Along a large mortal’s pathway, empty road surrounded by trees and nature was calm. Only occasionally a carriage or cart with produce from the many nearby farms where produce would come from were seen.
On this day these people heard a heavy stomping as they pulled the carts and drove the carriages. It walked along the wild 3 meter wide roads and the ground vibrated with each step. One would feel fear of this as a powerful suppressive aura was coming.
Mortals are obviously people who cannot cultivate. Previously Ning had gone to a school for nobles who all had some talent to cultivate but below them were commoners, the most any of the would ever amount to is entering the Qi gathering stage while a rare talent would reach it’s peak. They weren’t like the sect disciples who had countless resources and a rich location filled with spirit energy.
Those who were on the road were fearing for their lives but the aura had long since made them lose their bearings.
They could only feel as the vibration grew stronger until it finally entered their view. Standing 8 meters tall, 12 long and occupying the entire extent of the road was a massive Bull beast. His legs were thin but on them it was a rock like structure all the way up to just below the knee making the lower section wider. The muscles were rippling and it’s aura was menacing.
This was indeed Tyrant and more then that, he had broken into the Initial Xiantian and was now on par with Tora who had bottlenecked at the same stage.
Each step was filled with titan like power and would shake the surroundings. When the mortals saw him they were extremely fearful because this was an adult Titan Bull but once they saw that upon it’s back was a beautiful woman that was like a sculpture of Jade they were dazed and no longer felt the beast was menacing. Of course this was because the beast was tame and that the aura was simply a show of strength. Very few cultivators would use land bound beasts to travel but when they did they would not go out with something weak.
This beautiful jade like woman was Bo Rei and upon her lap was a Pagoda but it’s structure was different to the common pagoda as it had for small two story structure at each end forming a kind of castle formation. This was a Mobile pagoda that Bo Rei had prepared. Within each tower was the ‘room’ of each of the children and her own. To allow them to travel and train at the same time she would sit upon Tyrant enjoying the spotlight while she watched the children inside the Pagoda and used her spiritual energy to casually send messages.
Spiritual energy had many unknown abilities, the most common known one was to control the energy in the body but it was more omnipotent. One could send isolated sound waves to a person forming a kind of hidden message and they could speak with one another even if they were inside a spatial item such as a mobile pagoda.
Rei was quite happy, after attentively watching them for more than a month’s time inside the Pagoda she has more or less understood their strong and weak points.
Rinrin had an uncanny perception for pills but due to her temperament her flames were some degrees hotter and common metals and even some low grade profound metals would unfortunately end up turning to ash. That said her Earth fire was several times lower in temperature for an unknown reason and she needed to spend a lot of energy to heat up the metal. She also had a very hard time controlling the earth element in the metal and eventually she simply gave up on smithing due to her incompatibly.
Ning and Su on the other hand have a neutral temperament but Su lacked an Earth beast. She would use the flame Python’s flame but it wasn’t compatible to the metals. If alchemy was connected to those who were good with fire element, smithing needed those who were good with earth. If done the commoners way it would take hours of melting heating and reheating before banging on the metal but with the smithing tool it became similar to pill refining. That said the metals are several times harder to control. Ning has an large amount of skill towards this. She found out that he he already had low success with the Natural law of Earth while Rinrin and Su did not. This most likely contributed but with the smithing Ning probably advanced several notches in this law.
Su on the other hand excels primarily at the Spirit rune study. She has already left the other two behind and has already begun to learn how to make small attack formations with the runes. Her speed and precision as well as perception of the spiritual energy even surprised Rei who was born into the Yi clan were the heritage of spirit rune training was at the pinnacle in the mortal realm. She knew she had stumbled upon a heaven defying spirit runemaster making her eccentric.
“It’s almost time to start having them try and make some treasures, Ning and Rinrin are far behind Su but they already understand several of the underlying function of the formations in the pagoda. Ning is also already able to refine and congeal common rank metals with the smithing tool.” Rei muttered as she watched the boy and looked at his surroundings. On the walls and the floor were countless sets of armor from common metal to some low grade profound metals.
