What Lin Yuelong was unaware of was that Xue Wei was also uncomfortable.
"What is wrong?" Hei Gou asked with a low voice. Xue Wei looked at him before he sighed.
"Mind Infestation is not going to be useful to me for much longer," he explained. "We haven’t even made it to the center of the continent, yet even people out here have some sort of skill to block against spiritual attacks."
"This skill is not currently able to withstand my Mind Infestation, but for how long can I reign supreme just relying on my strong soul?" Xue Wei was genuinely worried about this.
"You might not be able to rely on it as much as you do now," Hei Gou agreed, "but you should still be able to take some experts by surprise."
"There is something that puzzles me more," he continued. Xue Wei looked at his friend with a frown. What could puzzle him?
"To us, it is nothing to kill other humans, but amongst the human race, isn't there a law that states that you are not allowed to kill other humans, that all humans have to band together against the Primordial Beasts?"
"I did not think about it at the start because we have truly killed quite a few humans already, but amongst the many experts here, who has killed another human before?"
"Why does that Wan Qiang individual want to make the humans here kill each other? What is his aim? I cannot help but wonder what exactly is behind the sudden change in the opinions of the upper echelons of humanity. Not to mention why it has to be the geniuses below a certain age."
Xue Wei was thoughtful for some time. "You are right."
Compared to his problem, this was something even more troublesome. They were currently locked inside the Black Iron Fortress, a fort that was covered by very tall walls on all sides, and the only way out was the front gate.
The participants were fighting each other, and they had been permitted to kill another human being for the first time in their lives.
Thinking about this, it made sense that not many had died during the first day of battles. Even if they had the strength to kill others, did they have the mentality to do it?
These experts were all their comrades in the war against the Primordial Beasts, and letting the younger generation freely kill each other off would without a doubt injure the empire in the future. If just a quarter of these experts died, the Skyward Empire would have lost a quarter of their potentially future Primordial Beast Hunters.
"The only ones who will benefit from this are the Primordial Beasts," Xue Wei said after some time. "But if the primordial beasts seek to reduce the Skyward Empire’s military power, do they not have other methods to do so?"
Hei Gou shrugged his shoulders. "I do not know," he said honestly, "but this is a lot more dangerous than what we had originally expected. I hope that we will be able to raise our strength in time, at least enough to flee this place should things take a turn for the worse!"
"Let us rush back to the inn and look at our spoils," Xue Wei finally said, sighing. "The items from the Crimson Sunshine Sect are likely to be our biggest gain this time.We should be able to boost our strength quite a bit with those."
Xue Wei was tempted to claim the ring as his own on the middle of the street, but he did not know what exactly would happen if he did. Was there some sort of shockwave that would be released when he connected with the ring? Would there be thunder or maybe even lightning from the skies above?
Xue Wei had no clue, so they rushed back to the inn and sat down on the ground. "Guard the door," Xue Wei requested of Hei Gou, who instantly nodded his head and went to the door. His eyes glistened darkly as he watched the door.
Xue Wei looked at the ring in his palm, took a deep breath, placed the tip of a finger at his lips and bit a small hole into it to draw blood that he dropped onto the ring.
The moment the first drop of blood touched the ring, it was absorbed. The second drop landed on top of the ring and started sliding down before it fell to the floor.
Xue Wei looked at the ring. Nothing had changed, except for the fact that the first drop had been absorbed. The ring looked the same; there had been no unusual phenomenon, nothing had happened, not even a shockwave of spiritual energy or Qi.
It felt a bit anticlimactic to Xue Wei, but he could now feel a connection between himself and the ring that had not been there before.
He looked at the ring in his hand and instantly knew what was inside of it. It was a small storage ring that could at most carry two cubic meters of stuff, but within these two cubic meters was a large trunk filled with silver, copper, and gold coins. Seeing all that wealth, Xue Wei snickered and finally felt as if his efforts had not been in vain.
The second item he found was a small box. This box had the shape of a rectangle; it was ten centimeters wide and tall, and twenty centimeters long. It was made from wood jade, carved with intricate symbols of flowers and petals.
Xue Wei pulled out the box from inside the ring and sat with it in his hands. He slowly opened the box and found that the heaven and earth essence around him was starting to twist and churn as if it was being roused by whatever was within the box.
When it was fully opened, he found thirty-nine small crystals inside. These crystals were all white in color and seemed to have white mist within them.
Xue Wei was a little confused when he saw these crystals, but their effect was unmistakable when he sensed how agitated his own energy was.
"Could these be essence stones?" Xue Wei muttered to himself. Hei Gou looked over curiously.
