Golden Jade Pavilion

"Hah!"

A rusty, thick-backed shortsword chopped into the mountain wall beneath the Ice Mist Fruit, sending several chunks of broken stone of varying sizes tumbling down.

Ye Xiaozheng was the one swinging it. This rusty, thick-backed shortsword had been found in this cave, likely dropped by some unlucky fellow who had become the Ice Silk Spider's food. He had not used the heavy sword because while it would certainly have been faster at cutting through rock, he feared accidentally smashing the Cold Jade within to pieces. That would have been more loss than gain.

Though this was an utterly ordinary steel blade, Ye Xiaozheng used the Great Strength Technique, and his cuts through the rock were still exceptionally clean. Every slash nearly carved off a piece the size of two fists, and that was with Ye Xiaozheng deliberately holding back.

Wei Suo did not even blink as he watched Ye Xiaozheng carve away at the rock. This was far more thrilling than hunting demonic beasts. When hunting demonic beasts, whether one succeeded or failed, one at least knew what sort of beast one was hunting. But now, no one knew how large the Cold Jade inside might be.

"It's out."

Wei Suo, Nangong Yuqing, and the others' brows suddenly twitched involuntarily. As Ye Xiaozheng's blade fell, a thread of white radiance seeped out along with an intensely frigid current of air.

Within a crack in the gray-black rock, a patch of exceedingly smooth white Cold Jade was revealed.

"Mid-grade Cold Jade!"

Everyone's eyes lit up with delight. High-grade Cold Jade had a color like mysterious ice, nearly completely transparent. The exposed portion of this Cold Jade, meanwhile, was white, yet the white was exceptionally pure, without any visible variegation or impurities. The cold air it gave off was like icy needles, making it clear that it was fine-quality Mid-grade Cold Jade, already suitable for refining talismans and magical treasures.

Now, the crucial question was how large this piece of Mid-grade Cold Jade actually was.

Ye Xiaozheng probingly followed the edge of the exposed Cold Jade and carefully cut away a little more rock below it.

After that cut, everything exposed within the rock was smooth, crystalline white. The revealed Cold Jade was already a strip over a foot wide and two feet long.

The more Ye Xiaozheng continued cutting with painstaking care, the wider Wei Suo's grin became. Before long, his mouth was practically crooked with joy.

As Ye Xiaozheng kept carving, all the rock in a three-foot area beneath the Ice Mist Fruit was cut away. What lay within was entirely pure, mid-grade white Cold Jade, and even then, its edges had yet to appear.

A piece this large alone was worth at least nearly a hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones. Wei Suo increasingly felt that Lin Daoyi truly was a good brother.

As the exposed Cold Jade grew larger and larger, even Nangong Yuqing's excited cheeks flushed red.

"Still not at the edge?"

Four feet... five feet. Under everyone's excited gazes, its horizontal length passed five feet before they finally reached an edge.

Once they had finally found the edges on both sides, Ye Xiaozheng carefully excavated upward toward the Ice Mist Fruit. In only a short while, Wei Suo's mouth nearly twisted with delight again. The Cold Jade above the Ice Mist Fruit was also more than two feet wide. By the time Ye Xiaozheng had completely dug the Cold Jade out of the mountain wall, the entire enormous piece had unexpectedly reached five feet square, with a thickness close to one foot.

"Seven Marvels Pavilion"

"Treasure Gathering Tower"

"Golden Jade Pavilion"

In the southern part of Lingyue City, more than a dozen distinctive large shops clustered together to form rows of marketplaces. Among these large shops, Golden Jade Pavilion was known for having the most complete and abundant selection of raw materials for artifact refinement.

Past Golden Jade Pavilion's entrance was a bright hall spacious enough to hold dozens of people without feeling crowded. Rows of redwood counters stood inside, displaying samples of numerous materials. The cultivators who came by were received by young men uniformly dressed in splendid brocade robes. Behind Golden Jade Pavilion's main hall stood a three-story building. The first and second floors contained VIP rooms, while the third floor held a private chamber furnished with antique tables and chairs cushioned with white fox fur. A small table against the wall held a burning tray of incense, filling the room with a faint fragrance and making the entire chamber feel comfortable and elegant.

Golden Jade Pavilion's Shopkeeper Tian was a middle-aged man dressed like a scholar in a green robe. He wore a long strand of beard and carried an air of refined elegance.

