Finlay was honestly a bit disappointed even after using his Analyse skill on the auction items. That was because most of the items were in fact junk that were given a mysterious name or appearance. There were very few items that actually were of some use, unfortunately, most of them possessed some form of Qi in them, making them prime targets, their prices already raised out of Finlay’s budget. He still found a couple items that were of some use to him without them being too easy to notice.
Fire mountain crystal slag
A Mixture of Volcanic slag and Fire crystals that are formed in extreme heat and Qi pressures. Fire crystals are a good source of fire elemental essence. Contains impurities.
Earth meteor ore
Ore of a somewhat rare type of metal, obtained from a meteor.
He placed a modest amount on each of the items to keep them from gathering too much attention. He also placed nominal amounts on a couple other items as a distraction.
“Brother Lei, it seems you found some interesting things after all.”
“Haha, nothing too big, nothing too big. But I must thank you brother Wang, for bringing me to this place.”
Satisfied with his visit, Finlay was about to leave when he spotted another inconspicuous item. It was just a piece of burnt charcoal, a half burned book.
Burnt Recipe book
A badly burnt book that was used to note down the recipes of an alchemist.
Finlay’s eyes narrowed when he read the description. He quickly approached the shopkeeper and motioned to him if he could take a look at it before placing a bid. The nearly exhausted man, taking shelter from the sun, barely reacted and just waved his hand in agreement.
Finlay carefully picked up the ‘book’ that was nearly crumbling from his touch. The cover seemed to have taken the brunt of the damage, indicating some sort of basic protective enchantment, leaving the pages inside in a better condition. That didn’t mean that there was no damage to them. A good chunk of the bottom most part was missing, as if the fire took a bite out of the book. Carefully opening the book, Finlay to his frustration found that some of the papers were actually charred black both towards the front and rear of the book, on top of the missing bottom part, even the few legible pages had some of the text cut off at the bottom.
“Ah it seems I celebrated too quickly,” Finlay couldn’t help but frown in frustration.
“Brother Wang, can you take a look at this? What do you think?”
Wang Doshan promptly took the book and carefully flipped through the remains of the pages. His frown kept deepening and by the end, he simply shook his head and placed the book back from where it was taken. He calmly approached Finlay and carefully whispered in a very quiet voice.
“Brother Lei, do not show your joy on your face, but that book is our jackpot! It has many half burnt recipes that are entirely useless, but a couple of them are those that I do know of. Normally, they would be useless too, but I know the missing bits. I can’t directly give you the recipes due to a promise I made to my master’s faction, but I can technically give you the little bits of missing info and you could also point out to this book as a source of these recipes if someone asks.”
Finlay was overjoyed in his mind but he was careful to not show it outside. Channelling his best poker face, he went ahead to place a small bid in front of the book.
“Ah brother Lei, what did I tell you? You’re wasting money with that one.”
*sigh*
“Well, what can I do? I don’t have many options right now and I feel like we can salvage something out of this burnt mess.”
The shopkeeper looked at the book a little strangely, but otherwise didn’t seem to pay much mind to it. Finlay and his group casually walked away and started back towards the Academy grounds.
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A small clearing in the dense woods of the Valley of Newbies, a serene figure of a young woman in red was sitting beside a few plants that are clearly deliberately raised spiritual herbs, surrounded by a simple circle type formation. The lady also has a small cauldron , performing Alchemy. She seemed at peace amidst the singing and chirping of the birds. But she wasn’t alone. She had two followers in matching darker robes. One of them was a young man, barely more than a boy and the other, a girl of similar age. Normally, they would be covered completely except for their eyes, but in the privacy of the middle of nowhere, they could be seen a bit more relaxed with their masks and hood down.
In contrast to the serene young woman, the boy was clearly a bit agitated and he hesitantly opened his mouth.
“Lady Rong, why are we here? Why are you doing this?”
“Hmm? What do you mean? Doing what?”
“I mean this whole thing. Why must you insist on wasting time learning alchemy or herbal rearing? Why was so much time on nobodies that will probably be left behind you in the dust? I do not understand at all, you should be focusing on your soul cultivation by quickly leaving this place and finding what we came here for.”
The lady slowly finished her work with the cauldron and turned around to look at her ‘guards’.
“Xian, what do you know about this feeling of freedom after so long being near the clan? Although, I’m still not truly free…” she gave the 2 a stink eye, causing them to awkwardly shift their gazes.
