After dinner, Jiang Yuexin cleared away the dishes, while Yi Yang returned to his room alone.
He bolted the door and pressed his fingertips against it. A thin layer of blue-green true astral force enveloped the entire room, cutting off all sound between inside and out.
Only then did he sit down on the prayer mat and begin taking stock of his gains from this trip.
He extended a finger and tapped lightly on the table.
Clatter.
A pile of translucent stones landed on the tabletop, refracting faint halos in the lamplight.
Spirit crystals.
Sixty-seven in all.
Twenty-one had been seized from the treasury of the Wu Family, a Centennial Family-the wealth they had accumulated over several generations.
Thirty-six had come from selling the Wu Family's two unwanted treasure artifact-grade weapons through the Nether Spring Office's channels. The remaining few had been taken from other True Astral Realm enemies.
Yi Yang picked up a spirit crystal and rolled it between his fingertips.
These things were hard currency in Suining Prefecture, more useful than silver or gold notes. They circulated mainly within the small circles of True Astral Realm experts.
A single spirit crystal could fetch fifty thousand taels of silver on the Black Market, though there were usually prices quoted and none available to buy.
Once someone reached the True Astral Realm, ordinary gold and silver no longer meant much.
What they needed were treasure medicines that aided cultivation, higher-grade pills, or custom-made treasure artifacts.
And all of those had to be bought with spirit crystals.
Yi Yang recalled a bit of gossip he had read in the files. Over in Qing Province's Prefectural City, five spirit crystals could get a True Astral Realm courtesan to play the zither and sing exclusively for you all night. Naturally, the unmentionable services