Eastern Sea.
The shallow waters.
A jade pavilion stood alone in the depths of the sea, radiating the aura of a Sixth Transformation Immortal Gu House.
Inside the pavilion, Gu Immortal Xie Baoshu was entertaining his close friend, the Wanderer Immortal.
Looking out beyond the pavilion at the vast swathes of Timeless Trees, the Wanderer Immortal sighed with emotion: "It's that time of year again for the Year Gu harvest. These Timeless Trees are clearly growing more vigorously than last year. It seems you've made another breakthrough in cultivating this resource, Baoshu."
Xie Baoshu had a handsome face, warm and refined as jade. He rubbed his nose and chuckled: "Old friend, there's no need to flatter me."
The Wanderer Immortal laughed heartily: "I'm genuinely worried about you. Haven't you heard? Someone on Treasure Yellow Heaven has already started selling Year Gu ahead of schedule."
Xie Baoshu fell silent. He extended his palm, took out a mortal-grade Year Gu, and handed it to the Wanderer Immortal.
The Wanderer Immortal picked it up and examined it closely: "Hmm, not bad. This Fifth Transformation Year Gu has excellent texture — glossy and healthy. Quite presentable."
But Xie Baoshu shook his head slightly: "This isn't one I raised. It's that person's goods on Treasure Yellow Heaven."
"Is that so." The Wanderer Immortal was mildly surprised, then quickly accepted it.
He knew his friend's background.
Xie Baoshu was a well-known independent cultivator in the Eastern Sea Gu Immortal world.
He possessed exclusive knowledge on cultivating Timeless Trees.
Timeless Trees themselves were immortal-grade materials, but their application range was extremely narrow. Despite being an immortal material, they carried far too many types of Dao Marks, making them muddled and unfocused, neither here nor there.
For that reason, very few Gu Immortals paid attention to this type of plant.
But Xie Baoshu had taken a different approach. He focused on this tree, cultivated it on a massive scale, and used ingenious methods to leverage the Timeless Tree forests to nurture and attract wild Year Gu.
By now, he had become one of the three great giants in the Year Gu market!
Only a small portion of the Year Gu he produced was sold on Treasure Yellow Heaven. The bulk was sold to numerous super forces throughout the Eastern Sea.
Even so, Xie Baoshu would never easily give up the Treasure Yellow Heaven market. After all, it was a market that spanned the entire world. In a certain sense, the Treasure Yellow Heaven market was even more important than those Eastern Sea super forces.
Now that someone had suddenly made a major move, clearly intending to enter the Year Gu market, how could Xie Baoshu sit idly by?
Though it wasn't yet time for him to sell his Year Gu, he had been monitoring the market trends for Year Gu throughout the entire year.
"I've examined this Year Gu. It's genuinely top-tier. This new competitor is no simple matter," Xie Baoshu sighed.
The Wanderer Immortal nodded: "Such a large quantity — it's very likely some regional super force. Individually, it would be hard to produce this much at once. Wasn't that exactly how you built up your power step by step back in the day?"
Xie Baoshu broke into a smile: "Come on, why beat around the bush just to encourage me? Among the three great sellers, I'm the only independent cultivator. But precisely because of that, every step I took was fraught with setbacks and obstacles, and I built an incredibly solid foundation. What great storms haven't I weathered? This time will be no different. And besides..."
The Wanderer Immortal picked up the thread: "And besides, the three of you have long since reached an agreement. Every trade has its unwritten rules. This newcomer, no matter how fierce they appear, has violated the unwritten rules. I'd say they're about to face the combined suppression and exclusion of all three great sellers?"
"Hahaha, nothing gets past you, you old oil-skinned rat." Xie Baoshu pointed at the Wanderer Immortal's nose and cursed with a laugh.
Northern Plains, Langya Blessed Land.
In a secret chamber within Cloud City, Fang Yuan sat motionless, and had been doing so for several consecutive days.
During these days, he had been continuously channeling the Eighth Transformation Time Path Immortal Gu — Flowing Years.
He had obtained this Immortal Gu from Black True Descendant's legacy. Even a Sixth Transformation Gu Immortal could activate it, though its effects would be limited.
Now, Fang Yuan, as a Seventh Transformation Gu Immortal, fed his Red Date Immortal Essence into the Flowing Years Gu without pause, causing it to continuously produce mortal-grade Year Gu.
These Year Gu were then transferred to the Treasure Yellow Heaven market.
There, he used his will to stabilize the situation and conduct Year Gu transactions with other Gu Immortals.
That's right — he was precisely that market newcomer who had been flooding the market with Year Gu. His aggressive entry had not only shaken Treasure Yellow Heaven, but had even made the likes of Xie Baoshu wary.
Fang Yuan had borrowed over 1.73 million Immortal Yuan Stones. He converted them into Red Date Immortal Essence and invested it all into producing Year Gu.
The Eighth Transformation Flowing Years Immortal Gu was far too powerful. The mortal-grade Year Gu it produced were not only abundant in quantity but also excellent in quality.
Over the past few days, the market response had been overwhelmingly positive. Many Gu Immortals who purchased the first batch were quite satisfied and came back to Fang Yuan for a second round.
"Hm?" Just then, Fang Yuan's activation of the Flowing Years Immortal Gu faltered ever so slightly.
He was in constant contact with Treasure Yellow Heaven, and the will he had placed there relayed a piece of information: a super force wanted to purchase a large quantity of his goods but feared he couldn't supply enough. They wished to speak with him personally. If possible, they wanted to establish a long-term cooperative relationship.
This news could be genuine. Or it could be false.