Chapter 149
This time, she had been certain there was no mistake.
She had spent four full days digging through that dao friend’s history.
The tone was consistent in every post, and even their record of minor trades was spotless.
Yet when Baek-cheong inspected the jade slip she had bought on that trust, her expression froze all over again.
“…This is supposed to be a secret art sword art?”
The so-called sword art engraved in the jade slip was nothing more than a crude scribble of 1st-grade swordplay.
For something that had cost three high-Grade spirit Stones, it was so absurd that she was left speechless.
She hurriedly fired off a complaint in the replies, but not a single response came back.
The fake-Sword-Art dao friend had vanished the moment they pocketed the spirit stones.
The scheme had been as slick as a snake, posted with every intention of taking the money and running.
“I still have plenty of chances.”
Even after getting burned so badly by the dao Friends, Baek-cheong could not let go of her lingering attachment.
She could not simply back down just because she had been hooked once.
With all her experience as a community veteran, her pride would not allow her to remain a sucker.
So she ground her teeth and rummaged through the marketplace again.
Whenever she marked an item, she first spent three or four days digging through that dao friend’s history from top to bottom.
Only then would she choose listings that looked sound and press purchase.
[Payment completed. 30 mid-Grade spirit Stones have been deducted.]
But the results were always the same.
The stone fragment whose aura was supposedly extraordinary was just a pebble from the roadside.
The spiritual medicine she bought was a bundle of shriveled weeds.
“No, how does this make any sense?”
These were listings she had spent four days apiece investigating in painstaking detail.
Yet even after their histories had been combed through so thoroughly, every single one had been a scam.
In other words, she had fallen again and again for the trick of using a clean track record as bait.
“Were the old fogeys of the Nameless Forum always this vicious?”
As innocent spirit stones streamed away, sheer stubbornness surged all the way to the top of her head.
She was sick to death of listings that only looked impressive on the outside.
Since it had come to this, she intended to scour the marketplace all the way down to the bottom.
'Let’s see who wins.’
Baek-cheong set her mind to it and began flipping back through the marketplace posts one page at a time.
Each page she turned occupied one chi of Divine Sense in the Nameless Forum.
Ordinarily, it was such a minor burden she would not even notice it.
Since she possessed Divine Sense on par with that of a core formation cultivator, she had assumed she could flip through the entire marketplace without batting an eye.
But even after one hundred pages, then two hundred, there was no end in sight.
Since she was already at it, she kept greedily turning pages until her Divine Sense reached its limit.
At last, when she passed 310 pages, an odd sensation settled over Baek-cheong.
“Huh?”
All thirty-one zhang of her Divine Sense had been occupied down to the last bit by the Nameless Forum.
Those 310 pages of marketplace posts had eaten her Divine Sense whole.
It was the first time since she had stepped onto the path of immortal cultivation that her entire Divine Sense had been taken up, so the feeling was strange.
'Something’s strange here.’
Baek-cheong sank into that odd sensation and contemplated her inner self.
Then she realized something odd and tilted her head.
Even though her Divine Sense had all been occupied, her head did not hurt.
When she fully extended her Divine Sense past thirty zhang, one corner of her head would throb.
Yet now, even after she reached 310 pages and used every bit of her Divine Sense, not the faintest hint of pressure appeared.
‘I’m definitely using up my Divine Sense the same way.’
The same situation of using her Divine Sense at full power produced a different result, so she could not make heads or tails of it.
She fretted over the reason for a while, but no answer came to her.
'Well, if it doesn’t hurt, that’s good enough.’
She was curious, but she had no desire to drag out a headache-inducing line of thought.
Still, the sensation of having her Divine Sense occupied felt unpleasant.
With no Divine Sense to spare, she found her vision blurring and her mind growing dull.
A chill ran down her spine; it was almost as if she had become a mortal.
'Even so, I’ll pass on pretending to be a mortal.’
Baek-cheong shuddered and backed up a few pages.
