Han Li didn’t stand on ceremony either. He immediately followed a group of Tianpeng people straight toward a shop entrance on the nearby second floor.
Retracting his wings and swaying slightly, he entered through the door just like a genuine Tianpeng person.
A clamor of voices reached his ears, and as his gaze swept around, his eyes flickered several times.
This place was a small square spanning several hundred zhang in area, surrounded by shops of varying sizes, with hundreds of Tianpeng people moving in and out of them.
At the very center of the square stood a bluestone pillar over ten zhang tall, shimmering with faint light as if something was inscribed upon it.
Beneath the pillar, over a dozen people were looking up at it, murmuring among themselves.
Han Li glanced at the pillar and walked over curiously.
The surface of the pillar was split vertically into two halves, densely covered in text—one side glowing red, the other shimmering with emerald green light.
Han Li focused intently on the two types of text and realized they were all names of items—some familiar, others completely unknown to him.
The characters would appear and disappear in turns, as if scrolling across the pillar’s surface.
At the base of the pillar sat a middle-aged man resembling a guard, his eyes half-closed as he maintained his post.
What is this…?
Han Li swept his gaze between the two sets of text and the man’s face, feeling a mix of surprise and doubt.
Just then, a gray-robed man suddenly squeezed out from the crowd below and handed a few spirit stones to the guard.
The middle-aged guard opened his eyes, nodded, then pulled out a short red rod from his sleeve and handed it to the man.
The newcomer took the rod and swiftly waved it a few times over a blank spot on the pillar.
Though his movements were incredibly fast, Han Li’s eyes flashed with blue light, allowing him to see everything clearly.
Where the rod passed, several bright red characters appeared before vanishing into the pillar.
A moment later, those same red characters resurfaced in their original position.
A trace of astonishment flickered across Han Li’s face.
After watching for a while longer, another person stepped forward. However, this one ignored the guard and instead spread his wings, rising several zhang into the air before pressing a finger against a few green characters on the pillar.
Instantly, the characters glowed with emerald light, swiftly flowing into his finger and causing his entire body to radiate spiritual light.
The Tianpeng man tilted his head slightly, his eyes narrowing as if receiving some kind of information. After a long moment, he withdrew his finger, turned, and flew straight toward the hall’s entrance.
Several others below followed suit—some writing on the pillar, others flying up to touch the red and green characters.
Seeing this, Han Li stroked his chin, a glimmer of understanding dawning in his mind.
To confirm his suspicions, he strode forward without hesitation and pressed a finger against a row of green characters at the base of the pillar.
The characters flashed with emerald light, sending a cool sensation rushing into his mind as a line of information appeared in his thoughts:
“First-grade Radiant Wood for sale, unlimited quantity, 30,000 spirit stones per unit, Shop No. 31, Fifth Hall, Fourth Floor!”
A faint smile tugged at Han Li’s lips. He shifted slightly and moved to the other side of the pillar, pressing his finger against a row of red characters this time.
A similar message entered his mind:
“Seeking a complete Phoenix-Tail avian skeleton, price negotiable, Shop No. 10, Second Hall, Ninth Floor!”
Han Li’s expression turned slightly odd.
He hadn’t expected the Tianpeng people to use this method for buying and selling goods.
Clearly, the items posted on the pillar were either urgently needed or exceptionally rare—an ingenious system.
This way, anyone who saw the messages could go straight to the relevant shop for transactions, making things incredibly convenient.
Moreover, this method didn’t seem difficult to replicate, and it could easily be adapted for human markets as well.
Lost in thought, Han Li took a few steps back and began carefully examining the green characters listing items for sale.
He planned to scan through all the information first to see if anything caught his interest.
Though many item names differed due to racial distinctions, for some reason, most rare materials had nearly identical names—especially those considered valuable by both races, which often shared the exact same terms.
This had puzzled Han Li greatly when he first encountered the Feiling Clan’s language.
However strange this might be, he had no intention of digging deeper into the reason.
For now, he simply stood silently, staring up at the pillar.
His gaze suddenly sharpened as he locked onto a newly appeared set of green characters, his heart pounding fiercely.
“Green Luo Fruit! They’re actually selling this here?” A flush of excitement spread across Han Li’s face, his eyes alight with barely restrained joy.
This fruit was the main ingredient for the legendary divine pill, the “Heavenly Luo Pill,” and was one of the few spiritual fruits Han Li most desired.
