"Where in the world did you get all this!?" Cai'er couldn't help but shout after Lingyue took her into the Red Mist Sky to show her a large stack of one thousand bars of Dragon Saliva Metal, just like the ones she had before.
There shouldn't be this much Dragon Saliva Metal in the entire country. Where in the world had she gotten it all? She'd only been gone for two days.
"I made it." Lingyue said simply, hoping that her friend would calm down soon.
"You MADE it!?" Cai'er said in disbelief. Making Dragon Saliva Metal was supposed to be impossible. No Alchemist had ever done it before. Was it something she learned from the Immortal Red Mist?
"This should be enough to purchase everyone's freedom, right?" Lingyue said, looking at Cai'er with hopeful eyes.
"...Lingyue, who are you planning on selling this to?" Cai'er said, hating the rain on the girl's parade, but needing to be the voice of reason. "This is too much for the Profit House to handle, and the only people with enough money to buy this much Dragon Saliva Metal would be the army, and they would want to know how you got it. If you tell them you made it yourself, it is going to cause problems."
"But I…" Lingyue stared but then just sulked. Cai'er had a point, but this was one of the only ways she could think of to make the money in time.
"...There is one way to sell it all." Cai'er said, causing Lingyue to perk back up. "In the capital, there is a place called the 'Treasure Cave'. You could think of it as an even less regulated and more powerful Profit House that specialized in very expensive and hard to obtain items. All of the wealthiest people in the country, and even some people from abroad, go there in order to buy rare items. If we could talk to the bosses there into selling your products, then we could easily make the money."
"That's great!" Lingyue said with a cheerful smile.
"Yeah, accept that it would be a week of traveling each way between here and the capital and I don't know how long it would take to sell everything. We might end up running out of time." Cai'er said with a shake of the head.
"If travel time is the problem, I can just load everyone inside of the Red Mist Sky and then fly us there." Lingyue said. "I've seen a map, and if I follow the road at full speed, I should make it to the capital in less than an hour."
"..." Cai'er just stared at her friend, not having realized just how convenient high speed travel from flight is when combined with the transporting power of the Red Mist Sky.
If they had to use carriages to transport all of the goods, they would only be able to travel around 150 miles in a day, and that was pushing it since they would have to trial with a caravan in order to avoid the risk of bandits attacking in the night. But Lingyue could fly at speeds that broke the sound barrier, flying much faster than any Spirit Beast. She could easily make a week's journey in just an hour. And since the Red Mist Sky moved with her, she could bring them all too.
"We're going to the capital!?" Meng Anqiu asked, looking up from where she was playing with Mitsuna and Uri. She looked like a child being told that the family was going to go for a picnic.
"Um, I guess we can all go together." Lingyue said, glancing to Cai'er to see if it was alright.
"She should probably stay inside of the Red Mist Sky while we are doing business, but I think that should be time to sight see if you'd like." Cai'er said. "The shopping district up there has a much better selection than what we have here. So it would be a shame to go all the way there and not pick up anything."
"Is that so…" Lingyue said before looking toward her mother, whose eyes were focused on the clear sky above them, Yao standing behind her wheelchair.
Moving about might do Yao, who had been off since the Iron Tongue Sect, some good, but for her mother, who had experienced hell in the streets of the capital…
"Mama, maybe you should stay here with Granny Liu." Lingyue said gently. Cai'er immediately adopted a look of melancholy as well, realizing what Lingyue was saying, though Anqiu just looked confused.
Huangyu closed her eyes and grabbed her dress side of tight fists, before taking a deep breath. "I think that is probably for the best. I don't think I could face that place from inside of this chair."
"Why isn't mama going to come with us?" Anqiu asked, having taken to calling Huangyu mama as well in the last few days. "Wouldn't it be better if we all went together?"
"I'm sorry Anqiu, but the capital holds a lot of bad memories for me. It isn't a place I want to face when I'm not at my best." Huangyu said with a gentle shake of the head. "You all be careful while you're there. I don't want that place to swallow you all up too."
