Chapter 438: Empty Stock

When they had to find the army camp, it took the group much longer than now, when they knew the location of the city. As such, the trip to the city was shortened drastically.

It was as if every person who had been chosen for the selection had set out towards the city. They were all eager to prepare for the deployment to the frontline.

They all hurried to the various herbal shops, pill outlets, and other stores that sold various resources, and while Xue Wei and his friends also hurried to the City, they were slightly late. Most of the resources had been sold by the time they arrived.

The Imperial Capital, where they had arrived, was a place with ample resources, but it was not only the soldiers who needed them. Usually, they would sell most of their stock to the residents, and they did not have a large stockpile of items.

Every day, mercenaries would arrive in the Imperial Capital and sell the herbs and wares they had found while going out adventuring in the rest of the continent.

Ships would also appear in the harbor with items that they had imported from other continents, but they did not come often, and while they had some herb fields, the herbs grown there were all ordinary ones, and they were all beneath ten years old.

Although common herbs were the most sold ones, they were not useful for cultivators above the Saint rank; hence when the soldiers raided the Imperial Capital, all the resources had been taken wantonly, leaving only the common ingredients left.

As they saw the hectic and bustling city life, Xue Wei instantly knew that they had come too late, but he did not despair.

While most of the rare and most useful ingredients had been taken, he knew that not many studied the art of formations. The key ingredients when making a formation were essence stones and ores.

While he had plenty of both, most of them were of the same rank and affinity, so what he needed to buy was something of different attributes.

Those from the army camp were mainly here for herbs and pills, so Xue Wei could casually sweep all the rare ores away.

He also exchanged some of his top-ranked essence stones for high ranked, medium ranked, and low ranked essence stones.

Formations would work as long as energy was still present within the stones and ores that were placed with them. Although Xue Wei had numerous top-ranked essence stones, it was a waste to use them all the time, especially if the formation was not intended to work for long.

Hei Gou also found most of the things he needed to continue studying armament mastery. Especially since his skills were still a far cry from being able to make anything useable for them, so the things that he created just needed common materials.

Although they felt a slight pity that they could not get their hands on some herbs, they did not take it to heart. Instead, they headed to a restaurant and booked a private room.

At their levels of strength, one did not need to eat to sustain their body, but sometimes people would still eat since the food was delicious and was able to help one improve their cultivation base, not to mention it could condition their soul and relieve fatigue.

Since they had a long trip in front of them, Xue Wei and the others wanted to indulge in the feeling of having a great feast before it was time for them to enter the battlefield.

Like always, Lan was following them, but he was saying nothing, just smiling his enigmatic smile, neither interfering with their acts nor staying out of it.

He never questioned what they chose to do, nor did he help them when it turned out to become troublesome. He was just there as a spectator from start to finish.

But Xue Wei knew Lan well. Although he seemed as if he did not care about anything, he was actually the kind of person who just wanted to watch the world burn.

Although he had sworn to protect the world, and he was indeed doing so, he was not against causing havoc and letting the people suffer. The world and the people were not the same to him.

Even so, Xue Wei knew that Lan had no hostility towards him, so he was not too bothered. He was not a good samaritan, so he could not care about the many people in the world who were played like chess pieces by Lan.

All that mattered to Xue Wei were his friends and those he held dear; everyone else could do whatever they wanted, he was not going to care.

Xue Wei and the others looked at the many Fierce Beast dishes that were delivered to their table, and all of them felt relaxed.

Fierce Beasts were everywhere in the entire world. While their intellect was above mortal beasts, they were unable to take on a human shape, and they could not evolve their intelligence to a level as high as the Primordial Beasts could.

The Primordial Beasts were the ones that were similar to the humans in almost every way, except that their strength was bigger, but their maturity was slower, so it was evened out.

The strongest Primordial Beasts also had problems reproducing. The stronger the bloodline, the lesser the chance was of producing many children, while humans expanded like mortal rabbits.

Primordial Beasts and humans were, in many ways similar, and it was not only them. Every race that held the blood of the beasts and humans was similar, but even so, the races could not live in peace. It was not only Chang'an which was at war, but most places within the world were also warring with one race or another, and these wars were sharply reducing the number of experts that existed as the geniuses tended to die at a young age on the battlefield