80: Chapter 80 Entering the City

The gates of Black Stone City stood open in the morning light.

Jiang Yan stood in the line to enter the city.

In front were a few Loose Cultivators carrying herb baskets, from which protruded a few Lingzhi and fleeceflower roots of ordinary quality, with mud still clinging to their roots.

At a glance, one could tell they were Loose Cultivators from the very bottom of the shantytowns; they didn't even have a Storage Pouch.

The Li family enforcement Cultivators guarding the gate wore uniform cyan robes, with standard Flying Swords hanging at their waists; the seal script character "Li" was engraved on the scabbards.

A middle-aged Cultivator at Qi Refining Level 6 sat behind a square table, tapping his fingers on the surface; with each tap, the wooden token on the table would jump.

"Two Spirit Stones. Take a token. Valid for ten days."

When it was Jiang Yan's turn, the middle-aged Cultivator raised his eyelids and glanced at him.

Jiang Yan placed the Spirit Stones on the table and received a palm-sized ironwood token.

The front of the token was engraved with the character "Li", while the back featured a simple timed Restriction—the moment it was received, the Restriction began its countdown, with pale cyan runes flickering amidst the wood grain.

He walked through the gate tunnel.

The Formation stones overhead emitted a faint hum, and an invisible ripple of a Formation swept over his body.

In his Divine Sense perception, the ripple quietly receded after confirming there were no foreign auras such as Demonic Qi or Devilish Qi within his body.

The moment he stepped out of the gate tunnel, the clamor poured down on him like a basin of water.

The streets of Black Stone City were more crowded than any Mortal city in the Jin Kingdom.

Shops lined both sides one after another; the writing on the signs was done in ink, engraved on stone slabs, or painted directly onto wooden boards with cinnabar.

In a Medicinal Pill shop, a Fat Shopkeeper was haggling spit-flying with two Loose Cultivators.

Under the eaves of a Magical Artifact shop, a broken sword was stuck at an angle, with a piece of red paper stuck to the blade, reading "New High Grade arrivals, come inside to see the goods".

At the street corner squatted an old man selling animal hides, with a cloth spread out before him displaying several tanned Wind Wolf hides, half of the fur worn away.

Two Li family enforcement Cultivators in cyan robes walked over from the other end of the street.

They wore standard Flying Swords at their waists identical to the Li family guards, walking slowly, their four eyes coldly scanning the crowd on both sides of the street.

When passing the Magical Artifact shop, one of the enforcement Cultivators paused at the entrance, glanced inside, and then continued walking.

Jiang Yan was in no hurry to enter any shop. He walked along the main street from east to west, taking in the goods and prices of every shop.

The first place that made him stop was Tiancao Hall at the east end of the street.

Three storefronts had been opened up, and three female Cultivators stood behind the counter, simultaneously attending to customers.

The medicine cabinets behind the counter were densely covered with labels—Bigu Pill, Huiling Pill, peiyuan pill, Ningshen Pill, antidote pill, with grades ranging from Grade 1 Low Grade to Grade 1 High Grade.

Prices were written in ink on bamboo slips, inserted in front of each bottle of Medicinal Pill.

A bottle of ten Bigu Pills cost five Spirit Stones.

A bottle of ten Grade 1 Low Grade peiyuan pills was priced at thirty-five Spirit Stones.

Jiang Yan picked up a bottle, pulled out the stopper, and sniffed—the medicinal fragrance was fairly pure, but the pill patterns had slight cracking marks; the heat during the pill condensation had been too high by at least half a cup of tea's time.

Grade 1 Medium Grade peiyuan pills were priced at sixty-five Spirit Stones.

Behind the label was a small red circle, with "Special Price This Month" written on it.

He picked it up and sniffed it; the quality of this batch was more stable than the Low Grade batch, but the medicinal power Fusion was uneven, which was likely caused by fluctuating Spirit power output during pill condensation.

The Grade 1 High Grade peiyuan pills were locked in a Magical Artifact cabinet behind the counter, with only one sample bottle placed outside.

The label read "180 Spirit Stones, reservation required".

He placed the medicine bottle back on the counter. The Fat Shopkeeper had already leaned over—this man wore a silk robe with an open collar, revealing a roll of sweaty fat around his neck.

When he smiled, his eyes narrowed into slits, and his fingers tapped lightly on the counter, as if counting on an abacus.

"Little brother, looking to buy peiyuan pills? Our shop's peiyuan pills are all personally refined by the Li family's Grade 2 alchemist; the quality is guaranteed."

"A Grade 2 alchemist refining Grade 1 Medium Grade peiyuan pills?" Jiang Yan placed the medicine bottle back on the counter.

