Chapter 44 - Cash Grab

Benton had a good feeling about the boy, Zou Tian. He seemed like the sort who would commit to a group as long as he was given a reason. If Benton were right, all he had to do to reap loyalty was to sow it.

He escorted the boy to the exit, and the two parted on good terms.

No sooner had he returned to the work area than Yang Xiu said, “Why did you reveal so much to that kid, Senior Brother? I thought we wanted to avoid notice.”

Kid? Listen to this brat. The boy was barely a couple of years younger than her.

“There is a fine line between seeming too powerful,” Benton said, “which might lead to one of the three sects taking interest in us, and seeming too weak, which invites attack from every two-bit street gang around.”

“You think your display with Ru’er will dissuade them, Senior Brother?”

“Not indefinitely. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to slip out before they make their attempt.” Benton shrugged. “If not, maybe we at least headed off some of the many probes I was expecting. I’d rather they gather their forces for a big showdown than us have to put up with fending them off every other night.”

Yang Xiu’s face showed concern. “Can the three of us fight off an entire gang of cultivators, Senior Brother?”

Wandering cultivators came in two types—those rare few who traveled the land seeking the Dao and those who were forced into the lifestyle because they had too little talent to do anything else. The first was considered an honorable path, even if not quite as respectable as traditional sect membership. The latter … wasn’t.

Of course, part of that judgment was probably a bit of Chao Su’s bias, but Benton expected it accurately reflected the view of most people.

“Acting as a gang relegates one to the status of an ordinary thug, an act that is beneath contempt, an extreme loss of face and honor,” Benton said. “Only those who are so weak as to have little other choice would do such a thing. I can’t imagine the three of us having trouble facing a score of such cultivators.”

He allowed the siblings to return to cultivating while he spent another couple of hours processing spirit beast parts. In the midafternoon, he counted their progress, finding that they’d barely finished a hundred beasts.



Out of nearly seven hundred.

Of course, he finished a beast thrice as fast as either of the siblings, but their rate improved with each batch. The three of them working together wouldn’t finish tomorrow, but they’d make a good dent and be able to sell them by the day after. Their progress wasn’t too bad.

Shortly before dark, he let the siblings know he was leaving and went for a walk, mainly to just get acquainted with the area but also to see if he ran across any potential recruits. He had no luck, though. Mostly Fs with some Es.


The next day was spent processing while the siblings split their time between that and cultivating. Since they had been able to complete as many of the spirit beasts as he’d wanted for the day, his walk that night had another purpose—to procure the rental of a draft animal.

He ended up with something akin to an old ox, one that was pretty much beyond caring about anything other than going where he was told and getting fed. That was perfect because neither Benton nor Su had much experience with animals.

Luckily, it turned out that there was some farming in the siblings’ family, an uncle or something, so they had at least enough experience to be able to take care of the ox, feed it, hook it up, etc.

By noon of the next day, Benton had removed all the wood from one of the wagons and used the cleared space for the processed parts—over four hundred rank two spirit beast skins and claws and half that many butchered meats along with close to three hundred of the same for rank one beasts.

He had planned on leaving the twins to cultivate while he sold the parts, but he had trouble directing the ox even within the confines of the empty warehouse. Visions of a string of angry and perhaps injured citizens raising a cry to the authorities if he attempted to drive the wagon himself filled his mind, so he was forced to have the siblings do it.

Zou Tian directed Benton to a shop that both had a reputation for being fair and was big enough to handle the volume he had to sell. Like the Mahogany Dreaming Palace, the Seven Elements Beasts Emporium was staffed by an attractive mortal female clerk who seemed accustomed to dealing with cultivators. She had the twins maneuver the wagon to a receiving area in the back where two more employees met them.

The process from there was surprisingly efficient and quick, considering the sheer quantity of stuff Benton had to sell. In less than a half hour, one of the two, a graying man with a paunch, made an offer of just over fifty-six thousand silver taels.

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With assurance from the man that city notes could be converted to actual silver or even spirit coins at a bank, Benton accepted the proposal.

Not bad considering he hadn’t even touched his actual main trade good yet and he still had the vast majority of the cores he’d harvested in his ring.

Next, they found an out of the way alley that no one save Zou Tian, who was basically covertly traveling with the rest of the group by that point, was surveilling and filled the wagon with a full load of wood. Their destination was a warehouse near the docks that Mayor Mo Jian had indicated was their best option—if it was still open and operated by the same people.

With Zou Tian watching from afar and Yang Ru staying with the wagon, Benton and Yang Xiu went inside. To his surprise, the first person they encountered was a cultivator.