"Don't worry. I know my way around the place and will be sure to keep them out of trouble." Cai'er said, giving the woman a wink.
"I see. Lingyue, make sure that Cai'er doesn't get into too much trouble, okay?" Huangyu said with a smile.
"Hey! That's mean!" Cai'er cried.
"Sorry, I just know who the responsible one is." Huangyu said with a teasing smile.
Lingyue felt as though she missed a lot, even though she had only been gone for two days.
It seems as though during that time, Huangyu and Cai'er mother had bonded, and now Huangyu held a position similar to an Aunt for Cai'er.
Lingyue was glad that her mother's circle of friends was expanding. She hoped it would help to keep her spirits up until she could finish gathering the materials for the Seven Souls Rebirthing Pill.
She had most of the ingredients gathered already. The only two she was missing were a Phoenix Tail Feather and a Nirvana Heart Lotus. After that, the actual creation of the pill would take several weeks.
Lingyue's birthday was next month. She wanted her mother to be healthy again by then.
A Phoenix Tail Feather and a Nirvana Heart Lotus. Perhaps she would be able to find them in the capital.
"I still can't believe it. We were just in Glass City only an hour ago." Cai'er said as she sat in one of the seats of the wagon they were using to transport the goods.
She had borrowed it and the horses from her family and they had loaded them into the Red Mist Sky that morning in order to have a way to inconspicuously move the metal about once they got inside of the city.
"Speed is a specialty of mine." Lingyue admitted.
The two girls were sitting in the back while Meng Yao drove the wagon towards the building which housed the Treasure Cave.
Anqiu had been left in the Red Mist Sky with Mitsuna and Uri until their business was finished. Something that Lingyue was glad of, because she didn't want the girl to have to deal with the stares they were getting. "We're drawing a lot of attention. The masks weren't a good idea." Lingyue said with a glance at their surroundings.
There were a lot of people on the streets and most of them were staring right at her.
"People going to the Treasure Cave with masks on is common. The uncommon thing is what you are doing to your mask." Cai'er said flatly.
Just like before, the Yuan Iron mask was flickering with a lively orange flame that caused Lingyue to stand out in the crowd, even though there were a lot of people in such masks all around.
"So long as no one recognizes you, it's fine." Cai'er said with a shake of the head before looking to a large building at their right. "We're here."
Yao guided the horses in as some people from the Treasure Cave came out to greet them. "May we see your invitations?" One of them asked without pleasantries.
The Treasure Cave wasn't the kind of place where just anyone could go. Only the wealthiest families would receive an invitation and it was one invitation covers one person. Even when her father was known as the 'invincible general', he had only ever received a single invitation from the Treasure Cave. Not enough for all of them.
Not that it mattered.
"You don't need to see our invitations. We are not here to buy, but to sell." Cai'er said to the man.
"Is that so? And what would your party be selling?"
"Dragon Saliva Metal." Cai'er said, lifting the corner of the tarp that they had laid over the bars in the back of the wagon so that the man could see. "One thousand pounds of it."
The greeter's expression immediately changed from disdain to dumbfounded shock. "I… I need to speak to the Third Boss. Please, wait over there. I will only be a moment." The man said before running as fast as he could the way he came.
"I will never understand why people value this metal so much." Lingyue mumbled as she watched the man run, Cai'er chuckling at her comment.
Moments later, the greeter returned with an old man in toe, the Third Boss of the Treasure Cave, He Laosan. The man was the picture of an old man, with gray hair and a hunched back, but Lingyue could immediately tell he wasn't so simple.
He was a good deal stronger than Lan Yingwu was. A Reincarnation Master of a higher level. At least level three, as Lingyue could sense three different types of elemental energy coming from him, though she couldn't exactly identify them. One of them was definitely water though.
After a short greeting the old man started to look over their goods, his eyes measuring all of it with a steady gaze. "It is the real deal. One hundred percent pure Dragon Saliva Metal of the highest quality." He said with a nod of his head. "I'll talk to my second brother and get you access to the Earth floor. You will be permitted to sell your goods there, so long as you obey the rules."
