The Nine Realms, which had become a bloody meat grinder, had now ironically turned into the best training ground for the warlike.
As long as you could survive the battlefield and offer up the spoils of your hunts, those who lived would basically see their cultivation levels rise.
As for cultivators below the Spirit Transformation realm—
those with backing, supported by their factions, had already carried massive resources down to the lower realms, building cities in the fallen Nine Realms and establishing their own footholds.
The upper echelons of the Dixuan Realm Alliance tacitly approved of this.
Relying solely on the nine cities that their hegemon-level factions had built in the occupied Nine Realms was simply not enough for such a vast territory.
Only when human cities sprouted up all over the fallen Nine Realms could humanity have any hope of taking them back.
However, the Green Demon race naturally wouldn’t sit idly by and watch humanity build more cities.
So any human who tried to establish a city in the occupied Nine Realms, once discovered, would inevitably face a fierce counterattack from the Green Demons.
Only after withstanding several waves of Green Demon assaults could a newly built city truly be considered established in the lower Nine Realms.
Over the past few years, only about ten or twenty percent of the human cultivators from the Dixuan Realm who tried to build cities had actually succeeded.
After all, in the fallen Nine Realms, the Green Demon cultivators held the advantage.
For humans to build cities and gain a foothold there was extremely difficult.
Currently, under an unspoken agreement between both sides, the humans building cities were all cultivators below the Spirit Transformation realm, with most being at the Nascent Soul stage.
If individual cultivators wanted to build a city, even with some support from their factions, the cities they built wouldn’t be very large.
Building a city in the fallen Nine Realms obviously couldn’t be done with just any materials.
Moreover, the larger the city being built, the more Green Demons and stronger experts would be drawn in to counterattack.
So most cultivators from the Dixuan Realm who succeeded ended up with cities only about ten kilometers across—barely qualifying as cities.
But once a city was successfully established, they could set up teleportation arrays to link with other cities, allowing them to call for help or abandon ship at any time.
Not only did this greatly improve safety and give them a home base for their trials in the Nine Realms, but it also brought enormous profits.
In the eyes of human cultivators, Green Demon cultivators were like walking treasures—after offering them up, one could directly raise their cultivation without any side effects.
So now that the Nine Realms were fully opened, they held immense appeal for human cultivators. In recent years, a massive number of cultivators below the Spirit Transformation realm had poured into the lower Nine Realms from the Dixuan Realm.
Once these cultivators entered the Nine Realms and needed supplies, they basically resupplied at the nearest major cities.
The Green Demon corpses they couldn’t use themselves were mostly sold off directly in these cities.
In other words, the place where Green Demon corpses circulated fastest was no longer the war cities in the Dixuan Realm.
Instead, it was the various cities that had successfully established themselves in the fallen Nine Realms.
Cultivators who built successful cities could earn substantial income—whether from entry fees or from running shops within the city.
At the very least, acquiring low-level Green Demon corpses was now extremely easy.
At this thought, a gleam of light flashed in Ye Qingxuan’s eyes.
With this change, the Star War City in Star Province, where a massive influx of cultivators was heading to the lower fallen Nine Realms, would basically stop expanding.
But Ye Qingxuan wasn’t disappointed.
Compared to running a shop in Star War City, he already had a better option.
Why run a shop? Since Spirit Transformation experts couldn’t make a move, he could just go build a city in Xuanmu Realm and run it himself.
Rather than setting up shop under someone else’s roof, Ye Qingxuan preferred to build a city from scratch.
All things being equal, how could a shop ever compare to the profits from an entire city?
Though he’d already made up his mind, Ye Qingxuan’s mysterious merchant clone didn’t act immediately.
Building a city in Xuanmu Realm was a major undertaking—he had to be thoroughly prepared.
Ye Qingxuan quietly listened as Ye Qingxiao recounted his experiences over the past seventy-some years and the current situation in the lower realms.
Near the end, Ye Qingxiao suddenly paused, looked at Ye Qingxuan with a smug grin, and said:
“Qingxuan, you really ought to thank me properly.”
“Before I came back this time, I gave your Nuclear Explosion Pills another round of promotion—especially the Cleansing Spirit Nuclear Explosion Pills. They’ve totally blown up in Xuanmu Realm!”
Ye Qingxiao hadn’t expected the Cleansing Spirit Nuclear Explosion Pills to work so well in the demon-qi-filled Xuanmu Realm.
Basically, once you dropped a Tier-3 Cleansing Spirit Nuclear Explosion Pill, the demon energy within a radius of several miles would be rapidly purified and cleared out by the pill’s energy.
Especially those cultivators who needed to build cities—once they learned about the pill’s effects, they were overjoyed.
A few Tier-3 Cleansing Spirit Pills thrown down could quickly purge the demon qi from the chosen construction site, making things a lot more convenient.
If Ye Qingxiao hadn’t sensed the mood turning sour and decisively fled with Yu Xueqing, he might have been detained for questioning.
But before leaving, he still made sure to hype up the Tianfu Shop and the Nuclear Explosion Pills it sold.
Yu Xueqing, standing beside Ye Qingxiao, listened to the exchange between the two brothers with a look of utter shock.
She’d had no idea that the Nuclear Explosion Pills she and Ye Qingxiao had been promoting all this time actually belonged to Ye Qingxuan.
Watching Ye Qingxiao’s “praise me” expression, Ye Qingxuan found it both amusing and exasperating.
After pouring a cup of tea for the smug Ye Qingxiao and the stunned Yu Xueqing, Ye Qingxuan shot him a glance:
“Alright, spill it. How many Cleansing Spirit Nuclear Explosion Pills do you want?”
Hearing this, Ye Qingxiao seemed caught red-handed. He rubbed his hands together sheepishly and chuckled:
“Hehe, you know me best, Qingxuan. Just give me, say, eighty or a hundred of them.”
Ye Qingxuan shot him a glare but still nodded, though he couldn’t help adding a word of caution:
“These pills aren’t easy to make. Use them sparingly.”
With that, he took out a storage pouch and handed it to Ye Qingxiao.
Inside were eighty Tier-3 Cleansing Spirit Nuclear Explosion Pills, twenty Tier-4 ones, and a few mid- and low-grade spiritual tools Ye Qingxuan had prepared as gifts.
As for Tier-5 Cleansing Spirit Nuclear Explosion Pills?
Ye Qingxuan’s publicly known cultivation was only at the Purple Mansion realm, so offering Tier-4 pills was more than enough.
Taking the storage pouch, Ye Qingxiao scratched his head excitedly.
Using Cleansing Spirit Nuclear Explosion Pills in a demon-qi-filled world felt amazing—could you really blame him for wanting more?
Still, he did take Ye Qingxuan’s words to heart.
He decided that next time, he’d only use two at a time, instead of chucking ten at once like before.
If Ye Qingxuan ever found out what he was thinking, he’d probably snatch those pills right back.
Even Ye Qingxuan himself only ever made Nuclear Explosion Pills.
When it came to the Cleansing Spirit version, he used very few himself. Wait, actually… didn’t he also toss out two or three at a time?
Shaking his head, Ye Qingxuan decided not to dwell on it. He glanced at the tea in front of them and reminded them:
“This tea’s pretty good for you two. Drink it while it’s hot.”
Curiosity flickered in both Ye Qingxiao and Yu Xueqing’s eyes.
