Lu Qinghe stood before a lavish storefront – the Spirit Medicine Pavilion. It was one of the more powerful establishments in the immortal market.
After all, pills were cultivation resources every cultivator hungered for. And pills were one of Lu Qinghe’s purposes here today.
He stepped inside.
The moment he crossed the threshold, a serving girl approached. “Fellow Daoist, what pills are you looking to purchase?”
Lu Qinghe asked first: “Do you buy spirit herbs here?”
The girl blinked, clearly not expecting him to be a seller rather than a buyer.
She nodded. “We purchase spirit herbs of decent quality.”
“What does Fellow Daoist wish to sell?”
Lu Qinghe produced two jade boxes. Each held a single fifty-year Blood Ginseng.
The serving girl’s eyes brightened at the sight. “Fifty-year Blood Ginseng! These are sufficient for refining Middle Grade and High Grade pills.”
Lu Qinghe asked: “How many Spirit Stones can the Spirit Medicine Pavilion offer?”
She considered for a moment. “As it happens, the Pavilion needs to refine a furnace of Yellow Dragon Pills and requires Blood Ginseng. For fifty-year specimens like these, we can offer thirty Spirit Stones per plant.”
Lu Qinghe was startled. He had assumed twenty Spirit Stones apiece would be a good price. He never imagined they would fetch thirty.
Seeing him hesitate, the serving girl added: “Fellow Daoist, this is the highest price the Spirit Medicine Pavilion can offer, and certainly the highest in all of Qingyun Immortal Market.”
“Elsewhere, you would likely get only twenty-five.”
“Done!”
Lu Qinghe sold both Blood Ginseng plants to the Spirit Medicine Pavilion – sixty Spirit Stones in total. But he did not take the stones.
Instead, he asked: “How much for a bottle of Spirit Gathering Pills here?”
The serving girl smiled. “Ten Spirit Stones per bottle.”
Slightly more expensive than elsewhere, but the Spirit Medicine Pavilion’s pill quality was a cut above the rest.
“Convert it all to Spirit Gathering Pills.”
“Of course!”
She went to the counter and returned with six bottles of Spirit Gathering Pills, placing them before Lu Qinghe.
“My thanks.”
The serving girl offered a charming smile. “Should Fellow Daoist come across Blood Ginseng of such age again, or wish to purchase Spirit Pills in the future, please visit the Spirit Medicine Pavilion. We will not disappoint.”
“Certainly. Farewell!”
Lu Qinghe left quickly with his pills.
After he departed, the serving girl stored the jade boxes away. “Fifty-year Blood Ginseng… I hope these improve the Pavilion Elder’s refinement success rate.”
Lu Qinghe did not sell anything else. He moved through several more shops, purchasing what he needed.
First, he spent a hundred Spirit Stones on ten more bottles of Spirit Gathering Pills. Combined with the six from before, that made sixteen bottles – enough to sustain his cultivation for some time.
It was even possible he could push straight through to Qi Condensation fourth layer.
Next, he visited a talisman shop and purchased two high-grade talismans. The first was an ice talisman, capable of freezing a late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator in place. It cost him eighty Spirit Stones.
The second was far more fearsome – a thunder talisman that could outright kill a late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator. Its price was considerably steeper than other high-grade talismans: one hundred twenty Spirit Stones.
He also bought five intermediate Fireball Technique talismans at thirty Spirit Stones each, totaling one hundred fifty.
Then Lu Qinghe entered a refining pavilion. He spent two hundred Spirit Stones on an intermediate-grade magical sword and two hundred eighty on a Middle Grade defensive inner armor.
The inner armor was the real prize. Though only a Middle Grade defensive artifact, it could withstand several technique strikes from a late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator without failing.
Just like that, his thousand-plus Spirit Stones were nearly gone. Only seventy remained, kept aside for emergencies.
Lu Qinghe felt no heartache over the spending. Every stone had gone toward keeping himself alive. At the critical moment, these things could save him.
His own strength was meager. His only techniques were the basic Fireball Technique and the basic Earth Wall Technique. Against a powerful enemy, he had no ability to fight back.
This was the fastest way to close that gap.
With these items, Lu Qinghe was confident he could escape from a late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator and catch a mid-stage one off guard with a killing blow.
The surge in capability let him finally ease the knot of anxiety he had carried all year – the constant dread of Zhou Tong appearing to strike him down.
Now, who would emerge victorious was no longer certain.
This trip had yielded far more than he ever expected. Sixty jin of Spirit Rice in exchange for all of this – an absurd bargain.
Lu Qinghe found a secluded spot and donned the Middle Grade inner armor beneath his outermost layer. As long as he did not channel spiritual power into it, no one would detect it. Get faster updates on NovelPing.
Without proper refinement, he could not draw out the armor’s true defensive power. This was merely a precaution. He would have time to refine it properly only after returning to the Taixuan Sect.
Everything else, he tossed into the Black Soil Space.
Lu Qinghe changed back into his earlier attire, then visited a treasure pavilion where he haggled the price down and purchased a basic Storage Bag for eighteen Spirit Stones.
Before, whenever he retrieved items from the Black Soil Space, he had done so discreetly enough that most assumed he was reaching into a Storage Bag. But a sharp-eyed observer might have noticed something off.
Now that he actually owned a Storage Bag, that vulnerability was gone.
Only then did Lu Qinghe return to the meeting point Qian Hai had designated. Two others had already arrived and stood waiting.
Seeing Lu Qinghe appear, both nodded in greeting.
They did not know each other, but all were disciples of the Taixuan Sect.
One of them spoke up. “It seems Fellow Daoist had quite the harvest?”
Lu Qinghe was in good spirits. He nodded. “I found what I came for.”
Envy flickered across both their faces. In their eyes, finding what one sought meant having confidence in breaking through to Qi Condensation fourth layer.
The Taixuan Sect had thousands of disciples, and Menial Disciples accounted for fully half. Among them, those at Qi Condensation third layer numbered over a hundred. Everyone shared the same goal: break through to mid-stage and become an Outer Sect Disciple.
“It seems Fellow Daoist is one step closer to the outer sect. When the time comes, I hope you’ll remember us.”
Lu Qinghe would never make such a promise. They were passing acquaintances at best, exchanging hollow courtesies.
“The outer sect is still far beyond my reach. I only hope to touch mid-stage within my lifetime – that alone would be good fortune.”
Then he asked: “Have you two Fellow Daoists found what you were looking for?”
One replied: “Much the same as you. I plan to enter Secluded Cultivation when I return and see if I can break through.”
He had spent every last Spirit Stone on a single bottle of Spirit Gathering Pills. The moment he returned, he intended to attempt Qi Condensation fourth layer.
The other man’s expression turned bitter. “I’m not as fortunate as you two. I’m too old. Only Yellow Dragon Pills can give me any hope of breaking through.”
“But Yellow Dragon Pills are too expensive. I’m still short a few Spirit Stones. This time, I have no choice but to go back empty-handed.”
He was already past sixty. Spirit Gathering Pills no longer worked for someone his age. What he needed was the Yellow Dragon Pill – a Middle Grade pill.
A full bottle cost over a hundred Spirit Stones. Even a single pill was twenty. He simply could not scrape together enough. He had returned to the meeting point first, with nothing to show for the trip.