281 Graceful Steps upon the Wave, the Lamp Oil Is Completely Dried Up (1/2)

”Oh, it’s a lot more prosperous here than the last time I came. Mm, the change is simply tremendous.”

In a spacious road, Aya, who was dressed in a gray cloak, was surprised to see the high rise buildings on both sides of the road and the bustling traffic.

Today, she, Wang Lu and the other team members arrived at the westernmost place in the Nine Regions, a city called Sky Road. Everywhere around them was a bustling scene.

”This is one of the trade hubs between the East and the West, moreover, it’s a newly built port city, so naturally, there would be new developments everyday. When you came here a hundred years ago, it has just been built, not much bigger than a small fishing village, but now it’s a major city with population in millions.”

Not only this place was flourishing, the more impressive thing was, the atmosphere here was quite open to cultural mixing. The culture of the two continents grew along with the trade, and the people became intermixed. Thereupon, all kinds of cultural crystallization grew ever brighter.

Unfortunately, the team did not have much time to stay to enjoy the scenery because Wang Lu’s schedule was very tight. The team rushed along the main avenue of the Sky Road City because they wanted to catch a fleet of merchant ships of Mysterious Sky Mansion that was about to set sail for the Western Continent.

Around half of the trade between the Nine Regions and Western Continent was controlled by the Mysterious Sky Mansion and the banner of their chamber of commerce. After all, only a huge colossus like Mysterious Sky Mansion has enough resources and manpower to organize the trade across the continent. The seizing-life fog and endless sea monsters were things that ordinary chamber of commerce absolutely could not deal with.

Through the years of relationship between Wisdom Sect and Mysterious Sky Mansion, Wang Lu successfully managed to make a contact with the branch of the Mysterious Sky Mansion at the Sky Road City and agreed on the time to board their merchant ship that would set sail to the West. This merchant fleet would only sail two or three times per year, and it would take several months if they missed this time’s opportunity. In addition to the Mysterious Sky Mansion fleet, obviously, there were many other cargo ships, but the security and other issues were hard to maintain there.

Through contact details sent out by Mysterious Sky Mansion, Wang Lu and his teammates found the leader of the fleet at the dock, ready to set sail. However, as the law very familiar to any veteran adventurer said: In any adventure, dealing with emergencies would use up most of the time. Wang Lu and his team just happened to meet that emergency situation.

”In simple terms, you want to increase the initial price? The initial price of one thousand spirit stones couldn’t get us in anymore.”

On the pier, Wang Lu smiled slightly before the warm and humid sea breeze, but there was no warmth in that smile.

Standing in front of Wang Lu was a tall, burly, darkened-red skinned middle-aged man dressed in luxurious clothing, which was exactly the person in charge of the fleet, Nie Yang (Ocean whisperer). As the vice leader of the Mysterious Sky Mansion branch of Sky Road City, Nie Yang has a considerably high status in the Sky Road City. At the same time, he also has a quite respectable cultivation base. Whenever ordinary cultivators met him, they would all act differential. However, right now, being coldly looked at by Wang Lu, he could not help but break into cold sweat as his heart palpitated madly.

”The initial price is… perhaps not wrong.” In the end, Nie Yang was a seasoned man, thus, after calming himself, he began to explain, ”But we are forced to do this by the circumstances. Recently, the endless sea is having a great change, which increases the risk of sailing through. To cope with the risk, the fleet has made a massive arrangement, including increasing the cost of sailing. The original one thousand spirit stones agreement is not enough anymore, so I have to be bluntly honest here… in short, the price of three thousand spirit stones is still not enough to cover the cost.”

Wang Lu had no intention of calculating the cost of the sail, but just coldly smiled. ”If this East-West trade has no risk, do you think you would be here in charge of this? You are a businessman, so you should know about the spirit of keeping the contract agreement.”

Nie Yang said, ”The contract also stipulates that provides that there’s a force majeure, we have the right to adjust the price.”

”Yeah, sure, and the definition of what constitutes a force majeure is also according to your interpretation.”

Nie Yang replied, ”Please believe that we are absolutely not trying to blackmail you guys here, but our hands are forced. Moreover, the reputation of our Mysterious Sky Mansion is also on the line. If not for the previous fleet that set off from Western Mausoleum port some time ago that sparked up monstrous waves in the endless sea, we wouldn’t have done this. In fact, there are not that many fleets that are willing to set sail now.”

Seeing that Nie Yang refused to budge from raising the price three times as much as the initial price, Wang Lu deeply wrinkled his brows.

He certainly did not care about those thousands of spirit stones. Perhaps for ordinary cultivators, it was a huge sum of money, but his wealth was already difficult to count, a few thousand or even tens of thousands of spirit stones were just a drop in the bucket to him. However, he did not like to be forced to pay the increased price. However, Nie Yang’s price increase also made sense...

”If it’s difficult, let’s just take another ship.”

During the ensuing silence, a girl in a gray robe who stood behind Wang Lu softly said.

Wang Lu shook his head. ”The Endless Sea is vast and boundless. moreover, countless changes could happen at any time, so if there’s no skilled fleet guide, it would be very difficult to cross the sea.”

The girl said, ”It’s not that hard. I have come across the sea from the West alone, and at that time, I didn’t find the right fleet.”

Wang Lu was surprised. ”Crossing the sea alone? Did you swim here?”

The girl replied, ”My spirit is blessed, so I am able to walk freely on the water. Of course, there were occasional big waves and storms, which were troublesome. But generally speaking, as long as I walk in the Eastern direction, I will eventually reach my destination.”

”...” Wang Lu inwardly sighed, no wonder after you reached Nine Regions, before long you became like a dried lamp, you really f*cking deserved it!