Flat Mount City Market

Deeper into the city, the stores started to remind Deon of the superstores found on earth, only they had a unique shaman aesthetic to them. It got to the point that every single shop along the city's central streets was either a giant temple made from some ancient wood, or a massive palace built entirely from jade or marble.

Terros wanted to sell the higher value spirits to these stores. However, he couldn't just walk into any old store and reveal a bunch of spirits which had never before appeared in this city, he needed to be careful about this.

"You wait outside, don't come in. This shop is run by a demonic path group that specialises in anonymity…I also plan to purchase our auction tickets here." Terros instructed.

"Auction tickets? I thought they could only be bought from the Trading House?" Deon blinked, feeling confused by Terros's conflicting descriptions. However, Terros laughed and shook his head.

"Not that auction. These tickets are for a different, perhaps more interesting auction…"

With that, he turned away and made his way into a completely black palace, a strange place which lacked any sort of sign to describe it.

Deon didn't want to stand in the middle of the street looking suspicious, so he entered a store across the street from the black palace. He made sure to choose a store with large windows facing the street. This way, he would notice Terros when he returned.

Until now, Deon had been following Terros quietly whilst listening to the seasoned veteran talk about this city, about the unspoken rules, about how to deal with sly shop attendants, and so on. Deon hadn't bought anything as of yet, so he decided to finally begin his procurement of the many materials that he needed.

"Young lad, did you lose your parents, or maybe your elder?" An old man smiled when he saw Deon walking around his shop, looking at the various things they had for sale. He clearly thought that Deon was a lost child. Deon glanced up and sighed internally.

'Having the appearance of a child certainly has its perks, like reducing suspicion no matter where I go, but at the same time it can be a bit tedious, being treated like a child all the time…' It was a double edged sword, but overall, Deon was still glad to have this appearance for now.

Usually, he would prove his competency by showing off his 2-Star origin energy, but that might be a tad excessive right now. He was only here to buy things, so long as he had money, he would be treated as a customer.

"I have a list of materials that I wish to purchase. Here, please take a look."

Slightly taken aback by this child's polite and formal way of speaking, the old man took the slip of paper from Deon's hand and glanced at it, before pausing. His eyes widened as he read through the 57 materials on this list, until he finally looked up and smiled wryly.

"Young lad, we do indeed sell all of these things…did your teacher send you, where are they now?"

"I'm here to purchase these things for myself. I have enough payment, I estimate the value to be around four 2-Star drop spirits."

The old man blinked in surprise as he pondered for a moment.

"This is about right, perhaps slightly low, I'd say-"

Whoosh!

Deon immediately summoned four 2-Star drop spirits and placed them in the elder's palm. With a smile, he closed the old man's hand around this extremely sudden payment.

"I'm glad to hear that your store sells what I need, I'll entrust you with gathering everything whilst wait here. Many thanks elder." With that, Deon turned away and began examining the boards plastered across the walls here, walking around slowly and nodding now and then.

The old man swallowed and quietly walked away.

'Genius, this child is definitely some genius talent of a large group! Perhaps this is the Trading House's latest prodigy, otherwise how could they entrust a child with four 2-Star drop spirits? This…it's slightly low for these resources, but it's just about acceptable. Hah, this kid really threw me off, I didn't even get the chance to haggle!' The old man sighed again, taking another glance at Deon, before quietly slipping away to collect the requested items.

Deon glanced in the elder's direction, then after confirming he had left, turned back to the board and sighed.

'What language even is this? I can't read it at all…I thought they would use something universal like the intuitive language or ancestral language, not some useless local mortal language…'

After Terros left the black palace, he actually emerged from a discrete exit a quarter mile away from the way he went in. Since this building housed a demonic path sect, there were many entrances and exits, helping the buyers to maintain their anonymity and preventing them from being stalked by people outside of the palace.

"Why'd he go into a shop, I told him to wait here! Damned brat…" Terros grumbled as he entered the store. He came in just in time to see Deon waving his hand, producing a grey flash of light.

The grey flash of light came from the grey box spirit. The grey box spirit was a fairly typical spirit used to store resources or anything else without life. It had a 1 cubic metre capacity and was pretty useless to Deon, but it was necessary to flash this spirit about whenever he used his spatial ring, in order to avoid suspicion.

Before Deon placed the purchased resources into his spatial ring, he quickly thanked the old man, but brushed him off when he inquired into their background.

"Find what you need?" Deon asked Terros as they left this place and quickly moved along.

"I did. I got us two auction tickets and sold the first set of platinum body tempering spirits, haha! That's one set down, three more sets to go!"

"How much did you make?" Deon asked curiously. He quickly added: "If I find out that you've scammed me, I'll abandon the mountain war without a word at the worst possible moment. Also, I'll hire Shi to assassinate you."

"Damn, isn't that a bit much?!" He stared at Deon with a pale face, changing his mind and deciding to be truthful…for now.

"I made 320 2-Star drop spirits."

"So much from one set?" Deon's eyes widened in surprise.

"Value varies depending on demand." Terros explained. "I've personally seen these spirits sell for three times this much in auctions further West, but also as low as half this much to the South. Spirits sell for totally different prices depending on where you go and who you sell to, this is the most we're realistically going to make. Anyway, I'll pay you with your half when we return to the our accommodation in the outer city."

Deon nodded slowly. He knew that Terros was right, it was all about supply and demand.

"How about you, did you buy your refining materials?" Terros asked.

"Mm, I managed to find everything on the first list." Deon nodded happily.

Before they set out into the inner city, Terros asked to look through everything that Deon was looking to buy. Deon agreed and took Terros's advice, splitting everything up into 12 different lists. The idea was to buy the materials on one list at each store, since requesting everything at once would be way too much. It was unlikely that every store would be able to complete a full list, but Deon was going to try his best to find everything he desired.

They spent the rest of the day walking around this region of the city, not heading further in for now, mostly because the influence of the righteous path grew stronger in the centre of the city, but also because they still needed to visit a couple of demonic path stores.

Deon also needed to visit those stores in order to request some of his materials…righteous path sects definitely wouldn't sell preserved human hearts.

Terros looked at him weirdly after seeing human hearts and brains on his shopping list, but as it turned out, he knew exactly where to source these things without any trouble.

"I see, so they're actually ingredients to refine demon type spirits!" Terros exclaimed, showing a look of having been enlightened. "You know, I've been to this store six times now and I always wondered why the lowest floor deals in human remains. The underground floor must be specifically for demon type spirit refinements!"

Demon type spirits were the most infamous spirits of all, it was impossible to refine a single one of these spirits without causing grievous harm to countless living beings, or perhaps inhuman levels of torturous suffering to a single living creature.

To Deon, spirits were spirits, and demon type spirits were far cheaper to refine than most.

So what if he inflicted harm on others? Deon did not care if he needed to sacrifice a life, ten lives, a hundred lives, or a thousand lives!

Life was not precious at all, it was present in abundance across the continent, and for this reason, Deon held a deep interest in demon type spirits.

He had seen that power of a demon type spirit from his own core spirit. The formidable battle prowess of these spirits, combined with their low cost refinements, made demon type spirits the perfect spirit type to pursue in great depth!