"They also had seven rolls of desert silk. Probably from the area around the ruins. And they had several sets of clothes that we might be able to sell. Twenty water breathing pills, thirty four fireblood pills, and twelve chillblood pills. Chillblood pills do the opposite of fireblood pills. Excellent for dealing with hot areas," Pan Tian said with a look at Jie.
Jie nodded in thanks for the explanation.
"Again, I say we keep all the cultivation resources, elixirs, scrolls, and anything useful to us for ourselves and sell the rest as best we can," Pan Tian said. She looked to Jie and Ithilix as though inviting any argument but again, there was none.
"The grove gave us a heck of a lot of grove guardian hearts, grove lotuses, and grove lilies of various strengths ranging from the sixth star disciple rank to the fifth star Expert rank. I'm not listing them all because in total there's eight hundred and fourteen of them," Pan Tian said.
"It felt like more when this one was fighting them," Ithilix said.
"You fought well. All of you did," Pan Tian said, "I say we split them in a fair way between us all and use them to cultivate further."
"Wouldn't it be better to get an alchemist to convert them into pills or something?" Jie asked.
Pan Tian shook her head. "They're excellent cultivation resources by themselves. We could hire an alchemist to do that, but we could just spend the money we'd use on that to buy more pills and cultivate all of this and come out ahead. In this case, it's better to just consume them. Unless prices change," she said.
"I'm glad we have you. I have no idea about most of this stuff," Jie said.
Pan Tian beamed at her. "I'm happy to help," she said.
"Moving on," Pan Tian said, "the droguth gave us his bone lure, some decent quality meat, and a seventh star Expert rank beast core. Nothing too exciting compared to how well we've been doing on this hunt so far. The chests were amazing. Especially thanks to you, Ithilix. We got two hundred heavenly moon pills, one hundred twin moons pills, eighty four eighth star Expert frostberries, seventy two seventh star Expert bloodfruit, and a hundred feline's grace, rapid thought, steel body, Yang Asha's blessing, and tireless endurance body cultivation pills. And that's just from the first chest!"
"Do you think we were supposed to only take the first or first two chests and that was meant to be our entire reward? Even that was generous. Probably so if we lost out, it would feel painful and remind us to never get carried away with greed again," Jie said.
"That would make sense. But, thanks to Ithilix we got waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than that," Pan Tian said, "we got a variety of blood weapons. A war hammer, twin daggers, twin swords, and a scythe. They all have the same enchantment but the twin swords are the strongest. I suggest we do the same as before. Split and consume the resources and sell off any items we're not using. But, Jie, I think you should take the twin swords."
"I don't use weapons," Jie said, "we can just sell them."
"This one agrees with Pan Tian," Ithilix said, "this one hasn't seen you use any weapons. If you don't have any, the twin swords would be good for you."
"I have no martial skills for weapons," Jie protested, "and I have no idea how to fight with them."
"This one is confident in your ability to learn, Princess," Ithilix said.
"I don't know... I just don't see the point," Jie said.
"What if you encounter an enemy that's resistant to your qi type? Or what if you're low on qi and need to conserve it rather than spending it all on attacks? The blood swords would help deal with those issues and their enchantment would be perfect for you," Pan Tian said.
"What's their enchantment?" Jie asked.
"They drain life force and qi from targets when you hit them," Pan Tian said, "so you can get stronger and heal from fighting. Just be careful to refine or vent their energies though. You don't want to destabilize your cultivation."
"Hmm... that does sound interesting..." Jie admitted.
Ithilix chuckled. "This one told you the princess would be interested in draining cultivation," she said.
Pan Tian smirked. "I never disagreed. Even people who've never met Jie know she's a cultivation monster. It's instinctual throughout the universe. Right now, a baby was just born and his first words were 'Jie is a cultivation monster!'" Pan Tian said.
"I'm not that bad," Jie said, "everyone wants to grow stronger."
"Not as much as you do, Princess," Ithilix said.
"Agreed," said Pan Tian.
"Fine. I'll take the swords. I don't think I'll use them, but if it'll make you two happy, I'll take them. Just deduct them from my share," Jie said in the hopes it would shush them.
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She was hungry and tired and she wanted the conversation about their loot to be over so she could eat and get some rest. Although she was still excited by the loot, the hunger that was beginning to gnaw at her was making her increasingly irritable.
"No," Pan Tian said with a look to Ithilix, "they're our gift."
"But--" Jie began.
"Don't even start," Pan Tian said, "you spent your own money getting Ithilix and me weapons. And my brother too. Now it's our turn to give you a gift."
"You already gave me my cultivation bracelet," Jie said.
"And you got three of us gifts so hush and say thank you," Pan Tian said.
"Thank you..." Jie said.
Pan Tian smiled. "That's better," she said as she slid the twin blood swords toward Jie.
Jie stored them in her storage ring with a wave of her hand. Weapons still felt pointless, but she had to admit the ability to drain a target's cultivation and to heal herself at the same time seemed interesting... perhaps her friends were right. Maybe Elder Shi could train her to use them, she thought.
"I suggest we do something different for the crimson shard armor plans," Pan Tian said, "we could auction them off and get a quick payment. Or we could give them to my family in exchange for a commission on the sale of every armor set. It would take longer to pay off, but I think it'd get us far more than if we just sold it. And, I'll admit, it would benefit my family as well."
