Zhen Wu continued his circuit through the inner plaza.
He approached the seventh beast materials merchant, a younger man with sharp eyes and a predatory smile.
"Two rank one Purple Howlers. What's your offer?"
"Forty five rank 1 stones."
Zhen Wu turned to leave.
"Wait, wait! Fifty rank1 stones. Final offer."
Zhen Wu paused, considering.
Better than the others, but still not ideal.
"Fifty two."
The merchant's smile tightened.
"You drive a hard bargain, young master. Fine, fifty two stones."
The transaction completed smoothly. Zhen Wu withdrew the beast corpses from his storage rune, and the merchant counted out fifty two rank 1 true will stones.
Zhen Wu pocketed them and moved on.
He had also sold several herbs to various alchemical merchants, extracting decent prices through patience and comparison.
Total accumulated: two hundred and eight rank one true will stones.
A respectable sum for someone who'd only been in the inner sect for two days.
Zhen Wu walked slowly through the plaza, scanning the remaining stalls with careful attention.
Then he stopped.
His gaze fixed on a particular display.
A medicine stall, larger than most, with neat rows of bottles arranged by rank and type. The merchant was an elderly woman with white hair and shrewd eyes.
And there, on a raised platform behind protective glass, sat two bottles.
Soul potions. Rank two.
The liquid inside glowed with a faint white luminescence, like captured moonlight.
Zhen Wu stared at them.
His mind began working rapidly.
'Soul potions enhance soul strength. They're typically used by cultivators in the True Will Condensation realm and above, when the soul has developed enough to benefit from external reinforcement.'
His thoughts accelerated.
'But what if my spiritual root isn't soul attribute? What if it's something that interacts with soul energy without being soul based? The beast corpses have residual souls. Qing Yue provided them specifically. If I consume soul potions and fail to absorb them normally...'
A plan crystallized.
'Then I'll know my spiritual root doesn't function like standard soul cultivation. Process of elimination. Each failed test narrows the possibilities.'
He checked the price tag.
Fifty rank two true will stones in total.
He had two hundred and eight rank one stones. Not nearly enough.
Zhen Wu stared at the potions for several more seconds.
Then he sighed, defeated.
He turned to leave.
"Young master."
The voice came from directly beside him.
Zhen Wu didn't flinch. He'd sensed Zhao Lin's eventual approach a few minutes before the he materialized.
Zhao Lin stood there, expression calm, holding a small cloth bag.
He offered it to Zhen Wu.
"Supreme Elder Feng instructed me to provide this if young master required additional resources for cultivation purposes."
Zhen Wu took the bag and opened it.
Inside there were one hundred rank two true will stones.
His eyes widened slightly.
This was far more valuable than the initial fifty rank one stones. A rank two stone contained approximately ten times the refined true will of a rank one stone.
This bag represented a thousand rank one stones worth of value.
Zhen Wu looked at Zhao Lin directly, his expression shifting to genuine gratitude.
"Brother Zhao, I... thank you. This is incredibly generous."
He bowed deeply.
Zhao Lin's face showed visible nervousness.
"Young master, please don't! There's no need to bow to this humble guard!"
"Your assistance means more than you know, Brother Zhao."
"It's merely my duty, young master. Please, straighten up."
Zhen Wu straightened, but his warm smile remained.
Zhao Lin looked uncomfortable but pleased.
'The boy has a good heart. Truly grateful, not arrogant despite his talent.' Zhao Lin felt his heart warming up.
Zhen Wu turned back toward the medicine stall.
He approached with confident strides.
But as he drew near, he noticed someone else already standing at the counter.
A young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty years old. His robes bore the markings of a second year inner sect disciple. His expression was focused as he examined the soul potions.
"I'll take both." the disciple said to the elderly merchant.
The merchant nodded, reaching for the protective glass case.
"That will be fifty rank 2 true will stones, Young Master Chen Hao."
Chen Hao began reaching for his storage pouch.
"Sixty rank two true will stones."
Zhen Wu's voice cut through the transaction.
Both the merchant and Chen Hao turned to look at him.
The merchant's shrewd eyes narrowed with interest.
"Do you actually have sixty 2 two stones, young master?"
Zhen Wu smiled plainly and opened the cloth bag, tilting it so the contents were visible.
The merchant's eyebrows rose.
Rank 2 true will stones, genuine and plentiful.
She looked back at Chen Hao.
"My apologies, Young Master Chen. Business is business."
Chen Hao's face flushed with anger and nervousness.
