Nine Evolutions of the True Spirit
chapter-214

Participant 20 had already received several message charms. They were checking them one by one, replying to some of the messages.

Lu Ping also received a reply, "If you can add on two more top-grade spirit materials or a top-grade Grade 2 spirit material, then I can exchange with you."

Lu Ping sneered coldly. This Participant 20 sure was greedy to unreasonably raise the price.

Lu Ping didn't think that the talisman treasure was worth four top-grade spirit materials. Additionally, Grade 2 spirit materials were a cultivators' first choice for forging their own mystic treasures, so they were worth far more than just an Early Core Forging Realm defensive talisman treasure.

Sure enough, after the greedy Participant 20 replied to some of the message charms, no one returned his messages anymore. Seeing that his very sought-after talisman treasure was no longer wanted, he couldn't help but become anxious.

He quickly sent out another message to the participants who had made an offer before. Lu Ping also received one. The price was now three pieces of top-grade spirit materials.

Lu Ping continued to ignore him. The buyers had the power now, Participant 20 had to pay for his greed.

As expected, only a few messages were returned to him.

Under the cover of a cloak, Lu Ping couldn't see Participant 20's expression on stage, but he could tell that he must be having a very 'amazing' expression.

A few moments later, Participant 20 sent out a few messages again.

Lu Ping also received a message. It read, "Deep Sea Frosty Iron and Fang Ling Stone, plus another two bottles of Late Blood Condensation Realm medicinal pellets or 10,000 spirit stones."

The price was now more or less reasonable. But Lu Ping naturally wouldn't give out the medicinal pellets, so he included the 10,000 spirit stones instead and closed the deal.

Participant 20 then delivered the talisman to Lu Ping.

The talisman treasure was crafted by an Early Core Forging Realm Enlightened Master, and contained a defensive spell known as Thousand Spirit Wall.

When activated, a spiritual light barrier would cover the cultivator's whole body, similar to an additional layer of aegis energy, except the protection provided was naturally much stronger.

After Lu Ping finished admiring the talisman treasure in his hand, the trade fair had already moved on to Participant 43's turn.

As Participant 43 came up on stage, he directly pulled out seven high-grade spirit stones, and said, "Lucky me, I found seven high-grade spirit stones during an adventure. I am looking to trade them with some Late Blood Condensation Realm medicinal pellets, or a Grade 2 spirit material, or an equivalent amount of spirit stones."

As soon as Participant 43 displayed the seven high-grade spirit stones, Lu Ping became restless.

Although a high-grade spirit stone was equivalent to a hundred mid-grade spirit stones in terms of the spiritual energy they contained, high-grade spirit stones actually had many additional uses such as in alchemy, weapon forging, charm crafting and array formations.

Hence, the actual value of each high-grade spirit stone was much higher than 100 mid-grade spirit stones.

Over the years, Lu Ping had owned several pieces of high-grade spirit stones, but he had used most of them for his alchemy. As a result, he was in urgent need of more high-grade spirit stones.

For example, one time when Lu Ping was concocting the Heart Condensation Pellets, he lacked a thousand-year spirit herb, so he replaced the missing spirit herb with a high-grade spirit stone and then successfully concocted the pellets.

The missing thousand-year spirit herb was only worth 2,000 spirit stones, while a high-grade spirit stone was worth at least 10,000 spirit stones. So, whilst it wasn’t very cost efficient, it showed that high-grade spirit stones were capable of so much more than just a medium to store spiritual energy.

Lu Ping quickly quoted 10,000 spirit stones for each high-grade spirit stone.

However, Lu Ping immediately saw that message charms were flying to Participant 43 like snowflakes. He was dumbfounded for a moment, realizing that he had underestimated the attraction of high-grade spirit stones to cultivators.

Lu Ping hurriedly searched his interspatial ring again and suddenly saw the Crystal Whip. This was the top-grade mystic treasure used by the Ocean Overturning Gang's Tranquil Sea Division Master in the Heaven of Seven Stars.

Although the Crystal Whip's element suited Lu Ping's cultivation base, he had not used it before as he was accustomed to using swords.

Furthermore, the Crystal Whip was too eye-catching to take out and use.

Hence, Lu Ping sent out another message charm, and said, "Offering a top-grade mystic instrument, Crystal Whip, for five high-grade spirit stones."

Similarly, Participant 43 didn't expect that his high-grade spirit stones would be so sought-after by the participants of the trade fair. Even Enlightened Master Bi, who was sitting on the side, opened his eyes and looked at the spirit stones.