As the Divine Sense that had been held by the Nameless Forum returned, her blurred vision grew clear again.
Then she browsed the marketplace at a leisurely pace, staying within a range where the occupation did not burden her.
“Hmmm.”
As she looked through it, she noticed that the marketplace board had some peculiarities.
Posts did not pour in like a storm the way they did on the Chat Board.
Nor did it update only a handful of times a day like the information board.
New listings came up steadily, but the refresh rate was slow enough that some very old posts still caught her eye.
“Dao friend(330.7): Selling a ten-thousand-year spirit ginseng I dug up by chance. 2 high-Grade spirit Stones.”
[It came out while I was digging, and the energy is something else. Only for those with discerning eyes.]
“Dao friend(672.18): Selling a jade box containing an ancestral secret art. 10,000 high-Grade spirit Stones.”
[I haven’t opened it, but there ought to be something incredible inside. Taking offers.]
Once she went back to older posts, dao Friends she normally did not see on the Nameless Forum began popping up.
But the stench coming off them was all the same, so their intent to scam someone was plain to see.
'They’re all in on it here too.’
Baek-cheong clicked her tongue and continued looking through the old posts.
Along the way, she often saw posts for items that had already sold long ago.
The thing was that the marketplace’s sold listings had a certain pattern.
“Dao friend(6.2): One cartload of cold iron ore. [Sold]”
[For sale.]
“Dao friend(9.14): Five three-hundred-year-old Territories. [Sold]”
[First come, first served.]
“Dao friend(55.19): Fire element spiritwood assortment. [Sold]”
[Things left over after I used what I needed.]
The items that had sold belonged either to dao Friends with single-digit interface Numbers or to dao Friends with solid reputations in the Nameless Forum.
Above all, the identities of the dao Friends with single-digit interface Numbers were anything but ordinary.
They felt too different from two-digit dao Friends to be dismissed simply as being from older Lower Realms.
All she could do was guess that they came from Lower Realms with unique origins.
“Well, there is a certain vibe that comes with time served.”
Among them, the posts by dao Friends with single-digit interface Numbers differed in attitude from the start.
They never rambled on with elaborate circumstances to inflate the price.
As if passing goods to an old trading partner, they simply tossed the item out with no unnecessary embellishment.
It was the complete opposite of bait listings, where the more desperate their creators were to hook someone, the more the listings were plastered with flowery praise.
“By this point, I can see the pattern.”
Baek-cheong continued moving backward through the marketplace like that, examining the old posts one by one.
In the middle of that, two familiar interface Numbers caught her eye.
“Dao friend(237.309) is selling: a Gradeless five elements cultivation method. 50 high-Grade spirit Stones.”
[A five elements cultivation method usable from artifact forging to soul transformation. There’s nothing better for a Five Elements Spirit Root Holder to develop the five elements attribute evenly.]
“Dao friend (553.24) is selling: Bundle of rare pill recipes. 10 high-Grade spirit Stones.”
[Clearing out assorted pill recipes I collected while pill refining. They’re too good to stay buried, so I’m only selling to buyers who know their worth.]
First, dao friend (237.309) was an unsettling one.
Baek-cheong had run into them on the Nameless Forum from time to time, since they were well-versed in Five Elements Spirit Roots.
The problem was that they had once confessed to using nearly a million Five Elements Spirit Root Holders as experimental subjects.
For a fellow Five Elements Spirit Root Holder, that history sent a chill down her spine.
“Buy a five elements cultivation method from a lunatic like that? Who knows what kind of trap would be hidden in it.”
A five elements cultivation method tempted her, but her hand would not easily move toward it.
Baek-cheong shook her head and passed over dao friend(237.309)’s listing.
Dao friend(553.24), on the other hand, was different.
They had deep attainments in pill refining and were one of the most notable dao Friends on the Nameless Forum.
Moreover, they were the very person who had once kindly annotated the nonsense Baek-cheong had spewed and refined it into a plausible Five Elements Pill Refining Method.
'If dao friend(553.24) put it up, it surely won’t be a dud, right?’
