Exotic Stone?

"The Li Family is indeed powerful. Even a mere side residence uses a guardian formation at the Late Qi Gathering level."

Elder Yu thought to himself.

After all, they had risen to prosperity early on; the tiny Yang Family could not compare.

Moreover, the Li Family had close ties with a sect within the Tiger Chasing Dynasty. With such backing, virtually no one in Wangyue City's territory dared provoke them.

Thinking of this, Elder Yu began considering the Yang Family's future path as well.

For a lineage to establish itself in the wilderness and gain a firm foothold, aside from its own strength, another crucial matter was having someone to lean on.

As far as he knew, there was no cultivation lineage of any considerable scale within the Tiger Chasing Dynasty that existed entirely independently of both the Dynasty and the sects.

They either stationed themselves in towns and cities, or attached themselves to a sect.

The Yang Family had only just moved out of town. They were weak and had little value to offer, so no sect would take the initiative to approach them.

Once they gradually grew stronger in the future, they would certainly have to deal with sects.

Keeping the matter quietly in mind, Elder Yu and Li Cheng boarded the small island together.

The fee to enter the marketplace was one Spirit Crystal per person. From entrance fees alone, the lord of Wangyue City could earn a great fortune every year.

"Young Master Li, I need to set up a stall and sell a few things first. Why don't you go to the Formation Pavilion and look for a formation master?"

"Set up a stall?"

The moment Li Cheng heard that, he immediately understood. Elder Yu did not have enough money on him and still needed to scrape some together.

Since the two knew each other well, he asked, "Elder Yu, what are you selling? Why not let me take a look first? If my family needs any of it, I'll buy it directly."

Elder Yu considered it upon hearing this. It was indeed a good idea, and it would save him the time of setting up a stall and hawking his wares.

The two came to an open space, and Elder Yu opened the bundle at his waist.

This time, he had brought four pills, ten talismans, several fine and valuable medicinal herbs, and the largest share consisted of Refined Ore for artifact forging.

After Li Cheng inspected everything, he counted it over.

"There's nothing wrong with any of this. My family wants it all. How about sixteen Spirit Crystals?"

"Deal!"

Elder Yu agreed without hesitation.

He had originally estimated the value at only fifteen, yet Li Cheng had offered one more Spirit Crystal.

Money and goods changed hands.

Elder Yu carefully put away the Spirit Crystals, while Li Cheng simply patted the pouch at his waist and stored the huge bundle of items inside.

Envy showed in Elder Yu's eyes.

The Yang Family did not yet possess a pocket-sized item capable of storing things.

Even the lowest-grade storage pouch started at twenty Spirit Crystals. A few years ago, he and Yang Guanfeng had wanted to save enough money to buy one.

But the Dynasty's taxes were simply too heavy. Added to their daily expenses, they could not save anything at all.

Things were much better now. Once the Forbidden Ground formation was set up this time, the new Yang Family would be considered secure. With three more cultivators as well, they could save up enough to buy one sooner or later.

Having obtained the Spirit Crystals, the two headed to the Formation Pavilion together.

Ready-made formation blueprints could be bought here. Cultivators could purchase them and build the formations themselves according to the blueprints.

But no one could say how much effectiveness a formation built by oneself would actually display.

The other option was to hire professional formation masters and have them personally lay down the formation. That cost more, but the formation's effectiveness could be guaranteed.

After receiving the Formation Pavilion's introduction, Elder Yu ultimately chose a young formation master named Liu Zihao.

Although Liu Zihao's cultivation was not high, only at the Fourth Layer of Qi Gathering, he had considerable expertise in setting up alert and defensive formations.

After some back-and-forth bargaining, the price was settled at twenty-one Spirit Crystals.

"These are the materials needed to set up the formation. We'll leave tomorrow. See if anything's missing, and buy it today."

Hiring a formation master did not require purchasing blueprints, but they still had to provide the materials themselves.

After paying the money, Elder Yu walked out of the Formation Pavilion, and Li Cheng bid him farewell as well.

Before leaving, the old man looked back at the pavilion once more.

If only my Yang Family had a Hundred Arts of Cultivation inheritance, he thought.

The Hundred Arts of Cultivation was the collective term for a series of skills such as pill refining, artifact forging, and formation setting.

The three above were the most common. There were also things like beast taming, incense crafting, astrology, physiognomy, casting, and more.

If one could master a certain skill, one would have a steady channel for earning Spirit Crystals.

But every skill inheritance came with a steep price.

Leaving aside the rare ones, just for pill refining, artifact forging, and formation setting—

A complete inheritance could easily be bid up to a thousand Spirit Crystals at auction.

It was completely beyond what the Yang Family could afford at their current stage.

Of course, there was another method: buying incomplete fragments.

That depended rather heavily on luck.

Incomplete fragments were cheap, but because their contents were lacking, one had to keep trialing and erring before there was any chance of mastering them.

And even then, success was not guaranteed. Some people paid an enormous price, only for it all to end up like drawing water with a bamboo basket—nothing left in the end.

Though these matters filled his mind, Elder Yu's footsteps did not slow.

After spending five Spirit Crystals to purchase the materials for setting up the formation, he went to the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion in the marketplace.

It had been mentioned earlier that the Yang Family would deal with sects in the future.

He had come here to buy information about the surrounding sects.

"Ten Spirit Crystals."

The clerk receiving him quoted the price.

"How much?"

"Ten Spirit Crystals."

Elder Yu could hardly believe his ears.

They were only basic details about sects, yet such things could be sold for so much.

Thinking back to when he had still been in a sect, he too had sold information about other sects to intelligence peddlers, but back then he had only charged two or three Spirit Crystals.

He had never expected these people to turn around and exploit the information gap, selling it to other cultivators for several times the price.

"That's too expensive. I only want a few sects close to Little Pine Mountain. I don't need the rest."

"Alright, let me take a look."

The clerk took out a sheet of white paper and scribbled on it for a while.

"Two sects, four Spirit Crystals. Three Spirit Crystals each if purchased separately."

Elder Yu's mouth twitched at that, but he ultimately endured it and spent four Spirit Crystals to buy them.

There was a reason the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion dared charge such prices.

You could buy all kinds of cheaper intelligence from others, but if you happened to buy false information, then you could only blame your own bad luck.

The Heavenly Secrets Pavilion's confidence lay in this: every piece of intelligence purchased from them was guaranteed genuine.

If false information caused you losses, the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion would compensate you tenfold.

Having bought the sect information, Elder Yu had only one last matter left for this trip.

To inquire into Chen Yang's origins.

This could also be handled at the Heavenly Secrets Pavilion.

After spending one Spirit Crystal on a consultation fee, Elder Yu received a name.

Exotic Stone!

These special stones were usually produced in various hidden realms and blessed lands. Their effects differed wildly, with great randomness.

Some were not even as useful as a spiritual treasure of the Qi Gathering Early-stage, while others could rival magic treasures of the upper three realms!

Having obtained this information, Elder Yu went to the book repository in the marketplace and pored over a great deal of material regarding Exotic Stones.

It was not until the following dawn that he emerged from the book repository, carrying a bundle of books introducing the Tiger Chasing Dynasty's history, geography, customs, and culture, along with the Record of Hundred Cultivation Knowledge and more.

More and more children of the Yang Family would walk the path of cultivation in the future. These books could help broaden their horizons and teach them the basic knowledge of the land beneath their feet.

Thus, all thirty-three Spirit Crystals he had brought to the marketplace were spent.

Elder Yu planned every expense carefully, doing his utmost to make every Spirit Crystal count.