"What a pungent smell." Evan Yang sniffed once and nearly choked; he hadn't smelled anything like it outside.
"Kid, you really dared to sniff it!" Tanner Shaw, who had been disappointed, burst out laughing when he saw Evan Yang's reaction.
Seeing Tanner Shaw laugh like that, Evan Yang realized he must know what this stuff was, so he asked suspiciously, "You knew all along?"
"Yeah, there are usually three possibilities inside these stones: first is the powder you see now, second is nothing at all, and the last is that there might be an Immortal artifact hidden inside." Tanner Shaw explained.
"What exactly is this powder, and why does it smell so strong?" Evan Yang asked curiously after Tanner Shaw's explanation.
"Nobody knows, but everyone agrees it's hard to smell and really pungent. So nobody ever bothers with it—except you. This is the first time I've seen someone sniff it up close." Tanner Shaw laughed.
"Oh." Evan Yang looked speechless at the crushed stone in his hand, even as the powder spilled onto his skin, still so hard to bear.
"I'll get you some water so you can wash up—it's unbearable!" Tanner Shaw laughed, then walked out of the secret room, leaving Evan Yang to mutter gloomily, "Hundred-Change Valley, why are its stones so weird?"
Looking at the stone in his hand, Evan Yang felt it was a shame to just throw it away—it had cost a million spirit crystals, after all. Planning to study it later, he tossed both the stone and the powder into the Sky-Piercing Tower for his clone to handle.
When Tanner Shaw returned, he quickly led Evan Yang to the bath. Evan Yang, helpless, could only go wash up. Normally, cultivators can avoid water for ages, but the smell was so overpowering that Evan Yang had no choice but to strip down and plunge into the bath that had been prepared for him.
The bathhouse was elegant enough to make Evan Yang nostalgic for his childhood days, when he’d just jump into the river to swim.
Lost in thought, Evan Yang’s expression suddenly froze, and he hurriedly sent his consciousness into the Sky-Piercing Tower.
At that moment, Evan Yang’s clone was encountering something strange: the Ancestor of Ten Thousand Insects, placed in the Sky-Piercing Tower, was gnawing on the powder.
"It eats this?" Evan Yang wondered aloud.
Under the gaze of both Evan Yang’s main body and clone, the Ancestor of Ten Thousand Insects ate all the powder, then its transparent body moved, sniffing the hand that had just held the powder—wrapping around Evan’s finger like a silkworm.
"Strange, why is it so interested in this?" Evan Yang frowned.
With Evan Yang watching, the Ancestor of Ten Thousand Insects completely removed the smell from his hand—how? By absorbing it, which shocked Evan.
Seeing the Ancestor’s interest in the powder, Evan Yang thought for a moment, then took it out and let it clean off the scent from his body. He quickly dressed, hid the Ancestor somewhere on himself, and left the bathhouse with it.
Just a few steps out, Tanner Shaw came over holding his nose and laughed, "All done?"
"Is it really that smelly?" Evan Yang said, speechless.
Tanner Shaw awkwardly put his hand down, but when he did, he realized the smell was gone. He looked at Evan Yang suspiciously, "Weird, how did you get rid of it?"
Evan Yang knew it was thanks to the Ancestor of Ten Thousand Insects, but he had no intention of telling Tanner Shaw. After all, it was something even the Three Palaces fought over—if he exposed it now, even the Shaw Family could get dragged in. So he just laughed, "Must've been the bath."
"That’s odd. Normally, it takes three days after bathing for the smell to gradually fade." Tanner Shaw muttered.
Three days? Evan Yang hadn’t expected it to last so long, nor that the Ancestor of Ten Thousand Insects would eat something so pungent. Since he’d decided to hide it, he wasn’t about to tell Tanner Shaw, so he just laughed, "Three days? Did you already know and make me break open that stone?"
Tanner Shaw hurriedly apologized, "That’s not what I meant—I really just wanted you to open it."
"Just kidding. But I have a question: what are the odds that these stones contain powder?" Evan Yang asked, seeing Tanner Shaw so nervous.
"Probability-wise, about ninety percent will have powder, one in ten thousand will have an Immortal artifact, and the rest are empty," Tanner Shaw replied.
"So how many stones can be hauled out every hundred years?" Evan Yang asked curiously, since he’d never been to Hundred-Change Valley and didn’t know how hard it was to collect them.
"You mean that? Only about a million in a thousand years," Tanner Shaw said after thinking about it.
"So you mean about a hundred thousand every hundred years?" Evan Yang asked in surprise.
"Yeah, about that. And ninety percent of them end up in the hands of the Three Palaces and the big families. The rest—those who don’t want to deal with the Three Palaces or the big clans—get sold off, and sometimes the Three Palaces or the families won’t buy stones they think are duds, so those go to market too," Tanner Shaw explained.
"I see. Come on, let’s go back to the Nameless Pavilion," Evan Yang said, eager to study those stones.
