Chapter 52: The Jiang Family's Stone Alley

To cut stones at another family's gambling stone workshop, it was naturally impossible for just the two of them to go. At the very least, a half-step Almighty needed to accompany them to deter others.

Without a doubt, this task fell upon Yun Shang. After the three of them left the Twilight Pavilion, they walked straight toward the Jiang family's stone workshop.

The Jiang family's stone market was filled with countless palaces and contiguous halls. As an archaic aristocratic family possessing an imperial weapon, the territory allocated to the Jiang family in the Holy City was quite vast, even larger than that of the Twilight Holy Land.

Although both possessed supreme imperial weapons, in terms of foundational heritage, the Jiang family was undoubtedly slightly stronger than the Twilight Holy Land. After all, they were the bloodline descendants of a Great Emperor.

Their ancestral scripture, the Hengyu Scripture, possessed unfathomable might, and was even hailed as the number one scripture of the Four Extremes Realm, complete with taboo secret techniques recorded within the imperial scripture.

Back then, Jiang Yi had gone on a killing spree in the Twilight origin zone, and the Eightfold Barbaric Strength he used left the experts of the Twilight Holy Land completely helpless. When facing the Eightfold Barbaric Strength, their infallible Holy Light Technique and Primal Holy Light Technique showed a stark and obvious gap.

It could be said that Li Yao's diligent cultivation was partly thanks to Jiang Yi, because the other party clearly showed him that in the world of cultivation, weak strength was the original sin.

The number of Twilight disciples who died that day was by no means small. They died silently and without a sound, becoming a mere footnote in Jiang Yi's terrifying record of plundering the Holy Land's origin zones.

Li Yao was not holding a grudge on their behalf; once one stepped onto the path of cultivation, life and death were up to fate. It was simply that this incident constantly served as a warning to him, spurring him to practice diligently so that he would not become one of them.

"What are you thinking about?" Beside him, Yao Xi noticed Li Yao staring blankly at the Jiang family's stone market and asked out of curiosity.

"I was thinking of Jiang Yi. Back then, if Elder Zhang hadn't sent me away with a single palm strike, I probably would have perished in the shockwaves." Recalling that scene, Li Yao still felt it was perilous.

At that time, he was only in the Spring of Life Realm, whereas those cavaliers—over eighty of them—had members whose lowest cultivation was at the Dao Palace Realm. The current him could perhaps trade blows with the weakest among them, but back then, he would likely have died the moment he crossed paths with them.

"Then Junior Brother must vent his anger well, treat the Jiang family's stone workshop as Jiang Yi, and fleece them heavily." Yao Xi curled her delicate hand into a fist, gently waving it in front of her full chest.

Looking at the indignant Yao Xi, Li Yao chuckled lightly and said, "Alright, let's pack up all the good things inside the Jiang family's stone workshop and take them away."

If it were in the past, he might not have dared to boast like this, but now, his saint-level origin arts were no joke.

Perhaps in terms of comprehensiveness, his origin arts still couldn't be compared with the Source Book, but if it was purely about gambling on stones, there was practically little to no gap between the two.

Over the past month or so, Li Yao had branded origin arts into every inch of his flesh and blood. Even outside of his cultivation sessions, he pondered them constantly without a moment's rest.

It could be said that his origin arts had reached an astonishing level. Even stone materials containing divine sources could be seen through.

As long as the Source Book did not emerge into the world, his origin arts could be called number one in the Northern Dipper. Even origin art grandmasters were completely disregarded by Li Yao.

"Elder Yun, I will have to trouble you this time." Before entering the Jiang family's stone workshop, Li Yao spoke solemnly to Yun Shang.

"Rest assured, the Jiang family's stone workshop opens its doors for business; they neither can nor will do anything out of line." As Yun Shang spoke, his gaze glanced stealthily toward a patch of the void.

Yao Xi at the side also chimed in, "That's right, Junior Brother, rest easy. My Twilight Holy Land is no pushover either. If the Jiang family truly dares to humiliate us like this, the Holy Master won't just sit still and will inevitably step out of the Holy Land."

Li Yao nodded, completely reassured, and walked toward the Jiang family's stone workshop.

He was not reassured because of Yao Xi's words—after-the-fact talk was unreliable. What truly put his mind at ease was Yun Shang's stealthy glance just moments ago.

Although unstated, Li Yao guessed Yun Shang's meaning: there was an peerless expert from Twilight hiding in the shadows. If things really escalated, that expert would step forward.

The number of people in the Jiang family's stone workshop was large, but the outer perimeter was mostly rogue cultivators. There were no precious stones there, so the prices were naturally very cheap. They couldn't possibly linger there as they simply didn't care for them.

Of course, it was also because Li Yao casually glanced around and saw nothing good; the best he found was only a fire-red source the size of a knuckle.

The cobblestone-paved path was very secluded. Passing through a vast area of halls, they arrived at a place with lush vegetation, beautiful garden scenery, and verdant greenery.

Reaching this place, Li Yao stopped, and Yao Xi beside him also halted her steps, asking, "Did Junior Brother spot something good?"

"Mhm, I saw a few decent source stones." As Li Yao spoke, he stepped forward first.

Behind him, Yun Shang stood in place without moving, while Yao Xi followed closely step by step, looking around with curiosity like an inquisitive baby.

To Yao Xi, the source stones here didn't look much different, differing at most in appearance and color, but she utterly failed to tell which source stone could be cut to reveal treasures.

The two shuttled among the source stones, and soon, Li Yao stopped beside a brown source stone.

"Junior Brother, is it this source stone?" Yao Xi looked curiously at the brown source stone before her, carefully trying to discern what made this source stone different from the others, but in the end, she saw nothing.

"It's this source stone, buy it." As Li Yao spoke, he reached out, picked up the source stone, and walked toward the next one.

Soon, within the sixth origin zone, Li Yao quickly picked out four source stones. Such a grand display attracted the attention of many.

In the Jiang family's gambling stone workshop, those coming and going were all cultivators. Many people looked over, and some cultivators who had previously seen Li Yao at the Twilight gambling stone workshop couldn't help exclaiming aloud at this moment:

"It's that Li Yao, the Twilight disciple and also an origin art master. I didn't expect him to actually come to the Jiang family's gambling stone workshop."

"What's so strange about that? Don't you know about the grudge between the Twilight Holy Land and the Jiang family?"

"Most likely because of that incident with Jiang Yi."

"The Twilight Holy Land couldn't find Jiang Yi, so they simply decided to salvage their pride from the Jiang family. Now we're going to have a good show to watch."

The crowd gathered around, preparing to see how many good things Li Yao could unearth next.

Li Yao's battle record was sparse, but he became famous in a single battle. The good things he cut out were things many origin art masters couldn't unearth even in several decades.

Now that he had appeared at the Jiang family's stone workshop, many people were deeply curious about the true level of his origin arts.

Soon, Li Yao began cutting stones. As the first source stone was sliced open, exclamations of surprise never ceased.

All four source stones yielded treasures, and their values were extraordinary: there was a purple crystal source the size of a chicken egg, an ice-snow source and a fire-red source the size of fists, as well as a nine-leaf red spirit ganoderma.

"We've struck it rich, we've struck it rich! Just these items alone are worth over ten thousand catties of source."

"A purple crystal source the size of a chicken egg! Just this single piece alone would probably find buyers even at four or five thousand catties of source."

"And that nine-leaf red spirit ganoderma is a rare material. Used for alchemy, it can accelerate cultivation speed and break through cultivation bottlenecks. Its value is easily upward of three thousand catties of source."