Chapter 71 – Selling Bones
In the subsequent few days, Liu Ming stayed out of sight on the Mist Ship. There was no one else who came to find him.
However, after carefully examining the situation, he found that after the pa.s.sage of time, the Misty Ship’s mist seem to become fainter. Of course, this change was extremely gradual and took a long time.
Five days later, the Misty Ship finally arrived at its destination: An easily accessible enormous ravine that was in Weizhou.
This ravine had a circ.u.mference of ten miles and from the sky, it seemed like the interior contained plenty of orderly buildings in rows. Simultaneously, black dots acting as silhouettes of people unceasingly milled into and out of the buildings.
“Pu!”
The large ship descended a couple miles away from the ravine and disappeared after unloading everyone.
At this time, Senior Qian leisurely gathered everyone before saying, “Listen carefully. Weizhou Market is one of the three largest markets set up by a coalition of sects in this country. Thus, no matter what sect a disciple is from, he or she does not have any authority here. No one can violate the rules here. One of the most important rules is that no one is allowed to fight or fly within ten miles of the surrounding area; this includes using flying tools. Violators of these rules will be apprehended and punished severely. Another thing, every sect will send one Spirit Master to take turns keeping watch. Therefore, don’t have any ideas of escaping through luck. The Spirit Master from our sect is Master Liu from the Mysterious Glyphs division. If you have a chance, perhaps you may come across him. This is the first time for many of you here at such a large market, so your scope of knowledge should expand. However, if you truly plan on buying or selling items, you must be extra cautious. There are many deceitful people here and some of them are rogue cultivators. Additionally, there are others who come from neighboring countries’ sects. Most of these people are Spirit Apostles, but Spirit Masters will occasionally appear. If your mental ability is not enough and you are swindled, the sect will not be able to do anything. Okay, I have said what I needed to say. In three days, I will be here to take you back to the Sect. Right now, all you disciples can do what you want.”
Once Senior Qian finished speaking, she nimbly brought the green-robed Cui Er out of the ravine’s exit.
The others looked at each other before subsequently following. There were also people who stayed and talked in groups of two or three.
Lei Zhen and the young girl talked for a short while before identically leaving the ravine.
From the beginning, Liu Ming had planned on moving by himself. He naturally did not stay and after a short while, casually started his journey.
In the time it takes to eat, Liu Ming arrived at the ravine’s exit. Sounds of bustling activity transmitted from far away.
His gaze faintly wavered and his legs did not stop as he quickly walked onto an orderly stone street.
The street’s two sides were constructed of limestone. The tallest pavilions were over a hundred feet and the shortest single buildings were only a few tens of feet high. It seemed like all of the buildings were shops opened by cultivators.
There were cultivators wearing various things with many different types of cultivation. They strolled through the street or wandered into the buildings on both sides.
Moreover, Liu Ming had seen a couple disciples of his sect who were originally in front of him but had suddenly disappeared in a second. It seemed like they had ran off to some other place.
Faced with this, Liu Ming was even less anxious as he leisurely walked along the street. His eyes would often stop on the shops in both sides as he examined them.
A while later, he understood quite a bit more.
Although there were many shops, they were split into many categories.
There were some shops that specialized in purchasing and selling certain materials. Other stores that specifically sold medicine or Glyphs. Some even sold or took custom made orders for Pract.i.tioner Weapons. However, the larger shops conducted all sorts of business, so much so that some even had signs advertising totems for sale. These made Liu Ming abruptly stop in front of them before bitterly laughing and leaving.
Liu Ming didn’t even need to ask to realize that either the quality of the totem had problems or that the totems had an exorbitant price that Liu Ming wouldn’t even be able to think about.
Liu Ming would examine the shops and walk in from time to time and ask for the item prices.
When he finished looking at this street, he turned and walked down the neighboring road.
Four hours later, Liu Ming walked to the end of a street and astonishingly saw a plaza that was the size of a few acres. Astonishingly, there were many people running street stalls here and the appearance of this area was quite like Barbarian Ghost Sect’s Gray Market.
Astounded, Liu Ming proceeded to stroll near the vendors. Surprisingly, he found a few useful items for sale, but after asking for the price, he could only shake his head and walk away.
However, when he walked to a middle-aged man whose face looked sickly, he was attracted by a animal scroll with ancient text on it. He couldn’t help but look over it and ask, “How much are you offering this “Comprehensive Guide of the Foundation for Refining Pills” for?”
“Aside from explaining the basics of refining pills, this book also includes a few basic pill formulas. It has a fixed price of fifty Spirit Stones.” The middle-aged man lifted his head and looked at Liu Ming before lazily replying.
“Fifty Spirit Stones!”
When Liu Ming heard the price, he shook his head and put the book back down. However, after his eyes swept through another pile in the vendor’s booth, he couldn’t help but ask another question, “What about these items?”
“One complete set of low grade set of refining pill equipment: three hundred Spirit Stones.”
The middle-aged man indifferently responded after looking at the slightly worn out small cauldron, medicine basin and medicine pestle that made up the set.
