Chapter 25: Shameless Guard
Li Bai and Li Bao arrived at the Li clan, with Li Bao pulling the wheelbarrow that had a mountain of artifacts. The clansmen all saw her and were jealous. Was she that rich?
Li Bai, now knowing that showing off would just fail, walked to the marketplace after advising his sister to dump all of the items in his courtyard. He was planning on buying a storage ring.
A storage ring was like the cards, but instead of putting money inside, you could put any kind of item! He was planning to buy a storage ring that he could enter himself.
Li Bai walked towards the Zhou clan's marketplace. The Zhou clan's marketplace was, of course, the most popular and bountiful marketplace out of all of the marketplaces. The only downside was the expensive prices.
The Zhou clan basically monopolized several areas, with them buying the items off immediately from the harvesters and suppliers. They then raise the prices hugely because no one could complain. Only they had that item, so if one didn't want to comply with the prices, then he just wouldn't buy it.
The most popular items in the marketplace were, of course, the low-level pills. They were incredibly expensive, albeit being having extremely cheap materials in its recipe.
This time, it wasn't the Zhou clan's doing, but instead, the pill maker that they hired. That pill maker was actually using more expensive substitutes, as he didn't know how the original recipe. Even with these more expensive materials, he still couldn't make it past the red color, so all of his pills were of medium quality.
Li Bai didn't come in this marketplace for the pills though, he came for the interspatial storage rings! The ones that actually allowed one to enter the rings were rare, but surely, with the wealth of the Zhou clan, they should have some of these in stock.
Sometimes, money isn't accepted as currency if the item to be traded was rare. Instead, other rare items were traded. Here, Li Bai brought pills to exchange with the storage ring in case his diamond coin was not enough.
The Zhou clan's marketplace had the more expensive items in a tall tower in the center of the big marketplace, while the common items were sold in bulk on the ground. The tall tower was not owned by the Zhou clan, but they used it anyway because they claimed that they were the first ones to discover it.
Upon entering the tall tower, Li Bai felt an irregularity in the Earth energy flow. Even though he couldn't absorb the energy itself, he was extremely adept at sensing abnormalities in the flow of Earth energy.
"This tall tower must have secrets!"
However, Li Bai did not have time for finding the secret of the tall tower. He was too excited to study the Zodiac Pot, as there he saw the possibility of training.
He hastened his pace, walking towards the spiral staircase that led to the other floors of the tower. With a building this tall, it would naturally have many floors.
The way the items were arranged inside the tower was to emphasize the worth of the item. The higher the floor, the more expensive an item was. Therefore, Li Bai walked towards the higher floors, as he knew the worth of storage rings to be quite high.
Li Bai, upon arriving on the third floor, stopped sensing the earlier abnormality in the Earth energy flow. He sensed a different kind of abnormality in the flow, a storage ring.
"Huh? Why would a storage ring be on the measly third floor?"
Of course, Li Bai had no time to contemplate and immediately walked towards the place where the storage ring was.
"This is it!"
In the tall tower, each item had a guard, with the Level Mark of guards rising proportionally with the floor. The guard guarding the storage ring that Li Bai wanted was only First Level Mark 5-gems, despite looking like a middle-aged man.
The guard was in the middle of falling asleep. Business in this tall tower was naturally slow, given the sheer price of the items. Only people with high positions within their clans bought here. He suddenly saw Li Bai walking towards his station.
Rumors that the Li clan was very rich spread throughout the whole city, so naturally, the guards inside the tower have heard about it as well. When a particular guard saw Li Bai strolling around, they would try to suck up to him, currying favor with someone who's supposedly rich.
The guard stationed at the storage ring was no exception. He immediately faked a smile and greeted Li Bai.
"Oh, if it isn't the Li clan's young master!"
Li Bai didn't take the guards' greetings at face value, but instead, looked deeper into what their intentions actually were. This guard was no different than the other guards, Li Bai instantly knew. But, this guard was guarding the item that he wanted so it was only natural that he returned the smile.
"Ah, yes. I'd like to buy this storage ring."
Li Bai picked up the storage ring and started examining it, twisting and looking at every nook and cranny of this tiny object. This ring looks familiar...
The guard thought that Li Bai was a spoiled foolish child who didn't know the market prices and had the intent to trick him. To him, this ring seemingly looked broken, cracks all over the surface. Thus, the guard took Li Bai's scan of the ring as him putting on fronts.
All of the items in the tower had been appraised by an inspector, hence the guard's knowledge of the item's price based on what the inspector said. The inspector viewed this storage ring as worthless, and as such accordingly marked a low price.
Hustling a customer inside the tall central tower was not allowed, especially if the customer was some high-ranking noble. If the victim suddenly learned of the scam, they would immediately blame the Zhou clan.
Guards inside the tower tended to do this anyway, as a bonus was added to their salary if they sold the item they were guarding at a higher price than what was originally appraised. This one was just like the others.
The guard gained the intention to swindle Li Bai of his assumed bountiful fortune just because he found Li Bai stupid looking.
"Ah, the mythical silver storage ring, yes. Great eyes you have."
The guard attempted to glorify this seemingly broken storage ring by using fake words of praise on it. But the inspector already named it as the "broken ancient storage ring".
However, Li Bai's smile widened. The guard assumed this to be a success already in the bag.