Benton scanned the man.

Affiliation:Heavenly Transit Mercantile AssociationAge:49Cultivation:Foundation Establishment: Minor Realm SixQi Available:???Techniques:???Spiritual Roots:E+Qi Aspect:The sweep of a wooden oar propelling a ship through the bay

Interesting. At Foundation Establishment, the merchant was officially the highest ranked person Benton had met. And to reach the sixth minor realm with only E+ spirit roots took dedication or major resources or both. Probably both.



The man cupped his hands and nodded his head. “Greetings Guest, this one is Ma An. How can this one help you?”

Benton’s robe clearly designated him as a cultivator, and he was in the company of someone in the Qi Gathering realm who clearly deferred to him. On the other hand, his realm or the fact that he was a cultivator at all was completely opaque due to his Hide Cultivation perk.

Ma An was obviously having trouble figuring out the correct form of address.

Benton responded by cupping his hands and barely inclining his head briefly, basically saying that not only was he a cultivator but his cultivation was much higher than the other man. “I have some wood to sell and was told this was the place.”

Ma An was slightly taken aback. “My apologies, Esteemed Cultivator, but this lowly one does not deal in … wood.”

“Really? The mayor of Prosperous Gray Forest Village said that this warehouse was my best bet. I guess I’ll move to the next merchant.”

The man looked stunned. “Wait! Prosperous Gray Forest Village? Let me see this wood!”

He rushed out the door before Benton could say a word. He and Yang Xiu quickly followed.

“Orange Vigor Spirit Wood! It really is Orange Vigor Spirit Wood. It’s been years since we’ve seen any.” He turned back to Benton. “This lowly one will buy it. The entire load. This lowly one promises that no one will offer more.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-four thousand taels.”

Benton tilted his hands. “This stuff is really scarce, right? According to the mayor, it’s been at least three years since anyone possible could have made a delivery, and there’s no guarantee when, if ever, you’ll see more. I was thinking seventy-five thousand taels."

He didn’t really want to soak the guy, but he needed to gain an understanding of exactly how much the wood was worth.

Ma An grimaced. “This lowly one doesn’t think that anyone can pay seventy-five. The best the Heavenly Transit Mercantile Association can do is … fifty? That amount, quite honestly, is cutting deeply into profit margins.”

“What if I had two more wagon loads?”

“This lowly one would take them both for the same price, of course.”

Yeah. So, fifty thousand wasn’t eating too deeply into his profit margins, then, since he was that willing to buy the entire shipment. Eking every cent out of the situation wasn’t nearly as important as establishing a good relationship, though.

“And future loads, if any?” Benton said.



Ma An frowned. “If it’s regular, yearly or more often, this lowly one would have to cut back to … thirty? But every three years or longer? This lowly one could continue to pay fifty.”

“Next set of questions. I need spears suitable for Foundation Establishment cultivators, and I was thinking some of the branches in these loads would made a decent base material. Is that correct? And if so, how much would taking out that material deduct from the price you’re paying? And do you know someone who can do whatever crafting is necessary?”

“How many spears does the Esteemed Cultivator need?”

That was a tough question to answer. Ideally, Benton would get a spear for all his disciples for now and into the immediate future, but he didn’t want the guy to know it was for a sect or suspect that he was raising an army or something.

“A hundred?” Benton said. “I travel a lot, and my experience has been that finished weapons of a decent quantity are a trade good that can purchase items where mere silver and spirit coins can’t.”

Ma An nodded knowingly. “Absolutely understandable. If the Esteemed Cultivator is willing to spend the necessary amount to have a correspondingly strong metal for the tip, spears made from Orange Vigor Spirit Wood are highly sought after. They’re almost impossible to break even up to the peak of Golden Core, and they channel qi phenomenally well once they are treated correctly.”

“So how much total?”

The guy hesitated for a moment, clearly calculating in his head. “This lowly one would deduct a pittance, say a thousand taels total, for the base material. The woodworking required and the alchemical treatment would run maybe a hundred total. And for the metal… Another five hundred per. The final product, though, would easily sell for thousands unless the Esteemed Cultivator floods the market.”

Sixty-one thousand taels total for one hundred spears rated for Foundation Establishment cultivators? Honestly, that was much better than Benton had expected.

“Done.”

There were still some logistics to get through, but the results of the day’s dealing would end with him nearly one hundred fifty thousand taels richer, and the only thing he owed out of that vast amount was two wagons full of mortal level supplies and rations. He doubted that total for that would be more than fifty thousand.

Nice! What a cash grab.