23 Negotiations

After leaving the inn, Tianlong wasn't in a hurry to check the spirit pool.

The two of them leisurely started walking on the streets.

Most of the trees here had been cut by the cultivators for housing and other purposes. As such, the canyon was receiving more sunlight than the rest of the forest.

Due to the presence of beast repelling medicines and Yin Yang Cleansers in the valley, the beasts refrained from attacking this place.

Needless to say, the valley had become the cultivator's haven.

Many cultivators had opened their own personal stalls. Unsurprisingly, the most common items sold here were related to demonic beasts.

When Qingxue saw a person selling hatchlings of Sixteen-legged Black Widow Spiders, she wanted to buy them for him.

He immediately refused.

"But you can keep them as pets!" she protested.

"I don't trust something that walks on so many legs." He shook his head.

She was dejected. "I just wanted to buy something for you… Aren't birds supposed to love insects?"

Tianlong was speechless.

How could she compare demons to ordinary animals?

"If you really want to buy it, then sure, go on. You can gift it to someone with a foot fetish. I'm sure they'll appreciate the gesture."

He just casually shrugged it off.

As they visited various shops, they were delighted by the fact that everything here was almost half the price as compared to Brightmoon city.

But it was to be expected, they were in the mountains where beast related resources were in abundance and due to so many cultivators being present here, their prices were further deflated.

As the majority of them didn't possess interspatial rings, they frequently needed to go outside the mountain to sell their accumulation. Carrying too many resources with them often caused them to become lucrative targets of beasts and humans alike.

According to some, getting out of the forest was even more dangerous than entering it.

Tianlong bought a Purple python's marrow, earthen badger's corpse and a few other natural treasures with wood or metal Qi.

They were for the preparation for the Diamond Carapace stage.

Unfortunately, he couldn't find any items with wind and lightning attributes but that was to be expected since they were heavenly elements.

Qingxue was also browsing through the various shops searching for spiritual herbs and other refining materials.

But since, herbs didn't consume space like beast corpses, people weren't selling herbs as much as the latter.

So although her harvest was quite good, it couldn't compare with his.

"There's nothing much to see here. Let's go to the location of the spirit pool." Tianlong said.

"Right."

As the two continued to move forward towards the location of the pool, Qingxue quickly swept her eyes over all the nearby stalls to check if she had missed something. Just as she was about to look away, she suddenly came to a halt.

Tianlong noticed her action. Following her gaze, he saw a stall at the corner presided by a bull demon.

"Found something interesting?" He spoke in a hushed voice.

Furrowing her eyebrows, she hesitated for a moment before speaking, "Can you see those ginsengs on his stall?"

Due to his Roc lineage, his vision was almost ten times better than ordinary humans. Needless to say, he was clearly able to perceive the item she was talking about.

It was a batch of pitch-black ginsengs with purple roots shooting out of its edges.

"Isn't that just Night Ginseng? If my memory serves me correctly, then people with digestive problems use them to calm their upset stomach." He shot a look at her stomach.

Qingxue glared at him and slapped his hands. "What nonsense are you thinking? Look… don't you think the roots and body of the ginseng look mismatched? The root hair is straight and glossy while the body itself has so many rings. Also, their shape is oddly similar to each other, while as far as night ginsengs go, they all come in random shapes…"

Following her words, he saw that their roots were straight and silky, which showed that they were still in their infancy stage. However, the large number of rings on their bodies indicated that they were fairly old.

"So what does it mean?"

While his knowledge about herbs might be greater than her, she had handled more herbs than him.

"I have no idea." She shook her head "It can be some different variety of the Night Ginseng …or just a defective product."

"Well, there's only one way to find out." He quickly said some words to her and the two went separate ways.

Walking in slow and steady steps, Tianlong reached the stall. It was filled with grasses and beast bones.

The shopkeeper was a Bull demon with a humanoid body, the head of a bull and hooves as feet. He was over 8 feet tall with bulging muscles, red eyes and shiny white horns. The white robe he was wearing over his shiny black skin created a strange sense of aesthetic.

