Chapter 117: Mysterious Shop

Arrived at the City Lord's Mansion in Xingzhan City.

After Ye Qingxuan explained his purpose, he faced no difficulties and smoothly met the official in charge of shop leasing and sales for Xingzhan City.

However, Ye Qingxuan soon came out disappointed.

It turned out that.

The shops in Xingzhan City had already been completely divided among major powers and strong cultivators.

Given the current popularity of Xingzhan City, no one would be willing to rent or sell a shop in the short term.

This is also why there are many self-built structures outside Xingzhan City, with so many temporary shops opened.

Regarding these temporary shops outside Xingzhan City, the city's leadership chose a hands-off approach.

But for these temporary shops, Xingzhan City did have some restrictions.

Temporary shops also needed to register at the City Lord's Mansion and sign a contract before selecting a location to open for business.

The main content of the contract was that goods sold in these temporary shops could not be priced lower than the market price within Xingzhan City.

At the same price, cultivators settled in Xingzhan City would naturally prefer to purchase from shops inside the city.

This way, the rights of shops within Xingzhan City could be ensured.

After all, the owners of shops inside Xingzhan City had paid a considerable price to obtain them initially.

With this restriction in place, these temporary shops outside Xingzhan City could hardly earn any spirit stones.

Except for some cultivators who were naturally active and sometimes visited these temporary shops, there was basically no customer flow.

The reason why cultivators running these temporary shops refused to leave for so long.

Was that once Xingzhan City expanded again, they would have priority rights to lease or purchase shops in the expanded city under equal conditions.

Obtaining such priority qualification then, whether used personally or transferred to others, could yield considerable benefits.

In the previous rounds of expansion of Xingzhan City, many low-level cultivators gained substantial resources through their initial temporary shops.

At that time, shop slots in Xingzhan City were extremely scarce; it could be said that finding a shop was nearly impossible.

The expansion of Xingzhan City was determined by the number of cultivators settled in the city and the flow of people.

Therefore, when the next expansion would occur, even these cultivators running temporary shops could not determine it themselves.

Ye Qingxuan felt helpless but had no immediate solution; he also signed a contract at the City Lord's Mansion, selected a plot of land, and prepared to open a temporary shop first.

After leaving Xingzhan City, Ye Qingxuan arrived at a flat area he had chosen.

This flat area was about ten li away from the urban district of Xingzhan City.

It was not that Ye Qingxuan did not want to choose a closer plot, but there were spacing requirements between temporary shops, and closer plots had basically been occupied by others.

If Xingzhan City had not undergone several expansions and the surrounding land was not large enough, he might not even have been able to find a plot within ten li.

After arriving at his chosen plot, Ye Qingxuan did not rush to start building the temporary shop.

He prepared to personally craft a palace of spiritual treasure level and arrange several formations inside it as emergency measures.

Since the temporary shop was outside Xingzhan City, although it would receive protection from the city, Ye Qingxuan felt caution was better.

Although it was merely a clone, it was best to avoid any trouble if possible.

Moreover, since the customer flow for temporary shops was already low, Ye Qingxuan believed he could only focus on the shop itself in the early stage to attract customers.

Using a spiritual treasure-level palace as a temporary shop was uncommon among the many temporary shops in Xingzhan City.

Perhaps this could attract a batch of customers, securing sources for acquiring Green Demon Clan corpses and cultivation origins.

Ye Qingxuan waited quietly at the spot for three days.

Three days later, Ye Qingxuan's main body, far away in Xuantian Sect, had already crafted the spiritual treasure-level palace and inscribed several formations.

Once his clone found a safe location, the palace would be transmitted to the clone through a portal.

Called a palace, it was actually a small two-story shop, appearing very ancient and simple overall.

After setting up the shop, Ye Qingxuan named this temporary shop "Mysterious Shop."

And this clone of his became the mysterious merchant of the Mysterious Shop.

After the temporary shop was opened, Ye Qingxuan's clone did not wander around carelessly anymore.

He began to reside quietly within the Mysterious Shop, waiting for the first customer to arrive. Subsequently, Ye Qingxuan's main consciousness transferred to another clone.

His other clone was currently wandering within Xingzhan City, exploring information about the Lower Realm.

Some ordinary information about the Lower Realm was not considered a secret within Xingzhan City.

On the streets or in taverns, cultivators often discussed events happening in the Lower Realm.

