After getting the directions for three smithies to rent a forge, Li Ao walked out of the brothel.
The First Capital was a city with a rich history that suffered from it. Calamity after calamity had wrecked the many corners of the ancient city, disrupting both the flow of Qi and layout of the residences.
As such, the nobles all had taken the only Qi-rich eastern side of the First capital, while most of the other folk remained around the Central Square.
Li Ao strolled around the bustling streets with crooked buildings and multi-colored people. Inspecting every bit around, he enjoyed himself for a while. There were a lot of salespeople trying to get his attention, but he had learned to ignore such callings from a young age.
There were large courtyards and walls separating estates from each other here, all of them some kind of entertainment or commercial establishment. Inns, taverns, brothels, restaurants, gift shops, alchemy stores, jewelers...
Going through their periphery, and now facing a large stretch of open-air stalls full of interesting junk, Li Ao walked forward. These people seemed to be rogue cultivators.
Rogue cultivators were unaffiliated cultivators without loyalty. Or, they had loyalty, only to themselves.
Few of them became rogue by choice. Life of a rogue cultivator was a battle for survival—in an age where peasants no longer starved or suffered natural disasters, battling for survival was a rare thing.
Even here one could witness true to that fact. All these people had random junk or mysterious objects over their stalls. It was obvious to the trained eye that they just wanted to rip off money or stumble into accidental fortune. Anyone who had something worthwhile would sell it to those big shops for fat money instead of risking thievery.
Inspecting quite a lot of the stalls on the way, Li Ao found the first smithy on his list. Unfortunately, the master quickly refused him—he only had one forge and could not spare it out of the tight schedule. Even when he insisted on paying more or working at night, he was met with refusal.
Dejected, looking around some more on the wide street full of stalls, Li Ao saw a crowd in front of him.
At the center of the commotion where no one dared to step inside was a’ young master’ looking young master—a young man about seventeen, with two bronze armored guards at his back. He had a piece of black iron ore in his hand, and seemed to argue with the stall owner about the price.
Ignoring the commotion, Li Ao walked out of the crowd to the other side. However, with his blind senses, he did not realize why the crowd didn’t dare to cross to the other side.
‘’You!’’
Li Ao walked to the other side of the crowd. Sensing the weird gaze on him, he wave at a bunch of them.
‘’You! I say, you!’’
Scratching his ears, Li Ao realized that the crowd stepped away from him. He walked towards them, and they walked back. In a few steps he lost his cool.
‘’What the fuck is wrong with you people!? I’m not a plague!’’
‘’YOU!’’
Li Ao felt a hand approach him.
Turning around, he dodged the palm, and touched noses with the young master from before. The young man seemed appalled, his face froze, then turned red and disengaged.
‘’Young master!’’
‘’Young master!’’
The guards rushed after him and glared at Li Ao.
‘’You weird man, how dare you evade his hand!?’’
‘’You queer man, how dare you evade his hand!?’’
Standing still, Li Ao cast the duo a very interested glance. Then his eyes twinkled.
‘Oh shit, did I get an encounter?’
‘I got an encounter with a young master!’
Smiling like a monkey, he came forward.
‘’Oh my, oh my, young master. What is the deal?’’
‘’Why didn’t you stop!?’’
‘’What? I’m sorry, my one ear is deaf~’’
‘’Ah.’’ The young man seemed dejected. ‘’I’m sorry—I mean, I’ll forgive you!’’
‘’Thank you, young master...’’
‘’Sun Jian!’’
‘’Young master Sun, why did you need me?’’
‘’Ah, please—I mean, come! This guy is trying to swindle people—I mean me! With a fake ore!’’
Was this guy a tsundere? No, he didn’t seem to act for himself, did he?
People’s Tsundere?
Was that a real thing?
‘’Young Master Sun, I do not dare lie.’’ The old shopkeeper shouted behind them. He had a cultivation base of seventh-level Qi Condensation, which was pretty good for a rogue cultivator considering Bai Dynasty’s foundations.
‘’Look, look. Since I can’t read your cultivation, you must know a thing or two.’’
Li Ao praised the boy. Instead of assuming the worst, he assumed the best?
The young master dragged him to the stall, then stood still.
‘’Uh...what am I supposed to look at?’’
‘’The ore!’’ Young master nodded.
‘’Young Master Sun, it is in your hand...’’
Blushing, Sun Jian put the ore back on the wooden stall and let Li Ao take it.
‘’What is the price, brother?’’
‘’One mid-grade spirit stone!’’
Li Ao inspected the ore with his hand. He brushed the surface, felt the texture, and looked all over it.
