Chapter 17

The glow of the jade pendant had not yet completely faded.

Tang Zheng tried to communicate using star energy, but he was truly exhausted and could no longer control even a thread of it.

If it weren't for Tian Meng's jade pendant helping him gather the last bit of star energy, he definitely wouldn't have been able to open the spatial belt's passage today!

"Let me recover a bit." Tang Zheng put on his shoes and got out of bed.

Since he couldn't use star energy for a while, and without it, he couldn't take out the purple gold, he decided to go ask about the jade pendant first.

It was already getting late.

Tang Zheng asked several people before he found Tang Xiaotang's father, Tang Boyuan's house.

Tang Boyuan was strolling in the courtyard. Seeing Tang Zheng approach, he was quite surprised: "Tang Fuzi, please sit down."

"No, no," Tang Zheng had other matters to attend to in the evening, so he tried to keep it brief, "I came to ask you something, Lord Tang."

"Mr. Tang, you're too polite. Please speak," Tang Boyuan said.

Tang Zheng took out Tian Meng's jade pendant: "Do you remember this jade pendant, Lord Tang?"

"Oh?" Tang Boyuan looked at it, "Isn't this the token Tian Meng brought you to Tang Family Fort?"

"Um..." Tang Zheng recounted what had happened, making some adjustments and omitting details about the purple gold belt. He then told Tang Boyuan, "So, I wanted to ask you, what's going on with this?"

"Such a thing?" Tang Boyuan examined it carefully, "From the array patterns on the jade, it should just be an array to harness purple gold energy to assist in star energy cultivation..."

Tang Boyuan then went into his house and brought out several items.

Some were jade pendants, some were necklaces, and some were bracelets.

Tang Zheng also looked over, and each item had patterns similar to or even identical to those on Tian Meng's jade pendant.

According to Tang Boyuan, these patterns were arrays.

As the saying goes, "Jade unpolished is not a treasure." The reason why the Tang Family Fort's training ground could improve cultivation efficiency by 10% with so little purple gold was due to the effect of the arrays.

Tang Zheng's purple gold belt had plenty of purple gold, but without being carved and arrayed, it couldn't significantly aid cultivation!

"I can't tell," Tang Boyuan shook his head after comparing for a while, "Although I don't understand arrays, from the patterns, this should just be an accessory to assist in star energy cultivation..."

"Does Tian Meng not know either?" Tang Zheng asked.

"Tian Meng hasn't even cultivated star energy, so it's unlikely he knows," Tang Boyuan could only speculate, "In Wulong Town's West Street, there's a master at the Treasure Pavilion with excellent skills and a good eye, and a good reputation. However, West Street is the territory of the Hidden Blue Manor... it's much more chaotic than East Street."

"Isn't half of the shops on West Street supposed to be taken over by Tang Family Fort?" Tang Zheng asked, concerned about the danger of the Treasure Pavilion.

"That shop doesn't belong to us or the Hidden Blue Manor. All the Treasure Pavilions in the world belong to the Purple Gold City," Tang Boyuan still held the Treasure Pavilion in high regard, "What I mean is, West Street has been quite chaotic lately. The Hidden Blue Manor has been searching high and low for the person who burned their flower fields and is currently very angry. If you must go to the Treasure Pavilion, be careful on the way."

Although Tang Zheng didn't fully understand the jade pendant from Tang Boyuan, he got more specific information about the Treasure Pavilion.

Seeing that Tang Zheng seemed unfamiliar with the Treasure Pavilion, Tang Boyuan also told him about the Purple Gold City, one of the four famous cities on the continent.

The Purple Gold City is the last imperial capital of the fallen Purple Gold Empire and the gathering place of wealth in the world.

The saying often heard in taverns, "Of all the purple gold in the world, ninety-nine parts are in the Du family," refers to the Purple Gold City. Although this is an exaggeration, Tang Boyuan believed that at least seventy to eighty percent was accurate.

The Treasure Pavilion is just one of the many businesses the Purple Gold City has spread across the continent.

What truly makes the Purple Gold City formidable is not just its wealth, but also its power!

Due to the Purple Gold Mountains, the Du family's cultivation speed is exceptionally fast. Each generation has a Nine-Star powerhouse, and there are at least two Seven-Star powerhouses. This doesn't even count the Du family's disciples and guests who cultivate in the Purple Gold Mountains.

The powerful Purple Gold City is a behemoth on this continent.

Even some high-ranking families wouldn't dare to provoke it without a good reason. Only the seven top families might have the strength to challenge them, but they wouldn't easily offend the Purple Gold City unless necessary.

Because the Purple Gold City controls one thing: the annual "Starlight Powerhouse List"!

The Starlight Powerhouse List is divided into the Heavenly Star List, the Earthly Star List, and the Human Star List. The Heavenly Star List records the top 100 strongest powerhouses in the world that year, the Earthly Star List records the top 1,000 strongest powerhouses under 60 years old, and the Human Star List records the top 10,000 strongest powerhouses under 30 years old.

"No wonder, a force like this, the Hidden Blue Manor really doesn't dare to move against it." After listening, Tang Zheng was reassured about the safety of the Treasure Pavilion.

As long as he was careful and crossed West Street under the cover of night, he should be fine.

With his assassin's skills, it shouldn't be a big problem.

...

Since he was going to Wulong Town, Tang Boyuan arranged a carriage for him, which would wait at the Tang Family Fort gate in half an hour.

