Greystone Town

"The wolf pelts are twelve silver coins each, the boar hide nine. Magic Crystal Cores are counted separately."

The buyer rattled the beads of his abacus without looking up. "The tear under the foreleg of this boar hide is too big. Two coins less."

Helian Yuan reached out and rolled the level-two Gray-Mane Boar hide back up.

"Then I won't sell the hide."

The abacus fell silent.

The buyer looked up at him. "If you're not selling it, why did you bring it in?"

"The butcher buys them too."

"The butcher only buys meat. He won't pay you the price of a whole hide."

Helian Yuan tied the hide back onto his back and turned to leave.

"Come back." The buyer cursed. "Eleven coins, and not one more."

Helian Yuan stopped and put the hide back on the counter.

It wasn't that he knew how to bargain. He simply knew he didn't have to sell everything to the same person at once.

Greystone Town was small. A stone street ran from the town entrance to the hunters' tavern, with the butcher's, apothecary, smithy, and buying shop crowded along either side. Hunters bought on credit before heading into the mountains, then paid their debts with hides and Magic Crystal Cores when they returned. If a debt went unpaid long enough, the shopkeeper would write the debtor's name on the door.

Helian Yuan had not left his name on any door.

He put away the silver coins and went first to the apothecary for styptic powder and linen, then to the smithy to choose a spearhead. The smith laid three spearheads on the workbench and pointed to the brightest one. "Refined iron, sixteen coins."

Helian Yuan picked up the oldest one.

"This one."

"That's a used one taken out of service. The edge has been reground."

"How much?"

"Six coins."

Helian Yuan scraped a fingernail over the base of the spearhead. Though its edge was old, the tang was intact. It wouldn't wobble when fitted to a short spear. He paid six coins, bought three iron arrows as well, and divided the remaining money into two pouches, keeping one close to his body and putting the other in the outermost compartment of his pack.

As he came out of the smithy, people in the tavern were talking loudly about the disturbance on East Mountain.

"Half a cliff is gone. It was definitely Saint-level!"

"Have you ever seen anyone Saint-level?"

"Can't I listen to what people say even if I haven't?"

"Someone picked up a black hair in the stream. One strand can sell for ten silver coins."

Helian Yuan went inside, ordered a bowl of hot water, and sat as close to the wall as he could.

He needed to hear the news, and he also needed people to see that he was just a wild kid who had sold some level-two demonic beast materials. If he stayed out of town altogether, he would stand out even more.

A stubbly hunter came over with his drink. "Kid, did you come back from the east?"

"The north."

"You can hunt Ironback Wolves in the north too?"

"Wolves can walk."

Several people nearby laughed.

The stubbly hunter didn't laugh. His gaze lingered on the fresh linen wrapped around Helian Yuan's right arm. "How did you get hurt?"

"A boar rammed me."

"Have you seen a black tiger?"

Helian Yuan raised the bowl and took a sip.

The hot water had no taste.

He didn't answer either.

As the silence dragged on, the one asking the questions was the first to grow uncomfortable. The stubbly hunter muttered, "Why are you playing mute?" and turned to find someone more talkative.

An old hunter beside the counter glanced at Helian Yuan and pushed over a piece of dry bread lying at the edge of the table.

"Take it."

"I didn't order it."

"Left over from yesterday. It's gone hard," the old hunter said. "If you don't want it, I'll feed it to the dogs."

Helian Yuan put the bread in his pack without thanking him. The old hunter didn't wait for thanks either.

That was the rule in Greystone Town. An offer of kindness made too solemnly became a debt, but leftover food tossed over casually could be eaten.

Before leaving the tavern, he heard two useful pieces of news: no one dared enter the eastern valley for the time being; and several outsiders were asking about black demonic beast materials, but their offers were too high for an ordinary purchase.

When he walked back to the buying shop, the owner was hanging an Ironback Wolf pelt on the wall.

"Finished buying medicine?" he asked.

"Mm."

"How much money do you have left?"

Helian Yuan looked at him.

