Chapter 14
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Chapter 14: Mysterious Stone?
“The Li Family is still powerful; even their separate courtyard uses a guarding formation at the level of late-stage Gathering Qi,” Old Yu thought to himself.
After all, others had prospered earlier, far beyond their small Yang Family.
Moreover, the Li Family had close ties with a sect within the Zhuhu Dynasty, and with such a background, basically no one in Moon Watching City dared to provoke them.
Thinking along these lines, Old Yu also contemplated the future path for the Yang Family.
For a family to establish itself and stand firm in the wild, besides personal strength, having a solid backing is crucial.
As far as he knew, there were no large-scale cultivating families within the Zhuhu Dynasty that existed completely independently of the dynasty or sects.
They either settled in towns or relied on a certain sect.
The Yang Family had just moved out of the town; they were weak and had no value to exploit, so no sect would proactively approach them.
As they gradually grew, they would inevitably need to interact with sects.
Quietly noting this, Old Yu and Li Cheng made their way to the small island.
The entrance fee to the marketplace was one spiritual crystal per person, and just from this entrance fee alone, the city lord of Moon Watching City made a significant profit each year.
“Young Master Li, I need to set up a stall to sell some things first. Would you like to go to the formation hall and look for a formation master?”
“Set up a stall?”
Li Cheng immediately understood. Old Yu was short on money and needed to gather more.
Thinking they were familiar, he asked, “Old Yu, what are you selling? Why not show me first? If my family needs it, I’ll buy it directly.”
Upon hearing this, Old Yu thought it was a good idea; it would save him the time of setting up and calling for customers.
The two moved to an open area where Old Yu opened his waist bag.
This time, he brought four elixirs, ten talismans, several high-quality precious herbs, and the majority were fine ores used in weapon refining.
After Li Cheng looked everything over and counted, he said, “Everything is fine; my family will take them. How about sixteen spiritual crystals?”
“Deal!”
Old Yu agreed right away.
Originally, he had estimated the worth to be only fifteen crystals, but now Li Cheng offered an extra crystal.
They exchanged items for payment hand in hand.
Old Yu carefully tucked away the spiritual crystals, while Li Cheng slapped his storage bag, directly placing the large bundle of items inside.
A look of envy surfaced in Old Yu’s eyes.
The Yang Family currently did not possess any storage items.
A minimum quality storage bag would cost at least twenty spiritual crystals, and in previous years, he and Yang Guanfeng had tried to save money to buy one.
But the dynasty’s heavy taxes, combined with daily expenses, made it impossible to save.
Now things were much better. After setting up the forbidden area formation, the new Yang Family was somewhat stabilized, and with three more cultivators joining, they would eventually be able to save enough to make a purchase.
Having obtained the spiritual crystals, the two individuals went together to the formation hall.
Here, they could buy ready-made formation blueprints, allowing cultivators to take them home and set up formations themselves.
However, the effectiveness of formations made this way was uncertain.
The other option was to hire a professional formation master to personally arrange the formation, which was more expensive but guaranteed better results.
After the introduction at the formation hall, Old Yu ultimately chose a young formation master named Liu Zihao.
Although his cultivation level was not high, only at the fourth level of Gathering Qi, he had considerable insights into arranging defensive and alert formations.
After some negotiations, the price was set at twenty-one spiritual crystals.
“These are the materials needed for the formation. We’ll set out tomorrow, so if you see anything missing, buy it today,” he said.
Hiring a formation master didn’t require purchasing blueprints, but the materials still had to be provided by them.
After paying, Old Yu left the formation hall, and Li Cheng bid him farewell.
As the old man walked away, he glanced back at the pavilion.
“If only my Yang Family had an inheritance in the cultivation arts,” he thought.
The cultivation arts refer to a series of skills such as alchemy, weapon refining, and formation arranging.
The most common are those three, but there are also others like beast taming, incense making, astrology, facial analysis, and crafting.
If they could master a certain skill, it would provide a stable way to earn spiritual crystals.
Unfortunately, each skill’s inheritance comes at a steep price.
Without mentioning rare ones, just the areas of alchemy, weapon refining, and formation arranging.
A complete inheritance could easily fetch one thousand spiritual crystals at auction, completely beyond what the Yang Family could afford at this stage.
Of course, there was another way: buying fragments of inheritance.
These were cheaper but involved a gamble.
Fragments had incomplete content, requiring continuous trial and error to master, and there was no guarantee of success.
Some might cost a significant amount of resources only to end up being a complete waste of effort.
As Old Yu thought about these matters, his steps did not slow down.
After spending five spiritual crystals to purchase the materials for the formation, he went to the Tiangong Pavilion in the marketplace.
Previously, he had mentioned that the Yang Family would interact with sects in the future.
He wanted to buy some information about nearby sects.
"Ten spiritual crystals," the attendant stated.
"How much?"
"Ten spiritual crystals."
Old Yu could hardly believe his ears.
For just basic information about the sects, it was being sold at such a high price.
He recalled in his earlier days at the sect, he had sold information about other sects to information brokers for only two or three spiritual crystals.
He didn’t expect these fellows to exploit the information gap and mark it up so much for other cultivators.
“That’s too much. I only want information on the few sects near Little Pine Mountain, nothing else.”
“Okay, let me check for you,” the attendant replied.
He took out a piece of white paper and started drawing and writing.
“For two sects, it’s four spiritual crystals; if you buy them individually, it’s three crystals each.”
After hearing this, Old Yu’s lips twitched, but he ultimately controlled himself and spent four spiritual crystals to buy the information.
The Tiangong Pavilion had its reasons for charging such prices.
You could purchase various types of cheap information elsewhere, but if you received false information, you had only yourself to blame.
The confidence of the Tiangong Pavilion lay in the fact that all the information you bought here was guaranteed to be true.
If fake information caused you a loss, they would compensate you tenfold.
Having acquired the sect information, Old Yu had one last task for this visit.
He wanted to investigate the background of Chen Yang.
This matter could also be resolved at the Tiangong Pavilion.
After paying a consultation fee of one spiritual crystal, Old Yu received a name: Mysterious Stone!
This special kind of stone typically came from various blessed caves and had different effects, with a high degree of randomness.
Some could be less effective than spiritual treasures for early-stage Gathering Qi, while others could rival magic artifacts of the third realm!
With this information, Old Yu went to the book repository in the marketplace, where he browsed through a vast amount of materials to learn about Mysterious Stones.
It wasn’t until the early morning of the next day that he finally exited the book repository, carrying a bundle of books that introduced the history, geography, landscape, and culture of the Zhuhu Dynasty, as well as a compendium of cultivation arts.
More and more children from the Yang Family would venture into the path of cultivation in the future, and these books would help them broaden their horizons and understand the basic knowledge of the land beneath their feet.
In doing so, he had spent all thirty-three spiritual crystals he had brought to the marketplace.
Old Yu was meticulous in his calculations, striving to make the most of every spiritual crystal’s value.
