Chapter 310: The other side

To promote his wares, Li Qi had collected some samples of Sacred Flame as display items.

Within the Holy Flame Clan’s power system, being able to be ranked was already a very, very powerful individual, so a Ninth-Rank Sacred Flame was actually considered to be produced by a strong individual.

There were only a very small number of Eighth-Rank individuals, no more than a hundred at most.

As for Seventh-Rank… there were only about four or five people.

The only Sixth-Rank was the Holy King, and he was still in a semi-crippled state.

This was also the reason Li Qi wanted to revitalize the Holy Flame World.

A prosperous Holy Flame World could continuously provide Sacred Flame, and Li Qi didn’t want to rule the world; most of the Holy Flame World’s resources were difficult for him to process and couldn’t be converted into wealth. It would be best if they could all be converted into Sacred Flame.

After taking out the Ninth-Rank Sacred Flame, Liu Canzhi took it and asked, “What is the value of this item?”

“It’s a bit more expensive than demon beast remnant souls, but that’s mainly because we can’t compete with the slaughterhouses,” Li Qi said.

Actually, it should be cheaper.

From the production process, Sacred Flame, compared to remnant souls, not only had a greater quantity but also higher quality.

As products of pure spiritual resonance, they possessed excellent spiritual activity and could be repeatedly produced.

A Ninth-Rank demon beast could only produce a Ninth-Rank remnant soul once in its lifetime, but a Ninth-Rank Sacred Flame Clan member, with good rest and nutrition, could produce more than ten Ninth-Rank Sacred Flames a year.

Theoretically, Sacred Flame should be cheaper.

But there was no other way…

Who made the Human Dao’s demon beast remnant souls… simply too numerous?

Unlike Shaman Dao, which lets beasts grow naturally and allows humans and demon beasts to compete on equal terms, the Human Dao truly operates breeding farms and slaughterhouses.

Leaving aside other places, just in Chang’an, millions of demon beasts are slaughtered and dissected every day, and their body parts are then hung in markets for people to purchase.

This easily amounts to hundreds of millions of remnant souls a year.

Meat, this stuff, grows on other animals. The hundreds of millions of people in Chang’an eat meat, cultivate, and have so many Spiritual Artifacts every day; these don’t just appear out of thin air.

Therefore, the number of demon beast remnant souls is extremely large. Such a vast quantity is enough to drive down costs, so the price of demon beast remnant souls is actually a bit cheaper than Sacred Flame.

However, Li Qi felt that this first sales channel should have been found.

Admittedly, Sacred Flame couldn’t completely replace remnant souls because remnant souls had other uses and could be used in various places. If all else failed, they could even be burned as fuel, which Sacred Flame couldn’t be.

But when it came to feeding Shamanic Silkworm Artifacts, Sacred Flame was much better than remnant souls.

Therefore, even if the price was a bit higher, he felt that Liu Canzhi would still choose Sacred Flame.

“A bit more expensive… that’s fine. Brother Li, how much of this can you provide me? I don’t need a large quantity, as you know, research isn’t large-scale production after all,” Liu Canzhi also understood Li Qi’s meaning and straightforwardly stated his request.

But Li Qi wasn’t planning to charge money.

He said, “No need, it’s just some Ninth-Rank Sacred Flame. What’s wrong with giving it to Brother Liu? Moreover, I’m also quite interested in your Shamanic Silkworm Artifact. This item might not be so simple in the future. I wonder, Brother Liu, can the capacity of this item bear the wisdom of us two?”

Upon hearing Li Qi’s words, Liu Canzhi was first stunned, then overjoyed!

“That is natural! With Brother Li’s help! The Shamanic Silkworm Artifact will surely achieve something!”

Just then, a voice came from outside. It was Liu Junyi’s voice: “Canzhi, Uncle wants you to bring fellow student Li Qi to drink together.”

“Alright! Coming now!” Liu Canzhi was overjoyed and immediately agreed.

The Shamanic Silkworm Artifact, if it had the resources and wisdom of another Young Master poured into it, might truly serve as his Dao foundation for advancing to the Seventh-Rank!

One must know that although Liu Canzhi had the methods of cultivating the Human Dao—

In essence, he was a Refiner of the Dao of Reason.

And Li Qi smiled, then straightforwardly tossed the Sacred Flame to Liu Canzhi.

Only the faint sound of the Sacred Flame was heard, emitting its light for the first time in the world.

It was the light of a certain hope, the birth of a new technology, a new method.