"Thank you, Master San." Cai'er said respectfully nodding her head.
They got off the wagon and were preparing to move the metal bars when the man interrupted them. "Hold it!" He said sharply, moving faster than one would expect from a man with his appearance. He darted to Meng Yao and grabbed onto his right arm, twisting it and causing the young man to stumble to his knees and his arm was locked into an uncomfortable position. "There are no concealed Spirit Artifacts allowed in the Treasure Cave. You will have to leave this… Ah…"
The old man had pulled Meng Yao's sleeve back to reveal the deep golden metal underneath. He continued to stare at the thing in shock, ignoring Yao's pained grunts as he moved his eyes closer, until his breath was fogging the metal.
"Is this… an artificial human limb?" He Laosan asked.
"Yeah, now let go! It hurts!" Yao said before willing the joints of the metal to become fluid so that he could escape the man's grasp. "Fuck…" He swore as he rubbed the metal arm.
He Laosan continued to stare at his arm before his eyes moved down to Yao's leg. "The leg. It is artificial as well." He said before his eyes shot up to Yao's face. "Where do you get these limbs!? Tell me now, boy!"
Yao stumbled back, put on guard by the man's aggressive behavior, but Lingyue jumped in before anything else could happen.
"I made them." She said simply, her voice in the calm of her Dying Will mode.
"You made them?" The old man replied in disbelief, looking at her young stature.
"That's right, the boss made them for me, so keep your hands off." Meng Yao said, glaring at the old man from behind his mask.
"Be quiet stupid." Cai'er said, trying to muffle Yao before he could anger one of the bosses of the Treasure Cave and possibly get them all killed.
But to her surprise, the old man got down on his hands and knees in front of Lingyue. "Honorable Master. Please forgive my unsightly display." The old man said, his forehead pressed against the ground. "I ask not only for you forgiveness, but also your help. Please help my second brother walk again."
Meng Yao and Lan Cai'er were both surprised by the display, but Lingyue only said what seemed to her to be the only logical response. "I will help if I can."
"So, what do you think?" He Laosan asked, rubbing his hands together and waiting for a response after Lingyue looked at the stumps which had once been his proud older brother, He Laoer's legs.
Lingyue had been somewhat surprised to see the older man in a wheelchair, but had quickly agreed to try to help him.
"There is still enough of the old energy channels left in his legs for me to attach artificial legs and his practice with Spirit Force means he shouldn't have trouble controlling them." Lingyue said with a nod. "I have all the materials I need for the job already, so it shouldn't take me more than a day to construct a pair of artificial legs for him."
"Are you serious!?" He Laoer said, not daring to believe his ears.
"Yes, though I hope you are planning on being careful with them." Lingyue said. "The limbs I make can only withstand the strength of a Upper Celestial Realm master. If you go all out with them, you'll break them."
Like his brother, He Laoer was a master of the Reincarnation Realm, his full strength was MUCH more than the limbs would be able to handle.
"...Could you make them stronger with more durable materials?" He Laosan asked. He admired his brother's hold strength and hearing that he would be still limited in his abilities saddened the man.
"Not unless you have some Meteor Iron or Nirvana Metal in your possession." Lingyue replied.
"We don't have them currently but if you give us some time…" He Laosan started but Lingyue shook her head.
"I'm afraid that I won't be staying in the city long. I only came here because I needed to sell my Dragon Saliva Metal." Lingyue said.
"Whatever legs you can give me, I'll take them. And if I have to take it easy with them, then so be it." He Laoer said.
"But brother…" He Laosan said sadly.
"Beggars can't be choosers. I've been in this chair for so long, I would do anything to walk again." He Laoer said, his hands gripping the sides of his wheelchair.
"I would be able to replace the limbs again later, if we come across more durable materials. But this is the best I can do for now." Lingyue explained.
"I see. Tell me. What can we do to help you?" He Laoer said with a nod of his head.
"...Could you assist us in selling the rest of the Dragon Saliva Metal while I work?"