The girls were similar with their rooms in disarray. Bo Rei could only sigh in regret. She had wanted the children to have all five element but when they went to look for a beast of lightning element the highest reaction was yellow from all three energy branches it confused her but then she thought that fate had something prepared.
As for the fire beast, when they had left the sect Rei had them hatch the eggs. This included Ning hatching his spider.
His hands were sweating as he had held the egg at that time and when the spider hatched it was as expected he wasn’t able to hold it but he didn’t throw it. Instead he withdrew his meridians and dropped it helping the shell crack and jumped to the furthest corner of the room but what shocked them all was how the spider reacted in a very similar fashion and ran to a corner away from everyone.
This was uncommon for Dao Beasts but after a bit the tension faded and it began to calm down. Most likely do to the common fact that female spiders eat their babies when they hatch the spider had run initially. What followed was exactly as expected and it moved towards Ning and when it jumped to climb into his embrace he fainted from fear.
Rei had attached the gemstone that connects it to Ning and put it at the very top of the fire medical mountain. This mountain had become a small volcano and released a lot of heat energy with its spirit energy. The very top was the hottest spot but it quickly moved down and after finding a small cave into the mountain it jumped inside and headed inside where it found a small pool of lava and happily began to suck a small bit of that as food.
When Ning had finally woken up he felt the presence of the spider inside the medical garden and while holding it he sighed before spreading his meridians through the spider. When the energy finally connected the immense heat energy gathered inside astonished Ning. The small hand sized spider was at the Initial Qi gathering realm and it’s Dao Seed contained the Natural Law of Fire and Earth mixed together.
The first thing Ning did was to kindle a flame for this causing the small flame the surround the brown red Dao Seed.
As for Zero and Tora, they were equally living inside the medical garden. Each of them took the Wind and Water mountain in Ning’s medical garden just like how the Dao Beasts of the girls did the same for the medical mountains in their own medical garden they obtained.
Tyrant himself lived in the earth element medical mountain which had shifted into a dense mountain but with him breaking things around he slowly began to form pathway up to the top of the mountain where he lived near in the highest cavern.
The only one left was the Lightning mountain which had been left without any protector. The mountain was surrounded by perpetual clouds which struck down. This was slowly killing weak herbs and mutating them towards the lightning attribute. The stone as well was slowly becoming a profound material of lightning attribute.
Zero on the other hand caused a huge change to the water mountain, he released his drake aura and formed his nest at the top of the mountain. With his presence and ice flame he slowly began to freeze the top of the mountain and snow clouds began to gather and only the water flowed while snow began to cover the top.
That said even with the four Dao Beasts living in the mountains, pests were slowly forming.
They were energy beings that flew around near herbs benefiting from the medical aura. They weren’t actually pests, instead the proper term as taught by Rei was Elemental Spirits. When spirit energy reached a strong enough point it will slowly form a dan which was at the center. These elemental spirits possessed a natural treasure which is called a Spirit Dan which is their true body but due to being killed and hunted they release only low quality ones.
These on the other hand were starting to reach high quality and Rei had already gathered quite a few spirit dan and was quite pleased.
That said on her face at this moment was also irritation, “These pests are so annoying, they should buzz off!” She thought.
She did not even look back as she could easily feel everything within a 5 km radius around her without using her spiritual energy to even 5% of its full power.
Since they had left the sect she has sensed these people behind them but has ignored because she wanted to see what they were going to do next. Since nothing has happened she ignored them.
Suddenly the sound of seagulls and the slightly saltier smell in the air told her that they were almost at the sea. “Ning, Rinrin, Su, we are almost arriving. Finish up and clean up so that when we reach our destination you can expand your horizons.” She said through her spirit transmission.
Tyrant kept walking at a calm pace no faster than a simple trot and soon the walls around a seaside city appeared. The three children appeared from the pagoda and looked out.
“Wow! This is the first time I am seeing the sea!” Rinrin said excited.
“Su this is a good chance for you to train the ‘Great Sea Wrym Pure Body’ travelling to the limit of your body underwater will help you cultivate.” Rei said.
This was a body refining art that Rei had Su take up so that the girl and Wrym body would be ready for the Dragon fire. She had plans for them to enjoy their time here and see if they can find any unique herbs coming from overseas.
