Chapter 144: [The Big Spender]
Taiming Mountain Reservoir.
"Splash~"
Amidst the splashing water, Su Jingxing channeled his True Qi to wrap around his entire body, diving down toward the underground cave.
Familiar with the route, he arrived at the subterranean cavern.
Standing before the Spirit-Concentrating Fruit Tree, Su Jingxing retrieved "Elementary Formations" and several Energy-Gathering Stones from his palm space.
Flipping through the pages, he found a basic formation. According to the node arrangement of the formation, he buried the Energy-Gathering Stones underground one by one.
This basic formation could be stacked. From the inside out, as long as there were enough Energy-Gathering Stones, it could continue to expand outward, with formations constantly increasing.
For every layer stacked, the effect doubled.
To this end, Su Jingxing took out all his Energy-Gathering Stones and placed them in three circles around the Spirit-Concentrating Fruit Tree along the paths of the basic formation, tripling the effect.
A triple effect meant the ripening time would be accelerated threefold.
Therefore, it was not enough!
If he wanted the Spirit-Concentrating Fruit Tree to complete its ninety years of time progression within a few months, he needed at least a tenfold increase.
If he could achieve a twentyfold or thirtyfold acceleration, the time would be even shorter.
The problem was, where could he get more Energy-Gathering Stones?
This stuff was completely unseen on the market; even in the black market, it rarely appeared, and the major factions barely had enough for their own use.
The martial arts families in Qinghe City, such as the Li family, the Zhou family, and the Qi family, were all like this.
They used Energy-Gathering Stones to set up exclusive cultivation rooms.
The Suppression Martial Arts Bureau and the City Guard Mansion were the same; they basically never sold Energy-Gathering Stones.
Unless he traded other treasures with them!
Did Su Jingxing have any surplus and useless treasures?
No.
The Spirit Weapon "Thunderclap," the newly acquired Five Elements Ring, several secret techniques, and supreme arts like "Nine-Step Heaven Treading" were all in use.
On the contrary, the "Blood-Dropping Demonic Art" could be used for trade.
As for the martial arts theories inside, Su Jingxing just needed to memorize them.
As for the functional cards, those were things he could never let anyone else know about.
Anyway, Su Jingxing had no use for the "Blood-Dropping Demonic Art" and would not practice it.
Handing it over to the Suppression Martial Arts Bureau for safekeeping would save both worry and effort.
The only thing to worry about was whether Li Linzhou would be unable to resist temptation and cultivate it privately after obtaining the "Blood-Dropping Demonic Art"?
Although the "Blood-Dropping Demonic Art" was flawed and incomplete, cultivating it could allow one to advance to the Third Grade!
The Third Grade and the Fourth Grade were separated by only one grade.
Yet the gap between them was as wide as heaven and earth.
To say nothing of True Essence, a single Martial Arts True Intent alone could drive most martial artists crazy.
Take Shi Zhinie for example, a warlord-level figure who had killed countless people by any means necessary just to advance to the Third Grade.
Li Linzhou had been trapped at the Fourth Grade for over a decade.
Su Jingxing really dared not guarantee that he could withstand the temptation of advancing to the Third Grade and reject the "Blood-Dropping Demonic Art."
Just in case Li Linzhou also fell into the trap, became obsessed with the "Blood-Dropping Demonic Art," and resorted to mass slaughter in order to advance to the Third Grade.
Then Su Jingxing would be an accomplice, and the consequences would be too severe.
Thinking of this, Su Jingxing dismissed the idea of using the "Blood-Dropping Demonic Art" to trade for Energy-Gathering Stones.
Instead of causing terrible aftermaths with countless deaths and injuries, it was better to try buying them privately with money.
Whether it was information on Energy-Gathering Stones or the Energy-Gathering Stones themselves, everything would be bought with money.
As long as the money was right, Su Jingxing did not believe no one would take the bait.
The ten billion Dayu coins had already arrived in his account, and Su Jingxing had no immediate use for them. Leaving them in the bank would just benefit the bank.
