"Old Ping, what happened?" A young man stood in front of a prostrated elder. The elder had a respectful expression but he was clutching his hand which looked disfigured. The young man had a half asleep expression as he sat on a decorated chair.
In front of him, the old overseer did not dare to lie "Young master, an audacious youngster beat me up when I tried to stop him from taking away a worker!"
"Huh, did he try to steal your worker?!" The young man quickly woke up and sat up. If someone was stealing his workers then it was a resounding slap to the face of his family!
The old overseer shook his head "No, it was the worker's son who wanted to let him get off early and tried to take him with him and leave."
"He wanted the pay, but finished midway?" Now the young man who was paying attention to this huge matter was confused, although the situation looked somewhat small it still tarnished the face of his family. As he was placed in charge of the fields, if someone was causing a disturbance on his family’s land then he would be implicated. Naturally he placed such matters as top priority.
Once again, the worker shook his head and continued in a weaker voice "Well no, he wanted to leave without getting any money and I stopped him because he was tarnishing our reputation." Now that he thought about the situation, the overseer realized that he overreacted a little but still, he had his hand broken by a poor kid.
Slap
"Reputation my ass, you abused your power and when someone with real power showed up, you wish to get me involved?!" The young man was now standing in front of the overseer and glared at him.
The indignant old man felt his face burn. "But young master, it was not some powerful figure but some dirty kid. This lowly one just fears that if word got out that we were forced back by a junior then-"
Slap
"Do you not realize what time it is? The academy competition is going to begin soon and you want me to offend a talent that might get recruited by a sect?" The old man's face was quite red by now.
"SECT?! Young master are you sure you aren't mistaken, at most the top geniuses might get into the army. The only sects that even look at this backwater city are the ones struggling to find members."
Slap
As the conversation continued, the old man was paying a heavy price and he truly angered the young man to a high degree by the situation. "Old dog, if you speak one more word then I will cripple you. Do you not know of the wolf pack in the forest? This time, the local hunter's association had to request help from the bigger sects to exterminate it. Do you not understand what even that means?! High-level disciples of various sects will stay in our city just in time for the competition. If that kid catches the eye of some formidable clan, then our entire family will be annihilated in the future! Let me see if you dare get revenge now?" The furious youth yelled at the old man as if he had brain damage.
"This one doesn't dare-"
Slap
Just when the old man finally understood the situation, the young master sent him flying across the room.
"Do you think I'm done with you?! Here take this and bring it to the kid" The old man crawled to take the spirit stone bag from the young master. "T-This is?"
"Your year's salary"
In another part of the city, a young man was spending time with his father when he heard a knock on the door. Not surprised, Zhao Fan got up and went to open the door expecting trouble after the incident earlier. Opening it however, he saw a sorry face which was so swollen it looked like a pig's. His hands were outstretched and holding a bag. Extremely confused, Zhao Fan took the bag and opened it, looking inside. In it were around 150 spirit stones giving off a beautiful blue glow.
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Creasing his brows, he looked up at the man but already saw him a distance away walking off hurriedly. Suddenly, understanding struck him as he linked the pig's face with the old man earlier which made him laugh out loud. Hearing his laugh from a distance away, the old man shivered from anger and accelerated, disappearing into the night.
"Who was it?" Zhao Yang also went to the door hearing his son's laughter. "It was the supervisor from earlier bringing a bag of spirit stones, however this time he looked even more like a pig than before."
"What? I thought they would look for trouble but instead he came with gifts?" He was confused. "Honestly I don't know either but since there's no harm why think about it?" Zhao Fan didn't ponder any more and they went back inside.
The next morning, Zhao Fan didn't have the courage to ask his father to leave again so he left a note and 50 spirit stones before leaving. 50 spirit stones would last a few years for a mortal so there was no use worrying about his father working for the time being. It did not hurt to give away such a large amount because with his new method of hunting it was already more efficient than spirit stones and he couldn't take in energy from both the meat and the spirit stones due to the limit of his absorption. Naturally, he could definitely take in more if he had a cultivation technique but for the time being he was cultivating without one.
Going outside his house, Zhao Fan still had 120 spirit stones from the 150 he got from the old man and the 20 he got for selling beast parts. While this amount wasn't anything much for cultivators, for Zhao Fan it was a windfall and he decided to make use of it before departing again.