“As for the Alchemy, it’s not truly a waste of time. Alchemy and herbal rearing actually helps me temper my mind and soul. Besides, these techniques and free knowledge aren’t as trivial as you think. Alchemy recipes are not hard to find as long as you’re willing to spend a little, but these profound explanations of the fundamentals like described on those steeles is difficult to see without a good master. Besides, these herbal rearing skills are not for sale outside.
“Finally, it’s none of your business whom I share friendly relations with,” she finished that with a sharp glare that the 2 withered under.
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The quiet girl finally spoke, “Young miss, please don’t be angry at Xian’er. He just wants what's best for you. Besides, you are wasting time here. We’re all already qualified to ‘graduate’ out of this place after all. I mean a genius soul cultivator like you shouldn’t be wasting away time here in a worthless place like this valley. Also, making friends with mediocre people will only hurt you in the long run.”
“Hey Xun! Stop calling me like that. It’s embarrassing.”
*snort*
“Brat! Call me big sis if you don’t want more beatings. Besides, I’ll call my little brother however I want.”
“10 breaths! You’re older by a mere 10 breaths!”
Seeing the 2 ‘guards’ assigned to her by her clan start fighting again, the young woman in red had to intercede and try to change the topic before the boy ended up bruised black and blue again.
“Alright that’s enough. As for what you said, we have plenty of time trust me. The others will have to go through an academy for cultivators and learn a lot of things from the beginning. Luckily for us, we’re already taught most of it. So, don’t worry. Another 3-4 months here won’t affect our plans too much.
“And don’t be so quick to judge others as mediocre. Even if all of those you’ve met don’t look impressive to you, going by their words, that guy who left here just before seemed to have been fairly impressive to say the least. Forget about the clan and the elders, just enjoy the peace and quiet with me for now.”
She then turned around to look at the spiritual herbs she seemed to be raising to observe them.
“Go go. One of you go and fetch me some beast cores now,” she impatiently motioned with her hands as the boy started to move out of the clearing.
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Finlay was slowly walking over to his Martial performance class, carrying his spear and sword along with him. It has been 10 days since their little visit to the Copper square, the small town a bit away, but very much still inside the borders of the sect. He still couldn’t Come around to the fact that the eternity of the long and majestic Coiling serpent mountain range and then some belonged to the sect. It was an amount of area easily surpassing the largest of the cities from back home.
The days went by mostly uneventfully. Contrary to their expectations, Hu Li paid up without fuss. Finlay was able to win on all 3 of his bids. The charred book did attract some unexpected competition, but he was able to get it for a low grade stone and 50 poor grade ones.
The Fire mountain crystal slag with copious amounts of hidden fire elemental essence was an expectedly heavily contended item. Yet, just from its appearance, it was difficult for most to judge the actual amount of it, that is unless one cultivated said element. Moreover, it was clear there would be certain impurities contained within, further reducing its usefulness for most people. Luckily for Finlay, he held an advantage on both fronts. He was easily able to measure the big chunk of elemental essence hidden within and purifying the impurities was not much of an issue with his cultivation technique. It set him back a solid 1 low grade and 75 poor grade stones. Luckily, no one in such a lowly place could identify the mundane looking Meteor ore. It was his biggest gain of the three, with his dirt cheap 10 poor grade stone minimum winning bid.
Together with the remaining 3 low grade spirit stones and the compensation from Hu Li, Finlay had about 8 spirit stones. He finally bought a tier 2 cauldron for 7 low grade spirit stones, leaving him with only a little over 1 spirit stone in pocket. He wasn’t sure how long that could even last with the need to purchase ingredients, his basic expenses and the need for large amounts of resources for cultivation purposes. He could feel the pressure to find a source of income ASAP.
Apart from that, since the beginning of this new week, the classes have finally begun in earnest. Today was the third and last Martial performance class of the first week and it was finally time to do some real world sparring with a senior so that the Martial teacher could gauge each individual’s mettle. Which is exactly why Finlay had to spend a good chunk of his morning taking care of his weapons and making sure they were in top shape, lest he embarrass himself before the teacher.