"Again?" Tanner Shaw exclaimed.
"Why not? Let’s go join the fun—maybe we’ll see someone open an Immortal artifact!" Evan Yang laughed.
"I thought I was naive, but you’re even more naive than me. No one opens those stones in public—if word gets out that someone found an Immortal artifact, the Three Palaces will just send people to forcibly buy it," Tanner Shaw laughed.
"That overbearing?" Evan Yang hadn’t expected the Three Palaces to be that domineering.
"That’s power for you. They have the strength, and with only a million stones in a thousand years—and maybe one Immortal artifact among them—if the Three Palaces find out who has it, what do you think they’ll do?" Tanner Shaw said with a practiced smile. Even if you got an Immortal artifact, you’d never tell anyone.
Evan Yang finally understood, but he still found an excuse to drag Tanner Shaw along to watch the excitement.
Tanner Shaw could only follow Evan Yang helplessly to the Nameless Pavilion. By the time they got there, dozens of stones had already been sold—only the wealthy could afford them.
(This chapter isn’t over yet~ Please click next page to continue reading the rest!)
Someone spotted Tanner Shaw and teased, "Young Master Shaw, what did you get?"
"Get what? Like I’d be that lucky," Tanner Shaw replied helplessly.
Seeing Tanner Shaw’s resigned expression, everyone knew he wasn’t lying, so they turned their attention back to the scene.
"If they’re not buying, why are they all gathered here?" Evan Yang asked curiously, using a voice transmission.
"We’re not buying either, but we still came, didn’t we?" Tanner Shaw laughed.
Evan Yang just wanted to see if he could figure something out, but looking at the crowd, he wondered, "Are they here to study the stones too?"
"Actually, a lot of people study these stones. If you figure them out, you could make a fortune," Tanner Shaw said, seeing Evan Yang fall silent.
Tanner Shaw was right—if you could tell which stone held an Immortal artifact, you’d get rich. But with thousands of stones here, picking out an Immortal artifact was nearly impossible. Most people were just here to look.
But Evan Yang was different; he was here with a purpose. As soon as he arrived, he sensed the Ancestor of Ten Thousand Insects was especially lively, like it wanted to dive right toward the stones.
Evan Yang sent it a mental message, telling it not to move. This was his new way of communicating with the Ancestor, since it had been fed with Evan’s blood for years in the tower. The old communication method with the strange man had been replaced by Evan’s control.
After the Ancestor of Ten Thousand Insects stopped moving, it sent its intentions to Evan Yang, making it clear it wanted to eat.
"These are stones—not powder like before!" Evan Yang warned, seeing how eager it was.
But then the Ancestor’s voice sounded in Evan Yang’s mind—his first time hearing it, and it was like a little boy’s voice.
When Evan Yang listened closely to its meaning, he was shocked.
"I can smell it—it’s inside these stones," the Ancestor muttered.
"You can smell it even like this?" Evan Yang asked in surprise, using a mental message.
"Yeah, it smells good," said the Ancestor.
Evan Yang was stunned—what was pungent to him was fragrant to the Ancestor. But this was a pleasant surprise, so he asked which stones had that scent.
Sure enough, the Ancestor listed them one by one, as if they were its food. If Evan Yang had enough spirit crystals, he’d have bought them all for it.
Soon, Evan Yang discovered that over a thousand stones here had that scent, while thirty didn’t—which meant those thirty might be empty or might contain an Immortal artifact.
Thirty stones meant thirty million high-grade spirit crystals. Just thinking about it gave Evan Yang a headache—he’d never owned that many crystals. Buying them was impossible, so he kept communicating with the Ancestor, hoping it could sense something special in the empty stones.
The Ancestor, thinking it could eat something, sniffed around and finally sent a message: "One of them feels weird—I hate it."
Hate? The Ancestor saying it hated something made Evan Yang suspicious. The other empty stones didn’t bother it, but this one did—what could it be?
With this question in mind, Evan Yang sent a voice transmission to Tanner Shaw: "Lend me a million."
"You’re not actually going to buy one, are you?" Tanner Shaw asked in surprise when he heard Evan Yang’s request.
"I want to give it another try," Evan Yang said with a smile.
Tanner Shaw had a few million saved up, so buying another stone was doable. His stash would shrink, but he still agreed, "Sure, I’ll lend it to you—pay me back whenever you want."
Hearing this, Evan Yang was grateful. He took Tanner Shaw’s storage belt, which held a million high-grade spirit crystals.
Evan Yang spoke up, "I want this one," he said, pointing at it.
The seller confirmed, "This one?"
"Yeah," Evan Yang nodded.
Isn’t he a beggar? How does he have so many spirit crystals? Some people who didn’t know Evan Yang’s background were curious, while others who knew he was close to the Shaw Family quickly understood.
Still, some people just couldn’t stand it. Suddenly, a voice sounded from behind: "I want that one."
Everyone turned in curiosity, just in time to see two people walking in from outside.