“So mother what kind of man power are we going to obtain here?” Ning asked the question that has been on his mind.
“War slaves.” She said.
The face of the three turned blank and looked at her, “War slaves that come from other continents. You should know that there are countless more ruthless continents but they also have less spirit energy and they are mostly mortal clans. The losing side usually ends up enslaved and set overseas where the trouble of caring for them is less. Slavery on this content are a large trade.” She said.
“Isn’t that cruel?” Su asked.
“No, this is life, that said we will of course not treat them horribly. There are indeed nobles who only treat slaves as toys or cattle and literally ‘breeds’ them as livestock but we aren’t such people. We need strong warriors and servants so besides putting on the brand of slavery to make sure they remain completely loyal, we will properly train and make them powerful servants.” she said.
“What kind of people buy slaves anyway?” Ning asked.
“Of course the Yi Clan buys countless slaves, almost every person has a medical garden of some good size with spirit mountains and more. All of these means they need to care for the herbs, mine out spirit stones, train servants to kill pests and more.” She said.
At this time they reached the gate and the guards were on edge but as they hopped and floated down revealing their identity as experts and even more so young experts the guards looked astonished. What is more when they saw Tyrant shrink down to the size of a bull calf their eyes twitched wondering what kind of mystic Titan Bull it is.
Ning put him away into the medical garden to allow him to eat and rest.
“Greeting esteemed divine lords! What may our Wayward City port provide for your esteemed guests?!” An old man said bowing deeply.
“We wish to see the war slaves coming into the continent.” Bo Rei said.
All the man were in a daze at her beauty. She was like a celestial maiden that had descended.
“Please follow this one. I am Steward Fen, I work for the city governor and if you wish I shall escort you around.” He said.
“That is fine, just let us see the slaves of all races.” Rei said.
The children looked at each other then at her with curiosity. They wondered what ‘other races’ were.
They entered the city without any obstruction unlike the commoners who were stopped. Someone from a large sect was indeed a divine existence. If they wanted to enter who would stop them so they simply send someone with some position for these great people and didn’t even check them. Even the most evil people would not attack a port city. The main reason is that almost all sects would need slave servants be them to be pill servants or some devil cultivator needing slaves for some unknown purpose. Beyond that there is also the transport of rare herbs and the many auction halls in the city which owned any boats that came and went.
They walked to the port where they found that more than half the cite was made of shops and the true residential size was small but the number of customers were huge.
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What made the children feel cold was when they got close to the piers.
“Come and look! We have just obtained an entire village of mortal Fey Slaves. These aren’t as beautiful as the purebloods but these Fey are have an ancestral line going back to the Profound Beast Black Fire Tigers! They are a powerful warrior race and more than half their warriors were killed but we have obtained most of the rest alive!” Shouted a vendor who stood in front of several dozen people who were exposed completely naked with chains and metal collars. On their head was a large tiger ear and from their arm to their shoulder and from there feet up to their lower body they had a thin fur that was black with red strips. Their face was human like but they had sharp fangs exposed.
Most of them were looking down emotionless. Seeing this the vendor sneered and walked over to one of the women and pulled her braided hair pulling her face up. “Look at her exquisite face! This is a true tigress, they are truly unlike the common whores you find in the brothels. Those with unique taste can feel a great bitch from these while you women with excellent taste!” He shouted and suddenly he used the walking came in his hand and struck between the leg of one of the men. The shock caused his blood to flow and he let out a fierce roar wanting to attack. Still the impact caused him to go erect. “As you can see ladies there is nothing lacking from these men who would bed you like animals!”
Some noble women were batting their hand fans as they looked one with a feverish look.
The crowd was made of only nobles or bandits. The fate of these slaves was not a bright one if they were taken in by these people.
“I shall pay 5 Low grade Common Rank spirit stones for the entire village!” A voice suddenly rang out this voice was as if it was right next to the ear but also seemed distant.
Everyone turned as they saw Bo Rei gently jump and glide over and land in front of the stage. “So does that sound enough?” She asked.
