"This ring has not yet been bound to a master, so I can only unleash a limited number of its powers. However, all you fellow Daoists here are people who know quality when you see it — true or false, nothing can fool you. I intend to trade this ring for a bottle of pills that can enhance a Nascent Soul cultivator's cultivation. If anyone has such pills, just let me take a look."
The woman shrank the Binding Immortal Ring back down to the size of a palm and held it in her open hand, speaking at an unhurried pace.
Although every cultivator present already possessed their own life-bound treasures, it was not impossible to acquire additional artifacts with other capabilities. Moreover, an unbound treasure like this could be purchased and given to a sect member or disciple.
A treasure personally refined by a Nascent Soul cultivator was naturally far superior to one forged by an ordinary Core Formation cultivator.
Most cultivators were not skilled in artifact refining, and this held true even at the Nascent Soul stage. So the moment this treasure appeared, quite a few interested parties stepped forward to offer trades.
The woman selected pills from one person's offer and completed the exchange smoothly.
It seemed that while the Binding Immortal Ring was far less valuable than the Scarlet Essence Fungus, it was actually the easier item to trade.
The next cultivator rose without waiting for True Person Tianjing to call upon him.
"What I've brought this time is a box of Star Steel Sand. I intend to trade it for..."
The exchange meeting proceeded without a hitch. One after another, the items produced by each Nascent Soul cultivator were rare and precious beyond measure — far surpassing anything Han Li had ever seen in the marketplace. Any single one of these items would drive an ordinary Core Formation cultivator to ruin, and even then he might not be able to afford it.
At their level, it was truly only among cultivators of the same rank that one could find items worth trading for.
Of course, not every exchange was a success. A few participants had items that were too obscure, or had offered something decent but were seeking something exceedingly rare, and thus failed to complete their trades.
However, these old Nascent Soul monsters were all shrewd beyond measure — a lopsided trade where one party tried to take advantage of the other was essentially impossible.
Fire Dragon Boy and Lü Luo were both placed in line ahead of Han Li, and they presented their exchange items as well.
Fire Dragon Boy produced a bowl-sized three-colored exotic flower, a material used in pill refinement. While it couldn't compare to the Scarlet Essence Fungus from earlier, it was still a rare find. Unfortunately, he wanted to trade for a material called "Poison Talisman Wood," and no one present had any. Fire Dragon Boy could only sit back down in disappointment.
Lü Luo's exchange went smoothly. Using a bottle of spiritual grass juice that Han Li had never heard of, he obtained a small fire-red unbound sword — it was unclear who he intended it for, since at his age he likely wouldn't spend the time to cultivate and nurture it himself.
As soon as Lü Luo finished, it was Han Li's turn.
Because Han Li had recently succeeded in acquiring the Scarlet Essence Fungus from the brocade-robed cultivator, quite a few people cast curious glances his way.
Han Li stood up with his expression unchanged, two pale white jade boxes already in hand.
"I have one sixth-grade water-attribute beast core and one sixth-grade fire-attribute beast core, along with two stalks of Thousand Spirit Grass. I seek only a piece of Geng Metal Essence. If no one has Geng Metal Essence on hand, information about where to find it will also suffice — in exchange for one item from these boxes."
The moment Han Li finished speaking, his hands flickered, and with a flash of cyan light, both jade boxes opened simultaneously.
Two beast cores — one crimson, one azure — and two stalks of spirit grass glistening with emerald green were revealed to the spiritual sense of every cultivator present.
"Geng Metal Essence?"
The words had barely left Han Li's mouth when the cultivators around him all wore peculiar expressions.
These beast cores and thousand-year spirit grass were certainly precious, but compared to Geng Metal Essence, they fell far short. If traded, they would probably only fetch a piece the size of a bean — and what could one do with that little? Yet if the offer was merely for information about Geng Metal Essence, then casually offering a sixth-grade beast core and thousand-year spirit grass seemed overly generous.
After all, everyone present knew that information was one thing, but actually obtaining it was something else entirely. Many natural treasures and ancient cultivator ruins were known to all, yet their locations were either forbidden grounds no mortal or immortal could reach, or death traps where survival was a one-in-a-million chance. No matter how powerful a cultivator's abilities, they could not retrieve such things.
The most famous example was Demon Fall Valley, located in the heart of the Tian Nan Continent.
It was a legendary ancient battlefield. Legend had it that during the primordial era, numerous ancient cultivators of great power and demonic arts set up extraordinary formations and restrictions within it, battling each other for unknown reasons. In the end, their powers were so devastating that they tore open spatial rifts throughout the valley, rendering the entire space unstable.
The ancient cultivators who fought there ultimately perished together within the valley.