He turned to face Zhen Wu fully.
"Junior, why do you need rank 2 soul potions? Don't you understand that consuming potions ranked higher than your current realm results in massive efficiency loss? The benefits are minimal at best and wasteful at worst."
His tone carried condescending concern.
"You should let me purchase them instead. If you truly want soul potions, go buy rank one versions. They're far more suitable for someone at your level."
Zhen Wu's expression went cold.
His eyes fixed on Chen Hao with icy clarity.
Rank 1 soul potions didn't exist.
The soul only began developing at the second realm, True Will Condensation. Before that, the soul was too underdeveloped to benefit from external enhancement and thus rank 1 soul potions were never made.
Either Chen Hao was ignorant, or he was deliberately lying to manipulate a perceived junior.
Zhen Wu said nothing.
He simply turned back to the merchant, completely ignoring Chen Hao's existence.
Chen Hao's nervousness spiked.
His face reddened further.
"Sixty five rank 2 true will stones!" he blurted out.
The merchant's eyes gleamed with barely concealed delight.
Zhen Wu's voice remained calm.
"Seventy five."
Chen Hao stared at him, eyes burning with fury.
His hands clenched into fists at his sides.
But Zhen Wu had already opened his pouch and was counting out stones onto the merchant's counter.
Seventy five rank 2 true will stones.
The merchant accepted them with professional swiftness.
She retrieved both soul potion bottles from the protective case and handed them to Zhen Wu.
"A pleasure doing business, young master."
Zhen Wu stored the potions carefully in his storage rune.
Then he turned and walked away without acknowledging Chen Hao at all.
Behind him, Chen Hao stood frozen, his expression dark.
'He spent seventy five rank 2 true will stones while being a body refinement cultivator? His family must be incredibly wealthy. Or he's being backed by an elder directly. I'll remember this.'
Zhen Wu, meanwhile, felt entirely different.
His internal mood was bright, almost childlike with satisfaction.
He left the inner plaza and headed toward a nearby park.
The park was smaller, more secluded. Trees provided natural screening. Cultivators occasionally used it for recreation, but it was currently empty.
Zhen Wu walked slowly, deliberately.
His eyes scanned the surroundings carefully.
No observers or cultivators. Not that he could detect them anyway even if they were there.
He found a clear spot beneath a large tree and sat down.
His movements were calm, unhurried.
He withdrew one soul potion bottle from his storage rune and opened it.
The white luminescent liquid inside released a faint, sweet aroma.
Without hesitation, Zhen Wu crushed the bottle against the tree, releasing a white faint smoke.
He closed his eyes. The golden dome manifested almost instantly.
Two zhang in diameter, swirling with golden clouds of concentrated true will.
But something else was happening.
The empty bottle on the ground began releasing even more faint white smoke.
Thin tendrils of soul energy, residual essence from the potion.
The white smoke drifted upward.
It approached Zhen Wu's body slowly, drawn by his cultivation.
But unlike true will, which flowed directly into his meridians...
The soul energy never entered his body.
Instead, it formed a thin, translucent shield around him.
A barrier of soul energy that hovered just above his skin, separate from his internal cultivation.
Zhen Wu's spiritual sense detected the anomaly immediately.
His eyes snapped open.
Frustration washed over him like cold water.
The golden dome began to crack.
Fractures spread across its surface in spiderweb patterns.
Then it shattered completely, golden light dissipating into nothing.
Zhen Wu sat motionless, staring at the ground.
'As I thought, I am not a Soul Harvester.' Zhen Wu was calm as still water.
From the shadows forty zhang away, concealed behind a tree, Zhao Lin watched intently.
His expression was troubled.
'Sigh. After all, he isn't a Soul Harvester. Just what in the world is his spiritual root about then?'
He had observed the entire process. The soul energy's strange behavior. The external barrier formation. Zhen Wu's visible frustration.
'The boy is testing theories. Trying to understand his own spiritual root through experimentation. But even expensive rank two soul potions provide no answers.'
Zhao Lin's concern deepened.
'Supreme Elder Feng needs to know about this. The situation is more complicated than initially assessed.'
On the ground, Zhen Wu remained sitting, his mind working through implications.
'Zhao Lin should have seen the white barrier that the soul energy formed around my body. The news will soon reach Supreme Elder Feng and Qing Yue, otherwise I would have wasted seventy five rank 2 true will stones.'
He began walking back toward his residence.
Zhao Lin followed from the shadows, maintaining his concealed position.
The afternoon sun continued its descent toward the horizon.