Transmigrated Scoundrel's Exchange System

Han Cai and Yonginan continued their journey through the forest and mountains for the next few months. They visited several spirit stone mines, and Han Cai drained them to improve his cultivation. With each new mine, Han Cai's power grew, his control over the celestial energy became more refined, and more celestial Qi drops were formed in his Dantian. After increasing his cultivation, Han Cai would use his remaining exchange points to ask the system to scan and find more small spirit stone mines. By now, he had location data of more than hundreds of small spirit stone mines in millions of miles area around him. He even found two more locations of medium-grade spirit stone mines.

Han Cai had already asked the system to do the maths and give him the number he needed to reach level nine of the foundation establishment. The system provided him with detailed numbers. Han Cai almost had a heart attack when he saw the number of exchange points needed to reach level nine.

[Level 1 Foundation Establishment: 315.2 million exchange points

Level 2 Foundation Establishment: 630.4 million exchange points

Level 3 Foundation Establishment: 1.26 billion exchange points

Level 4 Foundation Establishment: 2.52 billion exchange points

Level 5 Foundation Establishment: 5.04 billion exchange points

Level 6 Foundation Establishment: 10.08 billion exchange points

Level 7 Foundation Establishment: 20.16 billion exchange points

Level 8 Foundation Establishment: 40.32 billion exchange points

Level 9 Foundation Establishment: 80.64 billion exchange points]

When he asked how much It would cost to reach the core formation realm system gave him a number of 183 billion exchange points. Han Cai almost felt like giving up. He had assumed that the exchange points requirement, in general, would be double of last, but now he realized that was not the case. When there was a qualitative jump in cultivation, then there was going to be a qualitative jump in the numbers too. But He decided to persist. It was hard, but that is how cultivation is supposed to be, and it was important to improve his cultivation to save his life.

Apart from the spirit stone mines, Han Cai and Yonginan came across several spirit beasts on their journey. They saw a variety of creatures, some of which were docile, and some were ferocious. Han Cai and Yonginan made sure to keep their distance from the more dangerous creatures, but they enjoyed observing them from a safe distance. Han Cai already knew that the levels of spirit beasts depended on their bloodline and age. He had done his research. He knew that in a million miles areas of the sky-soaring sect, the most powerful spirit beasts were 500 to 700 years old elite beasts. It would take the strength of a nascent soul to tame or kill those beasts. Han Cai was not ready to face them, but those beasts rarely came out, and Han Cai used system scan frequently. He didn't come across such elite beasts.

Han Cai and Yonginan were traveling through the mountain forest at full speed when suddenly Han Cai's perception tingled, indicating that something was amiss. Han Cai immediately stopped and signaled for Yonginan to stop as well. He knew that his perception was one of his greatest strengths, and he did not want to ignore it.

Han Cai then asked the system to scan the area and check if there were any humans present. The system charged ten exchange points per mile and gave data on the hundred-mile area. It notified him that it could not find any anomalies in the area it scanned. Despite this, Han Cai was not satisfied, and he asked the system to expand the scan area to 500 miles and find out if there was anything out of the norm. The system followed Han Cai's instructions and charged ten exchange points per mile, scanning the area of five hundred miles with Han Cai at the center.

At a distance of 350 miles, the system found a group of people who appeared to be cultivators discussing something. Han Cai sensed that these people were the reason for his perception warning him. He asked the system to use exchange points to give him all the details about these people.

The system followed Han Cai's instructions and used exchange points to provide him with the details. But this time, the system charged him more. The system informed Han Cai that there were four men sitting in a circle discussing something. The first two men were members of the Cui family; the first one was a 45-year-old core condensation level cultivator, and the second one was a 23-year-old foundations establishment level cultivator.

The third person in the group was the leader of a famous local bandit group, and this bandit leader was a Qi condensation level 6 cultivator. The bandit leader's group was called the Black Wind Bandits, and their leader's name was Black Wind Yan. The outer sect elder of the Sky Soaring Sect was named Elder Liu.

The last person sitting was a foundation establishment level elder of the outer sect of the Sky Soaring Sect elder Pan.

Han Cai was not surprised when his senses tingled. He had come across another treacherous plot, and it seemed like he was getting used to it.

Han Cai was familiar with the Cui family, which had a long history of producing powerful cultivators and was known for their strict adherence to traditional cultivation arts. He knew that they were one of the leading martial arts experts in the country, and it was obvious that there was something fishy going on here since the Cui family had no relationship with Sky Soaring Sect.

He immediately asked the system to give him all the details of what those people were discussing. After charging a hefty sum of exchange points, the system provided Han Cai with all the details. Han Cai's theory was true, but there was a small twist to it.

The system informed Han Cai that the Cui family had recently noticed the Wang family, one of the leading cultivator families who had a good commercial partnership with Sky Soaring Sect, had sent more merchants and resources to the sect in the last few months. These changes were minor and hard to notice for other sects and families, but the Cui family and Wang family had a very sour relationship recently. The Wang family had caused a lot of damage to the Cui family in a recent business transaction. Therefore, the Cui family paid attention to any and every activity of the Wang family because they wanted to hurt them.

Noticing the Wang family's activities towards Sky Soaring Sect, Cui family elders sent two members to find out what was going on. By bribing a hefty amount of spirit stones and using connections, they built a relationship with the outer sect elder Pan of Sky Soaring Sect. They made Elder Pan spy for them to find out what was going on.

Elder Pan soon gave them a report that, recently, Sky Soaring Sect had become very strict with security. The inner core elders of the sect would keep disappearing for months on hidden missions that no one was allowed to know about except the sect master and core elders of the inner sect.

When Elder Pan reported to the Cui family members, they started speculating about what was going on in the Sky Soaring Sect. With an increase in trading and investing in resources, along with the disappearance of only core elders, they finally concluded that the Sky Soaring Sect had found a medium-sized spirit stone mine. It was evident to them that the sect wouldn't make all core elders work for a small mine.

Han Cai was taken aback by this revelation. He realized that he could never underestimate the intelligence of the people in this world. Even though the Sky Soaring Sect had kept the discovery of the mine a secret, the news had still leaked out.

Despite the shocking discovery, Han Cai couldn't help but feel sympathy toward his Sect. Every time he encountered an elder from the outer sect, he would witness them betraying the sect or being involved in some shady dealings. The outer sect was infested with such elders, including his butler, who was the most notorious of them all.

As Han Cai continued reading, he sighed at the new plan of the Cui family members. They had put their previous plan to hurt the Wang family on the back burner and now wanted to partner up with other families to snatch the medium-sized mine from the Sky Soaring Sect. However, they needed concrete proof to partner with other families or even to inform their main family about the discovery of the mine.

Only core elders of the Sky Soaring Sect could provide concrete proof. However, reaching out to the core elders of the sect seemed to be a daunting task. The majority of them were unreachable to the outside world, and even if they managed to secure an audience with them, they were unlikely to admit to the discovery of the mine. It was clear that the Cui family needed to find an alternative approach.

After much contemplation, they turned to elder Pan for help. He explained to them that core elders had primarily three weaknesses: their personal disciples, family members, and the sect itself. By leveraging these weaknesses, they could potentially persuade the core elders to leave the sect and help them with concrete proof of the existence of medium-grade mine willingly. The Cui family started to come up with a plan that would exploit the core elders' vulnerabilities and make them agree to help.