— — — — — — — — — — — —

Boundless Outer Domain, Holy Flame World.

Sacred Flame emitted light in a patch of darkness.

Bai Gaga… no, just Ga Ga. He had already abandoned that surname and could no longer be called that.

Ga Ga stood in a pool of blood, surrounded by four or five Sacred Flames burning quietly and emitting light.

In this mountain of corpses and sea of blood, the light emitted by the Sacred Flame seemed to be the light of despair.

Sacred Flame is the product of the spiritual resonance of the Sacred Flame Clan, and this spiritual resonance is strongest in two situations.

One is what the Lu Mountain God craved, which is the resonance produced during large-scale communal sacrifices. Everyone worships the same deity, and the Sacred Flame produced by such resonance would be of quite high quality.

The other is… the battlefield, or rather, the slaughterhouse.

Death, despair, fear, rage, killing intent—countless negative emotions resonating will also give birth to Sacred Flame.

There is no significant difference between the Sacred Flame produced by the two, and in terms of applicability, they can basically be considered identical, although they do cause emotional differences in practice.

Sacred Flame from large-scale sacrifices or prayers contains positive emotions, such as hope and longing.

Sacred Flame born from battlefields or massacres, on the other hand, will make people irritable.

However, the negative or positive emotions contained within them… actually look pretty much the same to cultivators.

External emotions are all bad; whether positive or negative, they are trash.

Joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness must come from one’s own heart. Although the overly intense emotions in Sacred Flame increase its activity, they also cause the user to be affected by the emotions within it.

Of course, the impact is not significant. If one cannot even control external emotions, then there’s no point in cultivating; go back to farming.

Therefore, in the eyes of Li Qi and others, there was no difference between the two types of Sacred Flame.

However, to the Sacred Flame Clan themselves, the difference was significant.

Ga Ga walked on the battlefield, the entire plain seemingly splattered with the blood of the Sacred Flame Clan.

Countless corpses, further trampled and ground by spells and crowds, had turned dark red after several tramplings, even feeling somewhat sticky when stepped on.

Walking among them made one understand what “brains splattered on the ground” truly meant.

He didn’t even want to touch those Sacred Flames.

But… he had no choice but to touch them.

Because ever since he obtained that cultivation method, he had learned one thing.

The cultivation method had condensed a ‘door’ within his body.

He could put Sacred Flame into this door to unlock different spells and Martial Skills.

Of course, unlocking didn’t mean directly learning; instead, it would give him a certain memory, and following this memory, he would learn with half the effort.

If it were Li Qi, he would be very familiar with this method.

The most common method of spreading cultivation methods in the world—Divine Will Legacy.

This cultivation method seemed like an insatiable devouring machine; it could consume any amount of Sacred Flame. The more he offered, the more feedback he received.

Under such blessings, he was able to survive until today, able to survive in this chaotic world, and even in the center of the recent battlefield.

However, individual Martial Skill, in the end, could only allow him to survive alone.

There was a certain time difference between the Holy Flame World and the world, roughly one day equaling two days.

In Boundless Outer Domain, this was a very normal time deviation, because time was a relative value, not an absolute value.

A month had passed for Li Qi, but in reality, two months had passed for Ga Ga.

These two months… were truly like Hell.

A Sixth-Rank world, with over a hundred billion people, the footprints of the Sacred Flame Clan spread throughout this entire world. He didn’t know what it looked like in places he hadn’t seen.

But at least from what he saw now, there was only suffering that had fallen to rock bottom.

Many Sacred Flame Clan members starved to death, or went mad from hunger and chose to take risks. In every place, hundreds or thousands of disaster victims cried out for alms.

Refugees filled the roads, and bones covered the paths.

A chilling wind blew, and the green glow of ghostly phosphorescence flickered.

There were those who ate their children, and those who ate dirt.

There were people who looked like ghosts, moaning by the roadside, and others who couldn’t even moan, simply lying stiffly on the road, waiting to die.

Good people would pass by these starving corpses and ignore them.

But some people, passing by these starving corpses, would carry them back.

Not for burial, but for consumption.

Such scenes had appeared countless times, and naturally, people would stand up.

Near Ga Ga, there was a strong individual named Ge Gu. According to the Immortals’ classification, he was called a Ninth-Rank… according to the Holy Flame World’s saying, he was called a ‘Formal Martial Artist’.

This Ge Gu gathered thousands of people in the forests and marshes, and hundreds in the city corners and surrounding roads, raising the banner of rebellion. He restored order to a small area, probably a few small cities.

