Deep in the Eastern Sea...
...a terrifying spatial fluctuation suddenly erupted.
It vanished without a trace in a mere instant.
Yet, in a certain stretch of the sea, a colossal void had suddenly appeared, large enough to swallow an entire myriad of realms.
The surrounding seawater roared and cascaded backward into the abyss in a spectacular, surging torrent.
This was caused by the departure of Fangzhang Immortal Island.
When Fangzhang Immortal Island was anchored here, it had displaced the surrounding waters of the Eastern Sea; now that it was gone, a massive vacuum naturally formed.
Xuanjian navigated Fangzhang Immortal Island through time and space, arriving in the airspace above Mount Wuyi in the blink of an eye.
The immortal island floated in the air like a descending major world, dwarfing the entire territory of Mount Wuyi.
Gazing upon the pristine, primordial island, Xuanjian muttered, “My Dao Arena and merchant guild shall be established here and now.”
As the master of Fangzhang Immortal Island, equipped with the cultivation of a Hunyuan Golden Immortal Great Perfection, his word within the island was law. He could manifest whatever he desired with a mere thought.
Gathering resources on the spot, Xuanjian began to build.
All kinds of immortal metals, top-grade jades, spiritual wood, and mineral ores erupted from various parts of Fangzhang Immortal Island, filling the sky with countless precious immortal materials and spiritual essences.
Leveraging Mount Tianzhu as his foundation, Xuanjian raised an incredibly majestic and grand merchant guild!
The structure was magnificently grand, imposing, and brilliantly resplendent. Its core rested against Mount Tianzhu, directly linked to the source of the island's earth veins. Consequently, the innate spiritual qi both inside and outside the guild reached an unprecedented level of density.
The main structure of the guild was forged from various types of innate gold, top-grade immortal jade, and seven-colored glazed glass, adorned with carved spiritual woods and diverse mineral gems. It represented the absolute pinnacle of luxury in Honghuang.
Glazed roof tiles shimmered with golden light, and the jade pillars were engraved with divine runes of the Heavenly Dao. The beams, carved from spiritual wood, emitted a serene glow of creation, while the colorful glass windows mirrored the starry sky. An aura of treasures rose, and the rolling mist of wealth surged straight into the high heavens.
Xuanjian also infused his own Great Dao laws into the building. The misty, radiant laws of the Great Dao of Commerce draped over the halls like a thin silk veil, and golden Dao patterns lingered around the palace as innate runes continuously circulated and transformed within the building materials.
They manifested the profound Dao rhymes of transaction, wealth gathering, and trade.
The entire merchant guild was dazzling and draped in ten thousand rays of divine light. Every inch of material was saturated with pure spiritual qi. The aura of the Great Dao melded seamlessly with its opulent grandeur, displaying the unparalleled might of a Honghuang merchant guild while concealing the endless mysteries of the world's Dao of commerce. It drew in all the innate spiritual qi within a radius of billions of li.
It exuded profound mystery and supreme luxury.
Its sheer extravagance far surpassed that of any ordinary Grotto-Heaven and Blessed Land.
Aside from the merchant guild, Xuanjian built a palace at the summit of Mount Tianzhu, beside the celestial pool, to serve as his residence and place of daily cultivation. He named it the Xuanjian Palace.
The merchant guild was named the Treasure Vault Merchant Guild.
With this, the merchant guild and Dao Arena crafted by Xuanjian's own hands were officially complete.
The construction period? About two and a half breaths. After all, designing the place took some time.
“It has been so long since I transmigrated to Honghuang, and I have finally reached this step,” Xuanjian murmured with a sigh of relief as he stepped into his creation, walking through its grand corridors. “The Honghuang Dao of Commerce—the very foundation of my Great Dao!”
“If the Dao of commerce flourishes, I flourish; if it declines, I decline.”
“To develop the Dao of commerce, I must not only engage in trade but also do my utmost to maintain the order of the world, reducing chaos and instability.”
Inside the building, Xuanjian partitioned the Treasure Vault Merchant Guild into several distinct areas.
First was the main hall, the facade of the Treasure Vault Merchant Guild.
It not only needed to exude an elegant atmosphere but also had to showcase an adequate number of treasures.
Xuanjian took dozens of low-grade Innate Spiritual Roots and tens of thousands of mid-to-high-grade Acquired spiritual roots to use as ornamental plants.