Li Bai's smile widening was, of course, not because of the faux acclamation of the guard, but because he confirmed that this was indeed the source of the irregularities in the energy flow! He was delighted to find it and excited to test it, which invoked his smile.
"Yes, I'd like to buy this, right now. How much? If not in money, in pills, perhaps?"
The guard kept on smiling, still processing the alternative that he proposed after offering to pay with money, should money not be accepted. Finally, the guard's brain had caught up with reality and became baffled.
"...Pills, you say?"
Li Bai was confused as well. Why did the guard feel the need to confirm my method of paying? He didn't realize that what he just said was outrageous, and continued on insisting to pay in pills. First, he needed to clear the guard's suspicions.
"Yes, pills."
The guard was even more bewildered than before! He had thought that what he heard before was just his imagination, and asked just to confuse the other party. He didn't hope for this kind of outcome!
He looked again at Li Bai's unfaltering face, and what he saw was that not only was Li Bai not holding any guilt, which either meant that he was an extremely good liar or that he was completely convinced that he didn't lie at all, but also that his face was beaming and confident, absolutely sure that he could pay in pills!
Li Bai was not thinking as deeply as the guard, in fact, he was thinking about shallow things! He was beaming, not because of confidence, but because of excitement and eagerness! He could hardly wait for the ring any longer!
It wasn't that he desired the ring so, but because he couldn't wait to examine the Zodiac Pot! The Zodiac Pot, which, in Li Bai's mind, made a path to cultivation for him, was something that he was raring to get his hands on. The possibility of cultivation was very alluring for Li Bai.
After a while, the guard was still stunned. This made Li Bai impatient and he started calling for the guard's attention.
"Hey. Hey, hey you!"
The guard was knocked out of his trance and saw a small child that was getting impatient. He immediately felt the sale of the storage ring threatened, and tried to bring Li Bai back to a better mood, as if his life depended on it!
"Yes, we accept pills. In fact, it needs to be paid in pills."
Li Bai knew exactly the worth of the ring he desired, it was priceless. However, he also knew that the guards selling these should be oblivious to all of its uses, thus, overpricing the ring in their eyes.
Li Bai didn't do anything about it as he knew full well that the price he was about to pay would be the same price appraised to it if the uses were discovered. He just let these shameless guards do as they pleased for the time being since his popularity would skyrocket soon anyway when he thought of a proper plan.
"*sigh* How much?"
"That would be..."
The guard thought of an appropriate price to put on this broken ring. It should be high, but not so high as to make even the stupid idiot Li Bai suspicious. He should be able to raise it high enough to be able to live off of it for the rest of his life, considering that the other party is an imbecile and is rich.
"...ten Strengthening Pills."
"..."
Li Bai let out a skeptical expression, raising his eyebrow. After the absence of Li Bai's response, the guard grew anxious.
Ah! The guard thought that he raised the price too much that even the dense, dimwitted, and dumb doofus Li Bai noticed it, seeing the confused and probably suspecting expression on his face. His forced smile faded away slowly.
However, it wasn't like that at all. Instead, Li Bai was confused, not because of how high the guard set the price, but the exact opposite - the price was too low!
Li Bai considered the fact that this city was poor and undeveloped despite having so much area. Even so, the lowest request should have been at least a high-level pill! The Strengthening Pill was just a puny medium-level pill compared to the giant that is high-level pills.
Being a medium-level pill though, Li Bai never had any intention to make such a low-level pill, and as such offered to pay with some other pill.
"Ah, I don't have that..."
After hearing Li Bai's response after a long pause, the guard was disheartened, seeing as he really desired the pills. Of those ten Strengthening Pills, a majority would obviously end up in the Zhou clan's hands, but if he got at least one, he would be satisfied.
"How about one Marking Pill?"
The guard was caught off-guard by Li Bai's sudden suggestion. His anxiousness was shattered into pieces-! It seems like he never had the intention to abandon this pill, rather, he wanted to pay a higher price for it?! Is the Li clan that rich?
Recalling the past events that happened in the month, the guard remembered the commotion when the Marking Pills were announced. The guard thought that Li Bai got his hands on one of the many batches, but found out that the pill was of no use to him because he was trash.
The guard's previously disappeared grin had come back even wider than ever, trying not to sneer or snort on this trash in front of him! Alas, his body got the better of him, and he started snickering quietly.
The shamelessness of this guard, Li Bai couldn't handle it anymore. The guards guarding the station where Li Bai was saw the scornful face of the guard, grinning widely. They followed soon after, sneering at Li Bai for apparently no reason other than to pick on and bully him!
Li Bai was going to burst until someone else walked up to the third floor. It was Liu Gong, the Liu clan's head! Liu Gong disliked weak people, so when he saw Li Bai, his expression started to darken.
In the past, Liu Gong was very weak, but he trained day and night nonstop and came to where he is right now. Therefore, in his mind, weak people was just blaming their poor talent and don't work hard at all! He considered himself to have poor talent, but look where he is!
If there was one thing that Liu Gong despised more than weak people, it was bullying. Within the Liu clan, Liu Gong was always getting bullied since he was weak.
He loathed bullies since he experienced their unreasonableness firsthand. Bullies had made much more excuses than weak people, but not to get out of trouble, but instead, to get into trouble!
Although Liu Gong was annoyed at the sight of Li Bai, he was even more irritated with seeing his best friend's son getting picked on by some lowly guards! He rushed to the scene.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone