Chapter 447: Isn’t It Just a Piece of Refining Material?

Unity could have defeated the enemy, but there was always a lack of a strong leader to take the lead.

At first, they thought the Zhou family of Holy City was strong enough, but when they tried to be the vanguard, they were wiped out in mere moments.

No one dared to stand up after that.

This is human nature.

Su Jingzhen and Shen Yifeng understood this aspect of human nature well, which is why they dared to act as they did.

Though there were still countless discussions and endless eyes filled with unwillingness in the crowd, Su Jingzhen and his group managed to leave the Free Market without any obstacles.

Once they left the noisy crowd, even fewer people dared to block their way.

In no time, they returned to the courtyard they had chosen earlier.

The white-feathered eagle was still resting quietly on the side.

“There are still two to three hours before dawn. Choose a room to rest in for a while. After all, it is not certain that you can directly enter the ruins in the south of the city after dawn.

There’s no need for you to worry about anything; I will inform you if anything changes happens,” Shen Yifeng said to Su Jingzhen and the other two as they returned to the courtyard.

With that, he stepped onto the ground and leaped onto the highest rooftop in the courtyard.

From there, his view was extremely wide, allowing him to clearly see any movement within several hundred meters.

He planted his Killing Sword into the eaves beside him.

Anyone who dared to approach the courtyard would be killed without hesitation.

In truth, killing those two Nascent Soul cultivators of the Zhou family earlier hadn’t satisfied him.

He had initially thought that with the Zhou family taking the lead, many other forces would follow suit.

If that had happened, perhaps he could have gone on a killing spree today, turning the Free Market into a river of blood.

Unfortunately, he and Su Jingzhen acted too quickly, leaving no chance for the other restless cultivators to make a move.

Although the intimidation had been effective, he still hoped there were those foolish enough to make a move tonight.

Seeing Shen Yifeng voluntarily take on the role of the night watch, keeping guard over the courtyard…

Su Jingzhen, Ye Zhiqiu, and Xuening all nodded to each other and chose their respective rooms.

The courtyard was still in relatively good condition. Although there was a considerable amount of dust, with their abilities, cleaning up a room was an effortless task. Whether they chose to meditate or sleep, they at least had some privacy.

However, from the time they left the Free Market and returned here, including Shen Yifeng, no one asked why Su Jingzhen had spent such a large sum of money to acquire those five seemingly ordinary items from the old man’s stall.

Everyone has their own secrets.

Even as a master, Shen Yifeng had always shown Su Jingzhen absolute respect in this regard. Unless absolutely necessary, he would not pry into Su Jingzhen’s strange behavior.

After all, to the outside world, many of Shen Yifeng’s actions were far more peculiar than Su Jingzhen’s.

Once in his room, Su Jingzhen closed the door behind him.

Before he could even summon her, Bai Suzhen, who was tied to his waist, suddenly emitted a flash of light and reverted to her true form as a white python.

At this moment, a hint of excitement could be seen in Bai Suzhen’s sapphire-blue eyes.

“Take out the items.”

Seeing the excitement in Bai Suzhen’s eyes, Su Jingzhen frowned once again.

Before he could ask, Bai Suzhen spoke up, “The fact that I didn’t respond to you before proves that what I need is indeed in these things.

This time, you did pretty well.”

After Su Jingzhen took out the bundle, Bai Suzhen did not hesitate to offer her praise.

The items were the same: the mysterious bottle, the rusty sword, the fire crystal, the frost stone, and the beast bone.

Even now, Su Jingzhen still had no idea which of these items Bai Suzhen was after.

When he first acquired them from the old man, he had carefully inspected each one with his divine consciousness multiple times.

Yet, he couldn’t detect any of the unusual fluctuations that Bai Suzhen had mentioned.

To his eyes, these five items were utterly ordinary, as plain as could be.

However, he hadn’t opened the so-called mysterious bottle yet.

As Su Jingzhen was about to open the mysterious bottle, a look of concern suddenly crossed his face.

“My master has extraordinary cultivation and immense combat power. If you appear so openly, won’t he be able to sense you?”

Although Su Jingzhen trusted Shen Yifeng, when it came to Bai Suzhen, he had to be cautious. After all, her existence was difficult to explain.

Hearing this, a hint of disdain flashed in Bai Suzhen’s sapphire-blue eyes.

“Your master is indeed quite powerful, but he’s far from being able to detect me. The moment my true form manifested, a barrier naturally rose in this room. With his abilities, he can’t see through it.”

As she said this, there was a hint of arrogance in Bai Suzhen’s tone.

Su Jingzhen breathed a sigh of relief.

Without further hesitation, he opened the jade bottle.

The next moment, he was once again dumbfounded.

“What a swindler!” he cursed helplessly.

The jade bottle had a formation inscribed on it that prevented spiritual or divine consciousness from probing its contents.

There was only a low-grade Qi-replenishing pill!

A first-grade pill of low quality—something so worthless that Su Jingzhen wouldn’t even bother picking it up if he found it on the street. Yet now, he had spent a significant amount of money to purchase it.

