'...Sometimes they're bought out right. But in the end, the result is the same. Their souls are devoured for the knowledge it holds, and they become human vegetables. Without purpose, without will, and barely with life.

'Their bodies are then refined down into pills to be consumed to benefit from their energy and body cultivation, thus leaving behind no loose ends.'

Dyon almost couldn't stop himself from completely destroying Evangeline's courtyard. How was this a way to treat people?! They were more like livestock than human beings!

'Remember, don't go doing anything stupid. I told you not to underestimate this quadrant.

'Why do you think the Soul Market has lasted this long? Why do you think this quadrant is still so weak even while taking advantage of such a high level technique?'

Dyon took a deep breath. 'Probably because other, more powerful quadrants are taking their share of the pie.'

'At least you're not entirely stupid. There is a Council of high ranking elders from various quadrants that control the Soul Market. However, what I didn't expect was that those Devil Path cultivators were behind the scenes this entire time.'

'You mean the council doesn't know?'

'Of course not. How could they be willing to allow their enemies to benefit from their hard work? Even when I was an elder of that sect, I had no idea.'

'Wait. How do the Devil Sects benefit if it's the council that heads everything?'

'Remember that singular dao formation expert you've heard mentioned a couple times since being here?'

Dyon nodded. 'According to what I've heard, in the past few tens of thousands of years, this 98th quadrant had only produced a single expert of that level.'

'In all likelihood, that was a lie. This quadrant might not even have a single dao formation expert.

'The reality is that the quadrants involved in this Soul Market scheme aren't almighty powers. None of the top ten quadrants are involved. It's actually being kept a secret from them.

'However, this information of mine is outdated. It's likely that in the time I've been gone, those quadrants that did participate were able to use this evil plan to improve their rankings. They weren't top ten back then, but maybe they are now.'

Hearing this, Dyon couldn't help but begin to worry. Just how many lives had they given up to reap such rewards?

A single universe could already contain trillions of people, let alone the 100 of them that made up a quadrant. With so many people to pick and choose from, Dyon didn't doubt that there would be millions of adequate talents born every year!

Dyon jaws clenched before giving the Dragon King information on the current ranking of quadrants. Luckily, he was able to sigh in relief because it didn't seem like any of the top four quadrants were involved. That said, this was information dated by several thousand years, the circumstances could have changed by now.

After collecting his thoughts and burying his anger, Dyon began to reflect on his next course of action.

'So, in all likelihood this 'dao formation expert' was an image created by the devil path cultivators.'

'Yes. Because at the time the quadrants that participated were fairly weak, they wouldn't be able to take a dao formation expert lightly even if they had some of their own. In addition, we were taking advantage of their quadrant and their Mystic level technique, for the sake of fairness, it was obvious that this dao formation expert would receive a bit more benefits.'

At that point, Dyon suddenly understood many things.

The Devil Path cultivators first instigated a war of Soul versus Energy Path, thus greatly weakening this once highly ranked quadrant.

After they accomplished this, they took advantage of this opportunity to reel in a few of the weaker quadrants with promises of making them much stronger.

By doing this, the Devil Path cultivators were able to create a solid footing in the Conventional Path quadrants, while also fostering themselves a group of allies that they were forever bound to.

Even though the martial world didn't work on morality and principles, it did work on benefits. If the information about the Soul Market ever came out, these quadrants would give their enemies the moral high ground to wage war. For the sake of benefits, their enemies would multiply before their quadrants were divided up amongst those 'white knights'.

As for why the Devil Path cultivators still hid their identity even knowing their allied quadrants were in the same boat as them, that was obvious as well.

Because they were of the Devil Path, something so evil would be easily blamed on them. If those quadrants claimed they had no idea where the souls were coming from, and pretended truly believed that they came from already deceased martial warriors, the punishments would be much lighter, while the Devil Path cultivators would become the public enemy.

In the end, the Mystic technique had long since fallen in their hands and for their own reasons, they were slowly manipulating things behind the scenes, reaping in benefits and building up their own network of strength.

'It seems that I'll have to go check out this Soul Market...'

The Dragon King sighed, already having known that Dyon would do this. Even though those quadrants would never risk sending their dao formation experts here for the sake of having room to take a step back if they were caught, that didn't mean that Dyon would be able to deal with them easily. Considering the leap of quality those quadrants underwent, their top experts were far and away better than the celestials Dyon had dealt with in the past.

Just as Dyon was lost in thought, a small servant girl came. "Excuse me, young master Jafari." She spoke in a small voice. "Lady Violet is here to see you."

Dyon was shocked by these words. Wasn't Violet just a core disciple? Even if core disciples had high status, it couldn't possibly be enough to stroll into the courtyard of the Vice Master, could it?

Could it be that Evangeline was so blatantly disrespected, even by disciples? Or was it that Violet's identity wasn't so simple?

Now that Dyon thought about it, he had assumed that Violet would be among the two core disciples he would spar with. However, he turned out to be wrong, which meant at the very least, Violet was ranked higher than those two bottom ranked core disciples.

Seeing Dyon's confusion, the little girl quickly continued. "I'm sorry, young master Jafari. She is the Head Master's daughter, my status is far too small to refuse her."

Hearing this, Dyon was enlightened. No wonder why she could stroll around the courtyards of high ranking elders so easily, she was actually of such high birth. Dyon didn't know much about the Head Master, but he did know that he had managed to reach his position despite not being a member of the two main families. His achievements were truly commendable.

Dyon stood, patting the head of the little servant girl who couldn't have been more than eleven or twelve years old. "There's no need to be so polite to me, just call me Dyon. What's your name?"

"R-Rose." The little girl stuttered. She wasn't used to interacting with people and normally dealt with Evangeline alone. It could be said that her life was very good now despite it having started off so terribly.

"That's a beautiful name, Little Rose. I have a little sister who's just as adorable as you are, although she's probably grown a lot since I last saw her." There was a hint of sadness in Dyon's voice, he really did miss Little Lyla and Zaire.

Little Rose's large browns eyes looked up at Dyon and blinked before a smile crossed her small face.

"You have a little sister?" Suddenly, another voice called out causing Dyon to frown slightly. Apparently Violet hadn't felt like waiting and directly entered. The more time that passed, the more Dyon was angered by his sealed soul. Since when had people been able to sneak up on him like this.

Hearing Violet come in, Little Rose scurried away to attend to her own matters. From Dyon's Perception, he could tell that her cultivation was even better than those fools who had practiced for decades. It made him even more certain that Evangeline's origins weren't so simple. To be eleven years old, yet already on the brink of the essence gathering stage was a cultivation speed that rivaled the top 40 or so quadrants, and was clearly far better than what this 98th quadrant could live up to.