Tribulation of Myriad Races

Bright City was massive.

A bustling sight greeted Su Yu the moment he stepped into the city.

"A weapon of an ancient Invincible excavated from the depths of Sea of Stars for only fifty thousand drops of source qi liquid!"

"Come! Come! Maps of Luminous Domain Mansion! Maps of all nine levels of the mansion are available!"

"Fragments of a cultivation method used by an ancient Emperor!"

"..."

The first thing Su Yu noticed after entering the city was the countless people of all shapes and forms on the two sides of the street. These people had set up their stalls right in front of the gate. Since there might be some naive and inexperienced individuals among the newcomers, this would be a good place to fool some of these visitors with some questionable products. It would be much harder to fool them after they grew familiar with the city.

Su Yu looked at one of the stalls. An ape-like being was there, selling a so-called weapon of an ancient Invincible. The ape was holding a trident in his hand. It looked rather crude and simple. Su Yu's eyes lit up as he tried to take a closer look at the weapon. But the moment that happened, a ray of light shot out from the weapon.

Rumble!

Su Yu's sea of willpower shook. The ape looked at Su Yu and sneered, "Mountainbreak bull? Are you doubting me? I am not lying. I am selling a genuine product. Are you convinced now? This is a sentient weapon capable of defending itself automatically. This is an ability only heaven weapons possess."

"..."

Su Yu was both surprised and doubtful. It was true that only heaven weapons were capable of showing traces of intelligence and acting autonomously. The Hundred Dao Pagoda was one such example. Was this thing really the weapon of an ancient Invincible?

This was getting ridiculous. Fifty thousand drops of source qi liquid was not cheap. After conversion, this would be worth over a hundred thousand merit points. It was a lot more expensive than even earth weapons.

Nevertheless, a heaven weapon, especially an ancient heaven weapon, was supposed to be a lot more expensive. But what was up with the weapon's counterattack against his prying? He had merely tried to inspect it, but it had responded aggressively.

He sneaked a glance at the surrounding peddlers. His old man once said it wouldn’t matter if he knew nothing. It would be fine as long as the people around knew about it. For example, his old man was pretty bad at picking the correct products when shopping for groceries. When he first retired from the army to raise Su Yu, he would often end up choosing inferior products whenever he shopped for groceries.

Eventually, he learned a good trick. He only needed to follow the lead of the picky aunties from middle-class families when doing his shopping.

The wealthy ones might not know what they were doing in the market. The poor ones might deliberately purchase products of inferior quality to save money. But he wouldn't go wrong following the lead of those from middle-class families who were slightly old and picky when shopping for groceries.

Su Yu was in a similar situation. He was quite clueless. But he could learn from the others. When he studied the surrounding hawkers, he saw some curling their lips, some looking at the so-called ancient weapon with disdain, and some looking completely disinterested.

As for the surrounding customers, some were looking on with amazement while some carried toying expressions. With one look, Su Yu understood what was going on. There was something wrong with this weapon.

But what was the problem? Su Yu was certain the ape had not done anything when the weapon reacted toward his prying attempt. He was a master weaponsmith as well. He would be able to notice such tricks even if it was an ancient weapon. His interest was piqued.

He walked up to the ape. The ape was actually a peak Cloudbreach, a decent level of cultivation. After taking a closer look, Su Yu's heart skipped a beat. He had not been paying attention earlier, but there was a tiny clump of golden hair on the head of the ape. This was actually an extremely rare race, a heavenly spirit ape.

This was a powerful race. At the very least, it was stronger than the mountainbreak bull race. There were numerous ape races in existence. The greater ape race was considered a massive race. As for the heavenly spirit ape race, it had around two or three Invincibles in their ranks. The ape race as a whole had a large number of Invincibles, granting them the twelfth rank among the top 100 races.

It was not in the top 10, but the gap between it and the lower-ranked top 10 races wasn't that big.

When the ape noticed Su Yu's gaze on his head, a proud expression covered his face as he said, "What are you looking at? Are you trying to rob me? I won't have any problem beating you up."

Su Yu was quite speechless. When did he say that he wanted to rob this ape?

"Can I take a look at this weapon?" Su Yu asked as he pointed at the trident.

The ape sneered, "Can you even afford it?"

"Must I buy after taking a closer look?"

"Piss off if you can't afford it."

Su Yu frowned at the ape's arrogance. He argued, "If this is really a genuine product, I will naturally contact the experts of my race for the fund. Am I supposed to bother my seniors for a mere scam?"

"Scam?" The ape said in a displeased manner, "Is there a need for a heavenly spirit ape to run a scam here?"