The people left behind by the Exterminate-Shi Alliance could come in handy once again. He would have Shen Xi and the others spread the word, gather intelligence on Energy-Gathering Stones, or acquire them.
Right, that was how it would be done!
With his mind made up, Su Jingxing left the subterranean cavern and returned to the small courtyard at the foot of the mountain.
When he arrived home, dawn was already breaking.
He sent Shen Xi a text message with his cell phone and went to the bathroom to take a shower.
After washing up, he casually made some food.
Just as he sat down, his phone rang with a notification sound. Tapping it open, it was indeed Shen Xi's reply.
No problem!
Seeing this, Su Jingxing dialed the number and explained the matter in detail.
At the end, he instructed, "If there are ready-made Energy-Gathering Stones for sale, send me a message and I will go receive them."
"Understood, Senior," Shen Xi replied respectfully from the other end of the phone. "If there is any information, I will notify you immediately."
"Mm, whether it's ready-made Energy-Gathering Stones or news about them, as long as a transaction is completed, you will each receive a reward of one million Dayu coins," Su Jingxing said.
"No, no."
Upon hearing this, Shen Xi hurriedly refused, "It is our honor to work for Senior, how could we accept money? Senior, please rest assured, we..."
"Alright, that's it." Without waiting for Shen Xi to finish, Su Jingxing hung up the phone.
He was not short of money; there was no need to owe others.
Even if he did owe them, Shen Xi and her gang wouldn't dare say anything.
But that was not Su Jingxing's style. Previously, both sides had a common goal and a cooperative relationship.
Now that the goal was gone, any further contact was better kept simple.
The price offered by Su Jingxing was enough to pay for their labor.
Including purchasing ready-made Energy-Gathering Stones and news regarding them, the prices were quite high.
As Shen Xi and her group spread the word, in less than half an hour, many people in Qinghe City knew that a major buyer was offering a huge sum of money to acquire Energy-Gathering Stones!
Soon, an operation centered around Energy-Gathering Stones surged into action that very morning.
As for Su Jingxing himself, he continued to stay at the crematorium to transport corpses and pick up cards.
By mid-morning, just as work had started, he was stopped by Gu Bo.
"Little Su, there is an outside assignment. How about you come with me?"
"Sure." Su Jingxing nodded and agreed.
The two immediately boarded the corpse transport vehicle, driven by Gu Bo, and headed toward the waste-to-energy power plant at the southernmost tip of the western suburb.
This outside assignment was to transport corpses from the waste-to-energy power plant.
Qinghe City had many sources of electricity.
Hydropower, thermal power, wind power, geothermal power, and so on.
Among them, the main source was hydropower. Sixty years ago, a massive investment was made to build a dam on the upper reaches of the Tianshui River, establishing a large power plant.
Wind power involved setting up windmills on the ridges in the outer periphery of the Qingyun Mountain Range.
Geothermal power generation was on a small scale.
Thermal power initially burned coal, but now it primarily relied on garbage incineration, with a total of two power plants.
They were located at the southernmost tip of the western suburb and the northernmost tip of the eastern suburb, respectively.
The power plant in the southern part of the western suburb that Su Jingxing and Gu Bo were heading to was the larger of the two.
The corpse transport vehicle sped all the way, and when it arrived at the power plant gates, a large crowd had gathered.
"What's going on?"
Gu Bo asked in confusion, pressing the horn.
"They're here, they're here, everyone move aside quickly." A middle-aged man who looked like the leader stood on a high spot, shouting loudly to the gathered crowd, "The corpse transport vehicle is here, make way, everyone."
"Make way for what! People died in unclear circumstances, the bodies cannot be taken away!"
"That's right, hand over the killer, otherwise no one can take the bodies!"
"What are you people doing, huh? If you don't transport the bodies away, are you going to leave them here to turn into corpse puppets and kill everyone?"
"Go fuck yourself, Xiao Yan died less than an hour ago, how could he possibly turn into a corpse puppet so fast?"
"Hehe, who knows if there happen to be rising-corpse worm eggs lurking nearby."
"Exactly! Hurry up and transport the bodies away. You people aren't afraid of death, but this lord hasn't lived enough yet!"