You He Demon Venerable raised an eyebrow and asked, "Do you know the limit of my lifespan?"

Su Yuan glanced at him. The "Answering Danger with Duty" entry activated, and he immediately obtained the Demon Venerable's lifespan.

Lifespan: 2,997 Epochs.

Each Epoch equals 6.4 billion Yuan Assembly, which is 8.294 trillion years.

That lifespan is unimaginably long—so long that calling it immortality would not be an exaggeration.

But no matter how long a lifespan is, it will still end someday.

Of course, great beings have many methods to extend their lives, and such limits keep being pushed farther out;

reaching the absolute end of lifespan is not easy.

Su Yuan withdrew his gaze and said calmly, "I did not know, but I can extract your lifespan. As long as you agree, it can be done."

You He Demon Venerable looked at Su Yuan deeply and asked, "How will you calculate the cost?"

"For a Hunyuan Great Luo Golden Immortal, ten thousand Yuan Assembly of lifespan can be exchanged for one Ten-Star Coin, which equates to one year of a fourth-tier comprehension (wùxìng) buff!"

"This price is far too steep!" You He Demon Venerable said immediately. "Reduce it to about one percent!"

Su Yuan shook his head. "Sorry, that's my price. No bargaining. Besides, the Hunyuan lifespan is virtually limitless;

helping a Hunyuan Great being improve comprehension is extremely difficult. This price is not as high as it might seem."

You He Demon Venerable fell into thought.

The other great beings stared at him, curious how much the august You He Demon Venerable would be willing to pay to obtain this so-called instant-enlightenment technique.

A strong sense of urgency filled You He Demon Venerable's heart—an urgency born from the threat of Zhuyuan Great Emperor. He could faintly sense that a life-or-death crisis was looming;

Zhuyuan Great Emperor was closing himself off to forcefully break through toward Hunyuan Taiyi Great Luo Golden Immortal, and from the danger-sense, it seemed likely he might succeed.

If that happened, You He would not be able to stand before Zhuyuan Great Emperor—he could only be forced to stubbornly defend the Demonic Realm's perilous strongholds, perhaps even seal himself away. That was not something You He wanted.

So in that moment You He Demon Venerable made a massive decision. Lifespan was essentially endless to him—what did a limit matter? If he could break through to a higher realm, any lifespan lost would be made up a hundred- or thousand-fold.

With that thought, You He Demon Venerable said, "I need a six-tier comprehension buff lasting ten thousand years!"

Su Yuan sucked in a cold breath.

That equates to one hundred billion units of rest time! Fortunately, this fellow possessed far more rest time than that.

Su Yuan said, "In that case, you need to pay 10 billion Yuan Assembly of lifespan! Do you agree to this trade?"

A transaction request suddenly appeared faintly to You He Demon Venerable: Seven Stars Dao Sovereign will pay for ten thousand years of six-tier comprehension buff in exchange for 10 billion Yuan Assembly of lifespan. Do you agree?

You He hesitated a moment, then confirmed, "Yes!"

Su Yuan put out his hand and drew forth a special force containing the laws of time and life from within You He Demon Venerable, merging it into his own body.

You He Demon Venerable clearly felt some of a certain root essence being consumed.

He immediately measured how much of that root essence he had lost and how much remained in his body.

Comparing it with the lost lifespan, he concluded that his remaining lifespan was 2,995 Epochs!

You He Demon Venerable's heart trembled. This was the first time he realized he actually had a lifespan limit. Although that limit was extraordinarily, extraordinarily remote, it revealed a shocking truth: even a Hunyuan Great Luo Golden Immortal had an upper bound to lifespan.

Su Yuan paid no mind to You He's thoughts. He activated the "Work-Rest Balance" entry toward You He Demon Venerable, triggering You He's cultivation state.

At the same time he casually extracted an equal amount of rest time from You He's body as a handling fee.

He was wary of taking too much and being detected by You He, so he only extracted an amount equal to the consumed rest time as the fee—consider it a generous promotional discount.

You He Demon Venerable's mind cleared, his Nascent Soul brightened, and his true spirit became lucid. His understanding of the You He Great Dao expanded dramatically, improving by a hundredfold over the previous attempts!

"This actually works!" You He laughed heartily. "Can this really last ten thousand years?"

Su Yuan patted his chest. "I swear by my Dao heart: barring other accidents or interruptions, you can maintain this buff for a full ten thousand years. With this state, breaking into Hunyuan Taiyi Great Luo Golden Immortal is not impossible!"

Su Yuan smiled.

Taiyi Sage Lord and the others' faces changed dramatically.

His expression turned extremely ugly. "Seven Stars compatriot, in aiding the Demonic Realm like this you may suffer backlash in the future. Please reconsider the consequences!"

Su Yuan raised an eyebrow. He had asked for a long time earlier and hadn't seen any of them step forward to try. Now that the Demonic Realm truly benefited, they were suddenly worried?

