Chapter 571: Souls

He had managed to get the guards to promise not to tell anyone else about their trip to the underground market and the fact that he had an unknown amount of Pills of Clarity made by the Alchemist G.o.d himself.

What they did not know was that Hui Yue had other pills as well. Under normal circ.u.mstances, he would never trade them for other pills, but all the pills that Huli gave him were far too strong for him for now. They were mostly pills made for the Immortal of Creation rank, and if Hui Yue consumed them now, he would be filled with so much energy that it would either injure his soul or just outright cause his body to explode. 

In such a situation, Hui Yue had no intention of attempting to try consuming such dangerous pills, therefore, he exchanged some of them for pills he could use. 

It was possible for Hui Yue to spend Worldpower Stones to buy the pills he needed, but he wanted so many different pills that it would likely exhaust his finances, and since he truly had no idea what the trial would bring in the future, he decided against spending so many Worldpower Stones. 

His decision was also because he had another idea on what to spend his Worldpower Stones on. He knew that if he wished to increase his strength the most important aspect to work on right now was increasing the strength of his soul. 

The fact that he was currently in Diyu was pretty much the same as having a constant supply of pills due to the abundance of soul energy, and this also meant that if he did use any pills, or other means to strengthen his soul, the results would be phenomenal. 

"Since we are here why don't we take a look around?" Hui Yue asked as he flashed a token in his hand as a wide grin appeared on his face. The token was black with a golden symbol of two sickles on it. This was the emblem that allowed one to enter the underground market. He had been gifted it when he traded pills with the elder from before.

The guards smiled and Pei Ze was excited, "there are only a few members of the Celestial Sword Sect who have the right to enter the underground markets, but to be allowed entrance, one needs to be a peerless genius. Sometimes even being the number one member of the younger generation is not a guarantee one can get in. As far as I know even the young man from the Nightcrawler Sect does not have a token yet."

Hui Yue smiled. He did not care too much about who had one, all he cared about was that he had gotten one. Now he would have access to more materials in the future.

As they walked around the marketplace Hui Yue's eyes were drawn to a shop that was filled with soul shadows, unrefined and refined souls of both mortals and G.o.ds.

The moment he saw this shop, Hui Yue was filled with excitement. These souls were exactly what he needed, but he noticed that the face of Pei Ze turned rather ugly when he saw this stall.

"Consuming souls is considered a wicked path to walk." He explained when he noticed Hui Yue's confused glance. "Consuming the souls of others is cruel. If a soul shatters, it is thrown into the Yellow River where He Bo will guard it until he eventually pulls out a few souls and allows them to be reborn in accordance to the karma they have sown in their previous life."

"If their soul gets consumed then they will never again be able to rejoin the circle of reincarnation. Their soul will be consumed and their life really will come to an end."

Hui Yue frowned slightly. Consuming souls was without a doubt the most beneficial medicine for his soulforce and the best way to strengthen his soul. 

It was not that Hui Yue did not care about the poor unfortunate souls, and he did feel rather bad about the fact that so many souls were out for sale. He was filled with discomfort about the fact that he did not know what kind of lives these souls had lived. Were they just unfortunate and forced into slavery, and later turned into souls for refinement? Nevertheless, right now he had no other choice than to consume them if he wished to be strong enough to resurrect w.a.n.g Ju Long. If he wanted her to live again, then he needed to sacrifice some of his morals.

Failing this trial was unacceptable, as it meant that w.a.n.g Ju Long would never come back to life. While he did feel bad for the innocent souls whom he might hurt, none of them could compare to how important w.a.n.g Ju Long was to him and he would do anything in his power to resurrect her, even if that meant doing things that filled others with disgust. 

So although he was feeling bad about these souls, he still went to the stall, Hui Yue looked at all the items up for sale with curiosity; the soul shadows were mainly from strong beast G.o.ds while the refined and unrefined souls were mainly from humans or demons. 

The prices ranged from a few hundred Worldpower Stones for soul shadows and unrefined souls to thousands of Worldpower Stones for the refined souls of Immortals of Creation. 

"Where are these souls from?" Hui Yue asked curiously, but the seller just shook his head. "I am sorry, I can't tell you. But I can guarantee that we don’t sell children’s souls, nor do we sell innocent souls. Although some stalls focus on the souls of the innocent ours does not. Are you interested in buying anything?" 

Hui Yue saw that the hostility in Pei Ze's face turned slightly better when he heard what the seller said, but Hui Yue took his words with a grain of salt. Although they might not be innocent souls, it was likely that the words of the seller were not fully truthful. 

