Chapter 300 300 – Lioz 2/2
Lioz marched to the woman's whereabouts. He heard she ran a general store where she sold merchandise that allowed mortals to cultivate to the first stage, granting them strength and superior health.
He soon found it; a small store with a few shelves carrying small round pills resting in open boxes, emanating different aromas ranging from spicy to sweet. On other walls, he found small cards of papers he identified as talismans and a few scrolls. Behind a counter at the back of the store, an attractive woman in her forties talked to a couple of customers.
The young boy did not want to interrupt their conversation, nor did he want them to know he had a precious ring; hence, he simply busied himself by looking at the different products in the store until they left.
"Hello, welcome to the Ascendence Store. What can I help you find?" The woman said politely but strictly. She was dubious about his ability to purchase anything due to his poor attire, so she tried to get straight to the point.
"I… I heard you are a cultivator, is it true?" Lioz asked nervously while looking beyond his shoulder to make sure nobody was there. The name of the store made him look at the owner in awe, causing him to stutter.
"I am at the peak of the third stage, I'm quite powerful," the woman said pridefully, clearly enjoying the sensation of superiority.
They were far away from the center of the continent where many mortals cultivated to the second or the third stages; they were in the Jade Sky Sect's territory, a remote territory as the weakest among the top sects. There, she enjoyed respect and reverence as long as there weren't cultivators from the reigning sect nearby.
"Amazing!" Lioz said in admiration, forgetting his goal for a moment.
"So, what are you here for? Just curious about cultivation?" The woman said with a hint of disdain that Lioz didn't pick.
"No… I found a treasure and I heard you could help me get its worth. Are you capable of opening storage rings of cultivators?" Lioz asked after a short moment of hesitation.
On one hand, he was worried about getting bullied and robbed, but on the other hand, he had to come out with it or else the woman wouldn't be able to help even if she was an honest store owner.
"Oh, you found a storage ring? How rare and lucky. Show it to me, Boy, you might strike it rich today. By the way, you can call me Miss Miriam."
"Please have a look, Miss Miriam. I'm Lioz," he took the ring out of a pocket in his robes and handed it over, looking at her expectantly.
Miriam lifted it with her hand and channeled her Qi into it, letting a small pile of objects fall onto the counter. There were pills, talismans, scrolls, Qi Stones, food, water, sword, and a few more tools.
Lioz waited patiently for the woman to browse through the items and set a price, and she eventually raised her head and named it.
"Oh, this is indeed a good amount of treasures meant for cultivation, Young Boy, where did you get it?" She asked in curiosity after she finished counting the goods.
"I just found it in the forest, Miss Miriam," Lioz answered, hiding some of the truth. He felt a shiver pass through his spine under her gaze, but she eventually looked back at the treasures before declaring the price.
"I'll take 33% of the spoils, so you'll receive just under a thousand gold coins. I won't be petty; I will round it up for you."
"A thousand!" Lioz exclaimed in excitement. His family's yearly income was only counted in silver coins, which meant that a thousand gold coins could support them for over a thousand years! His grandchildren would be able to live just with this amount of money!
"Indeed, you're rich now. Would you like to take it?" Miriam asked with a friendly smile.
Lioz was about to agree when a thought struck his head. He had no idea how valuable cultivation resources were.. For him, a thousand gold coins sounded as innumerable as ten thousand, making him unable to estimate that much money. Since he could not estimate it correctly, he chose to make a request instead.
"Miss Miriam, a thousand gold coins are a significant amount, but I have an additional request. Please add a manual and every other resource required for cultivating up to the first stage. If you add it to the gold coins, I will agree."
Miriam looked at him, contemplating whether to refuse and cheat him to the end or just go along with his request. She was the one to write the manuals herself, so it barely cost anything, and the pills he needed for the process would cost much less than she scammed out of him.
"Alright. Consider it an investment in our future business relationship.," Miriam smiled professionally and granted him his request. As a businesswoman, she always made sure to make the customer feel indebted to her, both when she pretended to round up the gold coins and now that she gave him some pills he could buy a hundred of easily with the ring's spoils.
