Heavenjade's eyes widened abruptly. Three million! That's outright robbery!

She knew that top-grade enchanted treasures were extremely valuable and expensive. Luo Chen had once mentioned that ordinary low-grade enchanted treasures usually cost under a hundred thousand spirit stones, and any Adept who was not utterly broke could afford one or two. What limited the number of treasures they could use was not wealth, but strength. Those with insufficient mana could only handle one or two, and the same was true for those with weaker divine consciousness. Only those strong in both aspects could properly wield two or three at once.

Luo Chen himself only used three or four treasures regularly.

Once enchanted treasures reached the middle grade, their price would surge drastically. From there, it could range from hundreds of thousands to millions. As for top-grade enchanted treasures, they were something rarely encountered and almost never sold. Whoever owned one would nurture it with all they had.

Such enchanted treasures were no longer mere weapons. They could be bound to one's cultivation, and after death, they could be passed down as a sect or family heirloom. Even powerful major sects often had only one or two as their foundational treasures. By that measure, three million spirit stones might not be unreasonable. But even so...

Heavenjade shook her head firmly. "Forget it. I can't afford it."

Fu Chaosheng smiled. "There's always room to negotiate. If you really want it, we can talk it out."

There was a clear note of temptation in his voice. Heavenjade hesitated, then still shook her head. "It's getting late. I should go. Manager Fu, we'll meet again if fate allows."

Fu Chaosheng maintained his warm smile. "I enjoyed our conversation today. Looks like we might have a fated connection. I'm sure we'll meet again."

He personally escorted Heavenjade downstairs and saw her out of Heaven Origin Tower. After leaving, she felt a little dejected. A treasure that suited her perfectly had been right in front of her, yet she could not obtain it. In the end, it came down to a lack of funds. She wondered if her master might give her some pocket money in the future as she helped out with tasks.

The thought eased her mood. She had earned ten million spirit stones for him, and that was no small contribution. Especially with the top-grade spirit stones—including those she'd earned from previous transactions, she had four hundred in total! She would surely be praised after returning. Perhaps, once her master came out of seclusion, he would give her the technique he had created.

She had been stuck at the early stage of the third tier for hundreds of years. If she could practice that technique, she might break through to the middle stage and take a step closer to a true transformation!

While she was full of anticipation, she did not know she was being watched. On a remote mountain path, five people sat together and stared at a Water Mirror before them. Hidden beneath a formation, not a trace of their Golden Core aura leaked out.

One of them looked down at the mirror and said, "She's got some skill. In such a short time, she sold off the crab pieces in batches and made a huge profit, while we took a loss."

Another agreed, "Exactly. If our family hadn't tried to sell that batch of materials to the Tempered Edge Workshop and gotten turned down, we wouldn't have realized she had so much of the same materials stockpiled."

If it had been only a single batch of demonic crab pieces, no one would have cared. They could always turn a profit. But in just over half a month, Heavenjade had flooded the market with materials from more than a thousand demonic crab corpses and created a situation of oversupply.

Coldlight Island was large, but it could not absorb so much at once. Not only would the price of raw materials drop, but the enchanted artifacts and treasures crafted from those materials would also end up decreasing. As a result, the final product prices would not be high either. Prices fell further under pressure. Fortunately, the shops in Jadecold City that bought these materials belonged to familiar forces. Even though some of them had grudges with each other, they would always align when profit was at stake. Thus, three forces gathered and assembled five Adepts to recover their losses. As for how to recover them, it was simple.

"Later, once she steps into the range of the formation, the five of us will strike at once and take her down before she can react. After that, the spirit stones will be split evenly among our three families. Whatever else she has, the Qian family gets first pick. Any objections?"

There were two Adepts from the Qian family, so the remaining three could only nod. This split was reasonable. They then began discussing the details of their attack. Five Adepts acting together would inevitably cause a large disturbance, but the formation would conceal it, and other cultivators would not react in time. The most important point was to ensure that Heavenjade did not destroy her storage pouch in a final desperate struggle.

As for this, the Qian family had already prepared a solution. They had prepared a treasure that could briefly sever the mental link between a cultivator and their items. It would last only an instant, but that was enough for the five of them to strike and kill Heavenjade.

"She is in! Get ready!"

Just as they were about to act, a strange pressure descended and covered the formation. Where the five sat, it felt as if they had been cut off from heaven and earth and cast into a separate space. They could not sense the spirit energy of the outside world, and even worse... they could not even sense the mana inside their own bodies!

Utterly shaken, they could only watch through the Water Mirror as the woman drifted away.

After she left, the pressure vanished and a cold snort echoed into their ears. "This isn't how business is done. Get lost!"

The five looked at each other, and their eyes filled with shock.

After a long moment, a Qian family cultivator spoke in a trembling voice, "That sounded like... Elder Fu?"

Fu Chaosheng was the head of the Heaven Origin Trade Alliance in the Northern Sea and one of its four great elders. He was a Sage. Wherever he went, others showed him respect, and even late-stage Sages treated him with courtesy. The reason was simple: he represented the Heaven Origin Dao Sect!

They did not know why he protected Heavenjade, but the plan could not proceed. If anything, they would have to prepare gifts and ask for forgiveness. Without further hesitation, the five packed up and retreated in disgrace.

***

On the ground, the chubby man looked at the streak of light in the sky and muttered to himself.

"With only her own strength, there's no way she could've gathered that many Crab King corpses. She's definitely backed by someone. And when she saw a treasure that suited her perfectly, she still didn't dare spend the spirit stones she'd just gotten. In other words, she's just running errands and has no say over what those spirit stones are for. To have a transformed demon running errands for them... whoever is behind this is either very strong or comes from a powerful background, maybe both. At a time like this, with everything in flux and our sect's plans at stake, we can't afford any variables. I'd like to see which fellow Daoists have slipped into Jadecold without showing themselves...."

Fu Chaosheng murmured to himself as he followed behind the streak of green light. His steps seemed slow, yet he kept pace from afar. Before long, he stopped outside a valley. Mist shrouded it, and its defenses were tight.

He frowned.

"A third-tier formation... and there's a Nascent Soul aura coming off it. Just as I thought, it's a Sage. But this aura's unfamiliar. I wonder who it is.... In any case, I should go meet them and get a sense of what they're up to."

He stepped forward to enter the valley, but the moment he lifted his foot, his expression changed. Within the valley, the winds and clouds suddenly shifted. A powerful aura shot into the sky that caused dark clouds to gather. Vast amounts of spirit energy rose from the earth veins.

Not only that, spirit energy from all directions began converging toward the valley. A faint silver light flickered in the sky.

Fu Chaosheng recognized the scene at once and blurted out, "Nascent Soul formation!"