Chapter 6, Selling Artifacts and Buying Herbs

Translator: Raznick

 

Compared to Clear Valley, the Red Cliffs Market was a much bigger place.

 

This marketplace was built on a mountain reaching close to a thousand meters in height. The entire peak, along with several nearby hills, had been incorporated into the market. It contained over a hundred various shops.

 

Zhou Chun walked in and looked around; it was easy to see cultivators moving about on the mountain.

 

This bustling scene truly deserves the name being called a market.

 

The market was naturally safe. Zhou Chun wandered around, looking this way and that, then strolled through the marketplace, searching for an opportunity to inquire about regarding Zhou Clan’s whereabouts.

 

Since the last assassination attempt, Zhou Chun had been extremely cautious while gathering information.

 

He couldn’t aford to let others associate him with the Zhou Clan, thereby harboring malevolent intentions towards him.

 

Zhou Chun shopped around the market for a while and quickly found a promising store to go inside.

 

The small shop, named Wu’s Asorted Goods, was not very large. Inside, there was no one attending it except for an elderly man in a blue robe sitting on a chair, perusing a book.

 

When Zhou Chun entered, the old man in blue first looked at him and then, upon realizing he wasn’t a regular, lazily said, “Greetings, Fellow Daoist. Everything we sell is listed up there, with fair prices for young and old alike.”

 

After finishing, he immediately turned towards the white cloth hanging on the wall beside him, completely covered in black characters.

 

Looking at his demeanor, there was not a care about cattering to customers.

 

However, Zhou Chun knew that this was the normal state of this world.

 

Those who opened shops here were either of high cultivation, possessing substantial wealth, or had special skills.

 

Or jus maybe they were stores opened by sects or clans, managed by their disciples.

 

Regardless of the situation, they had a far more esteemed status compared to ordinary rogue cultivators.

 

In this situation, expecting them to treat a Qi Refining cultivator who come to the shop as honored guests was out of the question.

 

Moreover, even in his previous world, among street-side shops capable of doing this, there weren’t many. It was already good that they didn’t treat customers rudely just because their stores were bigger!

 

Zhou Chun, of course, wouldn’t mind the old man’s attitude.

 

He didn’t look at what was written on the white cloth but merely bowed to the old man and said, “Good day, Sir. I have a few random artifacts here. Does your store happen to buy such things?”

 

“You’re selling artifacts?”

 

The old man in green robes paused, then set down his book and squinted at Zhou Chun.

 

Looking at Zhou Chun’s youthful and handsome face, he frowned slightly, as if he couldn’t believe that such a young junior could be a bandit who made his living by killing for treasure.

 

Then again, if not a bandit, with Zhou Chun age and cultivation, how could he possibly have extra artifacts to sell?

 

The old man in green robes had a flurry of thoughts, and after a while, he nodded slightly, saying, “Then bring out the items so I can take a look. If there’s no issue, our store might consider buying them off you.”

 

This kind of sundry shop was known for selling everything and where practically everything was for sale.

 

Zhou Chun didn’t say much, and directly took out the treasures from the two cultivators he killed, as well as the two inferior first-grade artifacts from his own possession.

 

Artifacts, mystical arts, talismans, pills, and arrays were graded according to their quality.

 

In general, they were divided into first grade, second grade, and third grade, and then further subdivided into three small groups: inferior, average, and high.

 

Basically, first-grade artifacts were used by Qi Refinement cultivators, second-grade artifacts corresponded to Foundation Establishment Stage cultivators, and third-grade artifacts corresponded to Violet Palace cultivators.

 

The value of an artifact not only depended on its rank, but also its use and performance when it came to assessing its worth.

 

Zhou Chun pulled out several artifacts at this point, all of which were single-purpose attack items with no standout special abilities—mere tools for newcomers just starting their journey in the cultivation world.

 

After a thorough inspection, the two artifacts he obtained by killing the two rogue cultivators were returned to him by the robed old man. He only kept the two items that had truly been discarded by Li Han and himself.

 

He said, “The quality of these two items is still decent; it shows that the refiner did a good job. Our store is willing to buy them back for twenty spirit coins each.

 

“Regarding these other two, it’s best you to take them to the open market. There, you might find some newly arrived cultivators willing to buy them off you.”

 

This outcome left Zhou Chun feeling somewhat frustrated for those two rogue cultivators who had met their end at his hands.

 

The two fellows were using magic tools that wouldn’t even be accepted by a general store, indicating just how destitute they truly were.

 

At this point, he could only follow the advice of the elderly man and took the two artifacts. Then, one by one, he accepted forty spirit coins from the elder.

 

After leaving Wu’s Assorted Goods, Zhou Chun followed the shopkeeper’s suggestion and went to the open market.

 

The open market was a place that every town in the cultivation world has, where cultivators engaged in free trade. It was also a place where counterfeit goods ran rampant.

 

You just needed to pay one spirit coin as a stall fee to the management of the market, and you could set up shop for the day, or even meditate and cultivate.

 

The precondition was that one could detach themselves to cultivate in such a noisy environment.