The words “bundle of rare pill recipes” quietly made her mouth water.
Of course, she had been burned more than once in the marketplace, so she could not trust it blindly.
But at only 10 high-Grade spirit Stones, it was worth buying even if she ended up being fooled.
“Ah, whatever.”
Afraid someone else might snatch it away, she closed her eyes and purchased the item.
[Payment completed. 10 high-Grade spirit Stones have been deducted.]
[Dao friend(553.24)’s item has been transmitted to your Storage Platform.]
She immediately took the jade slip out of her Storage Platform and flowed her Divine Sense into it.
As Baek-cheong gradually read through the pill recipes engraved inside, her eyes widened.
It was packed with one pill recipe for each grade, from 1st to 5th.
'Oh, it’s real?’
After being plagued by scam listings, she was left bewildered when she encountered a proper item.
And thanks to Yak-seon’s teachings, she was fairly well-versed in 1st- and 2nd-Grade Pill recipes.
She could recite the most common pill recipes with her eyes closed.
Yet inside the jade slip were 1st- and 2nd-Grade Pill recipes even she had never seen before.
Given her own considerable grasp of pill refining, she could judge a recipe’s authenticity just by looking at it.
‘I’ve already made my money back on this.’
What drew her eye most was the 2nd-Grade Pill recipe.
“Longevity Pill (長壽丹).”
Her eyes shone as she examined the unfamiliar recipe.
Unlike recipes for ordinary Longevity Pills, this recipe used a different method to refine the pill.
On top of that, the ingredients were common medicinal herbs, so she could obtain them easily even in her own Lower Realm.
“They are somewhat expensive herbs, though.”
A Longevity Pill, true to its name, was a pill that increased a Cultivator’s lifespan.
But taking the same Longevity Pill twice did not increase one’s lifespan again.
The same held true even if one ate a pill refined from a very similar recipe.
That was because the body had already adapted to the once-extended lifespan.
That was why the more unusual a Longevity Pill recipe was, the higher its price was.
“A new Longevity Pill recipe… This is valuable.”
The one slight disappointment was that the Longevity Pill was only 2nd-grade.
The lifespan that could be added with a 2nd-Grade Pill was, at most, around ten years.
If she inscribed it, she might be able to increase that to twenty years.
Even then, it would be no help to a great Cultivator with plenty of lifespan to spare.
Unless someone’s lifespan was truly hanging by a thread, they would have no reason to drool over it.
As a result, the price would not soar endlessly.
'Well, for me, it’s more than enough.’
For her, it was still an exceedingly solid harvest.
She had acquired a worthwhile bundle of pill recipes for 10 high-Grade spirit Stones, so its value far exceeded what she had paid.
“Come to think of it…”
As Baek-cheong put away the jade slip, a sudden thought made her small chest leap.
Right now, at artifact forging, inscribing a 2nd-Grade Pill is too much for her.
But once she reached foundation establishment, the story would change.
At a sufficient realm, putting an inscription on a 2nd-grade Longevity Pill would be easy.
“Once I hit foundation establishment, I should try making an Inscribed Longevity Pill.”
An Inscribed Longevity Pill that extended life by twenty years would make a worthy gift.
Even if the materials were expensive, they were not impossible to obtain, so it was worth running around for them.
Grandfather and Grandfather Yak-seon came to mind.
The two of them would surely be pleased to receive a new Longevity Pill.
“Unlike with high-Grade spirit Stones, I can pretend this is a pill recipe I researched myself.”
Just thinking about it put Baek-cheong in a good mood, and she tucked the jade slip into her Storage Platform.
At the end of days spent sick with fraud, she had finally obtained a meaningful result.
Though there was nothing she could call a jackpot, few things were as satisfying as filling her Storage Platform with something worthwhile.
All that remained now was to reach foundation establishment.
Of course, to do that, she would first have to focus on that dreadful training.
'…I’ll think about that later.’
She did not want to ruin this rare good mood for no reason.