They were arranged in an orderly fashion throughout the hall.
Using dozens of Innate Spiritual Roots as decorative potted plants was a remarkably lavish move.
One had to know that any object of innate origins was extraordinarily precious.
Past the main hall was the exhibition area for Innate Spiritual Treasures.
Xuanjian brought out all the dozens of low-to-mid-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures he possessed, placing them inside separate spatial barriers.
The vast majority of these Innate Spiritual Treasures came from the treasury of the Wu tribe, while a few had been gathered by Xuanjian himself. For instance, he had found five low-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures on Fangzhang Immortal Island.
Of course, low-to-mid-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures alone were not enough to command the room. Thus, Xuanjian took out ten high-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures and three top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures, arranging them at the absolute center of the display.
They were the Yin-Yang Pearl, the Phoenix Feather Hairpin, and the Yellow Springs Death Map.
After presenting these three top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures, Xuanjian did not have many left in his possession. He only had the Gilded Ruyi Immortal Robe, the Taixu Divine Armor, the Treasure-Gathering Gold Basin, the Twelve-Petaled Purifying White Lotus, the Money-Shaking Gold Tree, the unripe purple-black gourd, and the five top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasure embryos from the Innate Four Elements Plantain Tree.
“Why do I feel like I'm still so poor?” Xuanjian muttered, feeling quite uncomfortable.
In particular, when he recalled that Dao Ancestor Hongjun would establish the Fenbao Cliff in Beyond-Heaven after his third sermon, upon which countless Innate Spiritual Treasures would hang in dense clusters, Xuanjian felt that he wasn't wealthy at all.
Listen to that. Was that even normal?
If other Innate Sacred Beings, or even the Kunlun Three Purities, knew what Xuanjian was thinking, they would probably be choked with speechless exasperation.
Who was the Dao Ancestor? He was an innate chaos god who had existed since the creation of the world.
He had been collecting treasures from the beginning of creation until now; wasn't it perfectly normal that Xuanjian couldn't compare to him?
Setting the Dao Ancestor aside, let's look at Xuanjian himself. How long had he been around? Yet, he already possessed such immense wealth, with a whole pile of top-grade Innate Spiritual Treasures.
Now, look at his peers among the Innate Sacred Beings. Some didn't even have a single companion Innate Spiritual Treasure. Right, Kunpeng?
After lamenting his “poverty,” Xuanjian resumed his work.
Following the spiritual treasure exhibition area was the spiritual root area.
The Wu tribe's extensive searches through the mountains had unearthed quite a few spiritual roots for him!
There were tens of thousands of Acquired spiritual roots and over a hundred Innate Spiritual Roots.
Although they were only low-to-mid-grade Innate Spiritual Roots, it was still an impressive collection.
Xuanjian split the spiritual root area into two distinct sections.
Section One was accessible only to beings of the Immortal Golden Immortal realm and above.
Section Two was for those below the Immortal Golden Immortal realm.
Section One housed only Innate Spiritual Roots, while Section Two was filled entirely with Acquired spiritual roots.
Some Acquired spiritual roots were so abundant that Xuanjian had to set up a warehouse specifically to store them.
The same applied to minerals, immortal metals, and spiritual woods.
The information sector was currently vacant, as was the auction arena.
There were also VIP rooms, trading chambers, and the like.
Xuanjian replicated the exact business models he had learned from his past life.
At this point, the basic framework of the Treasure Vault Merchant Guild had been successfully established.
Once its reputation spread, Xuanjian would be able to recruit employees and set up branch offices all over Honghuang.
After all, not all living beings had the ability to traverse vast stretches of space just to visit the headquarters of the Treasure Vault Merchant Guild.
Ultimately, setting up the headquarters was only the first step. Later, there would be roaming merchants collecting goods, buying low and selling high to profit from the price difference. There would be artificial cultivation of Acquired spiritual roots to create an industrial chain, pawnbroking services, pill refinement, weapon forging, talisman crafting, and so much more.
All of this, however, required a vast workforce. The boorish brutes of the Wu tribe were definitely out of the question.
They might make decent bodyguards and escorts, but when it came to sales, valuation, pawning... it was best not to torture them with such things.
“Everything that needs to be done is mostly complete. Once I plant the Money-Shaking Gold Tree, the Innate Gourd Vine, and the Innate Four Elements Plantain Tree, I can declare our opening to the world and officially begin business!”
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