Chapter 185: Competition Begin

The woman in charge smiled at the many cultivation materials and artifacts before her: "This… this many would cost at least three hundred thousand vital stones"

Zuo Xiuzhen was stunned: "Three hundred thousand vital stones!"

She knew how hard it was for a lone martial practitioner to get vital stones yet Lu Zheng was just about to get three thousand. Yet, what stunned her most was that Lu Zheng didn't even show a change in expression.

"Hmm" Lu Zheng nodded. He brought out a pouch from his robes and emptied its contents before the woman.

Suddenly, strong star Qi filled the place as spatial winds blew within the building. The many artifacts inside the building shook visibly as purple star dust formed on the containers around them.

Lu Zheng was quick to react as space path aura emanated from his body. In a moment, the spatial winds ceased and the star Qi was restricted to a small space before him.

Despite the sudden change in her trading firm, the woman smiled endlessly: "These are ethereal stones! Pure ethereal stones!"

"Ethereal stones?" Zuo Xiuzhen was surprised. "What are those?"

The woman looked even more surprised that Zuo Xiuzhen did not know what they were: "Ethereal stones are physical manifestations of space path that can only be found in the outer void. They are used to make spatial rings and other spatial artifacts"

"Oh…" Zuo Xiuzhen still didn't understand.

"How much will these be worth?" Lu Zheng asked.

"The ethereal stones alone worth more than two million vital stones and the stellar cores themselves can be used to refine strong star path artifacts. Altogether with the other cultivation materials, you would get a little over three million vital stones" The woman smiled like the vital stones she would give Lu Zheng was nothing to her. She seemed to want to take the ethereal stones as soon as possible.

"Three million vital stones…" Zuo Xiuzhen wondered what dream she had chanced herself upon.

"Hmm" Lu Zheng nodded. "That should be enough. Do you have formation plate artifacts?"

"Formation plate artifacts? Yes, which grade do you want?" The woman was keenly interested in satisfying Lu Zheng.

"Spirit Grade formation plate artifacts, many of them" Lu Zheng smiled. Formation plate artifacts were used by artificers to inscribe runes of formations so that they could move them around.

Formations that were carved in cultivation materials were bound to the materials and were immobile. Formation plate artifacts were the only way to move them.

The woman disappeared for a moment before returning with hundreds of Spirit Grade formation plate artifacts. Their grades ranged from rank one Spirit Grade to rank seven Spirit Grade.

"Good" Lu Zheng smiled. "I'll trade the ethereal stones for the Spirit Grade formation plate artifacts"

The woman's face suddenly lit up. Smoothly, she took the ethereal stones and gave Lu Zheng all the Spirit Grade formation plate artifacts.

As Lu Zheng and Zuo Xiuzhen left, she still said: "Please return to make more business deals. Here at Blacksteel City, you can never be cheated!"

When Lu Zheng and Zuo Xiuzhen left the trading firm, they saw that everyone was walking towards the grand building standing in the distance.

"It seems the Blacksteel Decennial Refinement Competition is about to begin" Lu Zheng smiled.

The central area of Blacksteel City was a large city built around an extremely large building. The building was many metres tall and even more metres wide. It was there that the disciples and elders of Blacksteel Associations held meetings and refined important artifacts and pills.

It was said that if one was lucky, they could meet Blacksteel Ancestor refining dozens of Divine Grade artifacts at the same time. It was a grand sight in its own right.

Now, inside one of the many rooms in the building stood tens of thousands of martial practitioners. The weakest martial practitioners were Sky realm experts and the strongest even reached the first tier of Extent realm.

Standing before the martial practitioners were four men with auras that made anyone that looked upon them to develop a sense of reverence and awe. The four men were four of the Seven Great Elders and were Great Grandmaster artificers.

One of the four men was a wizened man with bald head and long flowing white beard.

Stroking his beard, he chuckled: "This year surely will be great. There are even Extent realm experts among the participants"

Another man that seemed to be in his twenties scoffed: "Old Fang, you better than anyone should know that high cultivation bases do not necessarily mean great talent"

Old Fang smiled like he did not hear the disdain in the younger looking man's voice: "But An Jian, you should know that those with high cultivation bases must have lived longer and practised their refining arts more. Even without high talents, they would have great experience"

An Jian heard Old Fang's words and snorted. He did not like the man at all.

A third man called Di Wei interjected before a fight broke out: "Either way, we should hope that there is a refinement path expert here at the very least. Only they can win the competition and become the Child of Aptitude for the next ten years"

"Hmm" An Jian and Old Fang nodded in agreement.

"Old Zu, please address the people" Di Wei gestured at the man beside him.