To Su Yuan, at the Hunyuan Great Luo level there was no strict distinction between immortals and demons—powerful immortal-world practitioners could slaughter trillions out of whim. For Su Yuan, whether immortal realm or demonic realm, as long as he profited it was fine;

he could not police others' actions.

You He Demon Venerable interjected: "I hereby promise that the Demonic Realm will uphold the neutrality of Seven Stars Market. If anyone dares to interfere with the market's operations, I will clear them out one by one! This includes my own faction and other factions!"

His deep pupils fixed on Taiyi Sage Lord.

Taiyi Sage Lord snorted coldly and met You He's gaze, refusing to yield. Both were avatars—who feared whom?

Su Yuan coughed and asked, "Does anyone else require a trade? If not, I'll be leaving. From now on, anyone wanting a comprehension buff must make an appointment in advance—submit applications to my sect elder, Star Dust Daoist. If I have time, I will act again."

You He Demon Venerable immediately addressed the Demonic Realm's great beings: "All of you come and trade. Follow my standard. You must raise your strength quickly;

there will be many battles ahead!"

The Demonic Realm's great beings listened and approached Su Yuan, lining up to apply for trades.

Demonic cultivators were most unruly—generally harder to control than immortal cultivators—but they had one habit: when someone proved stronger, they obeyed. When benefits appeared, they rushed forward without ceremony.

Su Yuan was surprised at the Demonic Realm great beings' decisiveness.

Besides those present, they summoned other great beings from the Demonic Realm.

In the end, forty-seven great beings completed trades with Su Yuan, each trading the same amount of lifespan as You He Demon Venerable.

As a result, the lifespan Su Yuan obtained reached a staggering 480 billion Yuan Assembly! Totalling 75 Epochs!

The vast root essence of lifespan merged into Su Yuan's body, causing a tremendous metamorphosis. Under the infusion of massive life-root essence, his physical body forcibly advanced to the consummate layer of Hunyuan Golden Immortal!

The transformation was so rapid and immense it shook heaven and earth. Only "Great Being Demeanor" and "Hidden Walker" were powerful enough to conceal many of Su Yuan's changes.

The Demonic Realm's great beings had acted, and the Immortal Realm side could no longer remain idle!

Great beings with divination arts could already predict that the Demonic Realm great beings' strength would on average more than double in the future!

Though they could not calculate the cause, the reason now stood plainly before them—no need to divine further.

Thus, they too had to trade with Su Yuan.

Epoch Primordial Dragon hurried over.

Taiyi Sage Lord saw him and secretly transmitted to the Epoch True Dragon: "Old Dragon, is this lifespan matter that Seven Stars Dao Sovereign mentions true?"

Epoch True Dragon replied: "Indeed. This dragon has pondered the Path of Years and once wondered whether Hunyuan Great Luo Golden Immortals truly are eternal. Through my research this dragon discovered they do have a lifespan limit. But that limit is extremely remote, and the world has many items and methods to extend lifespan, so there's no need to worry too much."

"Can he really trade our lifespans? That's unbelievable!" Taiyi Sage Lord hesitated.

"Perhaps what he comprehends isn't the law of stars but the law of time," Epoch Primordial Dragon said carefully. "The so-called instant-enlightenment technique I glimpsed had an essence: it is a high-level application of the Time Dao, consuming some of the time-based power we originally possess to burst forth in a short period to achieve enlightenment!"

"What? This is energy we already had? Then aren't we losing out big time?" Taiyi Sage Lord frowned. "Can you induce it?"

Epoch Primordial Dragon shook his head. "If I could induce it, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have been stuck in the late Hunyuan Great Luo Golden Immortal stage without any progress!"

In truth, Epoch Primordial Dragon was eager to experience Su Yuan's great technique, because it clearly belonged to the Time Dao and would be exceptionally useful in his own comprehension of the Path of Years.

Soon Epoch Primordial Dragon sought Su Yuan out and said, "This dragon wishes to trade. I need the six-tier instant-enlightenment effect for one hundred thousand years, trading 100 billion Yuan Assembly of lifespan!"

Su Yuan first scanned Epoch Primordial Dragon, then his eyes widened.

He saw gigantic amounts of rest time within the dragon—an amount equaling several Epochs!

Indeed, the rest time reached 5.3 Epochs!

Epoch Primordial Dragon seemed to notice Su Yuan's surprise and smiled: "Seven Stars compatriot, this dragon likes to sleep. Especially in places where time flows faster, I can sleep for long stretches. The power of years allows me to become longer-lived and stronger!"

Su Yuan couldn't help asking, "If I trade and take your lifespan, will you become stronger because of it?"

Epoch Primordial Dragon paused, then said, "I don't know, but it's worth trying!"

Su Yuan nodded. "All right, let's sign the trade contract."

Man and dragon signed the contract immediately.

Su Yuan activated the six-tier instant-enlightenment for him, and casually scooped up ten times the rest time from the old dragon's body. Damn—the guy was swimming in wealth;

he had to reap a harvest.