“How could it be?” The young man sounded extremely sure of himself. “Whoever that has gone to the Town of the Brave recently would have definitely known of you and the additional feature that your weapon has. Black Thorn, you need to stop covering for them.”Gu Lingzhi pursed her lips and hated how the young man was using her as a tool to get what he wanted. She stared at him coldly and said, “I remember on the first day I battled, I had already said that I was not externalizing my spiritual energy but merely stripping a part of it and directing it into my sword. They are two entirely different things. If you have a sword that can help you externalize your spiritual energy, I"d like to see it.”
She pushed past him and headed straight to the second floor.
“You…” The young man was furious and tried to chase after her to get an explanation.
Originally, he had seen Gu Lingzhi at the store and that was how he had thought of an idea to disrupt the opening sales of the Store of Many Treasures. If he let her leave, how could he continue with his little act?
“Scram!” The young man had barely walked a few steps before a sword was thrust in front of him, near his chest. “How dare you take advantage of the Third Prince"s friend?”
What? The Third Prince"s friend? The young man was shocked and felt his knees start to buckle.
He had never heard of this rumor, that the Black Thorn was friends with the Third Prince. If he had known, he would not have dared to drag her into his ploy.
He was thrown out of the store by Yuan Zheng, and could only dejectedly return to wherever he was deployed to report on his failures.
The crowd who was watching was equally shocked. Whoever that could be the Third Prince"s friend was definitely not a simple person.
All of a sudden, everyone who had known about the Black Thorn started to speculate on her past. They felt that Gu Lingzhi must have had a powerful person supporting her in order for her to be favoured by the Third Prince. Perhaps she was from one of the Four Great Clans. How else could one explain how she had the Third Prince wrapped around her finger after spending only a few days in the capital city?
The second floor of the store was much smaller than the first floor and had half the number of weapons on display. However, the weapons were of a much better quality and belonged to a higher tier as well.
Gu Lingzhi continued to observe them at her own pace, examining how they were made.
“Hi, may I have a word with you?” a voice interrupted her train of thought.
When she turned her head, it was the store manager, Qin Boyu.
“I"m not working in cahoots with that man,” Gu Lingzhi explained before the store manager had even asked, to prevent any misunderstandings that may arise.
Qin Boyu laughed lightly, “Please do not misunderstand, I know that you were not colluding with him.”
“You want to talk to me because…?”
“Well, it"s like this…” Qin Boyu tried to sound sincere, “I"d like to ask you a few questions, if you don"t mind. It won"t take up much of your time.”
“Oh?” Gu Lingzhi furrowed her brows. She was reluctant to take her eyes away from the weapons in front of her. However, seeing as to how she had gained a substantial amount of knowledge from the weapons in this store, she felt bad to reject him.
“Sure, where shall we talk?”
Qin Boyu looked delighted the moment Gu Lingzhi had agreed.
“Let"s go to the guest room on the fifth floor. You can ask the Third Prince to come along if you wish.”
“It"s okay, I"m fine on my own.” Gu Lingzhi knew that if Qin Boyu meant no harm. She followed him to the fifth floor, leaving a distressed Yuan Zheng behind who was thinking of how he would definitely get into trouble when the Third Prince came back to look for Gu Lingzhi.
On the fifth floor, Gu Lingzhi was welcomed into a very luxurious guest room.
Qin Boyu waited for Gu Lingzhi to sit down and then ordered his servants to serve some pastries and fruits. He then started to ask, “If you don"t mind, can I have a look at your weapon?”
On her way up to the fifth floor, she had already antic.i.p.ated the reason why Qin Boyu had asked to talk to her. Without any hesitation, she pa.s.sed her Qingfeng Sword to him.
Compared to how it looked when she initially started to make it, the Qingfeng Sword looked much better now.
Though it was still considered ugly, at least the blade was now straight and not bent like it used to be. Gu Lingzhi was rather proud of that. Underneath the mask, she smiled in satisfaction.
Qin Boyu was also slightly mesmerized by the strange sword in front of him. He was starting to wonder if people would really buy such a sword if he had put it on sale.
“This sword…” Qin Boyu was examining the uniqueness of the sword and wanted to ask her where she got the sword. However, when he saw the appearance of the sword, he decided to ask if the sword had been made by herself instead.
“Of course,” Gu Lingzhi answered firmly. “Weapons that are made by the wielder himself are still the best, they tend to have better chemistry with its wielder.”
“I couldn"t agree more,” Qin Boyu agreed with her words, just that those with a natural gift for forging weapons were rare to come by, most Martial Artists would resort to buying them instead.
“Would you… be kind enough to make more of this sword for our store?”
The feature of being able to direct energy into the sword was of little value for Martial Artists that were above the rank of a Martial Pract.i.tioner, but it was indeed useful for Martial Students.
Gu Lingzhi thought for a while before she agreed. “I can do that for you, but I can only do a few.”
After all, her Weapon Forging skills were bound to improve.
“That"s fine, you just have to give me ten of these first. I will sell them for a thousand spirit stones each, what do you think?”
“Sure, I"ll give them to you after ten days.” Gu Lingzhi did a sigh of relief as she had been expecting him to ask for a higher quant.i.ty of swords.
“Okay, it"s decided then,” Qin Boyu smiled and agreed on the date. Secretly, though, he was hoping that the swords that Gu Lingzhi were going to make would not be too ugly.
After all, for Martial Artists that wished for more power, image was important too.
For Gu Lingzhi, the fact that someone had given her compliments for the very first weapon she made was a huge confidence boost. When she left the guest room, she went straight back to the inn, completely forgetting about Rong Yuan. For the first time, the renowned War G.o.d was stood up by someone.
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