Enlightened Master Bi lowered his head and pondered for a moment, before eventually closing his eyes and returning to his half-asleep state.

The participants noticed Enlightened Master Bi's gaze and their hearts thumped anxiously, as they were worried that Enlightened Master Bi would also make an offer.

An Enlightened Master's wealth would definitely be greater than theirs, not to mention that no one would dare compete against his offer and risk offending an Enlightened Master.

Participant 43 quickly replied to some of the messages.

Lu Ping also received a reply. Participant 43 was also a greedy one. He asked Lu Ping to add another 100,000 spirit stones on top of his original offer.

Lu Ping secretly cursed inside his heart. These cultivators really took advantage and raised the prices unreasonably. So, Lu Ping initially wanted to reject him, but he couldn't really let go of the high-grade spirit stones.

One must know that high-grade spirit stones were usually only used by Enlightened Masters and Great Ancestors. Even Enlightened Masters wouldn't have too many high-grade spirit stones, which was why Enlightened Master Bi was also interested in them just now.

After some bargaining, Lu Ping finally closed the deal, trading the Crystal Whip for four high-grade spirit stones. The other three high-grade spirit stones were traded away to Participant 72.

Even though Lu Ping had secured four high-grade spirit stones, he was still a little reluctant to let go of the other three. So, he looked in the direction of Participant 72, and coincidentally saw Participant 72 also looking in his direction.

Lu Ping had noticed Participant 72 before this as well. After all, Participant 72 also bought spirit herbs several times before, with some of them being rare herbs, not normally used by cultivators.

Hence, Lu Ping was almost certain that Participant 72 was also an alchemist.

Enlightened Master Bi, who was resting, suddenly opened his eyes and glanced with suspicion at Participant 72, before shifting his gaze to Lu Ping. Then, he lowered his head and pondered, as if he had discovered something wrong, but wasn’t too sure about his findings.

At the same time, Lu Ping was in a state of shock and anger. When he looked at Participant 72, Lu Ping's divine sense suddenly picked up an indiscernible wave of spiritual energy on his body.

When Lu Ping tried to track the spiritual energy, it suddenly disappeared.

Lu Ping, who was a seasoned warrior, immediately knew that something was wrong. He didn't dare to be careless, carefully inspecting his entire body with his divine sense. However, he found nothing odd about him.

Despite this, he still trusted his feelings, and so he didn’t let his guard down yet.

He had also noticed Enlightened Master Bi looking at him. Enlightened Master Bi had obviously sensed something, but also couldn't figure out what it was.

What was this indiscernible spiritual energy? How could it avoid Enlightened Master Bi's detection?

Perhaps only an Enlightened Master's divine revelation could avoid the detection of another Enlightened Master's divine revelation!

The more Lu Ping thought about it, the gloomier his face became.

He was targeted by a Core Forging Realm Enlightened Master!

Lu Ping was shocked and shuddered slightly. He, who had personally fought against Enlightened Masters before, knew exactly how powerful they really were.

So, Lu Ping shrank all of his divine sense, stacking it layer upon layer on himself, forming a thick wall of divine sense of high density. Then, he began to systematically check his entire body layer by layer.

Lu Ping didn't hide his turbulent divine sense, as he wasn’t able to hide it completely even if he wanted to. However, the cloak's cover still hid his identity from the others.

The detection range of Lu Ping's divine sense was technically no weaker than ordinary Enlightened Masters who had not deliberately improved their divine revelation.

But because divine revelation had transcended divine sense, it was naturally much more abstruse and powerful.

So, Lu Ping's divine sense was still not comparable to a divine revelation.

But, when he stacked all of his divine sense on himself, the high-density divine sense led to a quantitative change that temporarily enhanced his divine sense, putting it on par with a divine revelation.

Found it!

On the hem of his cloak, Lu Ping finally found the indiscernible spiritual energy that he had picked up just now.

Lu Ping didn’t feel the slightest joy; on the contrary, he felt a cold chill.

His initial guess was right. This was the work of a Core Forging Realm Enlightened Master. The spiritual energy was a tracking spell and was cast with divine revelation.

Naturally, Lu Ping wouldn't leave the tracking spell on him, and so he immediately used his divine sense to break the spell.

At this point, he no longer cared about exposing the strength of his divine sense anymore.

Lu Ping's divine sense was like a whirlpool, attracting all the spiritual energy in the area towards him. As the surrounding cultivators were amazed by his powerful divine sense, they also wondered what Lu Ping was doing.