Unlike other stalls which were mostly selling demonic beasts materials, his stall was mostly filled with herbs and beast bones.

Tianlong rubbed his chin as he inspected the bones and herbs on the stall.

"How much for these?" Pointing at a few bones, he asked.

"The elephant tusk is six spirit stones, the rhino skull is four spirit stones, the rest of them are all sold at three bones for one spirit stone. That'll be twenty-five spirit stones." He said in a deep voice.

"You are asking way too much!" He clicked his tongue in dissatisfaction.

"No, it isn't! Can't you see that that the elephant tusk is from the Iron Mammoths?"

"Fifteen spirit stones!" He said with a decisive voice. "So, what if it is from the Iron mammoth race? Just look at how old these things are, there's almost no spirituality in them!"

"Hmph! If you don't want to buy, just leave! There are plenty of others who will buy them at a much higher rate!" The demon snarled.

"Heh, I'm sure there are plenty of customers who have visited your shop. Maybe that's why everything here is untouched…" Tianlong openly ridiculed him.

The old demon clenched his fists in frustration. Tianlong could've sworn he saw a faint blush on his skin. Obviously, he had hit the sore spot.

Being a vegetarian, the demon consumed spirit herbs for promoting his cultivation base. That's why most of the herbs he presented here were of low quality. Add that to his intimidating looks and cultivation base, people stayed away from his shop.

"Fine! But I'm only willing to reduce two spirit stones."

"Eighteen spirit stones! Take it or leave it!"

"Twenty spirit stones! That is my bottom line!" He shook his head decisively.

"Alright, twenty it is. But you'll have to throw in the ginsengs."

He put a pouch full of twenty spirit stones on the stall.

Just as the man was about to say something, a female voice resounded from the side "I wouldn't buy them those if I was you."

Both of them looked at her at the same time.

"Would miss care to elaborate?" Tianlong showed a curious expression.

"Just look at the number of rings on its body and its root hair, they are completely mismatched. I say it has a congenital defect, so it'll do more harm to you than good."

Tianlong looked at the ginsengs carefully and showed an enlightened expression.

"Fellow cultivator is quite knowledgeable!" Tianlong cupped his hands towards her in respect.

She waved her hand "It was just a small matter. Plus, it's pure speculation on my part; whether to buy them or not… fellow cultivator should make the decision himself."

The demon shot her a glare but she didn't mind. Smiling, she went to another stall nearby.

Just as Tianlong was about to take back his spirit stones, the man hastily put away the pouch.

"Hey, the deal is already sealed. You can't go back on your words now."

"But you also heard what she said..." Tianlong frowned at him.

Seeing his expression, the demon quickly added "Do you really believe the words of an unknown woman? It's not like she's an alchemist."

Tianlong stood there in silence for some time. Finally, with a bitter smile, he gave one last look at the man and mixed with the crowd.

"Seriously, why can't humans mind their own business? If she didn't interfere, I would've been able to sell them for at least five spirit stones…" He gnashed his teeth in anger. The other stall owners around him looked at him with a wary expression. Currently, the demon looked quite frightening.

"Fine, who cares! At least I was able to use them to bargain. I wonder if they defected because I found them in a graveyard…" He consoled himself.

Originally, he had quite a few corpses of demonic beasts with himself. However, their smell attracted a lot of other beasts.

As he was escaping from them, he fell off a cliff and landed on a place full of demonic beast bones, it looked like a huge graveyard.

Though at first delighted, he soon found that majority of the bones had lost their spirituality. However, a mosquito's meat was still meat.

He quickly started scavenging anything valuable among them and found these roots there.

...…

After buying the unknown herb, Tianlong and Qingxue didn't check it immediately. If it turned out to be some kind of treasure, they would only invite trouble upon themselves.

Stealthily keeping most of the materials in their rings, the two of them went inside the cave where the spring was located.

The original crevice in the mountain wall was turned into a huge cavern by the cultivators.

The cave was colder than outside and would have been even colder if not for the burning torches attached to the walls.

Its ceiling was reflecting the faint bluish-white glow of the Spirit liquid. Overall, the atmosphere reminded them of a busy town at night.

