17 **Chapter 17: Merchants Arrival**

The sun had not even risen on the beautiful Tuesday morning, but the streets were already filled with people. All of them were heading in the direction of the harbor, as the news had spread that the night before the merchant caravan had arrived on Fei Yu island.

As I reached the harbor, I saw what must have been at least 5000 people standing and waiting like I was. From guesswork, I would say that about half were from the Fei Yu clan and the other half were loose cultivators living on Fei Yu Island.

In the harbor, which had a half-moon shape, lay hundreds of ships. Some were very small, only enough to hold one or two shops, and some were absolute giants. Only about a dozen of them actually lay in the harbor, as this was all the harbor could hold and most others had just thrown their anchors in the open sea near the harbor.

The ships were still holding a kind of formation, with the biggest ship that was 250 meters long and 50 meters high floating in the middle of that formation. There were anywhere from 5 to 20 meters between the ships.

The situation on land was a lot more crowded; the people stood shoulder to shoulder. This was the case for every place except in front of the largest boat that had docked in our harbor.

It was not because people did not want to stand there, but because of the three people that did: two had a Yellow armband and one had a purple armband.

The youngest of them, surprisingly, was the clan leader, with black hair that was barely a few millimeters long. He looked barely older than 30 years. I had only seen him once, about two years ago when he advanced to rank 5 and took the position of clan leader. Before him, the clan leader was a very old rank 5 upper stage Gu Master who died just a few months after the current clan leader took over.

The other two Elders next to him were very well-known in the clan. The oldest and arguably most politically powerful elder of the clan, the First Elder Shi Lin. She was also the only female rank 4 Elder in the clan.

As well as the richest Elder, who also happened to be my father's direct superior, Jun Guo. He is also the one that has the most business with the caravan as all excess Gu that have been refined by his refinement Hall in the last half-year will be sold to them in this week.

After 15 minutes of waiting, the sun began to rise. As the first rays of the sun began to hit my face…

*Click*

*Click*

*Click*

All the boats opened some doors that they had on the side simultaneously. This process took only about 5 seconds before the next phase started.

*Swoosh*

*Swoosh*

*Swoosh*

All of a sudden, hanging bridges shot out of some of the ships and connected to other ships. Ten seconds ago, there were only a lot of ships individually, and now there is a kind of spider's web that connects all the ships together.

'The Merchant Caravans here are a lot cooler than they were in the original novel. Also, these Bridges are definitely Gu, or this would not have been this fast..'

This was all the preparation the Merchant Caravan needed, no unloading the wares, no setting up stalls, no they just connect their ships and have their shops on there ready to go. This saves them a lot of time in the grand scheme of things.

I get thrown out of my thoughts by a man walking down the stairs and onto land from the biggest of the ships in the harbor.

I squint my eyes to get a better look at him, then I see it: five rings on his hand, each a different color: green, red, silver, gold, and the last was purple. This is how the Ren can identify their Gu Masters' rank, and this harmless-looking old man is evidently a rank 5 Gu Master, the peak of the mortal world.

The two rank 5s of the different clans talk for about 3 minutes. I cannot understand what is being said, but the exchange seems to be mostly pleasantries. Then both of them go onto the ships, the two rank 4 elders following closely behind.

Another 3 minutes after all the big shots have disappeared, a rank 3 Gu Master, who seems to be a guard on the ship, steps out and shouts:

"The Caravan is open now!"

The masses start to move, but I am not in a hurry; I wait for the overly eager ones to disappear and dissipate onto the boats. At an hour, this honestly took longer than I expected.

'Let's first ask for directions…'

With that, I go onto the boat and walk up to the rank 3 guard.

"Sorry Sir, if I wanted to buy a Burn Healing Gu, where would I go."

"Oh little one, you just go left here, go over the bridge, and then two times left. Second story on that ship, there is a store called Fiery Ru's."

"Thank you, Sir!"

'I can get away with bothering this rank 3 because his benefits are directly linked to this caravan making money.'

Now my thought behind asking to buy that Gu is that he would be more likely to answer, and if they sell it, they have to get it from somewhere, hence they will be more likely to buy it from me.

'Fiery Ru's, sounds a lot like fire path, I am optimistic about this store.'

The way there was exactly as described. Once there, I go up to the Gu Master and ask.

"If I wanted to buy a Firestop Bleeding Gu and a Burn Healing Gu, what would that cost me?"

"That is a good combination of Gu, young man. The Burn Healing Gu costs 350, and the Firestop Bleeding Gu costs 250. Do you want them? If you don't take them now, just know I don't have that many of them and I don't do reservations."

"Why is the Firestop Bleeding Gu so cheap? I always thought it is the better of the two."

"Most just can't handle the pain."

