[And their protector was naturally Blood Ninety-nine from the Descending Sect!]
[As payment, they had to hand over sixty percent of their profits from each transaction to Blood Ninety-nine...]
[In return, Blood Ninety-nine ensured their safety and that the valley guards wouldn't hassle them.]
[Like the Song Family, there were quite a few families trading in the valley's marketplaces, each serving a specific Blood-ranked officer!]
Su Xing raised an eyebrow upon reading this.
"Well, it seems there are people within the Descending Sect getting rich through corruption!"
Su Xing considered for a moment, believing that this "trading inside and outside the valley" must be sanctioned by the Descending Sect!
This was because those involved were mid to high-ranking officers of the sect, powerful figures.
Don't think that those Human Immortal and Earth Immortal... or even Heavenly Immortal cultivators lacked resources.
In fact, the higher the cultivation level, the more resources were needed! And the more they lacked!
For example, for an Earth Immortal realm cultivator to break through, they would need billions of Spirit Stones!
They simply couldn't acquire these resources through normal channels.
But it was different in the valley marketplaces!
Most of those in the valley marketplaces were cultivators at the Divinity Transformation Stage and above, and they were evil cultivators!
Each transaction could bring merchants tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of Spirit Stones in profit!
A marketplace in the valley would see a new batch of evil cultivators every three years, each time numbering in the thousands!
Evil cultivators were generally wealthier than regular cultivators.
By this calculation, Old Song's three years of trading were worth more than a hundred million Spirit Stones!
After deducting costs, Old Song provided at least twenty million Spirit Stones worth of resources to the Blood-ranked officers in three years!
That's two hundred million low-grade Spirit Stones in thirty years!
Equivalent to the entire fortune of several Human Immortal realm cultivators!
Such a vast amount of wealth would tempt even Human Immortal and Earth Immortal realm cultivators...
"Tsk tsk, no wonder these Blood-ranked officers are so powerful, it seems they've been leeching off other evil cultivators!"
Evil cultivators leech off regular cultivators, and these "officers" were big evil cultivators, leeching off regular evil cultivators.
Like the law of the dark forest, a man-eat-man world!
Su Xing stroked his chin and said:
"If I could get information about these merchant families, their locations... and the locations of the various Descending Sect strongholds, that would complete my mission!"
Su Xing surmised that if he could sell this information to the Heavenly Secret Pavilion, not only would he earn a fortune.
He could even cripple the Descending Sect's operations in the Qingyun Realm, delaying their invasion of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains!
"As for how to get this intel, I'd have to start with Old Song!"
Thinking thus, Su Xing turned his gaze to the simulation panel.
[At this time, there were still more than six months until the next Blood Seed competition, you planned to cozy up to Old Song to gather information on the Descending Sect.]
[Old Song was slightly wary, but under your honeyed words and a few drinks of horse piss, he revealed quite a bit of useful information.]
[These merchant families were mostly in contact with Blood-ranked officers at the Human Immortal and Earth Immortal realms, paying a cut of their profits.]
[These officers mostly ranked below fifty in the Blood ranks and also had to hand over some of their profits to higher-ranking Heavenly Immortal officers.]
[Merchant families rarely met each other, even during the Blood Seed competition, they would hold back.]
[Besides the Song Family from Song City, you also learned about the positions of the Wei Family, the Liu Family, among others, in the southwest direction of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains.]
[These families had been colluding with the Descending Sect for a hundred years, making them true traitor families!]
[Besides merchant information, you also subtly tried to extract the locations of the Descending Sect's strongholds, but Old Song either kept his mouth shut, or was genuinely ignorant.]
[Thus, another half a year passed.]
[The Blood Seed competition was imminent!]
[So, you decided to switch tactics, aiming to uncover the locations of the strongholds through the Blood Seed competition.]
In the real world, Su Xing's eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands as he said:
"That's right! The evil cultivators participating in the Blood Seed competition mostly come from various strongholds... They might know the coordinates of their own strongholds!"
"And I only need to conduct a Soul Search to get that information!"
Su Xing found this method feasible and turned his gaze back to the simulation panel.
[In the forty-second year, you participated in the Blood Seed competition, showcasing your Tribulation Crossing stage cultivation strength.]
[This time, your main targets in the competition were Return to Void and Integration Phase cultivators.]
[Because these evil cultivators usually had more information, they might know the coordinates of Descending Sect's strongholds.]
[If you killed too many Mahayana realm cultivators, it would attract attention and investigation.]
[The three-day competition ended quickly, during which you killed seventy-eight Return to Void realm cultivators, thirty-six Integration Phase cultivators, and six Mahayana realm cultivators.]
[You conducted a Soul Search on most of these cultivators and gained a lot of useful information!]
[Among them, you found out that the Descending Sect had ten strongholds in the Little Qingyun Realm, and you identified three...]
[After the Blood Seed competition, you became a Blood Seed candidate and returned to the valley.]
[For the next three years, you continued to hang around with Old Song, hoping to gather more intelligence.]
[Thus, three years passed.]
[In the forty-fifth year, from the information Old Song gradually revealed, you discovered two more stronghold locations.]
[This year, you participated in the Blood Seed competition again.]
[This time, you conducted Soul Search on seventy-three people, and gained intelligence on three new stronghold locations.]