Eighty-Five Percent, A Rare Find

Lu Li rubbed his flat chest, where his heartbeat was still a little abnormal, and considered whether he should catch up on some sleep. By rights, every second counted for him now. He wanted to earn more money, buy all the materials as soon as possible, and then forge the First-Turn Breath Furnace.

But reason told him that if he did not sleep now, he might very well drop dead from overwork.

After weighing the two, Lu Li ultimately chose to keep grinding himself to the bone. While it was still dark, and he was not sleepy yet, he could get up and keep panning for gold.

He made a plan for himself: from now on, he would focus on making money and selling ore in the mornings, sleep in the afternoons, and use the cover of night to hide away and secretly separate the mixed ore.

At the very latest, he had to scrape together two hundred spirit stones within fifteen days, leaving himself at least ten days to forge the artificer's device.

By midmorning, Lu Li looked into the distance and saw several people arriving on the shore. They all wore white robes embroidered with hooked-moon patterns over their chests. They were clearly disciples of White Moon Palace.

"Buying mixed ore! High blue-lead content gets priority!"

One of the disciples shouted at the top of his lungs. The moment his words fell, the gold panners on the river stirred to life. They punted their boats to shore, dragged over baskets and sacks full of mixed ore, and swarmed forward in a rush.

The disciple opened one man's sack, scooped up a handful of blue lead, rolled it between his fingers, then brought it to his nose for a sniff. He immediately frowned and flung it back down.

"The quality's ordinary. How about this—three wen per jin. Selling or not?"

At that offer, the gold panner's face fell at once. With a mournful expression, he said, "Dao Master, this isn't my first time doing business with you. You should recognize me—I'm Ren Qi. At three wen per jin, I really won't even be able to afford food."

"Sell if you want, get lost if you don't. If you won't sell, plenty of others will. The blue-lead content in your sack isn't high. I won't even mention anything else—at least sixty percent of it is sand."

"Th-this..."

The gold panner's face darkened further. The other party was a sect disciple; merely daring to bargain had already taken all his courage.

His cracked lips moved as though he wanted to say something, but his voice was weak and was quickly swallowed by the noisy crowd.

"Dao Master, look at mine! The blue-lead content in mine is high!"

"I've got some too! Mine's been panned three times—I washed this blue lead out specially!"

Because Lu Li had chosen such a remote spot to pan for gold, he had arrived the latest. Standing at the very edge of the crowd, he saw that although these gold panners' tools were inferior to his, they did indeed have some skill when it came to getting a better price for their mixed ore.

Even when the mixed ore came from the same river, different locations and different panning methods resulted in spirit ore of completely different quality.

Looking at all those bare heads bobbing in the crowd, Lu Li suddenly realized something.

"Why are these guys all bald?"

"Anyone who works around blue lead for too long is bound to go bald. The higher the purity of the blue lead they handle, the balder they get."

"Wow, lead poisoning too."

"It's not just blue lead. Void Stones and Flowing-Light Sand are harmful to mortals as well, though cultivators are mostly fine."

"Then why are they still panning for gold..."

Lu Li choked off the second half of his sentence. He had realized he had said something foolish. In both this life and his last, there were far too many professions where people traded their lives for money.

Not to mention anything far away—just take the stamping workshop. Working intense night shifts every day was itself a form of bodily ruin. Keep that up long enough, and one was doomed not to live long.

His father, as an earth-grade clamp master, had not been like him, stuck filing tiny parts with a rasp. Earth-grade clamp masters had the authority to operate mechanisms for stamping work. But that year, a mechanism went out of control, and his father's waist was severed by its blades. After being sent home, he breathed his last less than two days later.

Everyone was trading their lives for money. Everyone would die. Everyone was the same.

Thinking of this, Lu Li only hated his own shallow learning, unable to compose a poem to express his hatred of the rich.

Just then, Lu Li heard the White Moon Palace disciple in the crowd say loudly, "I've looked at the mixed ore in all three of your hands. The content is passable, and they're all about the same. But I only need thirty jin right now."

"Master Artificer, I'm cheaper than those two. Thirty-two wen per jin."

"M-me, thirty-one wen."

"Don't listen to their nonsense. I only want twenty-five. I'm the cheapest! Sir, take a look at mine!"

Wow, there were even scabs here.

Lu Li was speechless. Looking at the twenty-odd jin of blue lead in his little sack, he suddenly felt that, in the face of such absolute low prices, he had lost all competitiveness.

As several gold panners undercut one another, the disciples buying blue lead were grinning from ear to ear. In the end, the price was settled at twenty-two wen per jin.

"Fine. Then I'll buy yours."

The disciple nodded slightly and was just about to pay when a young voice suddenly came from behind the crowd.

"Wait, can you take a look at mine?"

Everyone turned toward the sound. The speaker was a youth dressed in rough hemp clothes. His face was thin, and he was not very tall. Standing at the back of the crowd, he had to raise his hand high before anyone noticed he was there.

"Hey, I know him. He's that kid who rented a boat yesterday."

"How old is he? He probably can't even tell the different kinds of spirit ore apart. What business is it of yours? Go on, get out of here. Master Artificer's time is precious."

"This little brat probably dredged up a whole sack of sand and came here pretending it's mixed ore."

The White Moon Palace disciple standing in the center of the crowd was becoming impatient. Lu Li squeezed through the crowd, handed the sack to him, and opened its drawstring. At once, a greenish-blue treasure glow rose from within.

Everyone froze, and their scalps immediately began to itch.

"This isn't mixed ore—it's blue lead. Blue lead of extremely high purity!"

"How is that possible? How could he have gotten blue lead of such high purity?"

The White Moon Palace disciple froze for a moment, then carefully pinched up a wisp of green lead and held it beneath his nose for a light sniff.

From afar earlier, Lu Li had not been able to see clearly. Only now, up close, did he notice what was extraordinary about this disciple: the tip of his nose was conical, with a tiny hole at its base.

The green lead was sucked into that little hole. The disciple let out an "Oho!" moan, jerked his head up, rolled his eyes white, and toppled backward. Fortunately, the companion behind him caught him, keeping him from crashing to the ground on the spot.

Taking the chance, Lu Li scrutinized the man's nose. He guessed that this person's respiratory tract had also been modified, granting him the ability to analyze spirit ores. All it took was one sniff, and he could identify the components—truly quite convenient.

The Way of Constructs was indeed vast and profound!

Hoho, this man seemed to be the same type of construct artifact as himself.

He wondered whether that nose of his had any offensive power, and compared with his own Qi-Combining Cauldron, which one was superior.

While Lu Li was pondering this, the disciple had already recovered. He looked at Lu Li's sack with blazing eyes and loudly praised it:

"Mm—pure! This stuff's got punch, eighty-five percent purity, rare goods!"