Chapter 72: The Heavenly Talent Assembly; Chen Changsheng Looks to Make a Small Profit
Chapter 72 – The Heavenly Talent Assembly; Chen Changsheng Looks to Make a Small Profit
After traversing the endless spatial void, Chen Changsheng and the group finally arrived at their destination.
The Middle Heavens, Kunlun Holy Land.
Yet, the moment their boots touched the earth, the violent shockwaves of battle rolled in from the distance.
“Saintess of the Purple Mansion, today the Golden Light Cave dares to seek your guidance!”
A young man stood with his blood and Qi surging to the heavens, a blinding manifestation of a sun erupting behind his back.
Facing this tyrannical display, a woman wearing a silken veil merely cast him a cold, indifferent glance.
Pinching a spiritual blossom between her fingers, her figure slowly ascended into the void.
Hum!
Crash!
The grand manifestation of a boundless, emerald-green ocean unfurled behind the Saintess. As her right hand gently pushed forward, the overwhelming weight of the sea crashed down alongside her strike.
That so-called successor of the Golden Light Cave was instantly blasted away like a broken kite.
Witnessing this brutal exchange, the surrounding cultivators furrowed their brows in grave contemplation.
However, an abrupt shout shattered the solemn atmosphere.
“Incredible!”
Swish!
The hundreds of gathered Heavenly Talents snapped their gazes toward Chen Changsheng in unison, their eyes practically overflowing with utter speechlessness and disdain.
We all know her Dao is profound, but you don’t just scream it out like a market peddler!
Everyone here is a peerless genius; do you possess not a single shred of pride?
To act like a startled mortal before a single spell is exchanged… what an absolute disgrace.
Meeting their piercing glares, Chen Changsheng blinked in genuine surprise.
“Why are you all staring at me? Was she not impressive?”
“She literally summoned an ocean to fight for her; how is that not amazing?”
Hearing Chen Changsheng’s crude words, Ye Hensheng felt a violent throbbing in his temples.
“Brother Chen, I beg of you, speak no more.”
“The heavens and earth have undergone a great tribulation. Today, as long as one does not practice the ancient, discarded cultivation methods, any new Secret Art can manifest a vision.”
“Ah, so that’s how it is!”
“Does that mean every newly forged technique summons a vision?”
The moment those words left his mouth, the disdain in the onlookers’ eyes deepened into outright disgust.
This wretch is clearly a country bumpkin; heaven only knows what barren wasteland he crawled out of.
“Of course not. Only Divine Laws boasting immense Potential can birth a vision. The greater the Potential, the more terrifying the manifestation.”
“Well, she still summoned one, so she is still quite incredible.”
Hearing this, Ye Hensheng suppressed the overwhelming urge to stitch Chen Changsheng’s mouth shut.
The man was simply a walking humiliation.
“Brother Chen, this is the Heavenly Talent Assembly.”
“A Heavenly Talent is one who accomplishes what mortals cannot. In other words, every single person standing here commands a vision.”
“Brother Chen, surely you possess one as well?”
“Who knows? I haven’t fought anyone recently. If you hadn’t told me, I would have been completely in the dark.”
Ye Hensheng fell dead silent.
Why by the Dao did I ever agree to bring you along?
I may have committed grievous sins in the first half of my life, but surely encountering you today balances the karmic scales.
You are undoubtedly a tribulation sent by the heavens to torment me.
After briefly outlining the assembly’s rules to Chen Changsheng, Ye Hensheng and the others promptly vanished into the crowd, desperate to sever their association.
As for the surrounding prodigies, they merely offered cold smirks, entirely dismissing the bumpkin from their minds.
Noting his newfound isolation, Chen Changsheng clicked his tongue and strolled off in a different direction.
He had genuinely been unaware of the changing paradigms, and his praise for the Saintess had been entirely sincere.
The only reason Ye Hensheng found it humiliating was due to an obsessive fixation on so-called prestige and face.
Before the grinding wheel of eternity, all things were rendered meaningless—especially something as fragile as mortal pride.
As a being holding an infinite lifespan, why would Chen Changsheng ever care about such trivialities?
……
“Here are your three hundred pounds of God Source, esteemed guest. Please keep it safe.”