At this moment, a brocade-robed youth responsible for receiving guests stood respectfully before him, seemingly having just come upstairs to report something. Golden Jade Pavilion's shopkeeper was scowling as he berated the youth, who did not even dare breathe loudly. "What? A piece of Mid-grade Cold Jade? You want me to go downstairs just to inspect one piece of Mid-grade Cold Jade? Do you know how many Spirit Stones flow through Golden Jade Pavilion every minute? You want me, Golden Jade Pavilion's shopkeeper, to inspect a piece of Mid-grade Cold Jade? Did a door squeeze your brain flat?"

"No, that isn't it." The brocade-robed youth tried hard to explain. "This piece of Mid-grade Cold Jade is truly rather large."

"Rather large? How large can it be? Could it be bigger than this table?" Shopkeeper Tian grew even more furious and slapped the desk before him hard.

The brocade-robed youth glanced at the desk Shopkeeper Tian had slapped and said with a bitter smile, "It seems... it seems to be a little bigger than this."

"What?" Shopkeeper Tian's eyes bulged at once.

"There's actually such a huge piece of Mid-grade Cold Jade?"

Inside a VIP room on Golden Jade Pavilion's first floor, Shopkeeper Tian stared incredulously at the white Cold Jade placed before Wei Suo, Nangong Yuqing, and the others.

It was still early summer, yet the temperature inside this VIP room was like that of an ice cellar. Even the breath Wei Suo and the others exhaled formed white streams.

Shopkeeper Tian had seen plenty of Mid-grade and High-grade Cold Jade, but he had never seen such a large piece of Cold Jade—especially one with so few flaws.

After examining it carefully for a while and confirming that there was no possibility of forgery, Shopkeeper Tian's expression turned solemn. Looking at Wei Suo and the others, he asked, "Would the four of you like us to cut this Cold Jade on your behalf, or would you like us to auction it for you?"

"Auction it on our behalf?"

Wei Suo froze, unable to stop himself from exchanging looks with Nangong Yuqing and the others. They had agreed to divide this Cold Jade equally among the four of them. Since they all felt that having Ye Xiaozheng cut such a large piece of Cold Jade would inevitably cause greater loss, they had brought it directly to Golden Jade Pavilion. But they had originally only intended to sell it directly to Golden Jade Pavilion and had not expected Shopkeeper Tian to say this. Everyone knew that auctions might fetch better prices, but even Wei Suo knew that only items considered true treasures could be entered into the auctions held in these marketplaces. Could this Cold Jade already have reached the standard of a treasure?

But items that counted as treasures should all be priced above five or six hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones, and they were all quite familiar with the price of Mid-grade Cold Jade. A strip of Mid-grade Cold Jade as large as a ham would only be worth at most several dozen Low-grade Spirit Stones.

After exchanging glances, what depressed Wei Suo was that the exceptionally straightforward Ye Xiaozheng honestly spoke up again. "Shopkeeper Tian, we originally came to sell this Cold Jade directly. But since you say you can auction it for us, does that mean this Cold Jade has reached the standard of a treasure?"

Shopkeeper Tian was clearly taken aback as well. But he seemed to know that after saying that, even if he changed his tune and claimed the Cold Jade was not qualified, Wei Suo and the others would not believe him and would surely ask around at other shops. Thus, after a brief pause, he nodded honestly and explained, "Cold Jade of this size is already extremely rare in itself. More importantly, this piece has only one horizontal crack slightly over two feet long, and that crack is not deep. The rest may have some unevenness, but there are no cracks at all—not even tiny ones. Some Cold Jade may be even larger than this, but it can contain many cracks. The more cracks there are, the more useless waste material there will be. If it is covered in fine cracks, an entire sheet of Cold Jade might only yield enough material for several jade talismans. But this piece of Cold Jade... if it is cut directly along that crack, there will be virtually no waste. If that crack is polished away, the whole piece would be even more astonishing. At this size, it could fully be used to refine the core body of a magical treasure. If auctioned, its starting price could be set at six hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones. I will not deceive you. If you urgently need Spirit Stones, Golden Jade Pavilion can purchase it now for six hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones. If you are not in urgent need, we can auction it on your behalf. In a little over ten days, the nearby marketplaces will hold another small auction. Even after deducting our ten percent fee, your returns should be better. The choice is yours."

"A starting price of six hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones?"

With a clatter, Wei Suo nearly fell straight off his chair.

(Accepting the suggestion, I will try to update at fixed times starting tomorrow. Let me prepare today. Beginning tomorrow, the planned fixed update times will be one chapter at 8:30 in the morning, one at 4:30 in the afternoon, and one at 10 at night—three updates a day whenever possible. If there is an extra update, it will be at midnight. Everyone, please vote more red tickets and bookmark it more. I really will bring it.)