Tainted will

The clear night sky was studded with the bright stars.

In a spacious room, a lonely figure sat cross legged.

"26, 27...39, even after selling all those low grade weapons, I was only able to set 39 tier-3 formations. But fortunately the trade event lasts for an entire three days time, during this period the exchange of commodities will be at its peak, I can buy more materials from the profits I earn and invest them again, creating a chain of earnings." Bai Ming thought as he stored all the formations in his bag of holding.

"The death battle is the talk of the city now and this is absolutely the best outcome possible. Tomorrow morning the battle will take place, I should find a good spot to open up the stall, I can make yang lai handel business after his battle, while I create more formations and also use that time to train with my beast wings."

The night passed quietly.

The next day, at the crack of dawn when the sun had just risen, the whole city was awake.

The entire Teng Family City was covered in flowers as thousands of cultivators walked through the streets. Bai Ming had left early in the morning and was wandering around in the city.

Bai Ming slowly walked through the city while checking out all of the stalls. Some of the stuff interested him, but currently he didn't have single spirit stone.

While he was walking, he suddenly stopped. Before him was the stall of a core formation cultivator who had various flying swords, pieces of jade and worn out books.

'This place seems nice, there's much activity here.' Bai Ming occupied the empty area besides the stall of the core formation realm cultivator and set up his tiny stall, the name of his stall was 'Unrivalled'.

"There is still about ten minutes for the battle to begin, in about thirty minutes I should have a cultivators jumping around like monkeys here." Bai Ming began arranging his formations for display.

For the next thirty minutes, Bai Ming peacefully cultivated while also placing some of his attention on his surroundings.

Like he had expected there were many people passing by, but most of them completely ignored Bai Ming's stall. Some of them even sneered secretly when their gazes fell on Bai Ming's stall, the name itself was a turn off. But due to Bai Ming's spirit realm aura they kept their unfriendly thoughts to themselves.

It was to be expected, formation path was not difficult to get started, but it requires lot of time to get proficient in it. Therefore most of the formation masters are not only old monsters, but they are also extremely few in number.

Formation materials are rare and expensive, those formation masters who are proficient in the formation path will be often recruited by major sects or big forces. Where they enjoy generous support, so that they can concentrate on formation path and not worry about money. Only few people are willing to open a shop.

Most of the time cultivators who know mere four or five formations would set up shops, and their products would also be low end formations. Only few people would have intrest in these products in the mainlands when most of them could simply buy high level treasures from highly reputed shops or their particular sects.

Buzzz...

Suddenly the jade tablet inside Bai Ming's robe vibrated. Bai Ming then placed the voice transmission jade against his forehead, he immediately heard Yang lai's voice play in his mind.

"Lord, I have accomplished your task. There are nearly six to seven hundred people here and many of them seem interested in your formations, does Lord want me lead them to your stall."

Bai Ming approved, "Lead them to the eastern side of the city, behind the melody love pavilion."

Few minutes later, Bai Ming could see a huge crowd hurriedly moving behind Yang lai.

Yang lai saw Bai Ming and immediately rushed towards him and respectfully greeted him.

"Are you the seller, quickly give me an 3rd tier offensive formation."

"Wait, I was here first. Sell me a defensive formation."

"Senior, don't listen that person's crap. I was the first person to come to your shop, I should get the first priority."

Bai Ming's eyes quickly scanned the crowd, there were nearly three hundred people causing a ruckus here and the majority of them were core formation realm cultivators.

"Quiet down everyone, I only have twenty tier-3 offensive and nineteen defensive formations..." Bai Ming had just spoken, when crowd became even more riled up. There were so many buyers, but the commodities were lacking.

Bai Ming indifferently watched them, after dozen breaths he spoke calmly, "One tier-3 formation for 60,000 spirit stones, first come first serve."

On hearing this price, the crowd was first tongue-tied. Then they immediately showed their displeasure, even though tier-3 formations were rare, but if their value were to be determined using spirit stones it would be around 50,000 spirit stones.

Bai Ming smiled coldly, his tone impatient "Finding it expensive? then scram. But as far as I know, there should be many of you who are stuck at core formation realm forever because you cannot afford a realm breaking pill and many of you have enemies to worry about, There will surely be a time when you need my formations, which are atleast three times stronger than normal formations. But by then the prices will soar again, I might not even sell at that moment, what do you think?"

