Shop

After eating, they naturally began to stroll through the commercial street.

For Xiao Wu, no matter how much they shopped, she would never find it enough.

Zhu Zhuqing also rarely showed a high level of interest; cold as she was, she was still a young girl who loved to dress up, or rather, she possessed excellent habits for maintaining her appearance.

The three girls chatted away in front, mostly Ning Rongrong and Xiao Wu laughing and talking, with Zhu Zhuqing occasionally responding. However, seeing her pick up the conversation threads without a single error, it was clear she was listening intently.

Once the topic turned to clothing and accessories, it was truly different; it felt as if they had instantly become intimate sisters.

Jiang Jiu and Tang San trailed behind.

If it were Dai Mubai, Ma Hongjun, and the others, they would likely be talking about nothing but women, but Jiang Jiu and Tang San kept circling back to the subject of forging.

They planned to find time to go to a Blacksmith Shop to buy furnaces and similar equipment first.

They hadn't brought the ones they used in Nuoding City with them.

Tang San's storage soul tool didn't have a small amount of space, but the unique construction of the Twenty-Four Moonlit Bridges resulted in twenty-four independent one-cubic-meter spaces, making it inconvenient to carry large items.

Besides, buying new furnace equipment wasn't expensive.

Arriving in a new territory meant a new beginning.

Jiang Jiu, for instance, planned to experiment with other metals.

The greatest advantage of pig iron was that it was cheap, plentiful, and satisfying to work with.

At the same time, as the most common metal, it had its limitations—though, perhaps, those were simply Jiang Jiu's own limitations.

For six long years of blacksmithing, Jiang Jiu had focused exclusively on refining pig iron.

From the beginning, when it took many hammers to purify pig iron into Iron Essence, to later, when he could handle the entire process with ease.

Afterward, he strove for perfection; the quality and appearance of the Iron Essence he refined left Tang San awestruck and full of praise.

But it wasn't enough. Jiang Jiu was unsatisfied; he was always missing a certain feeling, so he continued to study and continued to hammer.

Finally, one day, a piece of top-grade Iron Essence shattered.

Heartache was one thing—the piece of Iron Essence he had smashed was incredibly expensive—and this destruction wasn't a simple fracture; it was a total collapse of the metal's internal structure, effectively rendering it waste.

On the other hand, Jiang Jiu realized that pig iron, and even Iron Essence, had their limits.

Constant purification, repeated tempering, and thousands of strikes—the metal material known as Iron Essence simply couldn't withstand that kind of pressure.

The idea that one could forge a divine artifact out of ordinary materials was nothing more than a beautiful aspiration.

Unless one was a born divine smith, a striver who climbed step by step without accumulating experience through divine materials and treasures, how could one ever reach the realm of a divine smith?

In short, Jiang Jiu wanted to play with rare metals.

Unfortunately, rare metals were still too expensive.

A small amount wasn't enough to experiment with, and a slightly larger amount—say, a hundred pounds—of even the cheapest grade of rare metal would bankrupt Jiang Jiu. The expensive ones, like Adamantine, would cost tens of thousands of Gold Soul Coins for that weight—the price of another storage soul tool.

Still too poor, Jiang Jiu could only choose to switch to other metals to play with.

If his expectations were correct, the limit of forging pressure those metals could bear wouldn't be much better than Iron Essence.

Rare metals were still the ultimate authority.

This feeling of being constrained by materials was truly a pain in the ass.

His strength training lacked a barbell rod with high enough intensity to bear thousands, or even tens of thousands, of pounds.

In terms of forging, Jiang Jiu vaguely had a realization that he was beginning to grasp the basics; the fact that he had shattered the Iron Essence was proof of this. If he were given a piece of rare metal to study, he might actually be able to touch the threshold of Thousand Refinement.

He really needed to sponge off the wealthy.

"Xiao Jiu, look, look at that sign." As if she had discovered something, Xiao Wu ran to Jiang Jiu's side.

Jiang Jiu looked in the direction Xiao Wu was pointing. This couldn't possibly be Flender's shop, could it? The shop's sign was completely different from the surrounding stores.

Wait, how did they even end up here? Weren't they just on the busiest commercial street?

Jiang Jiu had been following Xiao Wu and the others mechanically, not really paying attention to their route.

"Who uses a third-class Spirit Hall warrant as a shop sign? I don't know whether to call them bold or what." Seeing the sign, Ning Rongrong felt that the world was full of strange things.

"Shall we go in and take a look?" Xiao Wu suggested.

The group entered the shop.

Seeing the layout inside, Tang San, who had been trailing at the back, narrowed his eyes and walked quickly toward a corner.

But someone was faster than him.

"Boss, how much for this broken crystal?"

Ning Rongrong was casually toying with the crystal in her hand, which contained a large amount of dark yellow impurities.

Although she didn't know exactly what this thing was, Ning Rongrong felt that this broken crystal was quite valuable.

The appraisal ability of the Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda was simply too overpowered, especially since Ning Rongrong had innate soul power at level nine; the quality of her Seven Treasures Glazed Pagoda was superb.

"One thousand Gold Soul Coins."

Tang San gave a bitter smile and chose to step back; he could not afford this price.

As for Ning Rongrong, she showed no reaction at all upon hearing the shopkeeper's exorbitant demand.

"I'll take it."

A mere one thousand Gold Soul Coins was nothing but pocket change to her.

On a recliner inside the shop, Flender couldn't help but rise in surprise.

He could see that the girl was dripping with jewels and clearly wealthy, which was why he had called out such a sky-high price, yet he hadn't expected to still underestimate the rich.

"Two thousand." If he was going to fleece someone, he might as well do it right.

Ning Rongrong frowned. "Two thousand is fine, but don't raise the price any further, or I won't buy it."

Two thousand Gold Soul Coins was still very cheap to her, but she didn't like being treated like a fool.

To be honest, this price already exceeded her own valuation of the crystal, and she was only buying it to satisfy her desire to snag a bargain.

Flender remained noncommittal.

It wasn't easy to find a customer who would pay for three years of expenses in one go.

However, young girls were indeed prone to acting on impulse.

Flender couldn't help but feel conflicted.

On Tang San's side, he could only sigh in frustration; he now shared Jiang Jiu's realization of the troubles caused by a lack of money. The funds he had earned in Nuoding City were far from enough.

Such high-quality Crystal Board—he wondered how many Dragon Whisker Needles could be made from the Hair Gold inside.

Flender, meanwhile, finally decided to compromise.

There was no helping it; he could sense that the girl didn't actually have much interest in the crystal.

To throw away two thousand Gold Soul Coins despite having little interest—damn rich people.

However, the unremarkable young man standing nearby had a burning look in his eyes.

Suddenly, Flender's eyes widened.

"Where did you get that belt?" He stared at Tang San's waist.

"My teacher gave it to me. Do you recognize this belt?" Tang San hadn't expected to be involved, but since the belt was mentioned, could it be related to Grandmaster?

"Hiss."

Flender felt even more conflicted now.

On one side was Grandmaster's disciple, and on the other was two thousand glittering Gold Soul Coins; he feared this was some kind of punishment for him.