"It depends on the agreement, but I'm not opposed to it," Jie said.
"This one feels the same way," Ithilix said.
"I'll make sure it's fair for everyone, but you're right. We can discuss it later," Pan Tian said, "we got seventy bloodfruit at the ninth star Expert rank. So, one of the best cultivation resources for us until we break through into the middle dantian. A deathwhip martial skill... which is honestly not much good to any of us with our qi types and fighting styles. But, it should fetch a decent price at auction. A bride's revenge meat cleaver, a--"
"A what?" Jie asked.
Pan Tian pointed to a brutal weapon that looked like a long butcher's blade. "That's what the scroll said it was called. I don't think it's much good to any of us," she said.
"But why is it called that? That's just... so weird," Jie said.
Pan Tian shrugged. "Who knows?" she said, "we'll be selling it unless either of you object. Maybe the strange name will make someone pay more for it. Infernal pauldrons... they don't fit any of us, so I think we'll be selling those too. Then we have some more interesting items. Ten iron orbs, an extremely rare toughness body conditioning resource. Ten dune cat bone powder an agility body conditioning resource. And finally ten mindworm jelly for intelligence body conditioning. These are all extremely rare resources that in my opinion we'd be stupid to sell. But, the number of them makes it awkward to split."
"Can't we split some in half? Two and a half to each of us?" Jie asked.
Pan Tian shook her head. "If we cut them like that, we'll massively reduce their effectiveness. It would be wasteful. It's far better to consume them whole. There isn't a perfect way of doing this. But, my suggestion is we each take two of each type. Then we split up the remainder as fairly as we can and make a note of who got less so we can make it up to them later. Either with similar resources if we find them later on. Or, with a larger share of the end treasure to compensate. Does that sound fair to everyone?" she asked.
"Sounds fair to me," Jie said.
"This one agrees," Ithilix said.
Pan Tian let out a heavy sigh and rested her face in her hands.
"What? Did we do something wrong?" Jie asked.
"No. Not at all," Pan Tian said, "it's just... you have no idea what a relief it is to be in a group with you all. Even decent groups would argue endlessly about these resources and to just have everything be so smooth and easy with the loot on top of how well we fight together... it's amazing. I love our group."
"This one thinks it's in large part to your leadership and fairness," Ithilix said.
"I agree. If you were a jerk, I'd just knock you out and share it how I thought best," Jie said.
Pan Tian laughed. "A lot of people would do that anyway if they could. So they could get as much as possible," she said.
Jie shrugged. "I think we've all been contributing in different ways. Doesn't seem fair to do that. Besides, that'd demotivate Ithilix from finding as much treasure for the rest of us," she said with a smile.
Ithilix flushed slightly. "This one is not that good at finding treasure," she said.
"Are you kidding? You made the statue give up trying to get us to lose!" Pan Tian said with a laugh.
Ithilix blushed even more but said nothing.
"The ice garden was good for us too," Pan Tian said, "we got a mixture of four hundred and fourteen different spiritual medicines of a variety of ranks. The weakest is around the seventh star of the Adept rank and we have a handful of second star Elementalist plants but the majority are around the fifth star of the Expert rank. I think we should sell some of them, particularly the weaker ones, and use the rest for our own cultivation when we can.
"The woman in white had some interesting treasures too. But, unfortunately, it seems a lot of what people prize most is only valuable to them. There's a locket with a family portrait painting, a wide-brimmed hat with no enchantments, and a belt of cultivation enhancement that should be good for Ithilix. I think we should just give the belt to her now so she can start benefiting from it right away, if that's okay with you, Jie?"
"Of course," Jie said.
Ithilix beamed. "Thank you both. This one will strive to be worthy of--" she began.
"Oh shush you," Jie said, "you're already worthy. Just enjoy it."
"Agreed," Pan Tian said with a smile as she handed the belt to Ithilix, "it should help your cultivation speed. Just keep an eye on it and make sure it doesn't conflict with your qi."
"This one will be most careful. Thank you," Ithilix said.
"Now, where were we... locket... hat... belt... alright. She had a shield of loyalty, a crystal mask, and a trident of conquest. All of them have good enchantments but none of them are suitable for our use, so I recommend we sell them. There's also a wolf figurine carved from bone. Sadly, it's just another treasure that probably holds value for its original owner but not for us. The craftsmanship isn't that good so I doubt we'll get much for it at auction.
"There's an old cookbook too... it has some interesting recipes so it might fetch something at auction but I doubt it'll be much. Again, it's sentimental value to someone. She also had an illusionary palm strike martial skill. It seems interesting and I think it could fetch a good price at auction. It's not particularly suitable for our cultivation types though. And, I think we all already have martial skills that fill the role of that skill. You're all welcome to look it over before we sell it, but unless anyone objects, I strongly suggest that we sell it at some point. The massive metal gloves are gauntlets of earth. They're amazing for improving melee attack martial skills, but sadly they only work with earth qi. Otherwise, they'd be perfect for you, Jie."
Jie shrugged. "You guys already gave me the swords. I'm good," she said.
Her friends smiled at that.