As he approached the training grounds, a familiar figure called out to him and waved their hands at him. It was Dokgo Xu with his 2 sworn brothers, one was a lean, muscular sword wielding black haired youngster and another, a big muscled and robust youngman with a mace and a shield. The smaller of the 2 went by Mo and the other went by Amaru. Finlay couldn’t help but notice that the name sounded more Japanese than the usual flavour of Chinese cultivation fantasy-esque. In fact, he had heard mention of completely non asian names as well, let alone other cultures and naming conventions from within. He couldn’t help but wonder. Was there an actual connection behind the similarities in some of the stories, mythos and cultural parallelism with his home world? He could only shake off the thought since he didn’t even know where to begin with such an investigation. Taking the big picture into consideration, it was hardly something weird, at least amidst the stranger than fiction reality of his.
“Brother Lei! Over here!...Oh! It seems you have some excellent weapons over there. Do I have the honour of taking a look at them?” Dokgo Xu’s eyes were immediately drawn to the weapons.
“Haa… Stop embarrassing me brother Xu. They’re alright. Nothing fancy for a qi condensation cultivator really…Don’t look at it like that. That sword is actually worse than the crude looking spear. It was just made to look fancy by that old geezer, the blacksmith from the valley. You see, it was a sort of a symbolic present,” an embarrassed Finlay hurriedly cleared the misunderstanding.
As the friends were chatting up, the instructor for the class arrived.
*Ahem*
“Everybody! Form up!”
Following the loud shout from their instructor, everyone grabbed their weapons and quickly stood in 4 lines. The instructor was a middle aged stoic man and a peak Qi condensation realm cultivator who goes by Instructor Yu. From the previous 2 classes, Finlay came to know that he was a war veteran and a most capable fighter who made great contributions in the Demon war. His talent with weapons and to command armies was well known. Unfortunately, his talent for cultivation can only be summed up to be average. Which is why even at such an age and with full support and resources of the sect, he has not yet become a foundation establishment cultivator. Nevertheless, his ability to train warriors was well recognised.
“I see that you young ones are all quite excited for today. Good! Let me see how far your enthusiasm can take you. Juniors, come out now!”
4 other sharp looking fellows entered and stood behind the instructor at that. 3 of them were men and the last a woman. Their demeanour, attire and posture were the perfect image of a cultivator. They were mostly empty handed except for their battle robes.
“These 4 seniors of yours will be responsible for sparring and testing what each of you are made of. 4 of you will come at once, each will engage in a 1 on 1 fight as I observe you.
“First, you 4 at the front of each line come forward.”
The disciples that came forward and the 4 seniors behind were led to one of the walls on the side of the large training area. The instructor placed his hand on a square plate and channelled some Qi. That action opened a hidden weapons storage containing sets of 5 of all kinds of weapons. Swords, Spears, other kinds of bladed weapons, bows, tridents, maces etc were all present there. All of them looked simple, and practical. They also looked uniform, as if they are a standardised design.
“Now, I see that several of you have brought your own weapons, but if you don’t have one or you’re not confident in your weapon, you are welcome to borrow these.”
Finlay threw out a quick Analyse to identify said weapons.
Basic Sky Warrior Sword
A standardised sword issued by the True Immortal Sky sect to their lowest level warriors. As a peak Tier 1 weapon, it’s nothing fancy, but is sturdy and can take a beating. During times of peace, they are mostly used as sparring weapons.
Finlay was impressed or rather depressed that such high quality peak Tier 1 weapons are merely considered basic weapons used for sparring by the sect. And yet, his beast weapon, his Fire attribute spear, is merely a peak Tier 1 weapon. His sword could barely qualify but he knew that its making was a bit flimsy with low endurance.
As he was checking the other weapons, the 4 pairs of disciples and their seniors, here to assist Instructor Yu, took their positions inside a 10 by 10 metre box shaped formation each. Finlay observed that the formations were nothing fancy and are merely supposed to protect any stray attacks and projectiles while providing some healing effect to those sparring. It was clearly a tier 2 formation, yet Finlay was not yet capable of completely understanding it. He could still clearly identify the primary functions with his meagre knowledge.
“Alright, all of you better pay attention to the spars too. At your level, simply observing a skilled warrior spar should allow you to realise a lot of your mistakes. Of course, I’m referring to your seniors. Fight with all you’ve got otherwise, you might not even last more than a few moves. If you want to show all of your ability, don’t hold back. Now show me what you little guys can do.
“You may begin your sparring!”
With that, the 4 disciples dashed off wielding their weapons, going in for a fierce attack. Clearly, they have taken the instructor’s advice to heart.
To be continued.