“Esteemed immortal maiden, the village is made up of 20 warriors between initial Qi gathering to initial Houtian, 40 men 64 women of which more than a quarter are virgin teens, and over 100 children. 5 simple low grade spirit stones for such a great number?” He said.
“Fine 10 Low Grade Common Rank Spirit stones.” She said and took out the blue glowing thumb sized stone. An ungraded spirit stone was dull and looked like a shining rock but a low grade one was brighter and the energy inside was more than 20 times better and purer. These were her own creation as she refined 5 stones in the pagoda but they were top quality Low grade common rank stones.
The man’s eyes shined when he saw the quality. “Of course esteemed maiden.” he said.
The eyes of the Fey were very dead but some were a bit happy to not be separated. She followed while some people glared at Rei with hate for taking them all. Still no one complained since this was an expert.
Suddenly three children flew over and followed after them.
They entered the shock where all the slaves were gathered in cages like animals and they were quickly gathered. “We just need to transfer the master rune to you, esteemed maiden.” he said gesturing to the spirit formation on the ground but suddenly she stomped breaking the formation.
“You dare try and trick this woman! You wished to put a slave rune on me! Do you think you can digest such a big catch!?” She said.
All the people paled, the man hadn’t expected this. She looked incredibly young but he knew that the nations around them weren’t good with spiritual energy yet she saw through it at a glance. He had wanted this beautiful woman who was like a jade carved goddess.
“Good I wonder what kind of backing you have to have given you a dragon's guts and try to take this woman!” He said.
“W-wait your esteemed celestial maiden!” A fat pig like man came running out and bowed down, “please do not include this man as our own. We are one of the Mighty Sword Mountain’s suppliers, please show us face.” He said.
“Oh such a large sect, I see.” She said and she waved her hand. Suddenly the head of the vendor blew up. “Let this be a warning.” She said.
“Y-yes! Also please take the village of Black Fire Tiger Fey at half the price you said 5 stones please!” he bowed low.
“I will do that. Also I can make my own Master rune simply gather the slaves!” She ordered.
The man bowed and very quickly all members of the village were gathered. With a wave her spiritual energy flew out and she counted them making sure the number was correct and then she used her energy to connect all the runes.
Slave Runes were actually a formation formed but they were easy enough to manipulate but were hard to remove if you do not know how to. She felt the flow to the master rune and broke it before connecting them all and with a casual wave of her hand four master control runes was formed. One flowed into each of them.
The children watched everything amazed at her efficiency. They each received one rune and though it they felt each and every slave they had under their power and their condition.
There were quite a large number injured and sick in the mix while they all felt solemn and sacred.
“I am now your master, I have bought you but I will not treat you bad. You will all work and live within the medical garden we own.” She said and suddenly she took out the garden and they all vanished.
She turned and tossed five blue glowing stones at the owner and walked out with the children.
“Wow mother you are good!” Rinrin said.
“In the mortal world we are gods, if you do not impose order known as the law of nature these ants will feed on your blood until you're sucked dry.” She said.
When they exit they found the steward, “You are interested in Fey, we have many others, there was a large shipment coming in from the Thousand Mystic Islands.” He said.
“We will take any race including human as long as they are strong and hardworking.” Rei said.
“Then we had a shipment of specially strong mortal humans.” he said and lead them to the north side of the city where they found a large slavery house and entered. Inside was only humans but they were much different from the ones known by the children. They were many times more muscular, they had pure black curly hair and had very black skin. Their eyes were also black and showed they were indeed not demon race.
“These are humans of the Afrena continent. Their physical body is naturally twice as strong as the people of our Xuena Continent. That said they aren’t as compatible to cultivating any form of our region's energy but due to their strong bodies they are the best farming slaves.” The steward slaves.
“How many villages are there?” Rei asked.
“We have twenty villages worth here your holiness!” A short scrawny and ugly man said appearing. This was the manager of the place.
“Prepare 6 villages, they must be from the same place and I want all the people including those responsible for the religious rites and knowledge.” Rei said.
“1 village would equal almost 150 people.” the scrawny man said.
“How much?” She asked.
“1 village for 3 low grade spirit stones or a 100 year old herb.” He said.