“If you give this book to me for free, I will buy these items.” When Liu Ming heard the middle-aged man’s reply, he spoke without the slightest hesitation.
He had seen the identical set of Refining Pill Equipment at a previous store, but the price was five hundred Spirit Stones. Moreover, these items had a faint medicinal scent to them so they were most likely genuine refining tools.
“Present it as a gift to you!… Okay, you are my first customer today so I will do you a favor.” The middle-aged man was somewhat flabbergasted by Liu Ming’s request. He lifted his hands and looked at Liu Ming again before suddenly smiling and replying.
Liu Ming was overjoyed and immediately withdrew three clear Spirit Stones. He proceeded to hand them over.
The middle-aged man immediately received and after recognizing the quality of the Spirit Stones, nodded his head.
Liu Ming put away the book and the set of refining tools. Satisfied with his find, he then left the plaza.
The entire market was extremely big and was nearly equivalent to a mid-tier city.
Liu Ming spent a day before looking through over half of the shops.
Then, as the sky turned dark, he went to a tavern that provided resting areas to sleep for the night. On the second day, he continued to wander down the remaining streets.
Although many shops had Fa Li pills for sale, Liu Ming only had a limited amount of Spirit Stones and planned on selling some other items. He naturally wanted to find the best quality to price ratio and a trustworthy shop before making his move.
It was noon before he finished looking through the last shop. He had already made up his mind.
An hour later, he entered a two storied pavilion that had the banner “Hundred Treasures” hanging in front of it.
This store could be considered mid-tier in the ravine. The interior contained countless rows of wooden shelves containing myriads of items while there were two shop a.s.sistants presenting the various items in the shop to guests. Furthermore, there was also an older shopkeeper who sat behind a sales counter.
Despite the small size, the pavilion’s business seemed to be exceptionally good and there were cultivators constantly entering.
Liu Ming entered the shop and a while later, he managed to walk up to the sales counter when there was no one there. He placed a boxed item on the desk and said to the old man, “Shopkeeper, please give me a Spirit Stone appraisal for the item inside and then we will discuss other things.”
When the old man heard this, he was not startled at all, and instead wore a smile as he nodded his head and said, “Okay; I request for Fellow to wait a bit. This old man will look at them first.” As he spoke, the old man opened the jade box and with rapt attention, stared inside. However, his face immediately changed.
“What a strong aura, this is…” The old man was shocked. His hand moved and picked out a soybean sized white item from within the box. It was the bone fragment from the enormous green haired rat.
“May I ask Fellow, what kind of demon did this item come from?” The old man was worthy of being this store’s shopkeeper. In one glance he had recognized the item’s true ident.i.ty and asked his question.
“It was left behind by an enormous Rat Demon.” Liu Ming didn’t have intentions of hiding anything and calmly replied.
“Left behind by a Rat Demon; this is truly abnormal. Normally, Rat type Demons rarely advance into high levels. Please wait a moment Fellow, I am going to gauge this item’s true strength.” When the old man heard this, his face exposed a trace of doubt as he spoke.
Liu Ming naturally wouldn’t oppose this; he was equally curious as to what cultivation level the enormous green-haired rat possessed.
Thus, the old man bent over and grabbed a palm-sized silver formation dish from under the table. He proceeded to place the bone fragment in his hands on the dish and performed a single handed technique.
In the next second, the entire formation dish emitted a droning sound and a mult.i.tude of Glyph symbols appeared on top; the Glyphs unceasingly changed shapes.
“Peak late stage of the Liquid Level!” In the next moment, the old man involuntarily cried out and seemed to not believe the scene in front of him. He rapidly performed the technique again, but the formation dish’s Glyph was still the same as before.
“Please wait a moment fellow. The value of this item is too large, so this old man cannot be the person who makes the decision. I must request for the owner to personally come. Could Fellow put away the item carefully and wait in the VIP lounge.” The old man let out a long breath of air before rapidly speaking to Liu Ming.
“Okay, I will be happy to wait.” When Liu Ming heard the words “peak late stage of the Liquid Level”, he also couldn’t help but jump in fright.
One must know that his original a.s.sessment for this rat was that it was at most an early stage Liquid Level Demon. This new actual prediction meant that the large green furred rat unexpectedly was a demon that was not far away from entering the Crystal Level and was about to become a High Leveled Demon like the Dragon from the Suppressing Dragon Island.
This meant that the Rat Demon was a whole two levels higher than what Liu Ming had expected and also, the value of the bone fragments would undergo an exceptional increase.
No wonder he had such an effect from using the large rat’s meats even without them having been refined into a pill. Just that by itself pushed his Fa Li instantly to the Middle Spirit Apostle stage.
The woman called Ye Tianmei was easily able to kill this beast; she must have been the same as Ghost Barbarian Sect’s various Crystal Level masters.
When Liu Ming thought of the Ye Tainmei’s pretty face, an extremely strange feeling couldn’t help but well up in his heart.