Chapter 41 - Beyond Expectations

As Benton led the siblings in following the guard’s directions, he passed literally hundreds of people. It wasn’t possible to scan everyone that quickly, but a sampling indicated about what he expected, mostly Es and Fs. There was one D, but the man was middle aged and dressed nicely enough that he probably wouldn’t be interested in uprooting his life at the chance of becoming a cultivator.

If the man were younger or more talented, Benton probably would have pursued it anyway. Really, though, he needed to get a read on the overall situation in the city before he started actually recruiting.

Soon, they reached a sign that read, “Mahogany Dreaming Palace.” Perfect. Finding it hadn’t been as hard as he’d feared.

The shop was nice but not too nice. As expected, mahogany featured prominently in the decor, but there was enough of a jumbled together look to not make Benton feel uncomfortable at his attire upon entering.

A nicely dressed salesgirl stood behind a counter. To her credit, she didn’t so much as blink at the way he and the siblings looked. Instead, she cupped her hands and bowed. “Greetings Esteemed Customer, how may this lowly one be of assistance today?”

Benton smiled. So far, the guard had steered him right. “I need some walking around money, so I would like to sell a dozen rank two spirit beast cores.”

The salesgirl matched Benton’s expression. “Absolutely, Esteemed Customer. This lowly one can easily accommodate such a request.”

The five primary elements for cultivation were Earth, Metal, Water, Wood, and Fire, and most of Benton’s cores corresponded to one of those. There were some outliers, of course, such as Ice, which was a subset of Water, Lightning, Nature, and a few others.

With the siblings trailing him, he walked to the counter and withdrew a dozen cores assorted between the primary elements. He laid them carefully before the salesgirl.

Again to her credit, she didn’t react much to his use of a spatial ring. Clearly, she was used to dealing with cultivators. She simply pulled a weird box from below the counter and set it on top. “Permission for this lowly one to examine the cores, Esteemed Cultivator?”

Even Su hadn’t seen anything like that device, so Benton was very interested to see what would happen next. “Proceed.”

The girl opened the box, placed one of the cores inside it, closed the lid, and looked at a sort of viewfinder that stuck up above the device. Once finished, she removed the core and repeated the process with each of the other eleven.



“These are excellent specimens, wild caught and unused,” she said when finished. “This lowly one appreciates the opportunity to make Esteemed Cultivator an offer.”

She pulled an honest to God abacus from beneath the counter and started rapidly moving the beads around. “This lowly one can offer ten thousand, six hundred fifty-three silver taels for the cores.”

“That is an awfully specific amount,” Benton said.

“The device measures all relevant properties of the core, Esteemed Cultivator. The City Lord has standardized the price for a core based on those properties throughout the city. This lowly one would be punished severely if offering above or below that price.”

Benton had no idea if the girl was selling him a load of beans or not, but he thought it more likely that she wasn’t. The presence of such standardized pricing should be easy enough to check, and lying to a cultivator wasn’t generally a good way for a mortal to keep breathing. Besides, around ten thousand had been about what he’d been expecting based on Su’s experience.

“Okay. I’ll take it. Do you have that much silver on hand?”

“Sorry, Esteemed Cultivator, but this establishment, like almost all other reputable ones in the city, offers city bonds, usable just like taels anywhere within the walls and a great many places without.” She laid out ten one thousand note bonds, one five hundred note bond, and one hundred fifty-three taels. “Is the Esteemed Cultivator still interested?”

A big city issuing their own notes was well within the expectations set from Su’s memories. It was simply an easy way to deal with large sums of money as carrying thousands of taels would rapidly become inconvenient without a spatial ring.

“I am. Thanks.” He whisked the paper and taels into his ring.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

The salesgirl shot him a big smile. “Is there anything else this lowly one can do to assist the Esteemed Cultivator today?”

“Actually, yes. My junior brother and sister and I are in desperate need of cleaning up and new clothes.”



“Of course, Esteemed Cultivator. This lowly one does not offer such a service in this establishment, but a runner can be summoned to escort you to a place where you will be taken care of.”

“Excellent. Please do that.”

She disappeared into the back for a few minutes. When she returned, she said, “The runner will be here shortly. Is there anything else this lowly one can do to assist the Esteemed Cultivator today?”

Benton figured that she’d been very helpful so far, so why not? “Actually, I do need knife sets for myself and my junior brother and sister. I was looking for a skinning knife, a boning knife, and a caping knife for each of us. The blades need to be tough enough to handle up to rank three beasts, though.”