She packed the necessary objects in a bag after explaining to Lioz about the correct way to cultivate shortly and sent him off. As soon as he left the store, she went back to her counter and brought out a communication device.
"Hello, Senior Selim? A young boy walked into my store now and sold a ring with the symbol of the Jade Sky Sect, I thought you'd want to know… Yes, of course, you can come and take it." She placed the communication device back in its place while her finger traced the carves of a rhombus jade. She never understood how the sky was related to any of it.
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Lioz managed to return to his house safely the next day, hiding the stash of gold coins underneath the food and other goods he buried in his bag. His father and he celebrated that night, spending their savings on meat and expensive food they normally only had during the New Year celebrations.
"Father, I need to leave now. Miss Miriam provided me with cultivation resources, and I'm eager to try them out," Lioz informed his father the next morning.
"Go ahead, I heard it can benefit you with great health and power for the rest of your life if you achieve the first stage," his father nodded happily and sent his son off to train.
Lioz spent the next days training diligently. It only took him a few weeks to level up despite having no mentor, proving his wit and strong intuition when it came to cultivation.
The next day after he broke through, he heard knocks on his door. Letting a sigh out, Lioz jumped lightly from the floor and went to receive the newcomer, admiring his newfound strength on his way there. With his body strengthened by Qi, he felt like he could take on five of his former self.
"Hello, Sir. How may I help you?" Lioz smiled at the tanned man with a hawk nose he found at the door. His confidence rose significantly now that he could be considered a cultivator.
"Are you Lioz?" The man asked.
"I am, who is asking?"
"First, know your place," the stranger raised his hand and patted Lioz's chest lightly, sending him flying and crashing into the wall. "Now, I hope you can act more respectfully."
"Argh!" Lioz coughed a few times, shocked by the impact. He could not understand what motivated the man to attack, unaware that it was the man's pettiness over being treated as an equal by a mortal he looked down on. Angry at the uncalled-for assault, Lioz only clenched his teeth and raised his eyes in defiance as he stood up.
"Oh? You can stand up already? You are a first-stage cultivator already!" The stranger said in surprise.
"What if I am? Why are you attacking me?" Lioz asked angrily.
"You dared to loot the belongings of a member from my Jade Sky Sect, and yet you stand before me without kneeling?" The man said with an amused smile. "I'm Selim, I'm here on a mission on behalf of the sect to retrieve the man's belongings or give justice to him by punishing the corpse robber who humiliated his body."
Lioz opened his eyes in horror, unable to digest what he had just heard. "Sir, I did nothing like that, I did not know he was part of the esteemed Jade Sky Sect!" the boy shouted, terrified. Everyone knew that the Jade Sky Sect was the sole hegemon of the region, and their words decided the fate of anybody in their territory.
"Hmm, you're lucky you did not defile his body in any way, and we retrieved his token from Miriam. I came here to punish you, but I see your resolve and comprehension are good if you already got to the first stage. I will give you a chance to save yourself; come and chase immortality in our sect where might make right. If you can be strong all the time, you will achieve every dream you ever had. If you are weak, you will be bullied to the point where you wish you were never born," Selim said in a dramatic tone, igniting flames in Lioz's eyes.
"I will do it! Thank you for the opportunity!"
Lioz was brought to the sect that day after saying goodbye to his father and explaining the situation. He was registered as an outer disciple, starting from the lowest bottom. Despite the lack of opportunities for outer disciples, he always somehow found himself entangled in different events.
Once it was running into the daughter of an elder while she bathed in the river, after a short barrage of attacks, he gained a new ally who allowed him to become an inner disciple soon after.
As for his core disciple status, he gained it in another time in which he found the daughter of the sect master being drugged and he saved her while she ran away from her captors in her last energy.
Just like that, he kept climbing the ranks of his sects, gaining inheritances and unique techniques as well as expensive medicine and resources.
This content is taken from fr(e)ewebn(o)vel.𝓬𝓸𝓶