Bai Yunfei drew his left hand back, bewildered by the memories he saw.
As like Xiao Qi said, this dog wasn"t particularly smart. It leaned more towards the slower side of the spectrum, but he was still able to create a "channel" through the usage of the Charm Bracelet. It wasn"t as strong as when he"d normally use it with Long Lan, but an exchange of thoughts was still capable of being done. The shar-pei wasn"t refusing Bai Yunfei"s probing into its memories either, so Bai Yunfei was quickly able to go through the shar-pei"s life and how it lived.
Though incomplete in his scan, Bai Yunfei had more or less pinpointed the reasoning—it was the cavern the dog was in.
"An ordinary dog with such an unordinary adventure, that"s a strange one…" He muttered. "Seems like its lot in life has changed because of that liquid it drank in the mine. I don"t know what the liquid is, but for it to have such a strange effect…"
"Xiao Fang, do you happen to know if the primal stone vein underneath here has any type of liquid that"d allow for an ordinary beast to be able to eat primal stones?" He decided to ask Xiao Fang, the premier source of knowledge.
Xiao Fang, who hadn"t been paying attention until now, was surprised at the random question.
"Hey, isn"t a dog that can eat primal stones a soulbeast then? Interesting…I think I know what you"re talking about. A type of extremely rare liquid can form in places of extremely dense concentration of primal stones. "Primal liquid". It takes forever to condense the surrounding elemental energy and air into a liquid form, but a single drop is as powerful as a hundred of the best type of primal stones. It"s easy to absorb and without side-effects, that"s far better than any miracle drug you can think of off the top of your head. It was because of a vial of this liquid that Tianhun was able to become a Soul Emperor.
"If the liquid this dog drank in the caves, then…its fate is too good to be true. If anyone were to know the liquid existed and was drunk by a dog, then even Soul Emperors would go crazy…"
"Primal liquid…" Bai Yunfei sighed, "So that"s the case why this dog is so special? A priceless thing like that, used to allow an ordinary dog to eat primal stones?"
"That"s where I"m unclear on, I doubt anyone knew about its existence, who"d let a dog drink something like that?
"Actually, there"s another thing that feels bizarre. Normal beasts that mistakenly eat medicine and other types of spiritually-rich things happen every so often in the world. A good majority of them die, unable to withstand the power of what they eat. Those that survive become stronger and usually turn into soulbeasts. But this type of mutation is a first for me. Is there anything that happens when this dog eats a primal stone?"
"I haven"t seen anything strange yet," Bai Yunfei shook his head, "We can keep an eye on it until then." He stated afterwards.
"Really? We can keep it?" Xiao Qi chirped excitedly in response at Bai Yunfei"s self-musings.
"We can," Bai Yunfei smiled, "It"s not too much trouble anyhow. A diet of primal stone is rich, but we can manage."
Xiao Qi was ecstatic. Flying over to the shar-pei, he began to chatter away at it. The dog sat there, momentarily confused by what the bird was saying to it.
Then realization dawned upon its eyes. It sat upright with an excited look and began to wag its tail crazily. Leaping and barking, the dog seemed to be replying to Xiao Qi.
Since they were going to take in the dog, a name would have to be had. And since it was Xiao Qi that found the dog, he had the right to pick its name.
Thinking for a very long time, Xiao Qi finally thought of one.
"Ah…you don"t look young, you have to be somewhere around the middle of your lifespan, right? An older shar-pei…then how about "Lao Sha"!"
Bai Yunfei was speechless.
As they walked out from the alleyway with the dog in tow, Bai Yunfei began to have other thoughts.
If Lao Sha really did drink primal liquid, then was there still any left? The area it was in was the northern mines. If there was a chance, Bai Yunfei thought, he"d have to go looking for it…
……
Bai Yunfei walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Tang Xinyun through the streets of Swallow City before finding themselves right in front of a particularly large building.
Swallow City Auction House.
Undulations of light were s.h.i.+ning from the left side of the auction house"s interior. All sorts of soul armaments, medicine, soulbeasts, and other items were exhibited there with annotations written underneath.
At the center of all the undulations was a young man holding onto an archaic-looking bronze mirror. He was putting soulforce into the mirror, and waves of iridescent light were s.h.i.+ning out from it, causing the undulations Bai Yunfei first saw.
"Three days of the largest auction of our house in the last two years starts soon! Come one, come all! Treasures, soul armaments, soul skills, medicines, soulbeasts, and much much more! Our auction house welcomes all…"
The young man seemed to be yelling.
"Interested, Yunfei?" Having noticed that Bai Yunfei had stopped, Tang Xinyun looked to where his eyes were going.
"I think I saw some mystestone in the light from that mirror, the really difficult material to get for crafting. They say it"s their largest auction in two years, didn"t they? They should probably have something good…" Bai Yunfei replied, interested by the things he was seeing in the light there.
"Mystestone? You can craft a heaven-tier soul armament with enough of that…" Tang Xinyun was equally interested now. s.h.i.+fting towards the mirror-holding boy, she started to take a look. "Ah? Isn"t that some dragon ebony?! They have something like that here?!"
"That"s definitely dragon ebony, a really good wood-type material." Bai Yunfei nodded. "Why don"t we stay for a while and enjoy this auction? Since we"re here, we may as well take part in it."
Xinyun gave him a smile. "Let"s stay a few days then."
……
Meanwhile at Qin Manor.
"Ahh!! Teach him a lesson he won"t forget!!" A furious roar erupted from one of the rooms as Qin Shoufeng sprung up from his bed with bloodshot eyes.
He blinked when he realized he wasn"t in the restaurant, but his own room.
"Eh? How"d I get here?!"
"You"re finally up, little Feng." A voice spoke out to him. He turned around, it was his older brother, Shouhao.
"Big brother? What are you doing here? What happened? Is this…my room? How"d I get here, I remember I was…"
Qin Shouhao shook his head with a sigh at the look of confusion he was getting. "You were knocked unconscious yesterday night, who in the world did you annoy yesterday?"
"Knocked unconscious?!" Qin Shoufeng cried out, "Impossible! How come I don"t remember it?!"
He was already inspecting himself for damages but found nothing other than the pangs of dizziness.
"d.a.m.n!! How is that Bai Yunfei so powerful?! We had so many people, and he still managed to knock us out without us knowing? d.a.m.n it! d.a.m.n it all!!" Qin Shoufeng"s face was purple as he cursed obscenity after obscenity at Bai Yunfei.
"He"s definitely in this city still! I won"t ever forgive him for this humiliation! I"ll definitely show him how powerful we are!"
Qin Shouhao"s face dropped several degrees of calm when he heard the name uttered by his younger brother, "What did you say? Bai Yunfei was the one that knocked you out?!"
"It was definitely him!" Qin Shoufeng howled. "Just because he"s from the Crafting School, he thinks he doesn"t have to respect us?! It"s insufferable how he"s acting in this city! Big brother, please send out everyone to look for him, I want him to know just how he"ll die after angering our family!"
Another flash of anger crossed his eyes, "And Tang Xinyun was with him!! He has his filthy eyes on my fiance too! If this isn"t bullying, what is?! Our family won"t live this humiliation down if we don"t do anything!"
The roars of Qin Shoufeng were growing angrier and angrier the more he thought about Bai Yunfei and everything surrounding him. He had expected his brother to say something, but when he looked up, all he got was a strange stare…