Deep beneath the bustling central trading plazas of the Great Void Sect lay an unmapped maze of limestone tunnels: the Shadow-Market Exchange.
Here, beneath flickering blood-oil lamps, rogue disciples, black-market merchants, and inner-sect emissaries traded forbidden scriptures, stolen artifacts, and contraband pills out of sight of the Law Enforcement Hall.
At midnight, a tall figure in a pitch-black robe and a silver-threaded faceless mask stepped into the central market pavilion. He carried no weapon, but the subtle, suffocating pressure around his body forced passing vendors to step aside in silence.
This was Avatar Zero, a spirit puppet Adam had built from high-density soul thread using a technique from the Ever-Ending Void Scripture, and fueled by a fraction of his Perfected Foundation Qi. Controlled remotely from the quiet summit of Ghost-Sword Peak, it served as Adam’s front man for his economic conquest.
Adam’s own sign-in that midnight had been a modest one: a jar of Nine-Leaf Frost Dew, a common alchemy reagent. He hadn’t minded. Tonight’s work was commerce.
Avatar Zero stopped before the largest stall in the cavern, owned by the Gilded-Crow Chamber of Commerce, the merchant faction controlled from behind the scenes by Senior Brother Ye’s family.
A fat, greedy merchant in silk robes looked up from his abacus, eyeing the masked figure with a mixture of suspicion and amusement.
"Looking to buy or sell, stranger?" the merchant sneered, tapping his wooden counter. "If you’re buying, our low-grade Foundation-Building Pills start at two hundred spirit stones each. Cash upfront, no credit."
Avatar Zero didn’t speak. He reached into his wide black sleeve and set a single crystal vial on the counter.
CLINK.
Inside hovered ten snow-white pills, each encased in a translucent, shimmering aura. Around the surface of every pill, three golden ring-like trails of light spun continuously: Triple Pill Halos.
The merchant’s sneer evaporated. His abacus slipped from his fat fingers and crashed onto the stone floor.
"Supreme-Grade... Foundation-Building Pills?!" the merchant gasped, his eyes bulging as he pulled out a magnifying array to inspect the vial. "Impossible! Not even the Chief Elders of the Alchemist Peak can refine pills with zero toxic residue and triple halos! Where did you get these?!"
"The Void-Star Pavilion," Avatar Zero said, his voice modulated into an icy, metallic echo that rolled across the cavern. "Ten pills. Each guarantees a Qi Condensation disciple a breakthrough to Foundation Establishment without damaging the meridians. Starting price: five hundred spirit stones."
"Name your price!" the merchant blurted, reaching for the vial. "The Gilded-Crow will take the lot!"
Avatar Zero lifted the vial out of his reach. "The Void-Star Pavilion sells to the highest bidder. Not to the Gilded-Crow."
He turned and walked to the stone pillar at the center of the plaza, and the crowd parted around him.
Within five minutes, word of the pills spread through the tunnels like wildfire.
Over two hundred elite inner-sect disciples rushed to the pillar, waving leather pouches stuffed with spirit stones.
"Two thousand spirit stones for the vial!" a 9th-Layer core disciple roared, shoving his way to the front.
"Twenty-five hundred and a Mortal-Grade (High) spirit sword!" another shouted.
A fierce bidding war erupted on the spot. Within fifteen minutes, the vial sold for twenty-eight hundred low-tier spirit stones.
Avatar Zero swept the stones into a storage pouch, pulled out a dark iron sign, and hammered it deep into the stone pillar.
Carved into the iron plate in glowing silver characters were these words:
[VOID-STAR PAVILION]
Highest Quality. Zero Impurities. No Rivals.
Grand Opening: Every Midnight. One Vial Per Night.
The other two vials stayed in his sleeve. Scarcity would do the rest.
By dawn, the Great Void Sect was in turmoil.
At the majestic Alchemist Peak, dozens of senior alchemy elders gathered around a single triple-haloed pill bought in the shadow market. Their faces were as pale as paper as they tested its composition in their heating cauldrons.
"Not a single trace of furnace ash..." the Lead Alchemist whispered, his hands trembling as he stared at the pill. "Pure, pristine celestial energy! Whoever refined this is either a legendary Saint-Grade alchemist or holds a God-Tier primal flame!"
"Elder! The disciples are delaying their monthly pill allocations!" a young apprentice burst in, sweating profusely. "They’re saving their stones to bid on the Void-Star Pavilion’s next vial. They say our pills are full of impurities by comparison. Our sales fell by a third in a single night!"
Inside his private palace on Inner-Zenith Peak, Senior Brother Ye slammed his fist onto a tea table and shattered it into splinters.
"The Void-Star Pavilion?!" Ye roared, his eyes bloodshot with rage. "Who is backing them?! First that wild dog Adam Hale extorts my spirit stones, and now a rogue merchant group is bleeding our Gilded-Crow business in the black market?!"
"Senior... Senior Brother..." Gu Long stammered from behind a pillar, his body still wrapped in bandages. "The herbs used to refine those pills... the alchemy elders say the raw ingredients match the exact Spirit-Nourishing Herbs we delivered to Ghost-Sword Peak yesterday..."
Senior Brother Ye froze. A cold, terrifying realization struck his heart like lightning.
"Adam Hale..." Ye gritted his teeth so hard that blood trickled from his lips. "It’s HIM! He’s using our own herbs to refine Supreme-Grade pills and bleed our merchant empire!"
Meanwhile, on the misty summit of Ghost-Sword Peak, Adam sat inside his hall and opened his eyes as Avatar Zero returned through the tunnels and set twenty-eight hundred low-tier spirit stones on the floor.
Ding!
[Notice: Shadow faction ’Void-Star Pavilion’ deployed in the Great Void Sect shadow market.]
[Reward: Heaven-Grade Blueprint, Spirit-Gathering Array.]
[Effect: Concentrates ambient Qi and speeds consolidation of the Host’s Foundation. Does not replace the Nine-Turn Core requirements.]
Adam picked up a glowing spirit stone and tossed it lightly in his palm, a cold, satisfied smile touching his lips beneath his hood.
"Senior Brother Ye paid for the raw materials, and his own disciples provided the profit," Adam said softly, his voice echoing in the quiet hall. "Now that the capital is secure, I’ll set up the Spirit-Gathering Array and speed up my consolidation. The Nine-Turn Core will take its own time. I’ll earn it."
[Foundation consolidation: 5 / 30 days.]