I lean in closer to the man and whisper: "So what if I wanted to sell these two?"

'He seems to get that I don't want to make a fuss about this.'

"500, no negotiation," he whispers back.

'Hmmm… that is a 100 difference, but I do need to keep in mind that I did not negotiate on his selling price at all…. I think that he is giving me a rather fair price to be honest.'

'Who thought that there are people in this world that do not try to rip you off from the start, but I guess you learn something new every day.'

"Sure, but do you have somewhere private?"

"Follow me…"

In the little dingy backroom, things move extremely fast, Gu against stones. In and out in two minutes, the bag of 500 primeval stones entered my Greedy Toad Gu.

+500 primeval stones

17374 primeval stones in total

Two boats over, I sell my Cleansing Frog Gu for 200 primeval stones and my Scent Tracking Gu for 350 primeval stones, both at different stores.

Surprisingly, nobody has even tried to rip me off in any way yet. This could only mean one thing: the rank 5 Gu Master that leads this Merchant Convoy does not allow it. He probably makes an example out of some idiot every few months or so, just for the others to behave.

That leaves me with 17,924 primeval stones, one Delayed Hunger Gu, and a whole lot of wants.

'With this one, I have to be more careful; this is actually one that is quite expensive. I will take my time.'

That said, let's check out a few of those bigger main ships of this Merchant Caravan. There were four I had in mind: the biggest main ship and the three slightly smaller ships that were around the main one in a triangle formation. As I was walking in the direction of the middle of this whole formation, I have to go through a lot of ships as the ships are arranged kind of like a supermarket. Once you enter, you have to go through all of it to maximize the chance of them selling something.

But this was not like the Supermarket, walking through chocolate, chips, and alcohol to get to checkout; nope, this time every stand could be potentially interesting. So, I kept my ears and eyes open, so as not to miss a surprising gem.

A pity, but not surprising, that I did not find anything interesting lying around while making my way to the first of the main ships.

At the entrance of it, there stood about ten young rank 1 Gu master attendants and greeted the customers that entered the door.

And on top of the entrance was a sign that read *Silent Auction*

"Greetings Honorable Elder."

"Welcome, Young Man."

They seemed to have a different way to greet everyone.

"Greetings, Young Master." That is how they greeted me.

'I know these; they make their money by answering actual paying customers' questions, and they will go with you and show you around for the day if you pay enough.'

Pointing up, I said to a skinny rank 1 Gu Master: "Greetings, can you explain to me what this Silent Auction sign means?"

"Of course, Young Master. It's ¼ of a primeval stone for all the questions you want answered and 1 primeval stone for me to go with you for the whole day."

I give him the ¼ of a primeval stone and ask: "So what about the silent auction?"

"Thank you. This ship has multiple silent auctions on it, as in there are stations with Gu on them. The only thing they show is the Gu, what it does, its food, and how long the auction will last."

"If you are interested in buying the Gu, you put in a piece of paper with a password and your bid."

"After the auction is over, you can go to one of the desks in the middle of the ship to see if you have won the bid. If you did, you can buy the Gu for that price."

"Interesting… are there other ships that have a kind of theme like this?"

"You are smart, and right. The other two ships that have the same size as this one do have themes."

With that, he pointed at the other ship that we could see from here.

"Do you see that ship? It only sells slaves; most are mortals, but Gu Masters can also be bought there. As well as all kinds of Gu that would help in enslaving them and ensuring them behaving."

"But if I am honest, servants and sex slaves are still the most popular."

"I understand. Where do you buy or catch these people?"

"Well, not every clan is in a peaceful situation, like your Fei Yu clan is. Most are in some conflict or war actually. So we never had any problems in buying slaves."

"The third big ship just has all kinds of Gu Materials on there. It is not the most interesting, but it makes sense; people have to feed and refine Gu after all."

"Ok, so what about the biggest main ship?"

"That only opens on Sunday, the last day we are here. It will hold a gigantic auction that will last nearly a day. If you go there now, you can only get items appraised to have them auctioned off."

"How would I attend there? Is it paid or with invitation?"

"Every rank 3 and higher of your clan will get an invitation and a private room; everyone else can buy a ticket for 100 primeval stones."

"Also, as it will last a day, I recommend you go there early as the rank 1 materials and Gu will be auctioned off at the start, and as time goes on, it will escalate to higher-ranked and priced items."

"Thank you, back to this ship. It is quite big, is it still divided somehow?"

"Yes, this floor is for rank 1 Gu; they change pretty frequently. And each floor up means Gu that are one rank higher. As the ranks get higher, they stay up for the silent auction for longer."

"If I go around here for a bit and then come back, will you still answer my questions?"

"Yes."

"Well then."

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