Heading to the market area, he looked around before finally finding the store he was looking for. He walked inside the Artifact Pavilion, which was a large building housing the largest collection of equipment for Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment cultivators. The first floor was dedicated to the former and the second floor housed the more pricey foundation establishment artifacts. Zhao Fan walked around for a bit and decided to find an attendant as it was his first time.
"What type of equipment and what grade are you interested in sir?" The attendant was a young man with a cultivation which Zhao Fan couldn't distinguish.
"I'm looking for low-tier glove-like weapon artifacts and defensive artifacts, '' he replied. Artifact grades were separated into low, middle, and upper tier for Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment and Core Condensing cultivators respectively. Of course cultivators weren't necessarily limited to using their respective tier of artifacts but using lower tier limited their strength while using higher tier consumed too much qi.
The attendant sized up Zhao Fan a bit before asking him to follow. They soon came to a display of glove type offensive artifacts of which there were dozens. The Artifact Pavilion was truly worth their reputation of being the biggest equipment outfitter in the Golden Leaf City.
All of the gloves looked impressive however Zhao Fan couldn't help but lose his good mood upon seeing the prices. Despite all of the gloves being low tier, the lower priced ones were at dozens of spirit stones and the higher priced ones were at hundreds. There was even a scary looking set of black gloves which was priced at 1,500 spirit stones which made his face pale. Zhao Fan decided to lower his expectations and soon found a decent pair of gloves which only cost 55 spirit stones and were good enough for him.
The reason he decided to get gloves in the first place was because of his newfound ability to increase his body strength rapidly. This meant that gloves which augmented his already impressive strength would be more beneficial than a sword. After picking out a set of gloves, he put them on and threw a fist in the air.
Woosh
Without even using any qi, his power was augmented by around 50% and his fists produced slight gales in the air. Satisfied, he paid the attendant and proceeded to look for some defensive artifacts.
Defensive artifacts were generally even more expensive than offensive ones so Zhao Fan was humbled again after seeing the price tag of 2,599 on the most expensive piece. Being left with only 65 spirit stones, he bought a generic but trusty leather tunic before leaving the store a poor man once more.
Still having 5 spirit stones, Zhao Fan decided to go to a supply store to buy a map of the forest which could give him a more detailed idea of where to hunt. He walked into a store and coincidently overheard a conversation.
"Old Bo the wolf pack this time is pretty serious so I hope you take my advice and not go out for a bit." An old man behind the counter spoke to a customer.
"Haha, if a small pack of wolves makes me, Ma Bo, scared then what was the point of me hunting for over 40 years?" The old customer clearly did not take the advice of the shopkeeper. At the same time as he was about to leave, Zhao Fan came to the counter. "Boss, can you tell me a bit more about the wolf pack?"
The shopkeeper was about to shake his head when Zhao Fan slid him a small bag. "Haha, do you think 5 spirit stones is anything to a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment realm?" Instead of accepting his bribe the shopkeeper laughed instead. Zhao Fan was a bit embarrassed and didn't know how to reply. He couldn't see through his cultivation realm but he didn't think it would be that high.
"Listen, Old Bo and young fellow, I am not that kind but I don't want my customers to die so I will tell you. Recently a wolf pack from outside the forest has migrated here, and its leader is a tier 7 demonic beast." Before the shopkeeper continued, Zhao Fan chimed in with a question "Boss, what level is a demonic beast?"
"How can you not know such simple information, normal beasts from level 1 to 9 correspond to Qi Condensation warriors but are generally stronger due to their innately strong bodies. Meanwhile, demonic beasts correspond to Foundation Establishment cultivators and are beasts who are able to use mysterious and shockingly powerful abilities." Hearing this, Zhao Fan was frightened. A tier 7 demonic beast equaled a Foundation Establishment level 7 warrior or even higher by using their ability and they could probably instantly kill him with one breath.
"Recently the city has issued a mission to some neighboring sects to slaughter the wolf pack because of its proximity to the city. Soon the city will be filled with outer sect disciples who were dispatched to hunt the beasts." Hearing this information, Old Bo and Zhao Fan were both shocked and also frightened. They hurriedly thanked the shopkeeper and left the store. Zhao Fan's plan of buying a map failed since he was too embarrassed to ask for it after his unsuccessful bribe. He didn’t even have enough courage to ask for his bribe back.
"I don't really have a choice since the competition is so near. I guess I will have to be more careful but I should generally be fine since I only hunt in the periphery of the forest". Zhao Fan was a little scared by the news but he couldn't allow himself to be swayed this easily if he wanted to secure a good spot in the competition.