The first thing that greeted Xi Shen as he entered the store was the numerous assortments of Spirit Artifacts hanging on the walls, as well as some fancy and expensive-looking ones within glass cases situated in the middle of the store.

The second thing that greeted him was the several pairs of eyes from disciples who had turned from their buying to look at him.

Xi Shen ignored their gazes and started examining the Spirit Artifacts on the wall. Though he was only looking for a musical instrument, specifically a zither, he couldn’t help but look at all the Spirit Artifacts. He was mostly focused on the runes carved on them though

In his past life, one of the many professions he had studied was runes, so as a Rune Master himself, he was curious about the quality of the runes on these Spirit Artifacts. And as he looked at them he was slightly disappointed.

Even though the runes were decently well carved with sufficient skill, they were too rigid. The runes on these Spirit Artifacts looked as if they were carved by someone who was strictly following the creation of the rune and was afraid to make even the slightest of changes. They were just plain and lacked any originality.

This was something Xi Shen disliked very much, it was good that these rune masters could follow instructions without any mistakes, but fearing to make changes to the original rune and just following what your told would result in no improvement in your runic inscriptions technique.

Just by looking at these precisely craved plain runes on all these different Spirit Artifacts, Xi Shen could tell that these runes masters were stuck at a bottleneck in their runic inscriptions skills and were probably held up in a room carving the same runes over and over again while wondering to themselves why they can’t improve.

Looking at a golden halberd and its runes, Xi Shen couldn’t help but shake his head in disappointment.

Seeing Xi Shen’s expression while looking at the Spirit Artifacts, and him shaking his head, the young man in charge of the store who was behind the counter, frowned as his expression turned to one of annoyance.

Seeing Xi Shen shaking his head at another broadsword Spirit Weapon Artifact, the young man who looked to be in his early twenties spoke up and said to Xi Shen, “Second prince could it be that your having trouble finding a suitable Spirit Artifact?!”

The store wasn’t that big, so as his voice that was filled with annoyance echoed in Xi Shen's ears he turned around to look at him.

His voice had also attracted the attention of other disciples within the store, but Xi Shen under their gazes only calmly walked up to the counter the young man was around, and asked, “I’m looking for a Spirit Weapon Artifact in the form of a zither, do you have any in your store?”

Hearing that Xi Shen was looking for a zither, the thought of Xi Shen trying to become a Soul Cultivator couldn’t help but appear in the young man’s mind.

Looking at Xi Shen the young man nodded and suddenly turn around to enter what Xi Shen figured was a storeroom through a door that was behind the counter.

After some time of waiting Xi Shen saw the young man come out with a zither in his hand. However, when Xi Shen saw the zither he became dumbfounded.

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The zither looked decrepit with several of its strings broken. The material it was made from seemed to be a strong oak wood tree but along with the runes on it that were falling apart so was the oak wood. Instead of a zither, it looked more like a piece of wood that had some strings attached to it.

Xi Shen looked away from the zither and towards the young man who had an expressionless face.

With a frown on his face, Xi Shen asked, “What is this, are you expecting me to buy this?”

The young man seem unfazed as he casually shrugged and said, “That’s all there is in the store. Spirit Weapon Artifacts in the form of instruments aren’t that popular since only Soul Cultivators used them.”

Hearing the young man’s words, Xi Shen understood what he meant. Since the path of a Soul Cultivator was seen as something unfavorable or even useless to some people, the Spirit Weapon Artifacts they use for battle aren’t that common.

Xi Shen even suspected that the other stores would have zithers in this state or even none at all.

This made the frown on Xi Shen’s face deepen, he didn’t really think of this problem. Even though he could probably find a normal zither instrument at a miscellaneous store, there would be no point in using one since a zither Spirit Weapon Artifact was crafted with runes specifically for Soul Cultivators to use in battles.

A normal zither to Xi Shen would be no different than a useless wooden junk with strings on it. At the very least this zither in front of him was made from a special type of oak wood tree that was sturdy enough to allow Rune Masters to engrave the required runes onto them.

Despite the decrepit look of the zither, it was still able to be used if its runes were repaired.

Thinking this to himself, Xi Shen decided to buy this zither and repair the runes himself. It would be a hassle to gather the materials and then find a craftsman to create one from scratch.

‘I’ll just use this one for now to practice the Soul Arts and get familiar with them. When I have the time I could just search for a better one in the Ancestral Treasury, there’s bound to be one buried in those piles of Spirit Weapon Artifacts.’

Making up his mind, Xi Shen turn to the young man and asked, “How much for it?”

Hearing Xi Shen’s question, the young man glanced down at the zither and thought for a moment then said, “I’ll sell it to you for a hundred and fifty Academy Points.”

Xi Shen immediately retorted, “That’s too much, lower the price down to fifty Academy Points.”

The young man shook his head and said, “This is a low-grade Spirit Weapon Artifact, if it was in good condition it would have cost around four hundred Academy Points, and despite it being slightly damaged it’s still a low-grade Spirit Weapon Artifact, the materials used to make it is still worth something. At most I can lower it to a hundred Academy Points.”

Listening to the young man's words, Xi Shen thought for a while then nodded and said, “Fair enough.”

After which he took out his identity medallion.

After becoming an Inner Disciple, one would receive a hundred Academy Points each successive month afterward. The Sword Pavilion also provides two hundred Academy Points separately, so at this moment Xi Shen has a total of three hundred Academy Points.

After taking out his identity medallion he placed it against the young man’s own. A light was then produced from the two medallions as two runes appeared between them before disappearing soon after.

The young man then glance at his medallion and seeing the hundred Academy Points added to it, he nodded at Xi Shen.

Wasting no time, Xi Shen placed his right hand onto the decrepit-looking zither and collected it into his storage ring on his finger.

Seeing the storage ring on Xi Shen’s finger, the young man couldn’t help but show a bit of envy in his eyes. Due to the difficulty of crafting storage rings as well as the rarity of the Void Stones used to create them, they were only accessible to disciples like him if he was willing to sacrifice an arm and leg to buy them.

Even though the Sword Pavilion provides its disciples with a substitute storage item known as a storage bag, it was barely useful as it only has around a cubic meter of space.

Only disciples with a rich background would be able to afford to purchase a storage ring.

After collecting the zither, Xi Shen ignored the young man’s greedy eyes and quickly left the store. He wanted to hurry and get to his courtyard so he could study these Soul Arts. He found the path of a Soul Cultivator interesting since it reminded him of the days of old cultivation.

Right now, he won’t be able to cultivate in the Spiritual Qi system since he would have to create a unique cultivation method for his Time Dao Foundation, but that won’t be a big problem, he’ll be able to create one in the incoming days, and fully fleshed it out over the next couple of months.

Since he choose to construct his Dao Foundation from Time Laws, his main focus was to cultivate Time Qi. Though that’s what Xi Shen called it, Time Qi wasn’t exactly the same as the common Six Qi Elements found in the surrounding environment. The Six Qi Elements were composed of Corporeal Laws so they could be seen and felt by someone.

Time Qi on the other hand was made of Incorporeal Laws, so it can't be seen or be felt in ways that the Six Qi Elements could. However, the thing they had in common was the ability to be cultivated, though a unique Dao Foundation like Xi Shen’s own was necessary to cultivate Time Qi.