“This establishment’s knives run from one hundred taels to a thousand taels each, Esteemed Cultivator. What price range most fits your needs?”

“I’m willing to pay for quality but not for frills. Does that make sense?”

“It does, Esteemed Cultivator. This lowly one has something that might be of interest.” The salesgirl came out from behind the counter and led them to the right side of the store. She pointed to a set of three knives on display surrounded by a bunch of other knives. “These are produced by a local master crafter. They’re not fancy, but this lowly one has never had a customer complaint about them. They are rated to the very peak of rank three.”

Benton wasn’t able to determine the materials, but the knives were clearly part of a set with identical colored wooden handles and metal blades. According to Su’s memories, they looked to be sturdy and well made. “Perfect. How much?”

“They are mid-range, about five hundred each, a little more for the boning knife but a little less for the caping knife. For three sets of three, this lowly one can make a package deal of forty-one hundred taels.”

The cost wasn’t much of an issue, but Benton didn’t want to eat that much into his supply of cash. He proposed trading her five rank two cores for the knives with her providing more cash for what was left over. She was more than amenable for that transaction, and after she checked the new cores, Benton added the knives and two hundred ninety-three taels to his spatial ring.

“Since you’ve been such a font of knowledge, can you tell me how recruitment for sects works here?” Benton said.

“Of course, Esteemed Cultivator. Sixth Flawless Flowing City had an exclusive contract to provide recruits to the Righteous Rain Sect. After that sect’s downfall two decades ago, the other three major sects in the area, the Swift Blizzard Sect, the Poison Claw Sect, and the Jade Chameleon Sect, agreed that having any one of them gain access to the city’s recruits would upset the balance of power. If a citizen wants to be considered for a sect, he must pay the equivalent of five spirit coins to have a test conducted, and his talent score will be distributed to each of the three sects, who will determine amongst themselves which sect, if any, gets him.

“Only the City Lord is allowed to conduct those tests, and no sect may pay the price for the tests. The only way for a citizen to be tested without payment is when the City Lord is allowed to do so for appropriately aged citizens once every five years in order to fill the ranks of Town Watch. The quantity of such testing is highly regulated, however.”



Yikes. Citizens had to pay a crazy amount just on the off chance that they may be one of the few with enough talent to join a sect. Obviously, only the nobles or rich merchants could afford such a thing.

“What if, say, a wandering cultivator who was just passing through happened to sense he had fate with someone and wanted to recruit that person?”

“It is much more difficult for the non-affiliated, Esteemed Cultivator. First, all potential recruits would have to be interviewed by someone with a truth finding ability to ensure that no testing of the recruit took place. Then, a representative of one of the major sects would have to sign off on the process.”

From that answer, Benton couldn’t go around officially recruiting anyone to his sect. He was pretty sure, though, that no one would notice him hiring a few street kids and taking them with him when he left. The trick was to stay under the radar.

“One last thing,” he said after she’d thanked him for his business, “I need to do a short-term rental on a warehouse. Say three months. Can you point me in the right direction?”

The salesgirl happily made arrangements to have a runner meet them once they finished cleaning up.

“Thank you, young lady,” he said finally. “You are a credit to your profession. I’ll let Pan Mingyu know that you treated me right.”

The runner to take them to buy new clothes had already arrived and been waiting at that point, so Benton and the siblings followed the lad to an establishment a few streets over. After they were measured and asked about preferences for clothes, the runner led them to a bathhouse. By the time each had finished individually getting cleaned up and groomed by attendants, each had a nice change of clothes waiting with the promise of having more delivered to wherever they ended up staying.

The trio that exited the bathhouse looked a lot more opulent than the trio that went in. All had dirt scrubbed from their bodies, their hair cut and combed, and wore clean, upscale cultivator robes—Benton in blue, Yang Xiu in jade green, and Yang Ru in gray.

Looking and feeling nicer helped with the negotiations on leasing a warehouse. Benton didn’t care much about the location. He basically just needed a relatively small warehouse that would hide his activities from prying eyes. The broker showed him a place that was perfect on the first try.

After a bit of back and forth, he said, “I think that does it. I’ll give you a thousand taels per month for three months, prepaid, as long as you can get this placed cleaned up no later than tomorrow afternoon and provide three long wooden tables.”

His first day in Sixth Flawless Flowing City had gone better than he had any right to expect.