No one was able to tell where these souls really came from, but even so, Hui Yue was certain that there were no souls of children or innocent young women as those would be marketed as such. 

If a female cultivator wished to keep her youth, she could do so by absorbing the souls of innocent, beautiful young women. 

Souls of children were the purest souls one could find, and these were used by the most sinister experts to feed their soul shadows and make them become strong very quickly. 

So these souls were not the souls of pure women or children, and thus Hui Yue did not mind too much. He was not interested in the souls of mortals as they would barely do anything for his soul, but he was interested in the souls of these Primordial Immortals. 

Consuming Immortals of Creation was outside his ability, but Primordial Immortals were fine. Thus Hui Yue paid a total of nine thousand Worldpower Stones in exchange for twenty-seven unrefined Primordial Immortals’ souls.

"Are you sure you want to buy unrefined souls? They are many times more difficult to refine, and if you are not proficient in the craft, you will waste a lot of their energy. Although unrefined souls are cheaper, you are likely to get a lot less energy out of them," the seller said, but Hui Yue just smiled and held to his decision.

The two guards were not too uncomfortable with the fact that Hui Yue bought souls and seemingly planned to consume them, but Pei Ze was not happy. He clearly feared that Hui Yue was walking down a malicious path.

"It is really not that bad," Hui Yue laughed as he looked at Pei Ze. "Look at this soul energy that is permeating the entire city. This is already the energy of shattered souls. We are consuming souls even without wanting to do so. Consuming a few more souls is not that big of a deal."

"I need to reach the rank of Primordial Immortal before it is time for the trials that depend on strength. I cannot become the new Judge of h.e.l.l with the strength that I have now." Hui Yue said with eyes glistening. To reach his goal of becoming the Judge of h.e.l.l, Hui Yue would do anything, even if that meant consuming the souls of people who had done him no harm. 

Anyone who lived in Diyu understood the law that said the souls were not to be refined, but if the souls had gotten a debt and were incapable of paying it back, or if they were slaves who had no use, or were rebellious, then they would be turned into souls that would be refined.

Having finished his purchase, the group kept looking through the marketplace. Many things caught their interest and although Hui Yue was tempted to buy quite a few things he decided not to do so. This was because he might need to spend more later to help him become the Judge of h.e.l.l, and thus, he bought nothing but the unrefined souls. 

Pei Ze bought a few treasures here and there, and the two guards also ended up buying some pills. In the end, the two guards were more of companions than guards, and they were no longer as quiet as they were before. Instead, they were now speaking with Hui Yue and Pei Ze quite frequently. 

By the time they left the underground market, the city had turned dark. The majority of the stalls were closed down. Now the eating houses, drinking places, brothels, and gambling dens were filled with noise and bustling with activity.

Hui Yue felt no interest towards any of these places, and neither did Pei Ze. They had all bought good things and were eager to return to their rooms so that they could start using the materials they had bought. Even the guards were filled with excitement about returning as they wished to use some of the pills they had obtained.

The trip through the city was calm and peaceful. The beautiful silvery moonlight shone down from above and covered the streets in a celestial light. 

"It seems we are being followed," Hui Yue's calm words suddenly sounded in the ears of Pei Ze and the two guards and their bodies instantly tensed up. 

"I don't know what they want, but they have been following us since we left the underground market. It is as if they have targeted us for some unknown reason." Hui Yue said casually as if it was normal for him to be followed by unknown people.

"We are almost at the palace, let’s just keep walking and see what happens," Hui Yue continued to speak, and slowly the group increased their pace. 

They arrived at the gate of the palace without their followers making a move, and Hui Yue was quite surprised. Their followers far outnumbered them by a decent amount and their individual strength was definitely above Hui Yue and Pei Ze’s. 

Although it was like this, Hui Yue found that they did not seem to have malicious thoughts and finally a thought dawned upon him. Were these perhaps guards from the underground market to ensure that no one robbed them on their way home? 

It seemed that the underground market was indeed not as simple as it seemed, and he almost regretted that he had told his friends about the fact that they were followed. Still, it was better to be alert than to be surprised.

But now that they were within the palace, no one would dare to move on them, so they casually made their way to their residences. 

As soon as they reached their destination, Hui Yue and his guard said goodbye to Pei Ze and his guard before they entered their room. 

As soon as they did, Hui Yue went to his room and ensured that no one would be able to enter while the guard went to his own room.

While the guard was busy consuming pills and increasing his strength, Hui Yue pulled out the chaos cauldron and started to refine the first soul of a primordial G.o.d that he had purchased earlier that day.