It was rumored that extreme experts, who dominated their races, could move mountains and defeat millions of soldiers with a single strike like gods. Even lower level martial artists could become terrifyingly powerful by practicing magic skills.
However, Ding Hao was of a low social status and not very bright, so he knew very little about cultivation. He only vagely remembered that martial artists were ranked from the lowest Apprentice Realm to Artist Realm, then Master, Grandmaster, and Genius Grandmaster. He could not remember what came after that.
Generally speaking, the first step of cultivation was exercising one’s physical strength to the extreme.
Then, one could cultivate Qi manipulating magic skills by stimulating a “Magic Qi Seed” inside their dantian. An amorphous magic Qi would arise in the body and enter into the meridians.
Unfortunately, Ding Hao had no instructions on how to stimulate his Magic Qi Seed.
This was currently his greatest obstacle.
Luckily, he had found a solution.
A day’s time flashed by.
When Ding Hao waved his sword next to the Sword-cleansing Pond for the 10,001st time, the sun was already setting.
He acted like nothing had happened and headed back to the Swordsmanship-seeking Sect. Of course, that beautiful mountain before him did not belong to him yet.
After arriving in the slums, instead of heading home, he covered his face with a ragged cape and walked towards an area deep inside the slums.
The crowd around him gradually thinned.
He was surrounded by strange rocks and eerie silence.
The occasional passer-bys were always also covering their face and walking in haste.
At this moment, the sun finally set, and his surrounding became pitch black.
Ding Hao followed the winding road past a few tall peaks and arrived on an empty grassy plain.
The plain was surrounded by creepy peaks and cliffs covered with torches, which brought a hint of light to this place. A lot of people had stalls set up here, and others were picking out goods. The sound of bartering swelled throughout.
This place was actually a market.
It was a black market in the slums.
It had everyone one could need, including weapons, herbs, and books on magic skills.
Of course, they were mostly lower level goods or counterfeits, so it took a keen eye to pick out something valuable from a pile of trash.
Those without this ability should not come here, because the only laws here were settled by violence.
If someone was too weak to defend themselves against robbery, they could not count on anyone to help them.
This black market was not very big.
It included mostly weaker thugs, since actually powerful martial artists did not want to come here.
Ding Hao found an empty spot and laid out a clean piece of cloth on the ground. Then, a placed a third-stage medicinal herb, Dragon Heart Seedling, on the cloth for sale.
This level of medicinal herb was very rare in this market, and its faint red flow instantly attracted some attention.
“Oh? Someone is actually selling a Dragon Heart Seedling? This kind of third-stage herb is great for fortifying one’s physical strength. I haven’t seen this kind of good on sale in the market for a long time. He must be stupid to sell it!”
“Hehe, it’s only one. He probably accidentally found it somewhere and wants to make a fortune!”
“Maybe he’s just some lucky weakling. Isn’t he worried he’ll be robbed here?”
Everyone spoke loudly with no intention of subtlety, all staring greedily at the shining Dragon Heart Seedling with an urge to test out Ding Hao’s strength.
Soon, someone asked, “You there, how much is that?”
A muscular man who was over 2 meters tall walked up to Ding Hao. His long and scraggly hair framed a menacing face, and his eyes shone with evil intent. The fact that he did not hide his appearance showed he was confident about his strength.
“1000 taels of silver,” replied Ding Hao quietly.
“1000 taels? For a weed? I’ll give you 30 taels to be generous…” the man said, tossing down less than 5 taels of silver and grabbing towards the Dragon Heart Seedling.
“Whoosh!”
A burst of red light erupted in Ding Hao’s hands.
The man’s expression froze instantly, as if he had been struck by lightning, His hand hovered a centimeter away from the herb, but he dared not move it further.
Beads of cold sweat rolled down his forehead.
Soon, a gust of cold wind blew past.
The scraggly hair on the man’s head fell down to reveal a bald scalp.
Everyone watching could not help but gasp.
Anyone perceptive could tell that the man’s hair had been sliced off by Ding Hao in the blink of an eye, without hurting an inch of his skin. This swordsmanship was indeed terrifying.
They were all stunned by Ding Hao’s mastery.
The initially greedy gazes also disappeared in an instant.
While a Dragon Heart Seedling was valuable, it was not worth challenging this mysterious swordsman.
“Take your silver and leave!” Ding Hao said coldly, his sword resting on his knees.
“Yes, ye…yes sir, please forgive me. I crossed a line…” stammered the man as he grabbed his silver and scurried away.
The surrounding crowd was used to seeing this and continued haggling.
Dragon Heart Seedling was very valuable and the best option for many low-level martial artists, so countless buyers stopped by this stall. Ding Hao remained firm on his reasonable price, and he easily sold it in under an hour.
This money, combined with the silver and gold leaves he took from Zhao Xingcheng and Song Jiannan, added up to over 1600 taels of
silver.
This would have been a fortune to him before, but now…
Ding Hao closed up shop and strolled around the other stalls. He soon realized that this amount of money was nothing.
A couple minutes later, he stopped in front of a stall selling low-level magic skills books, as a book called “Qi Manipulating Skill” drew his attention.