"They are definitely essence stones!" Hei Gou suppressed the urge to yell that out and spoke in a hushed way.
"We had mines in the Northern Taiga where we could gather a few low-grade essence stones. They looked exactly like those!"
"Oh?" Xue Wei was surprised. He had read about essence stones in his books back in the Kingdom of Heping, but they had mentioned that the essence stones needed an abundance of heaven and earth essence to naturally occur, and that the outskirt kingdoms simply had too little energy to make them.
"We had formations," Hei Gou said with a sigh. "One of the reasons that humans have overtaken the Primordial Beasts is their ability to refine weapons, create formations and inscriptions, and also refine pills."
"Primordial Beasts are not able to make these things on their own, so they used to make human slaves do it for them."
"Amongst the humans that have been caught over the years, some of them were formation masters, who had been forced to create an Essence Gathering Formation a few millenia back."
"After a millennium passed, the first mine appeared, and slowly we created more and more mines. Unfortunately, the mines were almost exhausted by the time I was born, and because of that I have only seen one essence stone before."
"So we have essence stones," Xue Wei was slightly perplexed. In the center of the continent this would be considered a small amount of money, but here in the Skyward Empire, it was a sizeable amount of wealth.
"He was quite rich," Hei Gou agreed. "Should we use the stones for cultivating, or should we save them for when we reach the center of the continent? I am sure that everyone trades valuables in essence stones at the center kingdoms and empires."
Xue Wei pondered for a brief moment before he shook his head. "Right now, we are caught in a somewhat dangerous situation. We cannot afford to hold on to them. We have to use them and enhance our strength."
Hei Gou was hesitant, but after a moment he nodded his head. "Although it might be a waste to use these thirty-nine essence stones for cultivation, every little bit counts right now."
"We have three days. Let us check the rest of the items in the ring," Xue Wei said casually and placed the wood jade box on the table before he once more reached into the storage ring.
There were multiple jade boxes and vials which contained herbs and liquids.
There were roots, petals, flower stems, bark, full flowers, and even leaves from trees.
Spirit fruit could be found among the pile of herbs, and the liquids beside those were clearly treasured liquids, but looking at the many plants, herbs, and liquids, Xue Wei felt his head hurt. He could not identify even half of them!
"Let us go to the Golden Chambers," Xue Wei sighed. The Golden Chambers was a widespread organization throughout the continent, after all, and they even had a branch in the Black Iron Fortress.
The Golden Chambers cared for nothing else than profit, so when Xue Wei and Hei Gou appeared, a lady was ready to show them towards a room where a salesperson would greet them.
The room was spacious, and there were floor cushions for sitting down in the middle. Xue Wei went straight to there and sat down, gesturing for Hei Gou to follow him.
While waiting, he examined the art pieces that were displayed in the room. There were paintings, jade carvings, and sculptures.
It did not take long before a young woman made her way into the room. "Welcome," she said with a smile, "I am the person who will assist you. I was told that you are here to buy something, can I ask what you are looking for?"
Xue Wei nodded his head in greeting. "We are looking for a compendium that explains the herbs from here to the center of the continent. I would also like a complete compendium of spirit fruits and pills."
The woman considered the request for a moment. "A complete compendium does not exist, as new herbs and spirit plants are constantly being discovered, and the life of an alchemist is one of learning so the list of pills is ever-growing."
"However, we are not the Golden Chambers for nothing." The woman smiled at Hei Gou even though Xue Wei was the one speaking, and her attitude showed that she would prefer talking with Hei Gou, something that made both of the two friends somewhat perplexed. Was this not slightly awkward?
"We have the closest to a complete compendium you can get, and they only cost ten gold a piece. They are considered simple items that every main family and sect are already in possession of."
Xue Wei nodded his head. "We will take one of each," he said and withdrew thirty gold from the storage ring.
"We are also looking to purchase some new clothes," Xue Wei continued. "Would you like Fierce Beast or Primordial Beast clothes?" the woman asked, but this time she was looking at Xue Wei since he had been the one to pull out the gold.
"We would like Primordial Beast silk robes and Primordial Beast leather armor," Xue Wei decided after a bit of time.
He had considered what Hei Gou might feel from wearing another primordial beast's hide and silk, but after considering it, he knew that the Primordial Beasts did not have the same kind of kinship amongst one another as humans had.
And he was correct, Hei Gou showed no reaction at all when he heard what Xue Wei had decided upon.
"Please wait here," the woman said with a smile as she excused herself. She went to pick up the compendiums per request, and summoned a tailor to their room while she procured the products.