The master of the exchange pavilion personally handed over a heavy beast-skin pouch. Chen Changsheng swept the contents with his Divine Sense to verify the amount, then turned and departed.
In a mere two centuries, the entire cultivation world had been brutally upended.
The ironclad currency of the old eras had shifted completely from Spirit Stones to God Source.
‘God Source’ was a title coined only within the last hundred years. Before this era, the essence was known simply as Spirit Source.
When the Kunlun Holy Land first excavated the Sacred Ruins, vast veins of this Spirit Source were finally brought into the light.
Initially, cultivators treated Spirit Source merely as an exotic supplemental resource. But as the Heavenly Dao fractured and changed, its true, terrifying value was unearthed.
The ancient cultivation laws were entirely rejected by the heavens, forcing every sect and clan to carve out new paths to immortality.
Gradually, the world realized that when forging these untrodden Dao paths, the resonance of Spirit Source vastly eclipsed the stagnant energy of Spirit Stones.
Thus, the title of Spirit Source was elevated to God Source.
God Source subsequently became the lifeblood and exclusive resource for all Heavenly Talents.
Weighing the three hundred pounds of standard God Source in his beast-skin pouch, Chen Changsheng clicked his tongue.
“A ten-to-one exchange rate… I feel like I’ve been robbed blind.”
“Looks like I’ll have to harvest some wealth from elsewhere.”
Mutters fading, Chen Changsheng lifted his gaze toward the bustling Stone Gambling pavilion situated down the street.
As the grand laws of the world shifted, fragments of ordinary God Source had slowly begun to crystallize within the exhausted Spirit Stone veins of old.
Yet, the most tyrannical and mutated variants of God Source could only be found sealed within ores dragged from the ancient forbidden lands.
The primordial crust encasing these stones was absolute, rendering even the sharpest Divine Sense utterly blind. To hoard the wealth without risking their own foundations, the apex sects established the Stone Gambling trade.
The gamblers might occasionally strike it rich, but the house never bled.
Coincidentally, Chen Changsheng possessed an unfathomable mastery over God Source—or, as he knew it, Spirit Source.
Centuries ago, before the heavens shifted, God Source was essentially worthless.
One could buy mountains of raw ore excavated from the forbidden lands for a handful of common Spirit Stones.
In his relentless pursuit to dissect the fundamental laws of God Source, Chen Changsheng had personally cracked open an entire mountain range of the raw ore.
Finding the extracted essence largely useless for his own path at the time, he casually tossed half of his harvest to A-Li.
The remaining half was unceremoniously buried deep beneath the earth, utilized by Chen Changsheng merely to anchor a grand Formation.
……
Kunlun Stone Workshop.
Countless cultivators milled about, their eyes burning with greed as they scrutinized raw stones of every shape and size.
Every unremarkable boulder held the whispered promise of mutated God Source.
A single cut could strip a man of his entire fortune, or elevate a beggar to the heavens—such brutal extremes were the very lifeblood of the Stone Gambling trade.
“Shopkeeper, I am purchasing this stone!”
Chen Changsheng’s crisp voice echoed through the bustling hall. Every cultivator froze, turning their collective gaze upon him as though they were staring at an absolute imbecile.
Because the boulder Chen Changsheng was pointing at was the massive, carved signboard of the Kunlun Stone Workshop itself.
The crowd fell dead silent.
Has the madness of stone gambling finally rotted your brain?
That is a piece of ordinary bedrock placed at the entrance for decoration! What in the Dao are you thinking?!
Swiftly, the chief overseer of the Kunlun Stone Workshop descended upon the scene.
His expression was as dark as storm clouds as he growled, “Fellow Daoist, you haven’t come here to incite chaos, have you?”
“Watch your tone!” Chen Changsheng replied smoothly.
“I came to partake in Stone Gambling. Is a customer purchasing a stone not the natural order of things?”
The overseer’s face remained twisted in a cold sneer.
Aside from bearing the violently carved characters for ‘Kunlun Stone Workshop’, the massive boulder possessed absolutely zero spiritual resonance.
If the lunatic standing before him wasn’t deliberately seeking death, the overseer swore he would gouge out his own eyes and crush them like Spirit Pills!
“Is that so?”
“Very well. To claim this stone, you must pay its exact weight in pure God Source.”
“Hand over one thousand pounds of God Source, and it is yours.”