Ga Ga also worked under Ge Gu, who thought highly of him and brought Ga Ga along for this battle.

However, after the battle ended, Ga Ga remained on the battlefield alone, collecting Sacred Flame.

The Sacred Flame Clan themselves deeply loathed these despairing Sacred Flames, considering them a bad omen, and generally left them to dissipate naturally.

But Ga Ga needed to use these things to make himself stronger.

Stronger.

Strong enough to speak out in this chaotic world, to have his words heard, just like Ge Gu.

Halfway through collecting Sacred Flame, Ga Ga suddenly heard someone call him from behind.

A voice rang out: “Hey, Ga Ga, why are you still here? Aren’t you afraid of bad luck?”

Ga Ga turned his head and saw that it was Ge Gu.

“Ah, Ge Gu, I just… couldn’t bear to leave these Sacred Flames here, so I’m going to collect them,” Ga Ga said something against his true feelings.

Actually, he wasn’t that noble. He was just preparing to put Sacred Flame into the strange existence brought by that cultivation method in his body, and then new Martial Skills and spells, all suitable for him, would appear inside.

But all of this was to make his voice heard in this chaotic world.

“Collecting them… that’s fine, suit yourself,” the Sacred Flame Clan member named Ge Gu walked up to Ga Ga and said casually.

He had seen many strange things, so he didn’t ask.

Because, in this era, in such a chaotic world, if a person doesn’t have some persistence, they will go mad.

And if a person has persistence, then in some cases, they are no different from a madman.

So Ge Gu had grown accustomed to the eccentricities of his companions around him.

Ga Ga liked to collect despairing Sacred Flame. He also had subordinates who liked to overeat, who resolutely refused to eat meat, who vomited at the sight of raw meat, and who prayed three times a day.

People always needed some pillar to maintain the motivation to survive in a chaotic world.

Ge Gu never asked where these people’s eccentricities came from, which was also why everyone didn’t dislike him.

Ge Gu didn’t dwell on it for too long. He quickly got to the point and said to Ga Ga: “After you finish collecting things here, go to the east alone. A new city has been built there, and it seems to have a strong opinion of us.”

“Our grain transport teams have been attacked by many of their mobile armed groups. We’ve repelled them many times, but we haven’t caught anyone alive.”

“Later, we found that they attack indiscriminately; they are basically small units that steal grain, and they will search any place that might have food, not even sparing corpses.”

“Such a force staying next to us is too dangerous. They don’t engage in production, only plunder. We can’t let them stay. You are the fastest and best at concealment. Go and check the situation,” Ge Gu said to Ga Ga.

“Alright, I’ll go check later,” Ga Ga nodded.

This was why Ga Ga wanted to join Ge Gu’s team.

No matter what, what Ge Gu chose to do was to take in refugees, reclaim barren land, restore a certain degree of order, and then promote reproduction.

Instead of being like most people in this world, who only knew how to coerce others and constantly plunder others’ living materials to enrich themselves.

This was already very rare in a chaotic world.

In the past two months, war and famine had already destroyed all order and morality, and everything the Sacred Flame Clan had was gone.

People’s only thoughts were eating and killing; hunger and violence dominated everything.

When these negative things accumulated, people’s feelings became numb.

When life was filled with savagery, cruelty, and terror, people would initially be shocked, but after half a month, they would get used to it.

Even Ga Ga was like this.

He had become accustomed to seeing worms crawling out of the bodies of children who were still struggling, clinging to life.

Buying and selling women and children was simply taken for granted; some even sold their own children, only to find no one wanted them, and had to eat them themselves.

People had already grown accustomed to all of this; unimaginable things had become commonplace.

What are the rules of society? What is law? What is civilization? What is fairness and justice?

He didn’t understand, didn’t know.

Only the most primitive instincts remained.

In the first half-month, Ga Ga only saw shattered corpses everywhere, bloodstains forming patches on the ground, and living people constantly wailing in sorrow, but more people seemed to have lost their souls.

It was Ge Gu who first established order in this vicinity, allowing everything to return to a not-so-bad situation.

Therefore, if a new order had to be established, Ga Ga was willing to contribute his strength to Ge Gu.

“Yes, I came to tell you about this. It’s been two months, and the first batch of fast-growing grain planted is almost ready. If we hold out for another month, we can expand eastward and shelter more people,” Ge Gu said.

“Good news,” Ga Ga nodded, then packed his things, preparing to depart.