‘’It is just a piece of Qi-infused black iron. This size is only enough for a dagger—it should cost no more than twenty low-grade spirit stones.’’
Sun Jian’s comment made Li Ao nod. Sending a sliver of his Qi, Li Ao felt a trace of Moonlight Qi seeping out of the ore.
Most natural products could be affected by Qi. It was a common thing for ore, wood, or crops to have an aura of Qi with them. To cultivators, the latter especially was vital. Mortal food would leave impurities in their bodies in the long term, so Qi infused meat and vegetables were in high-demand.
This black iron seemed to have remained under moonlight for a long time.
Li Ao was sure that the Qi didn’t come from a technique, since its purity was evident.
‘’Hm...’’
Hearing Li Ao nod, the shopkeeper seemed alarmed.
‘’Brother, where did you find this ore?’’
‘’...do I have to answer that?’’
‘’Young Master Sun—’’
‘’I’ll have you dragged to the dungeons!’’
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Young masters were such a blessing!
‘’Uh, I...I excavated it myself.’’
Sun Jian seemed enlightened. No family would forgive someone mining their own land. ‘’Oh. No wonder...which family was it from?’’
‘’...young master.’’
‘’...young master.’’
The two guards pulled both his sleeves, so Sun Jian retreated.
Then, Li Ao’s voice made the shopkeeper alarmed again.
‘’You are lying.’’
Turning his head, Sun Jian seemed like he would cry.
‘’I didn’t lie!’’
‘Fuck.’
‘’Young Master, I meant the old donkey, not you! Not you!’’
‘’Who are you calling old, you monkey!?’’
‘Are you a donkey?’
Suppressing his anger, Li Ao took out fifty low-grade spirit stones.
‘’Tell me where you found this, and I will pay with these.’’
‘’So there is something wrong with it?’’
Hearing Sun Jian, Li Ao shook his head.
‘’Young master, your observation is right, but the Qi in the ore is Moonlight Qi, which is a little bit rare.’’
Nodding, Sun Jian turned toward the shopkeeper.
‘’Well, I found you a customer as well, old donkey. Will you sell it?’’
The old man fumed. ‘’You!’’
His guards pulled Sun Jian’s sleeves again.
‘’Young master, that is not his name!’’
‘’Young master, that is not his name!’’
Sun Jian seemed enlightened again.
‘Who raised this guy?’’
Li Ao also looked at the old donkey.
‘’It's worth no more than forty spirit stones. I’m paying you extra to tell me where you found it.’’
The shopkeeper struggled for a little while before answering.
‘’There was a battle site near Servant Mountain...I looted it from one of the corpses while others fought.’’
Li Ao nodded, and the man took away the spirit stones. Now, holding the ore in his hand, Li Ao weighed the options in his mind.
Should he forge this into a moonlight dagger to gift his grandpa, or give it to Sun Jian?
The first one was self-evident. He just wanted to give a gift to the old man to cheer him up.
The second, however, had a bit of risk.
If he wasn’t wrong, this piece of ore might not be from an established vein.
After all, Li Ao already knew a great deal about the Bai Dynasty from his travels.
Moonlight Qi was already rare in the Great Wei Dynasty, let alone here—and most Spirit Stone and Spiritual Metal mines were under the great families.
None of them, to his knowledge, had Moonlight Qi produce.
Clicking on the Missions panel, Li Ao opened up the Perk Mission.
*[Fist Of Men]: A newly emerging Agent with righteousness. Grants the title holder 'Blessing of Men, increasing favourability in the eyes of the others. Unlocks 'Log' panel.*
*[Log Panel]: A comprehensive summary of the mission that can be viewed; detailing acquired information, current mission difficulty evaluation, and current mission evaluation percentage.*
*[Perk Conditions] (2/3)*
*1- Eliminate 5 Demonic Cultivators(5/5) [O]*
*2- Aid Ten People In Need (7/10) [X]*
*3- Leave a Core Memory (1/1) [O]*
On the way, he helped a lot of people to fulfill the second condition. Yet, only two of them counted. Last time he checked, it was six.
‘Why did it become seven?’
Not minding the reason, Li Ao threw the ore up and down in his hand, thinking.
‘Well, it doesn’t matter much.’
He could buy something else and forge a fancier thing.
Thinking so, Li Ao gave Sun Jian the ore.
‘’Young master, let me gift it to you.’’ He nodded at the baffled young man, then whispered.
‘’This ore might be from a hidden vein. You should look into where it came from.’’
A good enough forging master could deduce the components of an ore and what kind of conditions allowed its formation.
