Li Yu took out a piece of wood and wrote a simple sign with his Qi, burning the letters into the timber.

  TRADING FOR DEMON CORES. ANY RANK. WILL PAY IN WEAPONS, ARMOR, AND RESOURCES.

  He sat back and waited. It didn't take long.

  The market traffic was heavy. Mercenaries, sect disciples and freelance hunters moved in a constant stream.

  A burly man with a scar running through his beard stopped first. He was eyeing a heavy sword that Li Yu had looted from a bandit leader.

  "Is that real?" the man grunted as he pointed a calloused finger. "The steel looks good."

  "It is," Li Yu said pleasantly. "Sharp enough to cut hair blowing in the wind. Durable."

  The man hesitated as he was thinking about his needs. He looked at Li Yu’s sign. He squinted, reading it twice to make sure it said what he thought it did.

  "You want... demon cores?" the man asked him in confusion. He was looking at Li Yu like he was insane. "Demon cores?"

  "Just cores," Li Yu confirmed. "I have... experimental things I am testing. They require a lot of demonic cores"

  The man looked around, as if checking for a prank. Then he reached into his heavy pack and pulled out a burlap sack. It clinked heavily.

  "I've got a bag of mixed junk from a rift skirmish last week," the man said. "Was gonna sell to a demon but they are not that common. Mostly small stuff."

  Li Yu scanned the bag with his spiritual sense. The energy inside was chaotic and violent. To anyone else, it was trash. To Li Yu, it was a bag of pure energy.

  "For that bag," Li Yu picked up the sword. "I will give you this." Li Yu wasn’t looking to get exact value. He was looking to make deals quickly and since human cultivators treated demonic cores as trash, both sides would be happy.

  The man’s jaw dropped. "The sword? For a bag of slag? Young man, I can’t take advantage of you like this. I see you are a fellow cultivator and we need to look out for one another."

  “This is a good deal for me. If you think it is fair, let’s make the trade. Do we have a deal?” Li Yu told the man with a smile on his face. The feeling that the man was looking out for him made Li Yu feel warm inside.

  "Deal!" The man practically threw the bag at Li Yu and took the sword. He swung it once, listening to the hum of the blade cutting the air and grinned wildly. "You're crazy, stranger, but I like you!"

  The man ran off. Probably to tell his friends before the crazy merchant regretted his decision. He had asked twice after all. The rest was on the merchant who agreed.

  That was the spark. Within twenty minutes, Li Yu’s rug was surrounded.

  Word traveled faster than a wind technique. There’s a person trading goods and resources for demon trash.

  "I have fifty pounds of fragments!" A woman in battered leather armor shouted as she was shoving her way to the front. "What will you give me?"

  "I have a large core!" Another man yelled as he was holding up a pulsating black rock. "It’s been sitting on my mantlepiece for a year because no one wants to buy it!"

  Li Yu worked with the calm efficiency of a master trader. Since he didn’t care to get exactly value and get as much as he could out of the deal, things went quickly. ‘Just think of it as helping out the people of this continent if there are any true losses of profit.’ Li Yu thought to himself.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  However, he knew that would be impossible. The value he is getting from trading for core was so in his favor compared to if he was trying to get beast cores or pills. Even if he started doing it for charity, there would be no way he wouldn’t end up ahead.

  Li Yu didn't stop. He accepted everything. Cracked cores, old cores and cores that were leaking corruption. He didn't care. His Koi would be able to handle it all.

  He piled the cores into his Koi Sanctuary and emptying his inventory of clutter.

  "Please, form a line!" Li Yu called out cheerfully as the crowd grew rowdy. "I have plenty of stock!"

  An hour passed. Li Yu had acquired thousands of demon cores. The sheer volume of energy he had amassed was staggering. Li Yu planned to acquire much more though. He wanted the energy for his push into Divine Transformation. From talking with Tekton, a massive amount of energy was needed. Not only that, the more the better. It would only lay a better foundation for the future.

  "Make way!" a voice boomed.

  The crowd parted. Three men wearing the insignia of the Golden Ledger Merchant Guild approached. They were well-fed and dressed in furs that cost more than most people’s houses.

  The leader, a man with a neatly trimmed beard and sharp, calculating eyes looked at Li Yu’s pile of goods that kept being replenished. It was clear that the young man had a lot to trade.

  "I am Steward Harlin," the man said, bowing slightly. "Of the Golden Ledger."

  "Li Yu," Li Yu replied but did not get up from his seated position. "Can I interest the Guild in a trade?"

  Harlin chuckled. "We heard rumors of a philanthropist in the market. I came to see for myself. You are disrupting the local economy, Lord Li Yu. But... we are intrigued."

  He looked at the strange assortment of items Li Yu still had left. Focusing on the herbs and pills. Ores that didn't exist in the North. Even spirit stones, which Li Yu had brought out as a reserve currency.

  "The Guild is always interested in... eccentric partners," Harlin said. "You seem to have an insatiable appetite for demon cores. And you seem to possess a supply of resources that we find difficult to source."

  Li Yu smiled. This was what he was waiting for. Retail was fine but wholesale was better and faster.

  "I am always looking for cores," Li Yu admitted. "The more, the better. I have a special need for it with the things I am trying to do."

  Harlin produced a token made of gold-flecked iron. "The Golden Ledger manages demonic cores for three major fortress cities. We have silos of demon cores. Tons of them. If you are willing to trade items like these... or perhaps spirit stones... we can arrange a bulk transfer. Direct delivery. No need to sit in the cold."

  Li Yu took the token. "I would be very interested in emptying your silos, Steward Harlin."

  "Excellent," Harlin beamed. "Contact us when you are ready. We can handle transactions of any size."

  As Harlin left another figure approached. This one was different. He wore the robes of a Sect Elder. The Glacial Peak Sect which is a prominent local power.

  "We have heard you trade resources for demon trophies," the Elder said intensely. "My sect has a vault full of demon cores we have collected over years of defense. They are useless to us and taking up space. But we need weapons. We need armor for our juniors."

  "I have plenty," Li Yu said while handing the Elder a communication jade. "Let us set up a meeting. I can outfit a lot of people if the price in cores is right."

  By the time the sun began to dip low and began casting long purple shadows across the city, Li Yu had emptied his initial stock. He didn’t sell everything he had. He kept a lot of the things that he could bulk sell later with the larger organizations that talked with. Like weapons and armor, he was swimming in them from just the vault and rings of the Crimson Fang alone.

  He stood up after a long time of sitting on the ground and began shaking out his grey cloak. He was lighter on the random clutter that had been filling his ring from his visit to the White Tiger Continent. In it’s place was piles of demonic cores of all ranks piled high into mountains.

  He felt a deep sense of satisfaction.

  In the cultivation world resources were everything. Usually, you had to fight for them, steal them or discover them.

  But here? Here, the most potent energy source available was littering the ground and people were thanking him for taking it away. He was giving them things they need and they were giving him things he needed. Both sides couldn’t be happier.

  ‘I need to reach Divine Transformation,’ Li Yu thought to himself while watching the crowd disperse. ‘To do that, I need an ocean of energy. It seems I have found the source of my ocean.’

  Li Yu packed up his rug. He had made some useful connections today.

  "Time to find Krell," Li Yu murmured to himself. "And then, North to Torben."