Zoran looked on at the bustling town of Griedsoil from above a mountain. This place was located just at the valley of towering mountains that housed luscious forests and endless caves like Draco's cave.
The town was small compared to the cities that Zoran knew back in his previous life. It did not have the towering skyscrapers or intricate road systems designed for travel both in land and in air. The houses and buildings in Griedsoil were in disarray, placed arbitrarily without second thought.
It was barely a town, just bigger than a village but when he was a bustling young teenager, this place was a town of new beginnings and opportunity.
But the reality of the town was anything but that. The place was clearly divided into two districts; the Royalty district and the Garbage district.
The district on the left side was filled with houses decorated in gold, buildings bustling with energy and commerce, and plazas brimming with people dressed in suits and gowns. Carriages flocked the roads that were built with stone and gravel and police surveyed the place every hour, allowing the citizens to feel safe during their daily walks.
It was a district that oozed lavishness. Their pockets were bountiful and their businesses generated even more. But the money was not distributed evenly.
Just on the right side of town was the so-called 'Garbage' district, infamous for their smell that earned them their nickname. It was where the dirty laundry and trash of the Royal district was dumped haphazardly. The houses in this district was made out of wooden houses and half-built brick homes, decorated with nothing but trash and depravity.
Downtrodden 'zombies' walked around the mud roads, having no care even if they stepped into human excrement. They walked sluggishly, preserving every energy they have so that their body built with nothing but bones gets to survive another day. It would not be a strange sight to see a dead body lying on the streets.
In this district, there were no laws. Police and government officials do not interfere in this place because the Garbage district was not technically a part of Griedsoil town. It was supposed to be a dump site for trash and garbage until people started to inhabit the place.
The difference between the two districts becomes more distinct when the sun hides in the West and the moon comes to illuminate the dark. That was when the Royal District turned bright as day from the lights decorating the streets and buildings like the night sky.
Zoran used to stay in the Garbage district, and he had to fight tooth and nail for his survival every day. That lasted until Zoran was accepted into the Primordial Sun Dynasty and was allowed to live inside their premises.
He looked down at the large estate in the middle of the Royal district, occupying at least half of the district. This place was barricaded by a large wall that surrounded it from the town itself. This was the Primordial Sun Dynasty.
Although it was just a subclan, its power and influence was still the same. An inner student of the dynasty was free to do as he pleased inside the town, with nothing but a slap on the wrist as punishment for crimes that would usually result in a public execution. Wealthy politicians and police feared them, but peasants dreaded them.
Somewhere inside that dynasty filled with arrogant cultivators and elitist crowd was the cave that led to another Miasma pit. He would have to meet them if he wanted to advance his Miasma cultivation.
But for now, Zoran had other things planned. His Yi energy was still insufficient for a breakthrough. He would either have to meditate in a natural converge of Yi energy for a year, or he would have to purchase cultivation pills.
The best way was to buy cultivation pills. Although this could be considered as a shortcut that would impede most cultivators, it was a different case for Zoran. He already mastered cultivation in his previous life, which meant he knew the pitfalls and the direction he had to take for a beneficial cultivation.
Also, his cultivation core was already filled with Miasma. He didn't need to cultivate more, because he had already done those steps of meditating and contemplating during his time trapped in the Miasma. He now just needed a plain and simple influx of Yi energy for the two to have a balance.
But he couldn't just buy any normal pills bought in apothecaries. He had to buy high-end doses like the class-A cultivation paste or the 10-year cultivation pill that could supply a cultivator enough energy to meditate for ten years.
The problem was its price. The Primordial Sun Dynasty gives its outer disciples a free 1-month cultivation pill 12 times in a year. That pill costs about 1000 Liongs, which was what Zoran earned in one year of mining.
A 10-year cultivation pill costs about 10,000 Liongs. It was something that Zoran could never buy with his meager pay from his mining job.
Usually, that pill could help a cultivator break through 2 to 3 stages in cultivation depending on the user. But for Zoran, that would only fill half of his SSS-class cultivation core. His consumption of Yi energy was too much for normal cultivation pills like the 1-month pill.
Zoran's stomach growled once again. Right now, his current net worth was 0 Liongs. He didn't even have any money to buy simple rice soups or beef sticks found in the stalls.
That was why Zoran's first order of business was to visit the auction. He had something to sell.
He closed his eyes and commanded the Miasma in his cultivation core to search around his body, scouring every bone, muscle, and tissue for a specific object that he lost when he dropped into the Miasma pit.
Soon enough, tucked right underneath his skull was a small shiny object that was protected by a membrane of Miasma and Yi energy. This object was supposed to have been disintegrated from decay by the Miasma when he fell, but his brain subconsciously protected it from harm until his whole body was reconstructed. It hid right inside his skull beneath his brain, where even the Miasma could not penetrate.
He even almost forgot about this object when he was in the Miasma, but after he emerged into the overworld, a flash of memory reminded him of where it buried itself within his body.
Zoran closed his empty fist and when he opened it an object emerged from his palms. Then his face was illuminated by a bright silver reflection brought about by the object's clear edges formed from millions of years of pressure. Any jeweler worth his salt could recognize this treasure from a mile away.
This was the Bleeding Silver Diamond.