The Fat Shopkeeper's smile stiffened.

For just an instant, the muscles at the corners of his mouth twitched, and then his smile piled back up, even higher than before.

"Little brother has a sharp eye. This batch was indeed refined by an apprentice, but the medicinal effect is not bad, and the price is five Spirit Stones cheaper.

If you want those personally refined by a Grade 2 alchemist, you'll have to pay more—eighty Spirit Stones per bottle."

Jiang Yan didn't reply and turned to leave Tiancao Hall.

The Fat Shopkeeper's mouth fell, he snorted through his nose, and turned to attend to another Loose Cultivator carrying a herb basket.

What he needed was Spirit Medicine, not finished Medicinal Pills.

But Tiancao Hall's pricing model had already exposed the profit margins of Alchemy quite clearly.

The retail price of Grade 1 Medium Grade peiyuan pills was sixty-five to eighty Spirit Stones, while the main ingredient for Alchemy—a two-hundred-year-old Lingzhi or fleeceflower root—plus three to four minor Spirit Medicines, along with Pill Furnace consumption and the loss rate from the pill condensation success rate, brought the total cost to between twenty-five and thirty Spirit Stones.

The profit was sixty to eighty percent, or even higher.

He continued walking forward.

There were more Magical Artifact shops than Medicinal Pill shops. From the east street to the west street, there were no fewer than ten shops, large and small.

The largest one was called "Qianbing Pavilion", with five storefronts and two stone lions standing at the entrance.

Defense Restrictions were engraved on the lions' bodies, and their Spirit power fluctuations were a cut above the neighboring shops—the carving was average, but the craftsmanship of the Restriction engraving was solid.

When entering Qianbing Pavilion, the clerk behind the counter was holding an animal hide and wiping a Flying Sword.

The clerk was in his twenties, at Qi Refining Level 3; his sword-wiping movements were very practiced. As he wiped, he boasted to a Loose Cultivator picking out Magical Artifacts nearby: "...Yesterday that kid from the Liu family went up the mountain to hunt Yao Beasts, his Magical Artifact broke; he didn't hunt the Yao Beast and even broke a leg. If he had bought a sword from me earlier, could this have happened?"

No one responded to him. Several Loose Cultivators were frowning at the price tags in front of the shelves.

Jiang Yan scanned the shelves.

Grade 1 Low Grade Flying Swords were priced from fifty to one hundred Spirit Stones.

The cheapest one was placed in the corner; the blade only had three Restrictions, the material was the most ordinary black iron, and it was priced at fifty Spirit Stones.

Grade 1 Medium Grade Flying Swords were priced between one hundred fifty and two hundred fifty, with about ten on the shelf, their quality uneven.

He picked up a Flying Sword priced at one hundred eighty Spirit Stones and probed the blade with his Divine Sense—the five Restrictions were engraved quite neatly, and the lines of the Sharpness Restriction and Durability Restriction were quite clean.

However, the Spirit power conduction circuit had a distinct sharp angle at the tip of the sword.

It wasn't an engraving error, but a problem with the design itself—this sharp angle would create a weak Spirit power vortex when wielded at full power, affecting the speed and stability of the Flying Sword.

He put the sword back on the shelf and picked up another one next to it priced at two hundred twenty Spirit Stones.

This one had a better Restriction layout than the previous one, but the blade material was mixed with too much fire copper; although it enhanced the fire attribute, it sacrificed the toughness of the blade—it would easily chip when encountering heavy impacts.

Grade 1 High Grade Flying Swords were placed in an iron cabinet against the wall, and through the iron bars, one could see four on display.

The prices ranged from three hundred twenty Spirit Stones to four hundred eighty Spirit Stones.

The most expensive one had nine Restrictions engraved on the blade, with a small piece of Spirit jade embedded in the sword spine, glowing with a warm luster under the light of the night-luminescent pearl in the iron cabinet.

There was only one Grade 1 Top Grade Flying Sword.

It was placed alone in a sandalwood sword box on the highest shelf of the iron cabinet, with a Grade 1 High Grade protective talisman stuck to the box. The price was nine hundred Spirit Stones.

Nine hundred Spirit Stones.

All the Spirit Stones he had seized from Zhou Tai and Prince Yongs Mansion added up to less than one hundred.

But the flame gold flying sword in his Storage Pouch was Grade 1 High Grade, the purple-veined thunder sword was Grade 1 High Grade, he had one Top Grade Flying Sword, and the god-slaying flying knife was also Grade 1 Top Grade.

Calculating these Magical Artifacts at market price, his net worth was at least three or four thousand Spirit Stones or more. Of course, he wouldn't sell a single one.