My Scales Can Make Equivalent Exchange
Chapter 775 - 652: Shen Hong’s Situation

Chapter 775: Chapter 652: Shen Hong’s Situation

Ever since the prosperity of the Sixth Era, the Profound Sect Orthodox School revered the Taoist School as its core.

But the Taoist School of today differed fundamentally from that of the Fourth Epoch’s Taoist School and Immortal Court.

The Taoist School of today existed in name only; it was no longer a power in its own right.

Or perhaps it was more accurate to say that the Taoist School leaned more towards notions like ’Profound Sect Orthodox School’ and ’the Righteous Path’.

The whole Righteous Path was referred to as the Taoist School!

The real powers were the various branches that had diverged from the Taoist School of old.

These branches had survived the End of Dharma in the Fifth Era and the exploratory period of the early Sixth Era, eventually forming the major sects.

Among them, the three core branches of the Taoist School—Taiching, Shangqing, and Yuqing, which derived from the Immortal Court of the old Taoist School, had become the three top-tier factions.

Beneath them were the first-class forces, numbering over thirty.

Some of them, like Xuanmiao Temple, came from the three factions split off from the Taoist school and established their own sects during the End of Dharma period; some of them were newly emerged in this epoch.

At least one Eight-realm Immortal needed to reside within these forces for them to be considered first-class.

However, due to these historical reasons, even though they had all branched out, the Three Factions remained the leaders of the Righteous Path.

Beneath them were numerous second-tier forces of uneven strength. Some had Immortals, or even Celestial Immortals residing within, while others only had Crossing Tribulation.

The Wanyu Sect, despite occupying nearly one-sixth of Spirit Suppressing Realm, was still only considered a second-tier force!

Lower-grade forces were not elaborated on; presumably, the Immeasurable Palace had not managed to fully catalogue and record them.

By the way, the Immeasurable Palace was ranked quite high among the emerging top-tier forces, thanks to their ancient inheritance.

No wonder they could manage the gray enterprises, such as the black and dark markets, to such a degree.

Generally speaking, the whole Shen Hong was unified culturally, but the power struggles ran rampant.

Even the governance in the different realms was mostly governed within the scope of the sects, only radiated to the surrounding related areas.

It was unlike in the Spirit Suppressing Realm, where the entire realm was divided into a few pieces and governed by a few sects with numerous small sects under them.

It looked like the fiefdom of many states!

To put it simply, the current Shen Hong was akin to the Wanyu Sect’s state after the End of Dharma, where the Outer Sect Branches each claimed a piece of territory and formed their own sect.

Although they continued to adhere to the culture and rules of the Wanyu Era, each branch set up its own household and managed its own territory independently; they were no longer a unified whole.

Only during times of major crises would they, to a certain extent, align with the branches split off from Qifeng’s twelve Courtyards.

The overall situation in Shen Hong was something like this!

······

After reading the information, Wang Zijia had a general understanding of the East Wilderness and Shen Hong.

Then, Wang Zijia released the jade slip for void travel and carefully recorded its information.

Although the Immeasurable Palace stated that they had no more boat tickets and teleportation arrays, Wang Zijia did not plan to simply drive back by magic.

Or rather, after obtaining a basic understanding and the travel route, Wang Zijia was not in a hurry to return.

Simply because, after returning, he would have to come out again. The lack of spiritual objects was a major issue, and so was the shortage of various resources.

The Spirit Suppressing Realm rarely saw external monks. This was not due to its isolation and stagnation!

As for the safety at home, the big shots of the Devil Gate were almost exterminated back then. Now, six years had passed and the fighting between the Righteous and Devil factions in the Spirit Suppressing Realm should have already been resolved.

Even if there were some variables, it wouldn’t matter whether he went back or not.

Plus, Xiang Feifei and the other women were conveniently vacationing in Qinglian, so there should be no problems.

There were no signs of the spiritual objects, and rushing back in such a hurry to restart again would be a waste of time back and forth!

He could slowly look for spiritual objects during this time, while also making inquiries through various channels. If there are private channels available, he wouldn’t have to take any risks.

After all, there were monks from other realms in the Spirit Suppressing Realm!

······

Glancing at the information, Wang Zijia gradually formed a plan in his mind.

So, it was time to seriously manage relations and connections with people and circles here.

Wang Zijia pondered for a long time, settled his thoughts and ideas before stopping further contemplation.

He pulled out the black market token he had received from the Immeasurable Palace and examined it for a moment.

The token’s overall circular shape was about the length of a palm and was a top-notch spirit tool. It resembled an identity token, shimmering with spiritual light.

The phrase "Immeasurable Palace" was engraved on the central pattern of the countless runes on the front, and "A576" on the back.

Wang Zijia tried to activate it with mana, and in an instant, a familiar yet foreign pull overwhelmed him.

This force seemed to pull his mind towards a specific location.

The force wasn’t strong at all. If Wang Zijia wanted to resist, he would easily shake it off without expending much effort.

