The wide street could accommodate several spirit beast carriages driving side by side.
The street was paved with coarse, dark green stone slabs that had been worn smooth and reflective by countless footsteps. A few deep claw marks, clearly left many years ago, could still be seen etched into the stone.
Rows of stalls lined the roadside. Some were simple storefronts constructed from the shells of sea beasts, while others were merely spiritual cloths spread directly on the ground with goods neatly arranged on top.
Beast pelts, scales, beast cores, fish bones, aquatic spiritual plants... Various goods were sorted and piled high like small mountains, shimmering with faint spiritual light. Everything was a product harvested from the sea.
Shen Qingci was in no hurry to sell. She strolled down half the length of the main street, slowly getting a feel for the local market rates.
In this place, there were no sect laws or regulations; they only recognized spirit stones.
The stall owners priced their goods entirely based on the customer. If they saw someone with hidden cultivation and ordinary clothes, they would open their mouths and demand exorbitant prices.
But if the customer showed even a hint of confidence, they would instantly change their tune, flipping their attitudes faster than one could turn the pages of a book.
She browsed several shops in the spiritual materials market on the eastern side of the street, not daring to take the scales off her back. There were many places here that bought sea beast materials, but the price differences were vast.
Some of the smaller shops drove incredibly hard bargains. Seeing Shen Qingci's wretched appearance, they immediately slashed their offers to less than thirty percent of the market value.
They even mumbled nonsense like, “Thunderstorms have been frequent lately, so we've bought too many beast materials. We can't sell them for a good price.”
Shen Qingci remained noncommittal and simply turned to leave.
When she reached the middle of the street, a three-story gray stone building caught her eye on the right. A plaque with a black background and gold lettering hung above the door, reading “Haiyue Pavilion.”
The guiding stones at the entrance were made of deep-sea fish bones, and the threshold was half a cun higher than other shops. At a glance, it was clearly an establishment accustomed to high-end business.
She stepped inside.
At this moment, Shen Qingci looked like a literal bloody mess.
Bloody scabs and sand clung to her skin, and her messy long hair stuck to the side of her neck.
Several Qi Refining stage clerks by the counter looked over in unison, their brows furrowing deeply enough to crush a sea fly.
A younger clerk was about to step forward to block her, but before he could even move his feet, a single glare from Shen Qingci froze him in his tracks.
The look was neither fierce nor harsh; it was merely a cold, detached gaze of someone who was exhausted to the point of collapse and couldn't be bothered to waste their breath.
The clerk's throat tightened. In the end, he didn't dare to stick his neck out and quietly retreated behind the shelves.
The main hall was spacious. Various sea beast materials were properly sealed in jade boxes or spiritual cloths. Two Foundation Establishment stage managers stood before the shelves, introducing the wares to customers.
Behind the counter sat a middle-aged female cultivator at the late Golden Core stage. An ivory-jade abacus lay beside her hand as she kept her head down, reviewing a ledger.
“What are you selling, young friend?” The female cultivator looked up. Her eyes swept over Shen Qingci, and a flicker of realization crossed her face.
Shen Qingci unloaded the scales from her back onto the counter and lined up the four bone spikes one by one.
Only then did the female cultivator set aside her ledger and reach out to inspect them.
She first pinched the edges of the scales, then scraped the inner side of a plate with her fingernail, and finally released her divine sense to probe each set of scales one by one.
“Back plates of a Shuttle-Tailed Lizard. The thickness of the plates is decent, but the edges were peeled in a rush, which discounts their quality a bit.” She picked up a bone spike, squinting at its tip.
“Hmm, the spike isn't hollow, and the core is intact. They were harvested less than a day ago, so their spiritual nature is still quite abundant.”
Shen Qingci showed no emotion upon hearing this.
The female cultivator's words were only half-true.
The scales did have a few hastily peeled edges, but the damage was entirely on the outer perimeter, without any cracks or splits. Moreover, the spiritual membrane on the inner walls of the plates had been cleanly stripped, making them perfectly fine to be refined in a cauldron.
The bone spikes were even of superior quality. Their cores were solid, and since they had been harvested less than a day ago, the dissipation of spiritual energy was negligible—nowhere near as severe as she claimed.
“Name your price,” Shen Qingci said.
The female cultivator flicked the beads of her abacus a few times. “Thirty-five mid-grade spirit stones for the four sets of scales. Sixty for the four bone spikes combined.”
Shen Qingci tapped her finger on the edge of the scales.
