Sage of Humanity-Chapter 430 - 428: Greedy Lu Yiye

If in the Nine Provinces, an elder of True Lake Realm cultivation could easily overpower someone like Lu Ye of the Spirit Stream Realm.

However, this was the Spirit Stream battlefield; it didn’t matter if he was of the True Lake Realm or even the Divine Sea Realm, he would have to consider Lu Ye’s reaction before speaking, which was truly exhausting.

"In the Spirit Stream battlefield, young friend is unmatched in the world, and no one would deny that; but sometimes, individual power does not permit one to do whatever one wishes…"

"Get to the point!" Lu Ye interrupted his rambling.

The elder didn’t mind and, after considering his words, spoke, "If young friend does not plan to attack our Zijin Sect’s base, my Zijin Sect is willing to pay for peace!"

Spending money to avert disaster was the elder’s ultimate purpose in coming to see Lu Ye.

"Name your price!"

Lu Ye’s directness left the elder slightly astonished; he had prepared a whole set of arguments to appeal to both emotion and reason.

"Fifty thousand merit’s worth of goods!"

Lu Ye turned his head to look at the elder, his aura gradually becoming more dangerous.

The elder felt his scalp tingle and quickly said, "Young friend, please be calm. Admittedly, if young friend were to break our Zijin Sect’s base, the merits obtained would certainly be more than fifty thousand, not even fifty hundred thousand could compare! But as I said earlier, once our Zijin Sect’s base is broken, it will create a group of homeless, miserable people. They will surely join with others whose bases have been broken to challenge the Haotian Alliance, and surely you wouldn’t want to see that happen. Since we are treating this as a business matter, naturally, both sides have to make concessions."

"If you think the Zijin Sect’s base is only worth fifty thousand merits, then we have nothing more to say."

The elder smiled and replied, "Of course, the Zijin Sect’s base is worth more than fifty thousand merits. The sect has been painstakingly cultivating it for generations, and the merits invested in the base are beyond calculation. If it were just my Zijin Sect, let alone fifty thousand, we would be willing to offer five hundred thousand. But have you considered, my young friend, how many sects there are in the Core Circle of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge?"

Lu Ye frowned, "What do you mean?"

The elder explained, "What I mean is, if young friend agrees, the other sects of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge should also be willing to spend money to avert disaster. Fifty thousand per sect, just think, young friend, how much wealth that lone transaction would bring you?"

Seeing Lu Ye silent, the elder spoke again, "Let me do the math for you, young friend—in the Nine Provincial States, each provincial state has about ten 1st grade sects, twenty to thirty 2nd grade sects, and forty to fifty 3rd grade sects. Adding them up conservatively, there are between eighty to one hundred sects per province, and adding all the Nine Provincial States together, there are roughly eight hundred to a thousand sects of 3rd grade and above. If Haotian Alliance and Ten Thousand Demons Ridge split it evenly, Ten Thousand Demons Ridge alone would have four to five hundred sects. If each contributes fifty thousand merit’s worth of goods, you could gain over twenty million merits worth of goods. With such calculations, do you still think it’s too little?"

Who knew without calculating, and upon calculating, one would be startled; Lu Ye too was shocked by the elder’s way of tabulation.

Worth of twenty to thirty million merits, what abundant and vast resources would that be?

Take his Boulder Mountain Saber, for instance, it was bought from the Heaven’s Augury treasure vault for merely one hundred and thirty-eight merits, and it was already considered one of the pricier among the Restriction Level 9 spirit artifacts.

And those orifice repair pills, now worth sixteen million merits each, twenty to thirty million could buy hundreds of them… Of course, the Heaven’s Augury treasure vault was nearly out of stock, with only the last few remaining.

"So, young friend, don’t think my Zijin Sect is offering too little; fifty thousand merits is the result of my deep consideration. If you really ask for too much, which other powers of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge would dare to give you? When the time comes, they would rather lose their bases than give away so much wealth, for fear of nurturing a monster."

"Are you sure the other forces of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge would also wish to spend their wealth to avert disaster?" Lu Ye asked.

Smiling and stroking his beard, the elder replied, "Last time young friend caused some turmoil in the inner circle, wasn’t it settled in exactly this way by Ten Thousand Demons Ridge? Compared to the loss of a base being captured, what is sacrificing some wealth? You have to realize, every core circle base is the result of efforts spanning several to over a dozen generations."

Lu Ye nodded.

Although the elder did not specify, Lu Ye faintly guessed that the forces of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge must have reached some consensus. The elder, seemingly representing the Zijin Sect in negotiations today, actually stood for the whole of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge! The proposal he made to spend wealth to avoid disaster was probably the best solution that Ten Thousand Demons Ridge could accept at the moment.

It wasn’t a bad deal…

Lu Ye had been worried that continued attacks on Ten Thousand Demons Ridge bases could end too indirectly, perhaps even jeopardizing other Haotian Alliance forces. Choosing to spend wealth to avert disaster, while it significantly reduced his gains, would also not stir too much trouble and chaos.

And speaking of which, the merits he was currently collecting needed to be converted into sect merits which were incomparable to the direct use of assets in cultivation.

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Righteous Blood Sect wasn’t in urgent need of merits at the moment; the nature’s spiritual energy of their base had been maximized, and even more merits could only serve to expand the range of the base.

But if it meant acquiring supplies for cultivation, then the disciples’ growth rate would accelerate too.

