon!

Compared with the Belia Demons who were big and tough, Mamen Demons were shorter. This Mamen Demon was about a hundred and eighty centimeters tall. The crystal like blue colored skin was one of the main characteristics of Mamen Demons, and their red fire like hair was also eye-catching.

"Trading with Mamen Demons?" Qian Jin for the first time praised Boss Leong’s courage. Mamen Demons were was one of the top seven species of demons were not famous for their battle abilities, they were known for their greed!

In the Zence Empire, people won’t use the phrase "you are too greedy" to describe a greedy person, they would say, "Are you a Mamen Demon?"

Mamen Demons were the definition of greed for a long time. They were sly and powerful, and they were one of the least creditable species. During one of the battles between the Zence Empire and the Demon Empire, the emperor of the Zence Empire had bribed one of the high-level Mamen Demon generals and caused the loss of the battle and almost the collapse the Demon Empire.

After that, the Demon King during that time chopped the heads off of three Mamen Demon Generals. However, until this day, the incidents of Mamen Demons turning traitor during battle and helping the Zence Empire was a common occurrence.

[If there were enough benefits, even the Demon King’s head was tradable!]

This was one of the old sayings that were passed down at to all Mamen Demons. The only thing was that there hadn’t been a Mamen Demon who dared to try to chop the Demon King’s head off. Lucifer Bloodline was one of the ultimate supreme bloodlines in the Demon Empire; unless some demon wanted the Demon King to wipe off his or her entire race, none of them were interested in chopping the Demon King’s head.

"Mr. Bosc, I’m very glad to see you here." Boss Leong opened his arms as he walked forward.

"Bosc?" Qian Jin paid attention to the Mamen Demon who also walked towards Boss Leong. The family name of Bosc in the Mamen Demon species was the family name of Lucifer at the entire Demon Empire; it was the royal family name for all Mamen Demons.

Although not every Mamen Demon who had the family name of Bosc was a royal, this family name was very honorable to all Mamen Demons.

"Boss Leong, I’m glad to see you here as well." Bosc laughed as he opened his arms. His eagle nose made him look very sinister.

The warm hug between the two made it look like the Zence Empire and the Demon Empire were signing a permanent peace agreement.

After the simple, warm, yet fake greeting, Bosc asked with his hoarse voice as he smiled, "Do you have the stuff that I need?" Two of his bucktooth showed as he said that.

"Of course!" Boss Leong patted his chest as he laughed as well, "I guarded this set of merchandise myself. I believe that the second set of merchandises would be fully prepared by my men after I return to the Zence Empire. Does Mr. Bosc have the stuff that I need?"

Bosc raised his long and blue arms and snapped his fingers. A chest on the carriage behind his was opened slowly under a torch. Gold bars that were fifteen centimeters long and three centimeters thick filled up the chest. Under the lights, they shone brightly. It might be due to the number of gold bars or the reflecting ability of gold itself, they were so shiny that people felt like their eyes were getting pierced.

Boss Leong stared at the gold bars in fascination. He quickly ran up to the chest and grabbed onto a gold bar as he bite onto it forcefully; two light teeth marks were left on the gold bar.

Mamen Demons’ greed was renowned, so Boss Leong had to be more careful. His hands continued grabbing up gold bars, and his teeth continued biting on them to make sure that these gold bars were real. He counted non-stop, "One, two, three... five... ten... fifteen..."

After the second chest on the carriage was opened, Qian Jin saw a full chest of gold bars. "What did this fatty Leong smuggle out of the Zence Empire? What prohibited goods are in here? It didn’t matter if it was the Zence Empire, the Demon Empire, or the Barbarian Empire, each one of these gold bars was equal to a hundred gold coins!" Qian Jin started to suspect.

Every one of these chests had a total of 100 gold bars! So they were equivalent of more than ten thousand gold coins! Five chests full of gold bars would mean that Boss Leong was getting five hundred gold bars!

"What's being traded?" Everyone was thinking about this question: "What is Boss Leong selling?"

"What do you think? Boss Leong?" Bosc smiled like a gentleman, but his eagle nose destroyed this presence completely.

"Great! Great! They're all real!" Boss Leong turned around and headed back to his caravans excitedly and pulled a rectangular wooden chest off of the horse carriage that Zachery was sitting on. He opened the lock on the chest with a key with his shaky hands, and a few human head sized coconuts appeared.

"This..." Bosc’s smile froze on his face. A vicious light flashed in his eyes continuously as he said coldly, "Boss Leong, are you playing with me?"

"Wait a second." Boss Leong grabbed a hammer from the carriage and smashed onto the coconuts and broke the outer layer. As the coconut water leaked out, a fist-sized spherical metal that gave off a gold light appeared in front of everyone.

"What's this?" The mercenaries looked at each other as they tried to figure out the answer to this. "What's this metal? Why is it worth hiding? And why is it that expensive?" They thought.

"Stars Ancient Metal!" Qian Jin’s pupils immediately contracted. He moved a little closer quietly to make sure he was seeing the right thing. It was a magic metal – Stars Ancient Metal!

During the two years that he was learning from Blake in Endless World, he read a lot of books while he wasn't spending time practicing his forging skills. Especially after he went out to find ores and metals in Four Season Valley, he read a lot of books on metal and mining.

The special effect of metals like Stars Ancient Metal had on warriors was mind-blowing. Although Qian Jin only read about it once, he couldn’t forget the description of it at all.

Stars Ancient Metal was a reactive magic metal and had a special cleanse effect. If this demon could find a Rune Artist and a Forge Master, the Rune Artist can engrave special runes onto armors and melt the Stars Ancient Metal and spread it on the runes and the armor with the help of a Forge Master. The end result would be that the user of this armor would be resistant to curse magic spells; low-level spells like Exhaustion Spell and Slow Spell would be completely useless.

If a runemaster had the assistance of a Forge Grandmaster and a Magic Empowerment Specialist, or a Magic Forge Master used the Stars Ancient Metal as the main body of an armor, the resistance towards curse type spells would be even more significant!

On the Human-Demon Battlefront, there was never a one on one situation, it didn't matter if the person was a warrior or a mage. Any kind of attack could pop out of anywhere. If a warrior was battling with a demon warrior and got hit by a Slow Spell, then this warrior would have a tragic ending.

The same thing went the other way around. If a demon warrior got hit by the spell, he or she would return to the stars as well.

"Fifty thousand gold coins for a Stars Ancient Gold? That’s still a little pricey..." Qian Jin thought to himself. Although this metal was rare and prohibited, it should only be valued around twenty thousand gold coins.

Bam! Another coconut was broke open, and Qian Jin finally understood why Bosc would pay Boss Leong fifty thousand gold coins. After all, there was a Son of Earth gem on top of the Stars Ancient Metal.