Having had plenty such experiences, Wang Zijia let the force guide him to a certain place.

It felt like he had traveled a tremendous distance and eventually connected with something.

The next moment, Wang Zijia felt as though he had been stuffed into a lump of clay-like material.

Or rather, his thoughts had arrived in a clay-like material.

Immediately after, a weird divine power was triggered. Wang Zijia’s body quickly stretched and changed, turning into a mirror image of himself within a blink of an eye.

But it didn’t turn into his original appearance, but rather, Liu Neng’s appearance.

Wang Zijia peered down at his avatar, which looked incredibly like himself, perplexed. Its appearance mirrored his own before triggering the talisman!

Whether it was touch or perception, there was no disconnect at all.

It didn’t feel like a puppet; it felt more like his consciousness had transferred onto his human skin avatar.

"A constant Earth magic spell, similar to Clay Transformation Hide? All to create a life-sized version of myself that is indistinguishable from the real thing?"

"That’s quite extravagant, isn’t it?"

"Tsk, tsk, the first-class forces backed by celestial immortals, indeed extraordinary!"

This small detail clearly demonstrated the Immeasurable Palace’s extravagance!

After a moment of awe, Wang Zijia surveyed his surroundings.

This was a roughly ten square meter quiet room. The furnishings were extremely sparse, consisting of just a meditation cushion, a table, a chair, and a black robe hung on the wall.

Looking down at himself, he was dressed exactly like his real body, probably because the talisman had copied his clothes.

In his hand was a similar talisman.

After getting a general sense of his situation, he exited the room.

As he opened the door, the soothing sunlight and distant noise trickled to his ears.

After he adjusted to the light for a moment, he stepped out of the room.

The moment he left the room, the door automatically closed. The plaque at its entrance, which originally read: "Jia Wei 76" gradually disappeared, leaving the plaque blank.

It was awaiting the next guest to sign out!

Wang Zijia looked around. It was a typical residential area, filled with uniform houses about ten square meters each. There were so many all lined up in a row.

Obviously, this was specially used for signing in and out.

"Dark Market of East Wilderness," a place with such an ordinary name, appeared to adopt a remote puppet market system akin to Spirit Suppressing Realm’s Ghost Market.

Ah, the Ghost Market probably copied Immeasurable Palace’s idea!

This era’s high-end dark markets and even many high-end marketplaces, all operated in either one of two ways.

It was either like now, a puppet market where real people could come, or puppet operators could remotely control it.

Or simply an illusion!

This way, defending the marketplace became much simpler.

No need to worry about the safety of people leaving the marketplace.

Most importantly, the periphery of the marketplace would not become the most dangerous place anymore with frequent bandit attacks, for instance.

Of course, control over their own channels also increased exponentially.

And so on...

There were also many disadvantages, like if you don’t have some special methods, the delivery fee of the goods purchased would be quite high!

Nevertheless, overall the benefits outweighed the disadvantages; otherwise, a traditional dark market wouldn’t have been gradually replaced by such a method.

...

After understanding the general situation, Wang Zijia hovered into the air, trying to get an overview.

However, while this puppet was indeed high-end, it had as little strength as a silicone doll.

Left with no choice, Wang Zijia could only step onto the rooftop to survey the distance.

Beyond the inhabited sign-in area, there was a bustling street stretching into the distance. The entire market was not small, with seven or eight blocks, looking like a small town.

The scale of the black market alone was already impressive.

Keep in mind, this wasn’t just a black market. It was a high-end black market, predominantly populated by God Monarchs.

From this alone, one could infer that this was probably the highest-end black market in the whole East Wilderness.

He looked up at the sky. The dim light indicated that it was evening now, but Haoyang could not be seen.

"Is this a Cave World? Mini World? Or just a circled area turned into a Blessed Land Secret Realm?"

"’Dark Market of East Wilderness’? Such an ordinary name doesn’t match its pompous nature at all!"

After briefly scouting the area, Wang Zijia got a rough idea of the situation in the Dark Market of East Wilderness.

Collecting his thoughts, he did not immediately enter the market, but instead hopped off the rooftop and used the talisman to exit the sign-in room again.

...

Back in Wenlan Courtyard, his consciousness had returned to his real body. He conjured a human skin paper man avatar and activated the Dark Market talisman again.

This top-notch spirit tool wasn’t only used for signing in.

As Wang Zijia activated it, a cube-shaped storage space appeared inside the talisman.

This was the initial storage space. To obtain a larger storage space, one just needed to visit a specific store inside the Dark Market. Expanding the storage would merely cost some money, it was all very convenient.

Because this was not a conventional storage tool.

He flicked his wrist and tossed the human skin paper man inside the space, logging in once again.

Familiar clay transformation; it was as if his leaves behind a special clump of clay waiting for his return when he signed out.

As the clay stretched, Wang Zijia reappeared.

Activating the talisman in his hand, a cube-shaped storage space appeared, with a human skin paper man was inside.

Yes, the talisman was similar to mother-child tokens, where both tokens shared the same storage space.