Su Yu said, "So can I take a look at it or not? If I can't, so be it."

"Sure. Go ahead."

The ape handed the trident to Su Yu.

Su Yu's hand stretched out...but he suddenly stopped and said, "Lay the weapon down first. I'll pick it up myself."

With a speechless expression, the ape placed the weapon on the ground. The hide of an unknown race was being used as the mat. Also on the hide were some random trinkets the ape were selling as well. They all looked ancient.

Slowly, Su Yu picked the weapon up. He started feeling the weapon with his hands, but when he did that, he frowned. The quality was inferior.

In truth, his standards were simply too high. This trident was almost as durable as earth weapons, but he could forge weapons of this quality as well. He naturally wouldn't have much respect for weapons of such level. In fact, he found that this trident wasn't even as durable as the pair of shoes he forged himself.

It gave him a bad first impression.

"Can I send my source qi into the weapon?"

"Yes."

The moment Su Yu channeled some of his source qi in, the trident started shining. Then, a ray of light shot into his sea of willpower yet again. With the trident in his hand, he raised his brow. He took a closer look at the flickering points on the trident. And soon, he discovered something.

It did not take long before he finished his inspection.

"Yes, this is an ancient weapon. But it is nonsense to claim that this used to be an Invincible's weapon. According to our classification for weapons, this is probably an ancient profound weapon. The light coming from the weapon...is coming from the formation engraved upon the weapon."

Su Yu muttered under his breath. Ancient weaponsmithing methods were quite different from modern weaponsmithing methods.

There was actually a formation on this weapon.

An ancient formation.

This was not a powerful weapon. Nor was it a sentient weapon. Rather, its formation was merely acting automatically to reject all outsiders. Its original owner was dead, but the formation was still working to reject the aura of everyone apart from the original owner.

"Formations...adding formations to weapons..."

Numerous new ideas emerged in Su Yu's mind. It wasn't like nobody had suggested such an idea before, but nobody had ever managed to create something good following this line of thought. Most of the time, the forged weapon and the engraved formation would reject each other.

After all, there were formation masters among the human race as well. In the past, the weaponsmithing masters had attempted to collaborate with formation masters to create such weapons, but they had not been able to produce anything acceptable.

This weapon would serve well as a study material. An ancient formation that was still active. This was extremely rare. He would be much less impressed to see a weapon made of excellent materials and preserved well lasting this long.

But since the formation was still working, it was definitely still stable despite the passing of time. The formation was most likely powered by an unknown energy source as well. What was the energy source? There must be something acting as the battery in the weapon.

As Su Yu continued inspecting the weapon, the ape asked impatiently, "Are you done?"

Su Yu looked up at the ape and thought about it before saying, "This is an ancient profound weapon. If this was really the weapon of an ancient Invincible, that Invincible must have lived a rather short life. Are you sure this used to be the weapon of an Invincible?"

"..."

The ape asked angrily, "Are you buying or not? How do you even know that this is a profound weapon? Ancient weapons are different from modern weapons. How can you be sure? Are you an earth weaponsmith or a heaven weaponsmith?"

Su Yu frowned, "Are you a serious seller? If you are, I will naturally be interested in buying. If not, forget it."

He was indeed slightly interested in this weapon. Firstly, he was interested in the weaponsmithing method used. Secondly, he was interested in the principles behind the formation. Thirdly, he wanted to learn more about the energy supply as well.

From what he observed, this was a formation capable of recognizing the aura of its master. Thus, the energy source was most likely the blood essence of the previous owner. Yes. That was Su Yu's conclusion. It would either be the blood essence or the character of the original owner.

It was possible that like Zhao Li, the original owner had fused one of their characters into the weapon, granting the formation the ability to recognize the aura of its master and the ability to remain active even after so many years.

Ancient character or ancient blood essence…

This was very interesting.

"Fifty thousand drops of source qi liquid. You can buy or piss off." The ape said, "Even if this isn't a heaven weapon, it won’t be weaker than an earth weapon. And that won't even be its original rank. Its rank must have deteriorated due to the passage of time and a lack of care..."

At that, Su Yu's heart skipped a beat. Right, he had completely neglected that. Countless years had passed. Since it was still a peak profound weapon, it might really be an earth weapon back then or a weapon of higher grade.

With some work, he might be able to restore it to its previous grade. But due to the formation in the weapon, it would be hard for someone other than its original owner to actually work on it. Had no weaponsmith checked this weapon before?

Any proper weaponsmith would be interested in such a weapon. Sure, if the level of the weaponsmith was too low, that might not be the case. But any weaponsmith of a respectable level would definitely be interested in this weapon.