"I’ll give you 40 gold for the lot of it." ol’ Smelly told me. I squinted my eyes at the old man, I kept my distance from the counter, his moniker wasn’t just for show.
"65 gold. You know what I’ve got here is pure and you’re lowballing me with that offer Smelly." I told him, hands on my hips and my best ‘I want something and you should give it to me’ pout on my lips. I’d always been able to charm ol’ Smelly.
"45 gold, I’m sorry Astra but business hasn’t been good to me, and I’ll barely be able to find sellers for these."
I was getting a little desperate now.
"55 gold Smelly, you know these gems can all be used to cultivate the elements. You’ll have no trouble finding a seller through the middleman I know you have in the upper districts."
He frowned at me and gave me another offer.
"50 gold. Final offer. I’m not going any higher, even for you Astra, and if I keep giving you discounts, my wife is going to throw me out of the house." He offered me.
I smiled, he smiled, I accepted the offer and went on my merry way. I had made a good haul and now it was time to go find some treasures! Yay!
I walked through the market, annoying multiple merchants by ignoring them and simply analyzing each of their wares for any amount of qi. To my frustration, none of the trinkets I found had any qi inside of them. Eventually, I circled back around to the antique seller I originally bought that wooden horse from.
"Hey mister Choi, do you remember me?" I asked as I walked up to the stand. Multiple trinkets of various sizes and ages littered the table in front of Mister Choi. I analyzed a few of them while I waited for Mister Choi to clean his glasses and get a good look at me. None of the ones I checked had any qi in them either.
"Well if it isn’t little Astra!" Mister Choi said.
"What can I do for you? You enjoying that horse you bought from me last year, quite the find If i do say so myself."
"Yes sir, the horse was lovely! In fact that’s why I came here. Where did you find that horse? I’ve been looking for something similar to it to add to my collection!" I told him with cheer in my voice, hoping against hope that I could find more treasures by finding the source of the horse.
Mister Choi thought for a few minutes, giving me enough time to analyze the rest of the antiques on his table, to no avail.
"Actually, I believe I bought that from a man who was offloading a bunch of items at the time." Mister Choi said.
"He looked well to do, definitely from one of the richer sectors or maybe from off station. I remember this because he went to great lengths to hide this face, even going as far as to wear that hideous cloak as he skulked around the sector selling his wares."
"Do you still have any other items he sold to you? I’d be interested in buying them if you do!" I told him.
Mister Choi spent another few minutes thinking before rummaging into a box behind his stand while mumbling to himself.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
"Ah! I found it!" He exclaimed, pulling out an adorable porcelain cat from his box.
"I believe this is the last piece from that man I have. I took a bit of a liking to it, but seeing how excited you are to have it, I can’t bear to keep it from you. I’ll even discount it for you because I think you’ll take good care of it. I’ll only charge you one silver and fifteen coppers."
I immediately felt guilty knowing what I was planning to do to the item should it have any qi within it. I didn’t let my guilt get the better of me and showed a happy look on my face.
I analyzed the cat, but it unfortunately didn’t have any qi in it.
"Aww thanks Mister Choi, but I can’t accept a discount, I recently came into some money and you’ve always been a good person to me. Thanks for selling me the cat!" I told him, leaving three silver on the table, taking the cat, bidding him farewell until next time, and taking my leave.
On my way back to my apartment I heard a commotion from up ahead in the market. I typically stayed away from the shadier sections of Sector E, but it being the quickest way back home, and today I decided to risk it. As I passed the stall people were circling around, I couldn't help my curiosity and looked over to see what all of the commotion was.
The various men and women around the stall were each betting on which stone in front of the vendor would contain something valuable. This type of betting was always a scam, but those desperate, or bored enough, always found ways to waste their money. I was about to turn away when again my curiosity got the better of me. I analyzed a few of the rocks and to my amazement two of the rocks were glowing with that telltale sign of qi!
I immediately pushed my way to the front of the group.
"Those two rocks, I want to buy them!" I demanded, pointing to the rocks.
A chorus of oohs and aahs came from the onlookers and the man running the rock gambling stall was confused at first, but his inner salesman quickly took over.
"Well, well, it looks like we have someone willing to gamble on some rocks! Normally we don’t allow the rocks to be bought, but for a premium of ten silvers each, they can be yours little lady!"
"Deal!" I shouted at him, digging the money out of my pocket, slamming it on the table and taking the two rocks.
The salesman looked like the cat who got the cream, sure he had just made a killing. The rest of the crowd began vying for the rocks to be sold to them cheaper, encouraged by my confidence. Unlucky for them, I knew the rest of the rocks would be duds.
I skipped down the walkways on the way home and luckily wasn’t waylaid by anyone. That would have simply ruined my day. Perhaps my new little cat was a lucky charm!
I made it back home and put the rocks on the floor before delicately, and calmly, stomping on them with all my might.
The rocks were utterly destroyed and the explosion of dust now covering my apartment was going to be tiresome to clean up. I sighed at my own rashness but resigned to do some cleaning later. For now though, I had treasures to examine. I quickly found each of the small rings, disappointed they weren’t something fancier.
I analyzed each of the rings; one was a lesser grade water qi absorption ring and the other was something called a middle grade ring of deception.
'Text, what is a ring of deception?'
"ANSWER: A ring of deception would allow the user to hide their cultivation level to those below a certain level. A middle grade deception ring would hide your cultivation level from all below the core formation stage."
I hadn’t heard of core formation before. But the ring didn't sound interesting either. Why would I need to hide my cultivation?
"Text, what are all of the cultivation levels?"
"ANSWER: Each level of cultivation is separated into 7 sub stages; lowest stage, least stage, early stage, middle stage, high stage, highest stage, and peak stage. The levels of cultivation are as follows; qi condensation, foundation building, core formation, nascent soul, domain creation, domain solidification, transcension, and god."
"So I’m at the middle of the lowest stage of cultivation right now. Looks like I have a long way to go to make it to the top." I said to myself. Instead of feeling down and upset about it I felt invigorated, knowing that with Text’s help I’d be climbing up that long ladder soon enough.