After watching the artifact's be made before him, John could start to understand why they were so expensive. The building itself was absolutely incredible, and must have cost an incredible amount of money to construct.
Each formation rune was incredibly detailed, with hundreds of formation lines making up each rune. They covered the entire interior of the building, and seemed to take nearly a dozen Elders to operate a single artifact crafting station.
Not only that, but each artifact seemed to take quite some time to craft, further adding to its cost.
'Pill's normally take a few hours to create, and each session creates a handful of pills. However, this process makes a single artifact, and takes longer as well. No wonder the artifacts are so expensive.'
After standing there for quite some time, an Elder of the Artificer Hall happened to walk past John. He noticed him standing there, and stopped to address him.
"What do you need. Are you lost, boy?" the Elder asked in a rushed, seemingly in a hurry. His gaze was as if he was suspicious of John being inside, as disciples were rarely seen here.
"I'm here for a cultivation shrouding artifact," John replied, getting straight to the point.
He had no reason to hide that he would obtain one, as no one would ever be able to guess that he also had a flawless mask which could perfectly disguise his features.
The Elder's suspicious glare turned into one of slight anger. "If you're going to waste my time with this nonsense, then just leave the building before I have you thrown out," the Elder replied.
Cultivation shrouding artifacts were incredibly expensive, and almost none of the disciples could afford one. Even most Elders struggled to afford one, which is why the Elder thought John was just wasting his time. Either he was joking around, or did not know the true cost of the artifacts. Either way, it was a waste of the Elder's time.
John, expecting such a reaction, had his response already prepared. A spatial ring suddenly appeared in his hand, which he tossed over to the Elder. The Elder caught the ring, and glanced at John suspiciously before he inspected the contents of the ring.
Slight surprise appeared on his face as he inspected the pile of spirit crystals, which numbered at one million. However, he tossed the ring back to John, as if he was uninterested.
"That's an impressive sum of money for one so young, but its not enough," the Elder replied and turned to leave.
"Wait," John called out, causing the Elder to stop and turn around to John once more.
"How much exactly are cultivation shrouding artifacts?" John asked.
"It depends on what grade you want. For artifacts only shrouding against Meridian Forging cultivators, the price is one million two hundred thousand. For artifacts shrouding against Heaven Tribulation experts, its one million seven hundred thousand. For artifacts shrouding against Dao Transformation experts, its two million five hundred thousand," the Elder replied.
John raised his eyebrows as he listened to the Elder, as the prices truly were incredibly high.
'These prices are equivalent to Heaven Tribulation grade weapons, and are even slightly higher for the best grade artifacts. Is the situation for the Elder's truly so dire that they spend this sum of money just to hide their true power? I suppose the Bloodfiend Sect is quite a brutal place, even for the Elders, for them to resort to such a thing.'
John's attention focused back on the Elder once again, who was standing there waiting for his reply. He thought about it for a moment before picking one.
"I'll take the Dao Transformation shrouding artifact," John replied.
He had thought of taking a cheaper one, but decided against it. There were clearly Dao Transformation Elder's within the sect, and he couldn't risk being found out by them.
The Elder opened his mouth to reply, but John threw him another spatial ring before he could say anything. The Elder inspected it, and raised his eyebrows slightly before putting the ring away.
He glanced to John once more, with a new light of respect in his eyes.
"Follow me," the Elder instructed as he turned around and began to walk deeper into the large room.
John followed closely behind, as the two of them weaved between formations deeper into the room. The sounds of runes humming, artifacts being created, and Elder's conversion filled his ears as he walked deeper into the room.
The translucent formation barriers glowed slightly with power as he walked nearby them. The Elder eventually approached one of the translucent barriers, and raised his hand to a certain point of it.
A small stream of Qi left his hand and entered the barrier, at which point an opening in the barrier formed. He turn to John.
"Wait here."
After saying these words, the Elder strode into the barrier and approached one of the other Elders. They exchanged some words, and the other Elder took out an item from his spatial ring. He handed it to the first Elder, and the Elder handed him the spatial ring John had given him.
After some more words were exchanged, the Elder left the formation and returned to John. He handed him the item he had just obtained.
"One cultivation shrouding artifact, at the Dao Transformation Grade, freshly created just this morning."
John grabbed the item, which was a circular band several inches across. There were exquisite rune's on both sides of the bands, which glowed brilliantly. He could tell the item was incredible, and a smile appeared on his face.
He thanked the Elder for his service, and quickly strode out of the building. The item was a wrist band, which easily fit on his arm and after injecting some Qi into it, constricted the band to fit perfectly on his wrist.
The artifact then slowly but surely disappeared from sight, making it appear as if nothing was on his wrist. However, John could still feel his connection to the artifact, as well as the ability to activate it, which would shroud his cultivation level from all who inspected him.
'Spending two and a half million spirit crystals is enough to make me cry, but the cost was worth it. Tonight, I start my infiltration!'