Chapter 821 The Price
Despite their increasingly difficult lives, Dali never once thought of returning to those days of plundering everywhere, which, for a time, had afforded them a life of relative luxury.
Even after more than a decade, when he meditated alone, he would still occasionally recall that nightmare.
A god of slaughter, traversing the skies on his sword, faced their encirclement of hundreds. Not only did he make no attempt to flee, but he actively attacked, leveraging the speed advantage of his sword to massacre them wherever he went. No one was a match for him in a single exchange.
Their group of penniless Yin-Yang Thieves couldn't even escape; they scattered like lambs to the slaughter.
Blood and screams were everywhere, severed limbs strewn across the ground.
Had that god of slaughter not become utterly bloodthirsty, spending all his magical power in the pursuit and slaughter, the few who miraculously survived would have had no chance of counterattacking.
...
"It's still a bit easier than when we were manual laborers."
"But we paid the price of twenty years of our lifespan, just for this?" Dali asked, a hint of resentment in his voice.
In terms of cultivation, due to the inferior aptitude of their pseudo-spirit roots, even after twenty years of arduous training, they had only reached the sixth layer of Qi Refinement.
And this sixth layer of Qi Refinement, in terms of combat power, was at best equivalent to the fourth layer of Qi Refinement from other cultivation methods.
They remained at the very bottom of the cultivation world.
"Be content, A'Li. If we hadn't cultivated the Yin-Yang Five Elements Art, we might not have lived to see today."
Ten years ago, they had inquired about the small town where they used to work as laborers. It had been repeatedly plundered by several groups of bandits, turning into a desolate wasteland of crumbling ruins.
It was said that the townspeople who remained either died or were sold into slavery.
Not to mention those like them, dock workers, who even if they hadn't died in the chaos,
Years of continuous, back-breaking labor, coupled with poor diets, left them riddled with ailments as they aged. Their physical strength would decline, preventing them from finding work, which in turn led to even worse diets. In this vicious cycle, few of their peers lived past forty, almost all dying tragically from poverty and illness.
...
"It's precisely you pseudo-cultivators who've made things difficult for us true cultivators with spirit roots!" A colleague working alongside them complained without reservation.
His name was Jian Li, from a minor Qi Refinement family, possessing a decent but not exceptional three spirit roots aptitude.
However, that year, when he was thirteen, his family's grand formation was breached by a group of Yin-Yang Thieves, wiping out his entire family. Only he, who happened to be playing outside, escaped the calamity.
Forced to become a rogue cultivator, he had no choice but to start living alone, working in the market to make a living.
With such an experience, Jian Li naturally held no goodwill towards pseudo-cultivators and frequently got into arguments with Dali and A'Qiang.
Moreover, with the influx of a large number of pseudo-cultivators, the wages in this Yuan Chen Market didn't rise but fell, forcing him to accept increasingly lower pay.
"We just want to survive! Why is it that only those with spirit roots can cultivate?!" Dali, already seething with resentment, retorted directly.
Normally honest and taciturn, unwilling to cause trouble, he usually pretended not to hear Jian Li's sarcastic remarks.
Jian Li, a sixth-layer Qi Refinement cultivator, could still easily overpower their two sixth-layer Qi Refinement "pseudo-cultivators" if they truly fought.
"Without a spirit root, you should accept your fate. Why meddle in cultivation? Now everyone's life is difficult.
The pseudo-spirit roots you're lucky enough to get are practically useless. Look at you; you can't fight, and after cultivating your whole life, your cultivation is only on par with mine. What's the point of you living, other than driving up the price of spirit stones?"
Jian Li's words also represented the feelings of countless "true" Qi Refinement cultivators.
Pseudo-cultivators rashly intruded into the world of true cultivators, severely impacting their lives.
"You...!"
"Dali, let it go, let it go. Why get angry with a kid?" A'Qiang, standing nearby, was afraid Dali might lose his temper and do something reckless. The two of them combined might not even be able to defeat Jian Li.
"Pseudo-cultivators, these pseudo-spirit root wastes, shouldn't even exist in this world!" Speaking of pseudo-cultivators, Jian Li once again recalled the scene of his entire family being massacred, and anger flared within him.
"Don't you dare stop me! I'm going to teach this brat a lesson today!"
Dali pulled a Vajra Talisman from his sleeve and slapped it on his back.
A golden glowing shield instantly covered Dali's entire body.
He raised his golden fist, easily half the size of a human head, and ferociously smashed it towards Jian Li.
"Waste is waste."
Muttering curses, Jian Li immediately cast a Lightness Technique on himself, elegantly landing ten meters away. Immediately after, two fireballs flew from his left and right hands respectively, aiming straight for Dali and A'Qiang's lower vitals.
"So young, yet so vicious." This time, even the good-natured A'Qiang couldn't stand it. He only had time to quickly pull out a Vajra Talisman and heavily slap it onto his own body.
Almost the very next moment the talisman took effect, the fireballs struck the two men.
The heatwave and the impact's shockwave easily knocked over the surrounding shelves, triggering the shop's built-in protective formation.
...
"Tell me, what is going on here?" The shop owner, who had received the news and returned, asked, looking at the messy scene.
"He started it!"
"You were the one who swore at me first!"
"..."
"..."
Having suffered a minor loss in the recent exchange, Dali and A'Qiang, with blood still on their lips, began to argue again with Jian Li, who only had a little dust on him.
"Noisy." The shop owner revealed his Foundation Establishment cultivation, pressing down on the three of them until they could barely breathe, halting the endless dispute.
"I don't care who's right or wrong. The total loss to the shop from this incident is ninety spirit stones. Each of you will compensate me forty spirit stones. If you don't have cash, it can be deducted from your wages, half your wages each month."
"Why forty spirit stones?! Isn't it thirty?" Jian Li subconsciously asked.
"Because I am a Foundation Establishment cultivator." The shop owner once again released the pressure belonging to a Foundation Establishment cultivator, forcing Jian Li to lower his head again.
"Do you understand?" The Foundation Establishment shop owner cast his gaze towards the other two.
"Und...erstand." Although their hearts were filled with indignation, all three grudgingly answered in unison.
This was, after all, a world where the strong preyed on the weak.
...
"What a headache. Another pseudo-Foundation Establishment cultivator has come to open a shop in this Yuan Chen Market, snatching business. This business is getting harder and harder to do." After dealing with other matters, the shop owner, about to leave, suddenly received a message. The content of this message gave him an even bigger headache.
The rent for the Yuan Chen Market wasn't expensive, and his shop used to be quite profitable.
But ever since two years ago, pseudo-Foundation Establishment cultivators began to appear one after another, setting up similar businesses in the market. To attract customers, they engaged in fierce price wars, forcing him to constantly compress his profits and sell goods at low prices.
Otherwise, he might not even earn enough to cover the market rent and employee wages in a month.
Now, a bunch of similar shops were crammed into the not-so-large Yuan Chen Market, barely allowing each to survive.
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