“These three damaged spots are all on the outer edges. There are no cracks, and there are no splits. I cleanly stripped the spiritual membrane on the inner walls of the plates, so refining the whole plate in a cauldron won't be an issue at all.”
“The bone spikes have solid cores and were harvested less than a day ago, so their spiritual energy has barely dissipated. Eighty-five. I won't sell for a single stone less.”
The female cultivator stopped flicking her abacus, and her divine sense slowly swept over Shen Qingci's face.
The blood-stained woman before her was only at the early Foundation Establishment stage, utterly disheveled, with the wounds on her shoulder and leg still unhealed. Yet, facing a late Golden Core stage cultivator like herself, the girl showed remarkable courage. Was she not afraid of being unable to walk out of this shop alive?
This imposing aura matched her previous speculation.
She looked like a disciple from a great family out on a trial. One had to wonder how long she could hold out at the Soul-Severing Cliff.
“Seventy, and I'll throw in three bottles of Yellow-grade Low-rank Blood-Stopping Powder,” the female cultivator offered.
“No need for the Blood-Stopping Powder. Exchange it for a bottle of Yellow-grade Mid-rank Qi-Returning Pills,” Shen Qingci countered.
The female cultivator paused for a breath before nodding in agreement.
Shen Qingci collected the spirit stones and pills, then walked out of Haiyue Pavilion.
Seventy mid-grade spirit stones were enough for her to live in Leiyuan Market for several months.
She didn't linger on the main street. Turning into the row of shops on the western section, she found an artifact shop called “Suixing Workshop.”
Her aunt was quite ruthless; she hadn't even left her Jinglei.
When a low-level sword cultivator lost their sword, thirty percent of their capabilities vanished instantly.
Right now, she hadn't even grazed the edge of sword intent, and she was even less willing to fight above her realm empty-handed.
A dozen or so swords hung at the entrance. Inside, an old cultivator was hammering a half-finished spiritual armor, sending sparks from the earth fire scattering all over the floor.
Shen Qingci went in and browsed around.
Most of the swords in the shop were unremarkable. Hanging on the walls and piled on the floor, they ranged from Yellow-grade Low-rank to Mystic-grade Low-rank.
In a corner sat a greyish-white longsword. It was three chi long, with no tassel or ornaments, and its hilt was sloppily wrapped in rough hemp rope.
Shen Qingci's gaze locked onto that sword!
“Fellow Daoist, how much is this sword?” she asked.
The old cultivator poked his head out from behind the spiritual armor and began to make things up on the fly. “Yellow-grade Low-rank. It was forged with a few fragments of Thunder-Tempered Stone and low-grade cold iron. It carries a trace of lightning spiritual force, so it's pricier than ordinary low-rank artifacts. Twenty mid-grade spirit stones.”
Shen Qingci knew the tricks of the trade all too well. She paid the spirit stones without hesitation and walked out of the artifact shop.
Afterward, she purchased three more bottles of Qi-Returning Pills, two bottles of Blood-Stopping Powder, and two sets of clothes from the market.
These items were the standard setup for a Foundation Establishment stage rogue cultivator. She packed them into an old storage bag and hung it from her waist.
As dusk fell, the spiritual lamps on both sides of the main street lit up one after another. She walked through several side alleys behind West Street and found an inn called “Haitao Residence.”
It was a dusty two-story building with a quiet, desolate courtyard.
She requested the cheapest single room, which cost ten low-grade spirit stones a night. The door was narrow and the soundproofing was poor, but it was still far better than sleeping out on the tidal flats.
Once inside the room, she first set up a simple sensory array at the door and window, and slapped on two warning talismans purchased from a sundries stall before finally taking off her outer robe, which was drenched in sea salt and the stench of blood.
Sitting on the edge of the stone bed, she cleaned her wounds once more, sprinkled the Blood-Stopping Powder over them, and wrapped them tightly with fine cloth.
This medicine was vastly superior to her own makeshift treatments. The swelling around the edges of her wounds quickly subsided, leaving behind only a few scabs of varying depths.
She sat cross-legged and began to circulate her cultivation method.
The familiar lightning spiritual force flowed from her dantian, traveling along her meridians.
Her physical body, having been tempered by twelve heavenly tribulation lightning strikes, recovered at a speed far exceeding that of ordinary people. However, because her spiritual energy had been suppressed too severely earlier, her meridians felt somewhat sluggish.
She swallowed a Qi-Returning Pill. Only after about two shichen did her spiritual energy recover to forty percent.
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