Maw 51

"I still cannot believe that you've already entered the fourth realm" Naoe speaks, a pout on her face. The three of them –Kenki, Naoe and the boy-servant are making their way back through the residential district of the outer sect.

"Apparently I was already nearing it before we got imprisoned back in Ornthar." Her friend clarifies.

"Oh yeah, you were a cultivator before that whole imprisonment business, weren't you, Kai." She sighs "I can't really complain about having no talent then, can I?"

"Talent?" Kenki snorts. "Talent is overrated, it means nothing in the grand scheme of things."

"That so?" Naoe raises an eyebrow at Kenki's comment.

"Indeed." The boy continues. "Even if you are the daftest midwit these lands have ever had the displeasure of birthing –you can make it. What matters is if you have the passion of cultivation and the will to see it through." Ken points at her.

"Let's take someone like yourself for example. You don't got much going on up there in the head…" Kenki giggles when Naoe punches him in the shoulder "...but you have such a burning desire for alchemy that I don't think it matters if you have the talent or not. You'll keep trying and trying until you get it right, who cares if it takes you a month instead of a week to get there. I sure don't. Emperor, just recalling your many exploits with poisons and drugs is enough to make my head spin, it might as well have been the only thing you spoke about in that caravan."

"Hmph!" Naoe imperiously raises her chin. "Maybe you don't care but all the other disciples sure do."

"Then fuck em. It won't even matter after a decade or two."

"Geh" Naoe croaks out "A decade or two? Do you even know how much time that is? I'll have turned into an old woman by then."

"Old woman at thirty?" A question floats out from Kenki's lips as he raises an eyebrow "We're cultivators. Remember? You can live for a century and still look like you're eighteen –just look at Rinako. She's one-hundred and twenty-seven years old."

"..." there's a worrying amount of silence for a moment.

"..."

"Whaaaaaat!?!" Naoe screams out at the top of her lungs, making Kenki and the boy cringe.

Two bony hands clasp Ken's shoulders, beginning to shake him violently back and forth. "What do you mean by that! She is how many years old!?"

The reincarnator tightens the grip on the fluffy bedroll held under his arm lest he accidentally drop it because of her assault.

"One-hundred and twenty-seven?" He speaks again in a questioning tone. "Wait, Naoe. Are you truly unaware of the fact that cultivation increases a person's lifespan?"

"Hells yea I ain't aware." She replies with a somewhat aggressive tone. "Why are ye acting like this is common knowledge, prettyboy?"

"Because it is?" Ken turns to the servant that has been trailing after them until now "It is, right? I'm not being all delusional here, am I?"

"Ah!" The boy seems a bit shocked to be questioned like that out of nowhere, his eyes widening. "It- it is…" composure returns to his features as he bows. "Master Kaito, Master Naoe, it is widely understood that cultivators enjoy lifespans spanning centuries, if not millennia. The patriarch of this very sect is over two thousand years old."

"..."

"See?" Kenki speaks, indicatively tilting his head the boy's way.

Naoe, for her part, releases her friend's shoulders. The back of her left palm presses against her forehead in an expression of pure shock.

"I think I need to lay down…" she utters with a soft voice.

"Hah hah!" A laugh from Kenki. "Why not do so at my place? Come on, we're almost there."

==========================

Kenki holds up a pot of water. His dantian churns as it directs Qi of the fire element towards the pot's center. A minute passes, maybe two, the water inside of the container steaming up more and more all throughout.

Until it starts to boil –the bubbles of water vapor that form seeking their way to the surface of the liquid.

'There we go.' Ken thinks to himself with satisfaction. 'And this time I didn't make the water explode, my control is increasing by the hour.' The supply of fire Qi is cut off as he leans over to grab some tea leaves and a jar filled with honey.

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He throws the leaves in the pot before using a piece of silverware to scoop up a liberal amount of the sweet golden liquid.

'Doing a diabetes speedrun with this amount of sugar' Ken deposits the honey into the pot, inwardly mocking his lackluster tea making skills.

The lack of teabags in this medieval world is a crippling thing for a modern man like himself. A life as a farm boy has done little to fix that fact.

'Is Diabetes even a real disease here?' He wonders as deft hands fill three cups with tea. 'Probably doesn't matter. Cultivators should be immune to such things.'

"Here." Two cups are handed over to his guests. One for Naoe and one for her servant.

His name is Yuki, apparently.

"M-Master Kaito, this is too much! I can't take it." Yuki stutters out, his eyes as wide as saucers.

"Well why not?" Kenki teasingly asks him, much to Naoe's amusement. She's simply observing the interaction from the side, gently blowing on the hot beverage all the while.

"Th- th– that's…" the boy suddenly looks down without even beginning his sentence. His cheeks redden as he extends his hands to quietly take the cup in his lap.

"..."

'Not the reaction I was expecting. He's uhh…' Ken looks at Naoe with a raised brow. 'A massive pushover, ain't he? It's like I'm talking to a wet noodle. Sure, he's eight at most but that's hardly an excuse, some of the kids in Northern River's Village were absolute savages at that age.'

He mouths with his lips "Why?"

Why pick someone like this? Surely there must have been better choices

"Cute." Naoe mouths back in return, causing Kenki to shake his head.

'Well, she was a beggar until not too long ago. It's expected for her to get a little drunk on her own power and make some impulsive decisions.' He takes a sip of tea as he deliberates, ultimately deciding to shift the topic. "Anyways, there's something I want to discuss with you. Quite the important topic too."

"Shoot. What is it?"