She produced 18 stones and handed it over with narrowed eyes. “Hmph, actually trying to compare a low grade spirit stone to a 100 year old herb. Such nerve.” She thought but she watched as the scrawny man shouted and then lead them to wait in an open space.
Very soon the entire village worth of people began to appear chained. Unlike the Fey who were beautiful these men had small clothes hiding their privates much to the girl's relief. They were not used to the sight of a person's naked body and it caused them to be flustered.
“Mother, are these people really that bad at cultivating? Could it be the location?” Ning asked.
“It is, if we were to compare there would probably be a good seed or two in the middle with a good spirit vein. You need a strong body to support a strong vein which is why you children felt so much pain from the refining. They have naturally powerful bodies so it will birth good talents.” She said.
“But doesn't living in an spirit energy poor area birth less talents?” Ning asked.
“Talent for one means something different for another. We cultivators consider talent in cultivating, pill refining, alchemy, spirit rune mastery, and combat the most important but for mortals, being a good farmer, merchant or craftsman is better. Life is unfair but life as a cultivator is as hard as or harder than the hard life of the mortals who can work for food, water and clothing and live a comfortable life without watching out for a knife in their back.” She said.
Once the first village was gathered Rei simply directed the master control of the slave brands to her and the children’s master brand and sent them into Ning’s medical garden.
She did the same for all six villages.
“Are there any demon race mortals?” Rei asked.
“Eh?” The children exclaimed but she looked at them making them turn silent.
“Demon race mortal are quite hard to come by most live under the demon sects so it’s not a simple thing to obtain even a single mortal demon.” The steward said.
“Stop bullshitting, Demons are like any race, they have many types just like these Afrena continent humans. I know that the warring state of the Chaos Region, is the prime location for slave drivers to bring in demon race.” She said.
The face of the two men turned solemn, “Esteemed Maiden, the Chaos region is inhabited by demons of the worst kind, where would mortals exist in such a place.” The scrawny man said.
“Where? Under each and every sect and large clan who would not care if the entire city of mortals burned to the ground. Don’t think this lady doesn’t know that this city doesn’t have an underground market for demons hidden from view of the demon and Devil sects.” Rei said with a fierce expression.
“Can I inquire as to what you need demons for?” The steward asked.
“It is obviously so that they can raise wild demon beasts inside specially prepared medical gardens prepared for demon beasts! I would also like to look for Fey and Feral’s who had similar knowledge for magic and profound beasts.” She said.
The two sighed as they realized the group had come only to purchase servants. The steward nodded to the scrawny man and he waved for them to follow as they descended a set of stairs.
After several flights of stairs they reached the bottom of what looked like an underground market. “We possess a wide array of demons, Giant Demon, Goliath, Ogre, we have some demon Fey as well whose ancestry comes from low ranking dragonkin. Their skill is quite low but their potential is high. If it is demon beast rearing their strength is quite good.” The scrawny man said as he lead them inside.
When they passed a large cage they found tall 4 meter tall muscular men with black blue skin and red eyes. On their skin were many strange symbols. These were Giant Demons, Goliath were a bit shorter at three and a half meters tall with blue skin. Further along were short meter tall red skin and ugly imps who were numerous and devious beasts but they were powerful spiritual rune users by nature.
Only when they reached the back did they find that there was a large cage with chained up human sized people. They had lizard claws, legs and tail and were similar to the Black Fire Tiger Fey and most of their body was covered in white with blue scales. On their heads was a short pair of horns appearing through their hair. The strong men were chained and the women were hugging their children. There were 15 men, 15 women and 40 children with two or three per women
“This is a small clan of Demon Dragon Fey. Only after we did a bloodline test after obtaining them did we find that they were low class ice lizard breed. They were completely useless and not many people want them because their dragon blood was to extremely low quality. Of course that is because none of them every broke through to the Demon Essence realm because if they did and awakened their blood they would evolve into an Ice Drake breed.” The scrawny man said.
Ning pulled his mother’s robe with shining eyes. She already knew what he wanted and indeed she wished for this as well. Ice Lizard demon Fey were a subservient race to Demon Ice dragons and Drakes. As long as they meet Zero they will bow down and willingly cry out in joy.
“How much for all 70 of them.” Rei asked.
