Sage of Humanity

Emerging from the mountains once more, Lu Ye seemed much more at ease, making his way to the Qingyun Marketplace at the foot of the mountain, and then on to the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union with the familiarity of an old hand.

Without waiting for the maid at the door to inquire, Lu Ye uttered a single word, "Sell!"

Sitting in the private booth, he was once again sipping the Spiritual Tea provided by the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union, but unfortunately, this time he had barely finished a single pot when someone entered.

"I apologize for the wait, Fellow Daoist!"

Accompanying the voice, a middle-aged man entered the booth and bowed to Lu Ye, "I am Liu Quan, it is a pleasure to meet you, Fellow Daoist."

Lu Ye nodded in acknowledgment, and Liu Quan took a seat, getting straight to the point, "May I ask what you are looking to sell, Fellow Daoist?"

Lu Ye took out the ore he had prepared beforehand, of course, the origin magnetic ore being the main attraction. The ore sold last time for those Spirit Stones, much of it was due to the value of the origin magnetic ore.

This time, the origin magnetic ore pieces he took out were a little bigger, and as such, might fetch a slightly higher price.

Liu Quan inspected each piece in turn, and then quoted a price for each one. During this process, Lu Ye remained silent, merely sipping his tea.

Finally, setting down the origin magnetic ore, Liu Quan spoke, "This item is rare in the outer circle and can be priced at thirty-eight Spirit Stones. The total would be fifty-one Spirit Stones. If Fellow Daoist finds this acceptable, then we can proceed with the transaction."

"Can't it go any higher?" Lu Ye looked at him.

Liu Quan shook his head with a wry smile, "It cannot go higher. After these items are collected, they still require experts to refine and extract useful materials from them. If the price were set any higher, then the mercantile union would have no profit margin."

This guy is more difficult to deal with than Liew Ruyin! Lu Ye couldn't help but curse inwardly. Last time, after some bargaining with Liew Ruyin, she immediately added four more Spirit Stones to the offer. Despite being a woman, she was much more straightforward than this Liu Quan.

What he didn't realize was that Liew Ruyin had been willing to raise the price because of an unwritten rule, and she had also hoped to conduct another line of business with him. That's why she had been so forthcoming. Unfortunately, Lu Ye was completely unaware of such a rule and hadn't even given her a tip, which left Liew Ruyin slightly displeased.

Liu Quan, being a man, had no intention of conducting any other sort of business with Lu Ye, naturally adopting a businesslike demeanor.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

After a brief silence, Lu Ye, not wanting to waste more words, took out four storage sacks, "You can open these, can't you?"

These were given to him by Yiyi before, who had mentioned that someone in Qingyun Marketplace could unlock the restriction locks on storage sacks. However, last time Lu Ye had completely forgotten about it.

Liu Quan, with a calm expression, took the storage sacks, evidently used to such requests. After a brief inspection, he said, "If Fellow Daoist wishes our help in opening these, it is certainly possible, but there will be a charge."

"How much?"

Liu Quan named a price.

Lu Ye's face darkened; that price seemed a bit steep.

With a smile, Liu Quan said, "Of course, Fellow Daoist could sell these storage sacks to our mercantile union for this amount each."

He gestured with his hand to indicate the amount.

Lu Ye laughed, "That's even less than what you just quoted me!"

In other words, the number of Spirit Stones required to unlock the storage sacks was in fact more than the amount one would get from selling the storage sacks directly to the mercantile union, which hardly seemed reasonable.

Liu Quan said with a smile, "I understand what you're thinking, Fellow Daoist, but that really is the price. You must understand, the storage sacks of outer circle cultivators are not worth much, and who knows, there might be nothing inside, just an empty sack. The mercantile union will have to assume some risk, hence the price won't be very high.

Of course, if Fellow Daoist wishes to take a gamble and see if there are any treasures worth a fortune inside these storage sacks, you only need to pay a small unlocking fee. It all depends on how Fellow Daoist decides."

Lu Ye remembered the three cultivators who were robbed by Yiyi and big tiger before; there indeed wasn't much of value in their storage sacks.

He immediately got an idea, and after some bargaining with Liu Quan, he sold the four storage sacks for twenty Spirit Stones to the mercantile union.

Adding to the previous amount, that would be seventy-one Spirit Stones!

With the deal concluded, Liu Quan also seemed quite happy and asked, "How would Fellow Daoist like to make the payment? In Spirit Stones or elixir pills?" Experience tales at empire

Lu Ye asked, "Do you have a map of the Spirit Stream battlefield?" He had thought to ask this because he remembered the local wealthy landlord he had met when he first entered the marketplace, who mentioned that maps were sold within the mercantile union.

If he wanted to go to the Righteous Blood Sect's territory, he would have to figure out its exact location first. Having a map would naturally make things more convenient.

Liu Quan immediately became enthusiastic, "Of course we do, which kind of map does Fellow Daoist wish to have?"

"How many kinds do you have?"

"There are three-part maps, seven-part maps, and ten-part maps."

"What's the difference?" Lu Ye couldn't help but frown. It's just a map sale; why all the fuss?

"This is how it is..." Liu Quan began to explain, and as Lu Ye listened to his explanation, he gradually understood the differences between the three types of maps.

In the entire Spirit Stream battlefield, there are countless strongholds of all sizes, after all, the sects from the entire Nine Provinces have their own territories within the battlefield. The powers crisscross and interweave, which means territories often change hands, making map drawing a cumbersome task.

However, the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union had this capability because it had countless branches throughout the entire battlefield. They could easily draw up a map of the entire battlefield by compiling the situations of various regions, an ability that no other power possessed.

A complete map included everything about the strongholds in the Spirit Stream battlefield, detailing the affiliations to various camps and the grades of the sects, as well as marking the various terrains and landscapes of the battlefield.

This was the ten-part map.

The seven-part map was a reduced version of the ten-part map, encompassing only about seventy percent of the strongholds in the battlefield...

And the three-part map was even less detailed, with only thirty percent of the stronghold information, and none of the natural terrains and landscapes that the battlefield originally had...

For Lu Ye, if he were to buy a map, it would definitely be the ten-part map, because the Righteous Blood Sect was only a 9th grade sect, which might not be marked on the three-part or seven-part map. If he bought one and couldn't find the Righteous Blood Sect, it would be a huge loss.

Moreover, there was another advantage to buying the ten-part map; he could always go to the Heaven's Augury Mercantile Union to update the map later. Due to the constant warfare in the Spirit Stream battlefield, territories frequently changed hands—today a territory might belong to the Haotian Alliance, and tomorrow it could belong to the Ten Thousand Demons Ridge.

If one wasn't careful and stumbled into these areas, disaster was certain, so having an up-to-date map could avoid many risks.

However, when Lu Ye asked about the price, he discarded the idea.

A ten-part map sold for six hundred Spirit Stones, even after a discount.

As for the three-part map that Liu Quan highly recommended, it would still cost several tens of Spirit Stones, but what would Lu Ye do with a three-part map?

In the end, he could only conclude the transaction and keep one of the seventy-one Spirit Stones, using the remaining seventy to buy seven bottles with a total of sixty-three Spirit-Nurturing Pills. With so many Spirit-Nurturing Pills, his advancement to the Spirit Stream Level 2 was imminent.