Su Jingzhen had mentally prepared himself for the possibility of being swindled by the mysterious bottle, but he never imagined the deceit would be so blatant. If he remembered correctly, that sly old man had asked for fifty mid-grade spirit stones for this thing.



Casually tossing the mysterious bottle aside, Su Jingzhen’s gaze shifted back to the remaining four items, with a renewed sense of excitement.

He picked up the fire crystal and frost stone, setting them to the side.

In his view, these were the only two items among the five that he could identify with his own abilities.

“Suzhen, the item you’re sensing should be one of these two, right?” Su Jingzhen asked, his voice filled with anticipation and excitement.

Now, only the rusty sword and the beast bone remained between them.

However, upon hearing Su Jingzhen’s categorization, a flash of disdain once again crossed Bai Suzhen’s large sapphire-blue eyes.

Without warning, her white python mouth opened wide.

A beam of white light shot towards both the beast bone and the rusty sword that Su Jingzhen had been so eagerly eyeing.

In the next instant, the beast bone crumbled into a pile of dust on the ground.

There was a faint energy fluctuation from it, but it was so minimal that it confirmed the bone was indeed an ordinary object, probably from a third-grade demon beast at best—equivalent to the Golden Core stage.

Su Jingzhen was dumbfounded once more. He had misjudged again. He couldn’t help but mentally curse that wretched old man yet again.

The rusty sword, on the other hand, was in even worse condition than the beast bone. It immediately melted into a pool of iron slag, congealing haphazardly on the floor.

“This was really just a piece of scrap iron? Not even ranked? Was this just something picked up randomly from the mortal world?” he muttered in disbelief.

In his view, even a flying sword of the lowest quality, reaching the level of a magic weapon, should not melt so completely.

There were no other impurities in this pile of molten iron, meaning it was made of pure iron.

To martial artists in the mortal world, this would probably be considered scrap.

He had foolishly thought that this item, though seemingly ordinary, might harbor some hidden mystery.

But from a certain perspective, this Iron Sword was indeed somewhat precious because finding something even more useless among cultivators would be quite difficult.

It was a case of rarity equating to value.

Although the previous transaction was a mutually agreed upon deal, seeing these two items, which he had high hopes for, end up in such a state still gave him an impulse to return to the Free Market and dismantle that lecherous old man.

However, all his complex emotions ultimately turned into a sense of helplessness.

His gaze fell once more on the final pieces: the Flame Fire Crystal and the Sky Frost Stone.

To Su Jingzhen and everyone who had seen that stall, these two crystals appeared to be the most normal items.

However, their normalcy also made them seem unremarkable.

Thus, Su Jingzhen and others paid them less attention.

“Suzhen, could the secret be in these?” Su Jingzhen asked subconsciously.

Divine consciousness once again surged from his Niwan Palace, but no matter how he probed, he could not discern any clue.

“If a cultivator of your level, relying on a bit of divine consciousness, could uncover the secret, then these two stones would not have remained until now and ended up in our hands.”

Bai Suzhen’s words carried a hint of sarcasm.

Su Jingzhen was not bothered by her taunts, and his face grew more excited.

“Suzhen, what exactly are these things?”

Bai Suzhen’s snake head shook lightly. “I don’t know what they are exactly, but the things within these two stones give me a sense of unease.”

As she spoke, a grave expression emerged in Bai Suzhen’s eyes.

At the Free Market, she had only had a vague sense.

Now, with such close contact, that sense, though still vague, made her feel uneasy and somewhat apprehensive.

At a critical moment, Bai Suzhen showed some hesitation.

She was uncertain whether to open them.

“Suzhen, are the things inside here? But these… these are just the Flame Fire Crystal and the Sky Frost Stone.”

Su Jingzhen was extremely curious. seaʀᴄh thё Novelƒire(.)ne*t website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

So much so that with a flash of light from his storage ring, the black brick appeared in his hand.

This black brick was indestructible. If Bai Suzhen continued to hesitate…

Su Jingzhen was ready to use the brick directly to smash it open.

At this moment, Bai Suzhen’s deep blue eyes turned to Su Jingzhen again.

Her gaze was now serious.

“You need to be mentally prepared. I can open these two stones and release what’s inside.

However, I still have only a vague sense of what’s within.

I can sense that it might be useful to both of us, but I cannot determine exactly what it is.

Perhaps, after releasing it, I may not be able to subdue it with my current abilities.”

Upon hearing this, Su Jingzhen’s heart skipped a beat.

Although he didn’t know Bai Suzhen’s exact level of power, he was certain it was unimaginably high.



Now, even she wasn’t confident in subduing whatever was inside these stones. Just how powerful could it be?

“Are these just two refining materials?” Su Jingzhen muttered to himself again.

But at this point, he clearly had little confidence in his own understanding of the situation.

“Should we open them or not?”

At this moment, Bai Suzhen’s voice sounded again, placing the choice directly in Su Jingzhen’s hands.