The buyer waved a hand. "Forget I asked. Just a warning: lately, some people have been buying up tiger fangs, bones, and hides. They'll take them even in poor condition, won't ask where they came from, and pay triple the usual price."

"Who?"

"People from beyond the mountains. They ride in a carriage covered with black cloth and wear gray robes."

"Why are they buying them?"

"They pay, I buy the goods. Who asks why?" Though that was what the buyer said, he lowered his voice a little. "But they don't just look at the goods. They ask which ravine the beast was killed in, where its lair is, and whether there are iron chains or old stakes nearby."

Helian Yuan's expression didn't change, but the small piece of tiger bone in his pack seemed to grow heavier all of a sudden.

"Have you seen any tiger goods?" the buyer asked.

"No."

"Thinking of looking for some?"

"No."

"Twenty coins for a tiger fang."

Helian Yuan took the remaining wolf pelt down from the wall. "I'm not selling this one either."

The buyer frowned. "What now?"

"For bedding."

He rolled up the wolf pelt and turned to leave the shop.

The buyer shouted after him, "Nobody's trying to use a wolf pelt to get information out of you!"

Helian Yuan didn't look back.

He wasn't worried about the wolf pelt.

He simply needed the buyer to remember: this wild kid backed off as soon as he heard about tiger materials. He was less like someone who had goods on him and more like a poor hunter afraid of trouble.

After leaving town, he didn't go straight back to his hunting shelter. Instead, he opened his pack by the river. The tiger bone was still wrapped in old cloth, with no bloody smell escaping. Helian Yuan added another layer of oiled paper and stuffed it into the innermost part of the rolled wolf pelt.

The silver coins were only enough to last a little over ten days.

There wasn't much medicine either.

He needed more valuable prey, but he couldn't touch any tiger-type demonic beast, much less let anyone know he had been to the battlefield on East Mountain.

Helian Yuan spread an old map of hunting trails on the riverbank. Most of the demonic beasts north of Greystone Town were level two, while level-three Ironmane Bears roamed the stream valley to the southeast. Hunters rarely went there alone, because those bears had thick hides and great strength. Even iron arrows might not pierce them from the front.

He folded the map.

That night, Helian Yuan spread the wolf pelt out inside the hunting shelter, inner side up. An old knife mark was already carved into it, one he had made on a whim after killing a level-one Fanged Rabbit alone for the first time. He stared at the mark for a while, then carved two more beside it.

A level-two Ironback Wolf.

A level-two Gray-Mane Boar.

Three short marks stood side by side, each a different thickness.

Helian Yuan rolled up the wolf pelt without giving them names. He simply needed to know exactly what he had stepped over with each step forward.

He also recorded the remaining silver coins in a blank space in the secret codex: medicine, linen, an old spearhead, and iron arrows, twenty-seven coins in total. What he had earned from selling two level-two demonic beasts had looked like a lot, but after exchanging it for the things he needed for his next trip into the mountains, only a thin pouch remained.

The twenty coins per tiger fang the buyer had mentioned were almost as much as all his earnings from this trip. The better the price, the more questions there were. Someone who truly wanted only the materials would examine the fangs and their quality, not press for answers about whether there were iron chains beside the lair.

Helian Yuan remembered those words too, but didn't write them down. Anything that could be found and taken away wasn't a secret.

The old spearhead from the buyer was wider than his original one, but once fitted, it was a little off balance. Helian Yuan tested it three times on a wooden post behind the yard, and the first thrust always dipped to the right. He didn't leave that small flaw to deal with in the mountains. He removed the spearhead and packed it tight again with linen thread and thin pieces of wood, until the spearpoint could strike along the same scored line.

He had obtained medicine, iron goods, and information, but how much he could truly take away still depended on whether he could use them properly.

Outside the shelter, the wind changed direction.

A strong, musky beast smell came down from upstream, mixed with the scent of medicinal herbs.

Helian Yuan looked down at the medicine he had just changed.

Level-three Ironmane Bears had an excellent sense of smell.

It might already have smelled him first.