With the precise ore in their hands, if this Sun family had connections to a Geology expert and a Forging Master they could find this vein—that is, if it ever existed.
It was a worthy risk, though. If he had the means, Li Ao would have looked into it himself.
Sun Jian kept looking at him, so Li Ao coughed and waved at his guards, then left. The crowd gave way to him this time.
On the way he paid more attention to other stalls, and bought three pieces of ore.
Two of them were nothing special, costing sixty low-grade spirit stones in total with Fire-Qi imbued in them.
The last one was a large meteorite iron that had a trace of star Qi, which was worth around fifty mid-grade spirit stones. He bought it for ten, paying twice the price the shopkeeper gave.
He could forge three swords with this ore—one for himself, one for his grandpa, and another for his good cousin Li Nan.
She was more like a big sister to him, and she had been the only one who took good care of him among his other cousins.
No, he had a good relationship with most of his clanmates.
The Li Family was a clan bound together by tragedy.
But, how people dealt with it differed greatly from each other. Li Ao could drink and eat with them, but no one was truly close to him as much as Li Nan and his Grandpa.
‘It’s been too long...’
What would they think once he came back?
It would be well over a decade once he returned from the mission. The one consolation to him was that they wouldn’t wait for him for long.
‘That is nice at least.’
Thinking so, he found the other two forges, and left both of them dejected.
The last fellow even told him that no one would rent a forge to a stranger, though he could take Li Ao as a disciple and in a few decades he could begin forging himself.
Of course, Li Ao wouldn’t accept it. He had a higher standard to hold himself and, if he ever wanted a master, he would only accept someone who adhered to the same standard as himself.
Bai Dynasty people were too backwards in their forging and formations.
On the way, he looked for Formation materials this time and spent around half of his remaining wealth. He only had a hundred mid-grade spirit stones left with him now.
Returning to the inn, Li Ao found Zhu Qiu still in his room. There was a wave of Qi coming from his room that blessed the rest of the brothel.
Smiling, Li Ao went into his room. Sitting on the bed, he glanced at his remaining 370 coins.
His cultivation was stuck on the Thirteenth-level of Qi Condensation for now. The injury from before hadn’t fully healed, and his breath still didn’t feel right. It would take him around a year to recuperate, though Li Ao intended to buy a few pills with his Spirit Stones.
Since he couldn’t cultivate, and he couldn’t forge, he wanted to practice formations, but most importantly lay his foundation for infiltration techniques.
Thinking of what happened at Last Bulwark, Li Ao felt a sense of shame and danger. If he hadn’t broken through faster with the help of 100% purity pills, he would have died with a single strike from the enemy. He was too weak, more so incapable of hiding himself better. Sometimes, at night, the scene replayed in his mind. He shuddered.
Opening Universal Store, Li Ao searched for a technique he glanced at a long while back.
*Rick’s Elementary Body Tempering Guide.*
*Description: This technique is a foundation technique intended to strengthen the body before Ascension level. Its ceiling is Soul Formation, and each of the five levels correspond to a major level in cultivation. After practicing to the Third Level, gaining a Golden Body to crush Core Formation cultivators with ease, one can form a Divine Spark. Only those with Divine Sparks are eligible to receive Rick’s Intermediate Body Tempering Guide.*
*Author’s note: This technique can be practiced standalone, but its creation intent was to provide a solid foundation to Rick’s Elementary Infiltration Techniques. For those who wish to have an extra layer of security in the universe, it is recommended to practice the Infiltration Techniques as well.*
*Author’s note(2): To answer a frequent inquiry, no, I won’t be making a gender-changing technique. There are enough perverted arts around.*
*Author’s note(3): I don’t care about the low standards of other techniques. I will not make any gender-changing technique.*
*Author’s note(4): Hua You, 3.665 years old, Six Star Ascendant Realm, Third-level Agent, Vanishing Rain Star System, Coralsphere Planet, male, has a thing for fat and buff women*
*Author’s note(5): Meng Cui, 85.427 years old, Mythical Realm, Fifth-level Agent, Tomb Of Immortals, female, has a thing for dead men with big {{[>*
*Author’s note(6): Swan(?), 120 years old, Nascent Soul Realm, Second-level Agent, Cloud Sky Star System, Cloud Sky Planet, genderless(-_-), wants to have a gender...I understand this person at least!*
*Author’s note(7):...*
*Author’s note(8):...*
*Author’s note(99999+):...*
*System Notice: This account has been banished from the system interface.*
*Time frame: Two millenniums(sixty years remaining)*
*Cause Of Suspension: Doxxing*
Li Ao blankly stared at the wall of text.
What the fuck did doxxing mean?