Though this pill wasn’t as heaven-defying as the Blackflame Pill—which could increase a late-stage Deity Transformation cultivator’s breakthrough odds by several tens of percent with just three doses—in the eyes of most high-level cultivators, even those at the Body Integration stage and beyond, its value far surpassed that of the Blackflame Pill.
While consuming a Heavenly Luo Pill alone could help a Deity Transformation cultivator break through bottlenecks, most people didn’t use it that way. Instead, they paired it with other spiritual medicines.
This was because the Heavenly Luo Pill had a unique property—it could perfectly merge with most other medicines without any conflicting effects. Even more astonishingly, when taken alongside other finished pills, there was a chance it could amplify their effects by thirty to fifty percent.
For example, if Han Li took a pill that increased his cultivation by ten years, consuming it with a Heavenly Luo Pill might boost the gain to twelve or even fifteen years. And this effect wasn’t limited to low-grade pills—it worked on nearly all tiers of medicine, except for a few legendary divine pills no one had tested.
Thus, the more valuable and rare a human cultivator’s pill was, the more they desired to pair it with a Heavenly Luo Pill. If luck was on their side and the effect increased by a significant margin, it would be a dream come true.
However, the activation rate of the Heavenly Luo Pill’s effect was unpredictable.
Some people had taken three or four in a row, each one amplifying their paired medicine’s effects.
Others had spent their entire fortunes buying seven or eight Heavenly Luo Pills, gambling everything on a single attempt—only to have none of them activate, leaving them utterly devastated.
Despite its erratic nature, the Heavenly Luo Pill had driven countless cultivators to madness since its discovery.
Within just over a thousand years, all Green Luo Fruit near human territories had been harvested to extinction.
What made matters worse was that this fruit took five to six thousand years to mature, and each tree bore only a single fruit. Once picked, the tree would lose all its spiritual energy, becoming an ordinary plant.
Thus, even if major sects or powerful factions tried cultivating it en masse, the effort would be utterly futile.
In later years, only a few fruits were occasionally found deep in the wilderness. Every time a Heavenly Luo Pill appeared, high-level cultivators would fight tooth and nail for it, with most ending up in the hands of Body Integration-stage experts.
When Han Li first heard of this fruit in Sky Abyss City, he had been fascinated, dreaming of using his green liquid to cultivate it in large quantities.
Unfortunately, the Green Luo Fruit’s seeds were also rare spiritual medicines that couldn’t be preserved for long. Even in a place like Sky Abyss City, which gathered spiritual flora from across three realms and seven lands, not a single seed could be found.
Thus, Han Li had been left sighing in frustration.
Now, seeing this fruit listed on the pillar, how could his heart not race wildly?
For a moment, he couldn’t even bother checking other items. He immediately spread his wings and flew upward, stopping at the middle of the pillar to press his finger against the characters for the Green Luo Fruit.
A burst of emerald light flashed, and a line of information entered his mind.
But upon reading it, his brows furrowed.
“It requires a face-to-face negotiation? That might be troublesome.” Han Li muttered, his excitement dimming slightly.
Still, since there was a chance to obtain the Green Luo Fruit, no matter how difficult the process, he wouldn’t give up.
After a brief moment of thought, he transformed into a streak of azure light and flew out of the hall.
Once outside, he ascended straight to the ninth floor, then followed the passageway forward.
A short while later, after glancing at the numbers above a certain hall entrance, he flew inside without hesitation.
This hall was identical to the previous one in both size and layout.
However, the number of Tianpeng people here was noticeably smaller—only about twenty or thirty.
Han Li narrowed his eyes, scanning the surrounding shops before striding toward a mid-sized store in one corner.
The shop had two floors, its entrance veiled by a layer of cyan light. A pale red jade plaque hung by the door, inscribed with the words “Ten Thousand Thunder Workshop.”
Han Li’s gaze swept over the plaque, a flicker of surprise crossing his face before his expression returned to normal.
Without hesitation, he stepped through the light barrier.
His vision brightened, revealing a spacious room about thirty to forty zhang wide.
A glossy black wooden table, several pale yellow chairs, and seven or eight slightly damaged shelves cluttered with miscellaneous goods—this was the entirety of the shop’s furnishings.
Aside from a gaunt middle-aged man who appeared to be the shopkeeper behind the table, there were two other Tianpeng people inside.
Han Li discreetly swept his spiritual sense over the three of them, and his expression shifted slightly.
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