After returning from Tang Boyuan, Tang Zheng had recovered a lot of his energy. He sat down again and easily opened the spatial passage that was already open.

Using star energy to retrieve the purple gold...

It should have been a straightforward process, but Tang Zheng was stuck on a minor detail.

The spatial passage was only as thick as a thumb.

However, a piece of purple gold was as big as a brick!

Moreover, purple gold was very heavy. Tang Zheng tried hard with dozens of threads of star energy, but he couldn't even move a piece of purple gold, let alone take it out of the spatial passage!

Fortunately, the spatial passage was already open.

Now, the only problem was how to get the items out.

Tang Zheng quickly organized the known conditions and analyzed the situation.

"The passage is small, and I can't move it because the piece of purple gold is too large."

"Now, there are two solutions!"

In just a few breaths, Tang Zheng had come up with two solutions.

This was the on-the-spot analytical ability he had developed from completing various game dungeons and missions in his previous life!

The first solution, of course, was to continue cultivating.

If he could cultivate a few more threads of star energy and enlarge the spatial passage, the problem would be solved.

However, the issue with this solution was time!

How many threads of star energy could he cultivate in a short time? How large could he make the spatial passage?

Therefore, Tang Zheng decisively chose the second solution!

Cutting!

If he could find a piece of purple gold in the spatial belt and cut off a small piece, it should be easy to transport it through the thumb-sized spatial passage, both in terms of weight and size.

Tang Zheng gathered his star energy and struck the purple gold like a knife!

"Uh..." He thought it would take many cuts to chip off a small piece, but unexpectedly, the purple gold was so soft that he almost cut off a corner with just one cut.

However, using star energy for such precise operations in an independent space was more exhausting than creating a passage. Just cutting off a small corner almost left him exhausted.

Tang Zheng immediately stopped and rested for a moment before taking out the small piece of purple gold!

Holding the purple gold, it was still slightly warm...

"It's out!" Tang Zheng held the triangular piece of purple gold, no larger than a thumb, almost in tears.

It wasn't easy!

In this unfamiliar world, he had no skills, equipment, materials, or NPCs. He was truly poor, with only money left.

And even this meager amount of money, he had spent on cultivating star energy and opening the spatial passage, with great effort.

"Alright, let's go." Tang Zheng carefully put the small piece of purple gold in his inner pocket.

Although the purple gold was soft, it was still quite heavy.

This small piece, about the size of a thumb, weighed at least two taels by the standards of the Starlight Continent.

Although he didn't know if it was enough, he could only take this much. He would take Tian Meng's jade pendant and go to the Treasure Pavilion to see what he could do.

...

The Tang Family Fort's carriage traveled from the fort to Wulong Town and finally stopped on East Street.

It wasn't that they didn't want to go to West Street, but during this special period, stopping the Tang Family Fort's carriage on West Street was almost like asking for trouble.

If the carriage was carrying the young talents of the Tang Family Fort, the driver wouldn't be afraid of trouble, but since it was carrying a teacher, he decided to be cautious.

Since Tang Zheng was going to the Treasure Pavilion, not only to appraise Tian Meng's jade pendant on the first floor but also to get an identity badge on the mezzanine, it would be better for him to go alone.

West Street, at night, still had a fair number of people. Tang Zheng blended into the crowd and didn't take long to reach the first floor of the Treasure Pavilion.

The lights in the Treasure Pavilion were not the oil lamps or candles he was used to in the Tang Family Fort, but uniformly night pearl lanterns!

There were two rows of twelve each, making the entire Treasure Pavilion as bright as daylight.

However, at this time, there weren't many people in the Treasure Pavilion, and there were no waiters. Only an old man with half-closed eyes was sitting behind the counter, tinkering with something.

Tang Zheng stood by the side and waited for a long time.

In his previous life, he had been a life skill specialist and knew that repair skills were harder to master than crafting skills. Interrupting a delicate operation could cause irreparable damage.

So, he kept waiting... and waiting...

After about half an hour, the old man behind the counter finally looked up: "Young man, you've been waiting for a long time, haven't you?"

Tang Zheng didn't mince words: "Yes, about half an hour."

"Hehe, the young people in Wulong Town are straightforward," the old man put down his work, "What do you want to buy? I can give you a discount."

"Oh, no," Tang Zheng shook his head and took out Tian Meng's jade pendant, "I came to see if anyone recognizes this jade pendant..."

"The loyal jade pendant of the Tian Qin Family, what about it?" The old man glanced at it without touching it.

"Could you... take a closer look?" Tang Zheng pushed the jade pendant closer.

"Hmm?" The old man finally picked up the jade pendant. As he ran his fingers over the array patterns, his brows slowly furrowed, and his hoarse voice seemed to come from another time and space, "Where did you get this?"

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Thank you to Yi Ru Nian, Jia Xiao Qi for the 588起点币 (Qidian coins) reward, Feng Po Yun, Xue Ye Xing Chen, Zhu Jiu Jie for the 200起点币 (Qidian coins) reward, Xing Ke Xia S, Ze Xing Xiao Tian Xia, Tui Fei Xiao Yan 123, Xue Shang Chen Xi, Shui He Zhi Wu, Xue Gao Wu Di, A Zhi He, R You Xiao Xiao for the 100起点币 (Qidian coins) reward.

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