"Well that certainly made things a lot easier for us." Cai'er had said after Lingyue dropped off the legs she made for the second boss of the Treasure Cave the following day.
The old man had been running around like an excited child on his new legs before all three Bosses, who appeared to all be elderly brothers from the same dying Sect, all bowed down before Lingyue and pledged their undying loyalty to her for her kindness.
Now they were Super VIPs at the Treasure Cave, and rather than having to sell all of the Dragon Saliva Metal themselves, they got to just dump the work on someone else. Not only that, the usual 30% sales charge was reduced to only 5%.
After the first day, about 10% of the product had been sold, but that rate accelerated after word got out that it was available in mass. They made it clear that they had two weeks to sell it all, and the three Bosses promised them that it would be done even if they had to buy it themselves.
In celebration, they all went shopping together.
Their mark for what they needed to earn was 80,000,000 gold coins, but even after only selling 10% of the Dragon Saliva Metal, they were already at 9,500,000. So they had more than a little wiggle room to spend, so long as they weren't spending it in the Treasure Cave's lower floors.
The surface floor of the Treasure Cave was a reasonable place, where Yellow Grade Artifacts and 3rd to 4th rank pills were sold. The average price of things turned out to be around 1,000 gold. The fact that Lingyue was starting to think of this amount as reasonable showing just how much she'd changed in the last week and a half.
Down below, in the first basement floor, called the Black floor, the average price increased to 10,000 gold, still things that Lingyue could technically afford. Another level down, on the Earth floor, where Lingyue's own items were sold, cheap things were 100,000 gold.
Lingyue shivered, trying to imagine the kinds of things that went on the Heavenly floor below that.
Compared to that, even the supposedly expensive 'Cloud Silk' clothes in the normal markets seemed really cheap. Just 100 gold per dress.
...40,000,000 yen for a dress now seemed cheap to her...
Oh god! She was becoming like Reborn!
"Anqiu, look at this one. This pattern would go really well with your eyes." Cai'er said, pulling the tiny girl over to a piece of cloth made to look like the starry sky.
"It really is pretty." Anqiu agreed.
While the older girl wasn't too interested in dresses for herself, as she loathed the types of formal events that usually required her to wear them, Anqiu was her cute little dress up doll.
Having been an only child that had longed for younger siblings, Cai'er was really enjoying this little outing, and Anqiu, who had been kept behind closed doors for most of her life was fascinated by everything, and completely unintimidated by costs, as she had no concept of money at all, having never used it.
The two were having a great time, which Lingyue was happy for, as she let her own eyes wonder about until one of the displays caught her attention.
It was an orange dress, covered in a pattern of summer lilies.
While the flower designs were on the lower arms instead of the shoulders, the dress was a lot like a kimono that she had worn when she was Natsumi. Reborn had given it to her after the summer festival, when her old kimono got ruined. She went to the festival with Kyoko, Haru and Hana and had been having a good time, until a bunch of thugs started robbing stalls. Hibari showed up on the scene and one thing led to another, which naturally led to a Dying Will Bullet.
Reborn had gotten her the new kimono as an apology after seeing her crying over the loss of her old one. It was the same orange as her flames and decorated with the summer flowers that were Natsumi's name sake.
Tears started to form in Lingyue's eyes as she realized she never even had the chance to wear it. She didn't have a single chance to go to another event like that with her friends before she died.
She had been looking forward to it too.
"Are you alright, Boss?" Meng Yao asked, pulling Lingyue back.
"I'm alright. It just reminds me of something." Lingyue said, wiping away the tears.
"It is a beautiful dress. Do you want to get it?" Cai'er asked as she and Anqiu moved over to see what was wrong.
"No. It wouldn't suit me." Lingyue said sadly.
Her appearance had changed a lot from when she was Natsumi. Her hair and skin color were both different, and the style of the dress was for someone with more…
Lingyue's hands went to her flat chest and she sighed.