There were many cultivators inside the cave. Some of them were mining while some of them searching for treasures underground with spells.

Many people mocked them as naïve.

After all, how could they search for something that even the Jade core realm cultivators couldn't find?

However, none of that was Tianlong's concern. He had come here to see the situation about the spirit spring and if possible, acquire one for himself.

As for the three major powers, he could see three distinct establishments located at the different places of the cave.

After mining out a significant portion of the cave, their group had located quite a few places where the spirit spring's energy was abundant.

However, Tianlong's target was only the Qin Mountain Bandits. Their base lay on the far right side.

Next to them was the Great Serpent Sect, which separated the bandit headquarters from the Alliance Sect.

On the far left side, lay the Alliance sect. That was where most of the crowd was concentrated.

These two sects didn't have any branches outside and were solely located inside the mountain.

"Let's first go to the Alliance Sect, it's the least shady of the three organisations." She said.

"Right."

Within a few minutes, the two reached the Alliance sect's base. The spirit fluctuations of a large number of cultivators could be felt even from the outside.

Once inside, they could see a huge queue of cultivators.

Apparently, each of them came here to buy spirit liquid from the sect.

Instead of joining the line, Qingxue moved towards one of the attendants.

"This miss and master, welcome to the alliance sect. How may I be of service?" A cute female attendant greeted them. As she was speaking, her eyes scanned them from head to toe.

Seeing that Tianlong was only at the first level of Qi condensation, she dismissed him and shifted her complete attention to Qingxue.

"I wish to cultivate inside a spirit pond. I am new here so I don't know the exact procedure."

Everyone wanted to cultivate in a spirit pond as it was almost 20% more effective than just cultivating with the liquid that was extracted from the pond. However, the sect had priced the pond as such that it was almost 50% more costly than just buying it in bottles.

Unless one had a hefty amount of spirit stones, they would just resort to but sealed Spirit Water.

"Hehe. So miss wants to cultivate directly inside a pond." The attendant flashed a smile and started to explain things. "Very well. Then, first of all, you'll have to tell us how long you wish to cultivate. Bear in mind that it cannot exceed 12 hours. And for each hour you spend there, you'll have to pay 5 spirit stones. Also, you'll have to pay half the price before entering a pond."

Upon answering them, she was waiting to see their reaction. It would tell them how heavy their money bags were.

When she noticed that besides raising her eyebrows for a moment, Qingxue didn't say anything, she understood that this much money was nothing to them.

'Hehe, I wish she reserves a spirit pond for the entire twelve hours. I'll surely get a huge commission for bringing such a customer.' A faint smile formed on her face.

As if not noticing the expression on her face, Qingxue continued, "I heard that previously, a lot of aquatic demons had infiltrated the ponds. What measures has the sect taken to guarantee that we'll not be attacked by them while cultivating inside of it?"

The attendant gave a dry cough and replied in a professional tone, "The aquatic beasts are dwelling deep inside the ponds and wouldn't initiate an attack unless one goes in their territory and provokes them. There's a mutual understanding between them and the three powers that we cannot go deeper and likewise, they cannot… "

Qingxue interrupted her, "So you mean to say, there's no form of protection and if they suddenly decide to attack me, I'll be on my own?"

"But they have never attacked anyone inside our base…"

"Never mind. Take me to a pond." Qingxue waved her hand and dismissed the topic.

The attendant sighed in relief and led her towards the inner chambers of the sect.

Once she was in front of a sealed chamber, Qingxue took out 30 spirit stones from her pouch and handed them to her.

"I'm booking this room for twelve hours."

The female attendant smiled widely as she took the spirit stones. Just as she was about to leave and register her name, she remembered something and stopped.

"Oh, I forgot to tell you that it's prohibited to take any Spirit Liquid with you."

Qingxue nodded in response. It was only to be expected.

Before entering the chamber, she looked at Tianlong. "Are you going there now?"

She knew he wasn't going to wait here for twelve hours. He had come here to see the general situation.

"Right, but don't worry, I'll be back here before you finish."

"Don't go too overboard and stay safe." She smiled sweetly and went inside the room.