“This is not some common human, these came from the Chaos Region after all.” The scrawny man said serious.
Yes, these weren’t humans, these were descendant of a dragon who became humanoid and bred with humans. There are some mystic arts that allow beasts and demons to transform into a human form and the result of them crossbreeding is the Fey race. The Thousand Mystic Islands is a place where this once existed in large number and the humans and beasts had bred and formed the Fey races. Problem was that humans have quite varying talent and those humans were usually lower quality in talent and so the offspring ended up being lower quality than the father or mother and eventually degraded the race.
That said, the Fey race would always serve the beast they originated from if it was a powerful creature and they would try to breed such beasts if they weren’t smart during the younger years but Frost Drake isn’t a common thing to come upon.
“What is the price for one?” Rei asked again.
“For male, 10 High Grade Spirit stones, female 2, children 1.” the scrawny man said.
“I will trade one 500 year old profound herb for one family so 15 500 year old herbs for the clan.” Rei said.
The eyes of the scrawny man widened like disks and the next instant Rei vanished and appeared once more and in her hand was a Scarlet fruit of 500 years old of maturity. The size was like a small apple and the scrawny man’s hand trembled.
“Deal! 15 scarlet fruit like this and they are yours!” The scrawny man said.
“Yeah!” Ning shouted.
The girls giggled when they saw him as did Rei.
She handed over the other fruits and very quickly took control of the Slave brands.
“Unchain them!” The scrawny man shouted desperately. A woman that can easily pull out 15 500 year old herbs wasn’t some small fish.
Some servants came out touched a small array which released the restraints letting the men go and chain holding the women to the wall was also removed. Ning quickly opened the door happily and summoned out Zero.
“Look Zero, these are Fey, a race that originated from Ice Demon Dragons.” Ning said.
When Zero looked his eyes slits suddenly narrowed and he jumped down and grew to the largest size he could growling.
“SLAVES! How could something with proud Frost Drake blood be so worthless to fall to status of slaves!?” He roared shaking the entire underground.
The Fey looked up as if they saw a ghost before they began to cry and they fell to their knees. “ALL HAIL HIS GREATNESS!” They shouted as they cried out in joy.
When the scrawny man saw the Frost Drake he realized he was played with. Forget 500 year old herbs if he knew about this he would have take many times higher price.
“Zero, since they are demon Fey originating from your races line I will leave them in your care. Make them build a village at the base of your mountain. They will also be in charge of a Medical garden that holds a spirit mountain focused on Infernal Energy. You can hunt there after some time and they will also hunt there. Train them so that they can act as the hunter of pests in the garden.” Rei said.
“My own servants heh!” He grinned as he looked down.
The sight of them bowing was a good feeling, if he trained them as servants then surely he can make a good tribe of dragonkin serving him and once they are good he can have them make shiny treasures for him to fill his hoard.
He started to purr at the thought just as Ning sent him and the tribe into the garden but made sure to send the clan to the spirit mountain were all the slaves were gathered.
“This is good, kids we are staying here for several days maybe a few weeks. This is for us to make sure to have a good number of servants and build a small personal force.” She said. “Let's go.” She took several steps and the children followed after her. “We will be in this city for a while, if you get any mortal demon Fey with Dragon blood of a Water Wyrm, Fire Wyrm, or Fire salamander inform us. Also docile demons we want.” She said and left without looking back.
Walking outside they were lead by the steward and were taken as guests to the governor's home and after a cup of tea they headed to the room and entered the Garden and began to explain to the slaves their roll. They cried in joy that they will be able to rebuild their lives working under them. The most happy were the Ice Lizard Demon Fey who were transported to the base of the water medical garden. Of course they were told that they refine the garden and they will suffer pain when this happens but as this happens it will cause their talent to slowly improve but it is very painful.
As for construction material, the clan chiefs were each given a large medical garden with a single spirit mountain which can be used to obtain resources for building their homes from wood while the spirit mountain will be the home but they can only live around the bottom while the top is the for Ning and the girls who own the place.
With that set they left the slaves to do as they please but they did help quickly to build a pathway down the mountain by literally cutting a flat pathway down the side of the mountain.