Murmurs could be heard within the crowd, many of them were carefully evaluating the value of this tier-3 formation.

Soon, a single cultivator moved forward, seeing him many people in the crowd soon followed after. Within fifteen minutes, everything was sold out.

'2,340,000 spirit stones' Bai Ming smiled as he spoke, "Everyone I have good news for you, tomorrow at the same time I will sell another batch of formations, along with offensive and defensive formations there will be illusion formations."

....

Three hours later.

'By now they should have already found out that I am the seller.' Bai Ming thought as he neared the lotus treasure pavilion, but unlike before he didn't try to conceal his identity.

Bai Ming had just entered the lotus treasure pavilion, when a voice suddenly entered his ears, but Bai Ming wasn't the least bit surprised, "Young master Yi Yun, please come to the fourth floor. Our lord Lu Yunjie would like to have a chat with you."

The last time Bai Ming was here, he was only allowed to enter the third floor. Bai Ming had previously suspected there to be a Yin-Yang void realm expert here. As for the name yi yun, this was alias he used while registering into the teng city.

He walked along the stairs and came to the fourth floor.

Inside, an old man was handling some accounts, his hand writing away speedily.

He raised his head when he heard Bai Ming's footsteps, revealing the scar on his face. He gave a gentle smile, "We finally meet, little brother yi yun."

"Respects to Lord Lu Yunjie." Bai Ming clasped his hands and saluted.

"Come, sit here." Lu Yunjie pointed at a nearest desk.

After Bai Ming sat, Lu Yunjie's left hand pushed a token on the desk toward Bai Ming.

Bai Ming took a glance and immediately recognized that this was a official token from Red Lotus sect.

Bai Ming was inwardly happy, it had gone according to his expectations. But on the surface, he wore a doubtful expression as he asked, "I am not sure what Lord wants form me?"

Lu Yunjie's smile slightly decreased, his eyes flashing as he looked at Bai Ming, "I will be honest, we already know the person selling those high quality formations in the city is you. Not only do you have superb cultivation talent for reaching the spirit realm at such an young age, but even have such high achievements in the formation path and not to mention your business talent, what a nice scheme of showcasing the might of your formations. I'll be straight forward with you brother, do you have any interest in joining my red lotus sect." Lu Yunjie tried to recruit Bai Ming.

'Here it comes!' Bai Ming laughed inwardly and just like he wished, Lu Yunjie was interested in the value Bai Ming showed and took the initiative to recruit him, but there was also another factor as to why he wanted to recruit Bai Ming.

Bai Ming had already decided to join the red lotus sect, be it the resources he would be able to enjoy there or the fact that he had already made enemies with the Evil dao valley, there was much benifit for Bai Ming in joining the red lotus sect.

But there were a few things Bai Ming had to do before joining the sect, one was to find out how much he was worth to them and secondly he wanted squeeze out all the benefits he could get.

"This…." Bai Ming hesitated, then shook his head, "I am greatly honoured to receive Lord lu's kindness, but I am a person who likes to be free, I am sorry."

Lu Yunjie was slight surprised, he didn't expect Bai Ming to reject him after all his Red lotus sect was a first tier sect in the province of Tiannan. Cultivators would never be foolish enough to turn down such an opportunity.

But on the surface he maintained his composure, "Oh, so it's like that. But brother is missing out on this rare opportunity, if you were to join the sect not only will you be able enjoy many benefits, but you will also have the backing of Teng city's Lord, Teng Zhe."

"You might not know, but Elder Teng zhe himself is a inner elder in our red lotus sect and is very much interested in you. With the backing of an inner elder, your stay in the sect will be smooth as flowing water."

'Good, even a supreme mortal realm cultivator is interested in me. There should definitely be some form of benifit for him from the sect if he wants me to join the sect, otherwise why would a supreme mortal realm cultivator care about an insignificant character like me.' Bai Ming was increasingly happy inside, but on the surface he showed a surprised expression, before his expression turned to one of struggle, after a long time Bai Ming took a deep breath calming down, he stood up and bowed towards Lu Yunjie.

Lu Yunjie seeing this was very pleased, but hearing Bai Ming's next sentence his expression immediately changed.

"Please forgive me, but I cannot join the red lotus sect."