Therefore, in these few days, Ye Qingxuan had already gained a general understanding of the Lower Realm.

First, the nine minor worlds previously fallen in Di Xuan Realm.

Since Di Xuan Realm began counter-invading the various demonic domains under the Green Demon Clan, the Green Demon Clan had to deploy large numbers of personnel to these domains to block the strong cultivators of Di Xuan Realm.

Thus, the Di Xuan Realm coalition forces sent to rescue the nine minor worlds faced significantly less pressure.

Now, in the nine minor worlds, the territory occupied by Di Xuan Realm had expanded from a small city originally less than ten li in radius to a large city covering a thousand li.

They had firmly established a foothold in the nine fallen minor worlds.

For this, many Soul Transformation realm great cultivators of the Di Xuan Realm coalition perished during the expansion process.

Only after expanding to a thousand li in radius, setting up massive formations, and building the city so impregnable did the Di Xuan Realm coalition halt their expansion.

With a safe city as a base, many cultivators above the Golden Core realm in Di Xuan Realm began to venture into the nine fallen minor worlds.

According to the plan previously formulated by Di Xuan Realm's leadership, upon entering the nine fallen worlds, these people would seek out demonicized spiritual veins, destroy them, extract the polluted spiritual vein sources, and bring them back to Di Xuan Realm to exchange for supplies.

At the same time, these people also planted many Spirit-Purifying Trees in the Lower Realm.

Although the spiritual energy converted by the Spirit-Purifying Trees absorbing demonic qi would be instantly annihilated by the demonic qi.

Both demonic qi and spiritual energy are energies of the same level; annihilating spiritual energy would also consume a portion of the demonic qi.

This consumed demonic qi seemed insignificant, but over time, as long as the Spirit-Purifying Trees were not destroyed, the demonic qi would be gradually eliminated.

So the people of the Green Demon Clan had to begin sending patrols to the nine fallen realms and even the Demon Domain to purge the Pure Spirit Trees within.

After decades of turmoil, the energy level of the nine fallen realms under the Earth Profound Realm has already declined slightly.

If this continues, these nine realms will eventually drop to the status of a Minor Thousand Realms, causing extraordinary energy to fade and elemental laws and the Great Dao principles to fall silent.

Not only these nine realms, but also the other Minor Thousand Realms attached to the Earth Profound Realm and the Demon Domain under the Green Demon Realm have begun to decline day by day during the war.

The two realms differ little in level, so their methods naturally do not differ much either.

The losses or injuries suffered by the Demon Domain under the Green Demon Realm, and the harm inflicted upon the Minor Thousand Realms attached to the Earth Profound Realm, are equally severe.

Ye Qingxuan, combining the various information he had gathered from the lower realms, let his thoughts flow endlessly in his mind.

He possesses the inheritance of a Earth Immortal, which contains broad and rich knowledge, so his insight naturally far exceeds that of others.

This war between the two realms, though it seems all worlds have suffered injuries of varying degrees, is not so.

Among all worlds, only the two main worlds themselves, the Earth Profound Realm and the Green Demon Realm, have not been weakened in this battle; instead, they have gradually prospered and begun to rise.

Attached worlds are ultimately just attached worlds; although they share a certain source connection with the main world, the source of an attached world does not ultimately belong entirely to the main world.

If an attached world is destroyed, the main world will suffer certain injuries.

But if an attached world drops in level and can no longer resist the main world's gravitational pull, it will be swallowed by the main world and become part of it.

This might be one of the schemes of the high officials of the Earth Profound Realm; the Earth Profound Realm has already stayed at the peak of the Medium Thousand Realms for quite some time.

Once the Earth Profound Realm advances to the Great Thousand Realms ahead of time, not only will the Green Demon Realm, this fierce rival, become harmless, but everyone within the Earth Profound Realm will also benefit immensely.

By then, even those who have merged into the attached worlds of the Earth Profound Realm will benefit together, even ascending in a single step.

Directly leaping from the cultivation environment of a Minor Thousand Realm to that of a Great Thousand Realm.

Of course, the premise is that people in the attached worlds must survive this war until the day the Earth Profound Realm successfully advances to the Great Thousand Realms.

All of this is currently just Ye Qingxuan's speculation.

Ye Qingxuan cannot fully fathom the thoughts of the high officials of the Earth Profound Realm right now.

But as long as it does not affect his true body, his true body can remain safely in the background and grow slowly.

(End of this chapter)