John stepped off the road and entered the building. Inside, a bustling atmosphere greeted John. Dozens of people were on the first floor talking to one of the numerous attendants or perusing the various items on display.
A middle aged man walked up to John and asked "How can I help you sir?"
"What is this place?" asked John.
"This is the Mystic Trade Hall. Well, a branch Trade Hall stationed in the Dreadel Kingdom. How can I help you?" asked the man once more.
"Branch trade hall?" thought John. This building was quite luxurious, and was even larger than his own clans trade hall, and yet it was just a branch building?
Realizing he had been standing there in silence, John quickly said "I'd like to sell some early Mist Creation level beast corpses. Also, if you have any weapon battle arts, I'd like to look at those as well."
"Very well, follow me" responded the man before turning around. John followed him through a door in the back of the large room, at which point a large staircase was revealed to John.
The man led John to the third floor of the building before walking down the hallway and entering one of the many rooms available. John stepped inside the room and looked around. There were two comfortable looking couches with a table in between them. Many luxurious statues and vases were placed on small pedestals all around the perimeter of the room.
"Please be seated. Someone will soon arrive to attend to your needs." The attendant slowly closed the door and left.
John looked around the room for a while before sitting on one of the couches. He closed his eyes and started focusing on cultivating. John was currently stuck at a bottleneck, and was meditating in order to better understand his dantian and the Qi he used. Although fighting was the best way to loosen a bottleneck, meditating helped as well.
Five minutes later, the door slowly opened and an attendant stepped inside. It was a woman who appeared to be in her early twenties. She had long black hair and large brown eyes. Her face was quite sharp, giving her quite an intimidating presence.
"Qi Condensation?" thought John as he opened his eyes in surprise. Even an attendant for the Mystic Trade Hall had such a cultivation. And this was only one of its branch buildings.
The woman sat down on the couch opposite John and placed a tea set on the table in between them. She poured two cups of tea and slid one towards John.
"Just how powerful is the Mystic Trade Hall?" mused John.
"I heard that you have some beast corpses to sell. And you're also looking for some weapon battle arts?" asked the woman.
"Yes. I have many beast corpses, all at the early Mist Creation level. Please see for yourself" responded John as he handed over his storage ring. He had already transferred all the beast corpses from the palace spatial area into his storage ring.
The woman took the ring and inspected the contents inside. As she inspected all the beast corpses, her eyebrows raised slightly.
"They're all missing their blood essence?" asked the woman.
John nodded at her question but elaborated no further. The woman looked at John for a few seconds before looking back into the storage ring. After a few seconds, she spoke up.
"The missing blood essence lowers the value a bit, as many alchemists use blood essence for refining pills. I'll give you ten gold for all the corpses."
John thought about it for a bit before accepting. Although the missing blood essence lowered the value of the corpses by quite a bit, there was nothing he could do about that. The woman transferred the corpses to her own storage ring before handing John his storage ring back with the ten gold coins inside.
"Now that this matter is settled, what type of battle arts are you looking for?" asked the woman curiously. She had already taken note of the boy in front of her. His robes clearly showed that he was from the Fenix Clan. As such, she had treated him with respect from the start and even attended to him personally despite being quite important in this branch location. She was curious however, as to why a Fenix Clan youth was so far from their clan, alone nonetheless.
"Well, my request depends on what you can provide," said John, his response causing the woman to raise her eyebrow slightly.
"I'm looking for any Mist Creation level scythe arts you have. If you don't have any, then I want to look at all your Mist Creation grade greatswords" responded John.
He was currently in a bit of a predicament. His mountain crushing sword was quite powerful, but his weapon was only at the Body Refinement grade. The low quality of the weapon impacted the technique's power, lowering it significantly.
On the other hand, he had a powerful Mist Creation grade scythe, but no techniques to use. His only technique was written in an ancient language he couldn't understand. If the Mystic Trade hall had some powerful scythe techniques, John could start using his scythe. Otherwise, he figured he would just get a stronger greatsword.
"Scythe techniques huh? How interesting" the woman responded while rhythmically tapping the armrest of her couch.
"We do have a few techniques. One moment." The woman took out a small disk. It had many runes carved into its surface. John could tell she was channeling her Qi into the disk, but didn't ask what she was doing.
A few minutes later, the door to the room opened. A young boy entered the room and quickly approached the woman before handing her two storage rings. The woman inspected the rings before nodding to the boy, at which point he quickly left the room.
"Seems like she used the disk in her hand to contact the boy. I think I remember father using something similar once" thought John.
While John was deep in thought, many books and scrolls suddenly appeared on the table in front of him. John was quickly startled out of his thoughts.
"So many!" thought John in surprise. There were clearly almost a dozen books on the table in front of him, all regarding scythe battle arts. His clan only had the one ancient page, but the mystic trade hall had almost a dozen of them.
"Well, I guess that makes some sense. No one in our clan uses scythes, and so there's no need for the clan to collect any scythe battle arts" thought John as he picked up the book closest to him.
"Body Cleaving Scythe! Pretty impressive name" thought John. He opened the book and read over the introduction of the technique. After reading for a minute, John put the book down and picked up the next one.
"Myriad Annihilation Scythe! Sounds domineering." John read the first page technique introduction before setting the book down and picking up the next one. He proceeded to do the same for the remaining books before his eyes widened in shock as he looked at an unfurled scroll.
The woman noticed John's shocked reaction and narrowed her eyes slightly but said nothing.
John took a few seconds to compose himself before he reached out and picked up the unfurled scroll.
"This is the same scythe technique as the one from our clan...but, I can read it?" thought John in pure shock.