Seeing the gesture, Lan Cai'er put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Hey, don't be like that. You're still maturing. I know you will have a beautiful figure when you grow up." She said before giving Lingyue a wink. "And if you want to speed up the process, you can always start training your Yuan Energy. I had quite the figure at your age after first entering the Upper Celestial Realm."
"...Big sister, I'm already in the Big Dan Core Realm." Lingyue mumbled miserably.
"...Really?" Cai'er asked.
Lingyue nodded, pushing a little Yuan Energy through her Dan Core so that Cai'er would be able to sense it more easily.
"...So not only are you a genius Alchemist, but also a genius Cultivator?" Cai'er said with a miserable sigh. "Little sister is trying to give me a complex."
"Big sister Yue is really amazing." Anqiu said with her starry eyes sparkling.
"Anyways. If you don't like the style of the dress, we can just buy the cloth and you can get a dress tailored for you when we get back home." Cai'er insisted.
"But the colors don't suit me anymore." Lingyue said.
"Oh, I think that they suit you just fine." Cai'er said before calling out to the store manager, ignoring Lingyue's attempts to not buy anything for herself.
"So, where to next?" Cai'er asked as they exited the clothing store with a few bags added to the ones they already had in hand.
"I think we might want to just start calling it a day." Lingyue said.
If there were arcades in this world, she would have suggested that, but the closest thing they had to it was a gambling bar, and Lingyue didn't want Anqiu around those kinds of people.
However, her vote was immediately overruled when Anqiu let out a squeak and pointed towards a nearby store. "Look! Look at the bird in that window! It's beautiful!" She said, pulling on Lingyue's sleeve until she looked.
Lingyue did look and saw the dark blue bird that Anqiu was talking about. A bird the size of a medium sized dog.
"Oh, it's a Spirit Beast store." Cai'er said after noticing the place that Anqiu was pointing at.
"People sell Spirit Beasts? Isn't that kind of dangerous?" Lingyue asked. Spirit Beasts were different from your ordinary Wild Beasts, which were basically just wild animals. Even that giant lava serpent had only been strong enough to be qualified as a rank 4 Spirit Beast, on the scale from 1 to 9, and it would have been able to handle any Upper Celestial Realm Cultivator it came across. A rank 9 Spirit Beast would normally take a team of Reincarnation Realm fighters to defeat.
Even a rank 1 or 2 Spirit Beast was dangerous.
"Not at all. Once you form a Spirit Beast enters into a Spirit Contract, they won't disobey their master. That bird is likely in a contract with the owner and is only for a display." Cai'er said. "But since Spirit Beasts only enter into a single contract, and the contract can only be broken by death, places like these have to sell the Spirit Beasts as eggs, and it isn't a guarantee if they will even hatch and even the people handling the eggs can't tell what would be inside of them. The entire thing is a gamble."
...Why did the word 'gashapon' immediately come to mind?
"Can I get one!? Please!?" Anqiu begged.
"You want to have a Spirit Beast?" Lingyue asked, surprised.
"That's right!" Anqiu nodded. "Mitsuna and Uri are great, but they are big sister's. I want to have an animal friend of my own."
Lingyue sighed a little bit from the girl's cuteness, but she actually considered it a good idea. A strong Spirit Beast to protect her in the case of an emergency was something they should consider.
"Alright. We will see what happens." Lingyue said, getting a cheer from the girl and another hug.
Going to try to wrap up their time at the capital next chapter. Mostly introducing Young Master Qing (given name not given).
He is an unfortunate case of a love interest introduced and given pieces of backstory that would make a fairly interesting character, but then simply dropped on his ass because he isn't the man love interest or important to the plot.
You have an individual whose family position has made him have to live his entire life without being allowed to have any friends or get close to anyone outside of his clan, lest his risk his 'neutrality'. The effects of this on him being shown by how he collects Spirit Beasts as companions, to keep him company in his pseudo isolation.
Hong Fang will probably also make an appearance, but that is only because I am having Lingyue at the Treasure Cave early, and might as well get that scene out of the way now, rather than invent a new reason for her to go back there later.