It was a good deal.

"3rd grade sects, one hundred thousand merits; 2nd grade, two hundred thousand; 1st grade, three hundred thousand!"

If Ten Thousand Demons Ridge was making this a business, then he wouldn’t blame himself for hiking the price. He naturally couldn’t agree to the elder’s suggested chip of fifty thousand merits per sect; others had their conditions, and he had his too.

Actually, to be realistic, merchandise worth fifty thousand merits was already quite a lot—the Boulder Mountain Saber alone could purchase hundreds of items like that.

But compared to the immense merits spent by those sects on their bases, what’s one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand really?

Lu Ye believed his pricing was fair and something that the major sects of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge could accept!

"Young friend…" The elder quickly spoke.

However, Lu Ye gave him no opportunity, taking out a ten-part map to scout and selecting a location, "I’ll wait for you at Heavenly Sword Peak for ten days. After ten days, whichever sect hasn’t delivered the supplies I need, I’ll personally pay a visit!"

As he spoke, he took out his spirit ark and soared into the sky.

"Young friend!" the old man called out loudly, but Lu Ye completely ignored him. The old man could only watch helplessly as Lu Ye disappeared from view.

Merely one incense stick’s time later, the conditions set by Lu Ye had already spread throughout all the Core Circle sects of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge.

Many people were hopping mad, cursing Lu Yiye for his insatiable greed.

As the old man had mentioned earlier, fifty thousand per family, the amount of wealth that the Righteous Blood Sect could ultimately obtain was worth two to three million merits. If they agreed to Lu Yiye’s terms, the value of the wealth that would end up in the hands of the Righteous Blood Sect would be terrifying.

Merely calculating, it could be worth fifty to sixty million merits’ worth of wealth!

Twenty to thirty million merits was enough to completely transform the Righteous Blood Sect, but fifty to sixty million was another concept altogether.

Unthinkable!

The more hot-tempered were even shouting, suggesting that Lu Yiye should just go ahead and break through all the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge’s strongholds. Then everyone could join forces to deal with the Haotian Alliance stronghold together, and no one would get off easy.

But after all, it was just bluster…

As the elder of the Zijin Sect had put it, each family’s stronghold in the core circle was the result of the hard work of several generations, even up to a dozen generations. The merits invested in these strongholds were hard to calculate. In reality, paying one hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, or three hundred thousand to mitigate disaster was actually acceptable; it was just that some people couldn’t get over it internally.

The 23 sects whose strongholds had been broken nearly cried…

It would have been so much better if Lu Yiye had proposed this condition earlier. Currently, their strongholds had already been breached, and they had no idea how many years of effort it would take to rebuild them.

No one had ever thought that a Spirit Stream Realm cultivator could create such an enormous amount of wealth!

If one were to count the previous compensation Ten Thousand Demons Ridge had paid to the Haotian Alliance because of Lu Yiye, Ten Thousand Demons Ridge had lost far too much because of this man.

Heavenly Sword Peak, located in the very center of the Spirit Stream battlefield, was also at the heart of the core circle. The entire spirit mountaintop stood like a sword that had fallen from the sky, erect upon the land.

The spirit mountaintop was a thousand blades high, with rugged rocks all around.

Lu Ye chose to make the trade with the various forces of Ten Thousand Demons Ridge at Heavenly Sword Peak because of its central location. No matter which direction any Ten Thousand Demons Ridge force came from, ten days were always enough.

If they didn’t arrive in ten days, it clearly meant they didn’t agree with the method of mitigating disaster by paying money, and then there would be no need to be polite with them; breaking through their strongholds directly would be in order.

Lu Ye took two days to travel from the Zijin Sect to Heavenly Sword Peak.

Upon the lonely peak, there were actually people.

Two women, seemingly contemplating nature here and cultivating in tranquility.

Hearing the noise, they opened their eyes, and feeling Lu Ye looked strangely familiar, they scrutinized him closely for a moment, then were startled!

It was Lu Yiye of the Righteous Blood Sect!

The two women lamented their extremely bad luck. To encounter this Killer Star during their cultivation at Heavenly Sword Peak made them shiver involuntarily.

The older sister whispered softly, "What do we do now?"

The other woman meekly suggested, "Fight him?"

"We can’t beat him; he has killed so many people recently," the elder sister shook her head.

"So what do we do?" the younger sister’s voice carried a crying tone.

"How about... intentionally seduce him?" the elder sister suggested.

"With what? He looks so frightening," the younger sister looked bewildered.

"Silly, of course use your chest! I heard he really likes women with large busts. Do you know Bai Lan from the Spirit Stream Ranking? She survived under his hand because she was ample enough. You’re also quite endowed, sister; you can definitely do it."

"Ah?" The younger sister clearly heard this for the first time and found it hard to accept. Suddenly seeing Lu Ye turn his head their way, her face paled dramatically.

Quickly, the elder sister slapped her in the back, and the younger sister immediately straightened her chest.

With a twitching corner of her eye, she conjured up a strained smile, but before she could speak, she saw Lu Ye glance at her indifferently and carelessly uttered a word: "Scram!"

Perhaps he had killed too many people recently to muster any killing intent.

The two women paused for a moment, then hastily conjured their spiritual artifacts, soared into the sky, and in an instant, disappeared from sight.

After flying far away, the younger sister patted her chest, "That was terrifying!"

The elder sister said, "See, I knew it, he likes them big and round! How infuriating!"