Chapter 6: the central region

Jadhiel's one-hundred-and-one soul physique evolved after his breakthrough into the Soul Awakening Realm.

Jahdiel has received from his previous enemy a recommendation to join the sect association, after proving his cultivation in the Soul Awakening realm, he would be allowed to create his own sect in the interior regions of this world, he would also be able to join one of the major sects.

Sect owners are divided into ranks from one to three. A rank one sect owner is one at Soul Awakening Realm. As Jahdiel had learned, a rank two is one at Soul Condensation Realm. A rank three is at the Triad Balancing realm. Above these realms are only cultivators directly connected with the major sects.

As he would be far away for a long while, he decided he would increase the defense around his home village and his parents' house. If some tragedy happens, he could use his system to easily reverse the situation, but he did not want innocent people like his parents to suffer for him to obtain gains.

First Jahdiel visited his origin village where he secretly started to implant a defense formation. With his newly founded wealth, from the gone Muo Be Sect, he build a formation to gather qi inside to power his defense formation, so the qi in his village became a bit denser.

The density of qi was still too weak to power a strong formation, so Jahdiel had to work with creativity. While studying inner body formations and his two special physiques, Jahdiel's understanding of his affinities increased a lot. With his understanding of the soul, he was able to think of a formation that detects people's bad intent with this he created a different type of defense.

His formation would pierce enemies detected with a qi string forcefully turning them into a node, later it would extract their qi until there was nothing left in it, and the qi would be stored to strengthen the formation. Simple but deadly.

He added this formation in his parents' house as well. He also added barriers and some other defense formations. He also gave them a communication formation to them so they could keep in touch with him. Jadhiel improved the communication formation before giving it to his parents.

It astonishes him how in this world any cultivator has ever bothered to encrypt their communication formations. The communication formation he gave to his parents and the other end that was with him worked with end-to-end encryption.

After all, this was over Jadhiel traveled to the central region of this world's sole continent. As he got closer, he could feel the qi gradually becoming denser. It was a d*mn long trip, which made Jadhiel conclude he lived in the middle of nowhere. Sadly for him, there was no bandit attack in the middle of the way. Maybe because this was the central region controlled by the major sects and the sect association, making bandits too scared to rob there.

His evaluation was simple and uneventful. He could now open a sect, he only needed to buy some 'land deed' for it. It was not actually a true land deed, as the sect association was not a real estate agency, you are only buying the rights to have a region as your zone of influence. He decided that it was not time yet to open a sect, so he would wait until one of the major sects opened up enrollment.

There were four major sects in the central region: the Heavenly Ore Sect, which was famed for its high-quality weapons and strong body cultivation arts, the Haoma Sect famous for its alchemy pills, the Firmament Sect famed for its formations, the Eight Treasures Sect famed for their beast tamers and big auction houses spread throw all the continent.

The Eight Treasure Sect territory consisted of an enormous city, called Treasure City, densely rich in qi. The city is divided into two the outer and inner city. The outer city is a part of the sect open to the outer public, it has roads that connected to the three other major sects and a major road that connects to the far ancestral mountains.

Some may wonder why in a world filled with teleportation formations people still do land trade with caravans. Large teleportation arrays were expensive and hard to maintain, besides taking a while to recharge. The time to recharge and array, do not charge no matter how dense an area is in ki.

Caravans with pegasus can transport more goods in less time than a teleportation array, making the overall rentability of land trade much wider than teleportation one, even if you consider caravan raids and so on... A lot of high herbs, pills, and formations suffer damage while using a teleportation formation.

Jadhiel traveled to the main auction house of the Eight Treasure Sect, which was located close to the entrance of the outer city. Far in the opposite direction, one may find the entrance to the inner city, which is where the actual Eight Treasure Sect stands. The auction house was a magnificent building as high as fifteen floors building, with a dome-like structure.

It was all built on a hard stone that seems to be constantly polished to keep the new appearance. To the left stands another enormous building, but this one seems to be made out of wood. It was the city's central bank. It is important to note that it was not a modern bank, just a bank that lends money to merchants and provides them with a basic deposit take-out system. They do not deal with open accounts for any of the other major sects' personnel to avoid problems.

To the right, stood a large casino. In between those buildings stores can be found. In the outer city center stands a giant plaza filled with beautiful fountains. In this region, one can find the most sophisticated herb market, with herbs that only grow in the Ancestral Mountains and even in the Empire.

Jadhiel was grateful that he did not need the invitation to participate in the auction happening at the moment. The auction was divided into three floors. On the first floor people, were forced to accompany the auction standing up. In the second, people were given a chair to sit on. People there were honorable clients of the auction house. On the third floor, stood the true VIPs, it was left to influential people in one of the four major sects, the ancestral clans, and high-level empire nobles.

The presenter had a formation around his podium, which increases his voice sound. Several items that Jahdiel had never heard about were presented like the herbs: Yang Haoma and Ancestral Water Verbena; the weapons: Donar's Oak bow, equipped with an accuracy formation, and Adamant's sword equipped with a sharpening formation; of creatures there was a baby Crocotta and a Roc egg.

As the action keep on going, the items base bid kept on increasing. Extremely rare items like a Myrrh egg; a law formation, a type of formation that could only be crafted by a formation grandmaster expert, and a heavenly ore. Jahdiel was interested in the law formation, to further his studies.

"Ten thousand gold coins and a hundred." Jadhiel made the first bid.

"A hundred thousand."Someone at the third-floor bid.

'So I can't obtain it. What a pity.' Jahdiel as the item was above his budget in the second bid.

"Now that the main items have already been shown, let's go to the exotic ones: a mummy from the extinct ancient civilization from the dead island, perfect for one interested in studying the mysterious ancient civilization from there; fern flower, very sought after by lovers, a strange flower indeed. No one has ever been able to grow this strange herb, which also does not have any alchemy purpose..." The Presenter keep describing the items until something caught Jahdiel's interest, it was a preserved papyrus from a ruin found on the grest eastern forest.

"A thousand and a hundred. I want this item. My grandfather is an elder at the Haoma Sect, I want to see who dared to bid for it."A random young master bid. This young master had already spent a lot in this action, to the point he have to extort his guards for more money, promising that he would repay them after returning to the sect.

Although the item was exotic it was not of much value, because cultivators, which are the richest in this world, spend most of their wealth on cultivator resources, weapons, or luxurious items; not on exotic hobbies like studying ancient civilizations, which were boring for most and hard to wild results.

"A thousand and three hundred. " Jahdiel was happy that his opportunity finally came.

"A thousand and five hundred" The young master answered. Seeing how this young master did not outbid him too much, Jadhiel guessed that he was running out of money to spend.

"Ten thousand."Jadhiel said.

"Ten thousand. One. Ten thousand. Two. Ten thousand. Three. Sold to the gentleman that bid ten thousand. "The presenter said.

A few more auction items were sold and the auction ended. The young master bit his tongue to not bid higher, as he knows what happens to those that bid more than they could pay at the auction house, even his background can save him from a good beating.

He swore that he would get revenge on the peasant, Jadhiel, for this humiliation.