"Do you have any sort of income?" Ken begins to speak "We were kind of just given ten spiritual coins and then left to fend for ourselves. What happens when that little well of gold we were gifted by the sect dries up? Don't tell me that you are planning on returning to your old ways when that occurs."

The girl frowns. "I was accepted by the alchemy pavilion." She tells him. "I am given a small amount of coin to cover for the expenses that come with studying for the job, but I wouldn't call it profitable. Not to mention that my supposed 'teacher' is an outer disciple like myself." A sigh escapes from her lips. "One in the second realm but an outer disciple nevertheless, I can barely learn a thing from him."

Suddenly Naoe locks eyes with Kenki.

"Why, do you have an idea, prettyboy?"

"Indeed I do." he nods "What do you think about forming a hunting group with Yuto once the two of you enter the fourth stage."

"A hunting group?"

"Yes." Ken briefly explains to her yesterday's events, more specifically about how much he'd sold the hare and its beast treasure for at the market.

"I spent the rest of the day doing some research. As it turns out only one in twenty or thirty spiritual beasts in the initiate realm have treasures. The odds increase as you climb higher and higher up the realms, or if you hunt solely carnivorous species which have quadruple the odds of having one, but it just isn't worth the risk."

"So?" Naoe urges him to continue.

"So I propose that we form a group, that the three of us hunt together. We will bring along a cart to haul the bodies of the beasts we kill away and then sell them." The young cultivator makes his case. "It's way better to sell thirty beast bodies than to just leave them to rot. In such a manner we can make about six times the profit we would have made just hunting for easy to transport beast treasures."

"Now here's the kicker." He leans in "Have you heard about storage treasures?"

"Elder brother Hei, my mentor, has one." She confirms "A bracelet of some sort filled with glowing lines of enchantment. He keeps herbs and reagents in there"

"Right" Ken smiles at her words, happy that he won't be required to explain the concept "Did you know that there exist different types of storage treasures? The storage treasure that this Hei uses must be a rapid retrieval treasure. What I have in mind is a slow retrieval one"

Kenki proceeds to explain to Naoe his findings from the day before.

Storage treasures can be divided into several main groups.

Slow and rapid retrieval. As the name suggests –how long it takes for the items to be placed inside or taken out of the treasure, from a split second to a whole minute.

Large and small. Are the treasures themselves the size of rings and bracelets or the size of cupboards and beds.

And finally the quality of their weight reduction, ranging from no reduction at all to a 93% reduction. Kenki is certain that the percentage can be increased further but that was the highest number he could find available.

What Ken wishes to buy is a bulk storage treasure. Seventy percent weight reduction, large –roughly the size of a washing machine– and with the slowest retrieval possible.

As always, there is a balance in things. The storage that a treasure has depends fully on those three factors. One cannot have a large storage space while at the same time the treasure itself is small in size, fast retrieval and with 99% weight reduction.

Something must be sacrificed.

"So you're saying…" Naoe places down her cup "...give up on size and retrieval speed in favor of weight reduction and storage space. Am I getting this right?"

"Exactly. The treasure will have an internal volume roughly twice the size of the room we're in." He gestures with his hand. "Once we get that item we can start making some real coin. Won't need to waste our time performing as many back and forth trips, maybe expand the operation a little bit."

A frown graces Naoe's features. "Are you certain that we're the only ones who've thought of something like this? Not to dismiss your plan out of hand but it sounds kind of…" she drags out her final word.

"…Simplistic?" Ken finishes her sentence with a sigh. "It is a worry of mine that we'll be intruding on a busy market that has no space for us. But at the same time the prices don't lie."

"There was also something that gave me a great deal of confidence." He continues "That storage treasure that I was talking about. It was unclean, covered in dust and as cheap as storage treasures can go. Meaning that nobody had touched it for a while, meaning that we might just be the first ones in on this scoop."

"How much do these treasures cost anyways? I want to buy one for personal use, they seem handy." Naoe questions.

"Eh." Ken shrugs his shoulders "No cheaper than a hundred spiritual coins a piece."

"Pfft!" The tea Naoe had been halfway through drinking is sprayed out of her lips.

'At least she has the common decency to look the other way and not cover me in spit.' Kenki remarks as he stoically looks at his friend.

"How much!?" Hands grasp onto the reincarnator as she shouts. Shock fills the girl's large eyes.

'Grabbing me again'

"No less than a hundred." A clarification from Ken "The treasure I've picked out for our little convoy costs a hundred and seventeen. Almost at the rock bottom price."

"Bloody hells!" She continues screeching, just a couple decibels less than in her initial outburst "How are you going to make that much coin!?"

"Didn't I just explain to you exactly how I am planning on doing that?" Kenki pries the girl's hands off his clothing "With your and Yuto's help. I've done the math, we can collect that much in three months if we take our time –one if we really go at it. All while everyone has a sizable enough sum to spend for themselves."

"Three months…?"

"More or less" He shrugs once more "Don't forget that I've only placed half a day's time into this plan. Everything is bound to change as I learn more. Most important is figuring out who we should sell the materials to in the first place, or are we going to need to open up a stall and sell there. I doubt the guy I sold the hare to would be willing to buy more than three or four such carcasses."

"Huh." Naoe's complexion suddenly brightens, a great idea practically hitting her in the head. "Hold on, there are many different kinds of spiritual plants in the forest, right!? Herbs and such?"

"I presume so."

A large toothy smile forms on her face

"How about we put the plan with the hunting on hold for now. I have a proposition that can make you some coin here and now."