 

When Zhou Chun arrived at the Red Cliff Market in Cloud Province, he noticed that the number of cultivators here was indeed much higher. Among them, about half were setting up stalls while the other half browsed through them.

 

Since cultivators generally prefered tranquility, unless they encountered situations where prices were difficult to agree upon, the market would be too noisy.

 

Zhou Chun actually saw a few rogue cultivators who had merely placed some items at random in front of their stalls as a pretense, sitting cross-legged with their eyes closed, feigning cultivation.

 

Seeing this situation, Zhou Chun pondered slightly before also depositing a spirit coin to set up his own stall, displaying two artifacts and several random items on it.

 

Of course, Zhou Chun’s actual aim wasn’t just setting up a stall but using the guise of selling items to chat casually with several rogue cultivators who were also selling their wares, hoping to subtly gather information about what he wanted to know.

 

In just under two days at the open market in the commercial district, Zhou Chun successfully sold two artifacts. One was sold for thirteen spirit coins and another for fourteen spirit coins.

 

But gathering information proved to be anything but smooth. Many of the rogue cultivators who set up stalls here had heard about the disbandment of the Three Absolute Sect, but none knew where the Zhou Clan had gone after breaking away from the sect.

 

Zhou Chun, seeing this, could only suppress his impatience and continued waiting in the marketplace for an opportunity.

 

On the third day he arrived in the market, a rogue cultivator at the Tenth Layer of Qi Refining Stage suddenly approached.

 

The old man, whose hair had a few streaks of white, as soon as he set up his stall, placed more than ten items on it. Among these were recently picked magical herbs, ores dug from unknown places, and slightly damaged artifacts.

 

As soon as they saw this situation, the gazes of many cultivators running stalls turned strange when looking at the old man.

 

Generally speaking, such cultivators who sell everything were likely to be bandits roaming the world killing people and looting their possessions.

 

Or even if one wasn’t a bandit, they were closely connected to them, responsible for assisting bandit cultivators in dealing with the treasures they had seized.

 

But thinking aside, unless something on this stall was related to someone they cared about, no one would meddle in other people’s affairs.

 

On the contrary, most of the time, since the items handled by bandits were slightly cheaper than market prices, they often attracted many cultivators eager for a bargain.

 

However, when these greedy cultivators inquired about the prices and found them exorbitant, they were instantly furious and left with a sweep of their sleeves.

 

The old man ran a stall and yet his prices weren’t cheaper than the market rate, leaving little room for profit through reselling.

 

Thus, the people who had gathered before quickly dispersed.

 

Zhou Chun, standing by, suddenly caught a glimpse and also inquired about the price.

 

“Fellow Daoist, greetings. May I inquire about the price of this herb?”

 

He pointed to a yellow-white ginseng on the stall, still covered with some soil on its roots.

 

“Wild ginseng with a cultivation of over 150 years. Twenty-four spirit coins each, final offer!”

 

The old man glanced up at Zhou Chun and quoted a price in a mild tone.

 

Zhou Chun, upon hearing this, couldn’t help but furrow his brow and say, “The wild ginseng has too much Savage Qi buildup; you need to remove that before it can be used in medicine. Twenty plus spirit coins is a bit steep, wouldn’t you say?”

 

The old man, upon hearing these words, immediately frowned in displeasure. “Hmph. If it weren’t for the methods to remove the Savage Qi from ingredients being monopolized by those sects and clans, how could a century-old herb sell for so few spirit coins?”

 

After saying that, he glared at Zhou Chun and said, “Youngster, you either buy or stand aside and leave me alone.”

 

“Ah, I was just kidding. Fellow Daoist, no need to get angry. Businessmen always haggle over prices, you know.”

 

Zhou Chun shook his head and cast a glance over the other herbs on the stall, saying: “Alright then. I’ll take all these herbs off your hands. In return, can you give me a small discount for buying them in bulk?”

 

The old man, upon hearing this, remained as impassive as ever and said coldly, “No deal. I won’t go a coin lower. If just one is short, I might as well have them all processed at the alchemy shop!”

 

Zhou Chun, seeing this, immediately softened his tone and looked at the old man with a pleading expression, saying, “Can’t you compromise a little? Look at it as helping a junior out. It’s not easy for someone of my level to earn spirit coins, and you yourself used to be a low-level cultivator when you were young, so you should understand.

 

“Hmph, if I help you, who will help me?”

 

The old man spoke with a cold expression on his face.

 

Then, with a mocking look, he said to Zhou Chun, “Don’t play the victim with me. For someone your age to have such cultivation, you must be from a prestigious clan, wanting to buy herbs at low prices and resell them to your clan, right? A blind man can see it!”

 

“Ahem, Fellow Daoist, that’s not my intention at all.”

 

Zhou Chun awkwardly cleared his throat and denied it immediately.

 

Although he indeed had such thoughts, they were different from what the old man had said.

 

The old man clearly wouldn’t believe him, merely snorting derisively.

 

In the end, Zhou Chun had to purchase the ginseng for the price of twenty-four spirit coins.