Antique street as formed in a 丰 shape. It had a main street and six alleys.
(TL note: 丰 = it is just how the street looks like)
Walking along the main street, Li Fuchen would occasionally enter some of the antique shops to take a look.
Anything and everything was sold in the antique shops. A majority of the items were odd looking.
Like special ores, scrap shards of weapons, or withered plants. There was even this antique shop that displayed a class 5 demonic beast bone but insistently promoted it as a class 6 demonic beast bone.
Li Fuchen used his consciousness to do a scan and realized that this normal demonic bone was only able to appear specially due to its surrounding environments.
"Take a walk and take a look. This shop is selling a batch of weapon pieces and they all come from a certain dangerous monument. Perhaps it may contain a high grade weapon shard within!" An antique shop named 'Grade Tools Pavilion' had a few of its staffs hawking.
"Great martial artist, don’t go. This shop is notorious for defrauding people." The young boy warned Li Fuchen.
Li Fuchen lowered his head and asked, "That’s right, I haven’t gotten your name yet. What’s your name?"
"I am Xiao Cong." The boy answered timidly.
"Xiao Cong… That’s a good name. Is there only yourself in your family?"
"I have one sister."
"And your parents?"
"My parents were formidable martial artists just like you, but they died. Now it is just me and my sister." Xiao Cong’s eyes looked calm but Li Fuchen could see traces of grief.
Li Fuchen sighed, Xiao Cong’s situation wasn’t the only case. In this world, everyone had the opportunity to cultivate. In most average households, the parents would be Qi Realm martial artists. When the children grew up, they would become Qi Realm martial artists too. As a martial artist, they would inevitably have to venture out to seek for a living, which was where most of them would meet their end.
"Your sister is alone at home. Is it safe? Why don’t you go back first?" Li Fuchen asked.
Xiao Cong shook his head, "Don’t worry sir. I have already locked the door and I need to keep my promise. I have taken your gold coin and I have to finish my job." He was worried because he hadn’t even made any recommendations except for bringing Li Fuchen here.
Li Fuchen laughed, "You should return. It is fine to bring your sister here too. Let me treat the both of you to a meal."
Xiao Cong said unwillingly, "My sister is sick. She used to be the one who came out here." Finishing his statement, Xiao Cong lowered his head and felt ashamed.
"If you love your sister, then go back now. Your sister needs care. What’s more, I will be staying in Flying Blade City for three days. Give me your address and I shall go find you and ask you to bring me around," Li Fuchen replied.
"My house is in the north area of Flying Blade City, No.952 of Leaves Burrow. Sir, you are a nice person. I shall bring you all around Flying Blade City for the next two days."
Xiao Cong didn’t feel great about leaving his sick sister at home. Had it not been because he had no money to buy medicine for his sister, he would have stayed at home to care for her.
'A nice person, huh?' Li Fuchen couldn’t help but let a laugh out.
"Sure. North area of Flying Blade City, No.952 of Leaves Burrow. I have remembered it and will look for you tonight."
Li Fuchen didn’t have the ability to help everyone, but as much as possible, he would offer it to anyone who truly needed help.
To live in this world, one should not just blindly live for cultivation.
"Sir, I shall take my leave," Xiao Cong was thinking about the things he could buy with this one gold coin. He thought about prescribing some medicine and then buying some buns and biscuits.
"Go then!" Li Fuchen waved his hand.
After Xiao Cong left, Li Fuchen walked into the Grade Tools Pavilion. He sure would like to see how this antique store was defrauding people.
"Dear sir, this way please." Seeing that a customer came in, the store staff was elated.
"These are the scrap weapon shards from the dangerous monument?" Li Fuchen pointed at the basket of weapon shards and asked.
The store staff replied, "Yes they are. Each of these weapon shard are sold at 100 gold coins a piece. Buy ten and get one more for free. The more you buy, the more we give."
"Alright. Let me see."
Li Fuchen picked up a piece of weapon shard and analyzed it.
The reason why it was called a weapon shard, was because of the tool patterns.
The higher the grade of a weapon, the more mystical the tool patterns were.
Take for example this black gold sword of Li Fuchen’s. On it were mystic class, mid-tier tool patterns.
Tool patterns could give variations to a weapon’s weight and sharpness.
The material used to forge the black gold sword was obviously black gold ingot. According to the size of the black gold sword and weight of the black gold ingot, Li Fuchen’s sword should weigh about a dozen kilograms.
Matching to the value of the black gold ingot, each kilogram was worth a few thousand gold coins. A dozen kilograms would mean that this sword was valued at a minimum of 50 thousand gold coins.
But after branding the mystic class, mid-tier tool patterns, the black gold sword was now a 50 kilogram razor sharp sword that was capable of subtly letting out sword qi. Its value was now a few folds higher and would be worth 200 thousand gold coins in the outside world.
In the Eastern Unicorn Continent, weapon smiths that could forge mystic class, high-tier weapons were considered smith masters. Those that could forge mystic class, peak-tier weapons would be elite smith masters. They were the kind of assets that any sect would want to possess.
As for forging earth class weapons, they wouldn’t be smith masters but smith grandmasters instead.
A pity that there was only one or two smith grandmasters in the Eastern Unicorn Continent.
Perhaps not even one.
At the very least, there was one smith master in the Azure Water Sect.
An earth class weapon shard wasn’t of much value to a martial artist. But it was undoubtedly a priceless treasure to a weaponsmith.
A weaponsmith could totally decipher the tool patterns of the earth class weapon shard, enhancing one’s own tool pattern arts to the next level.
Holding this weapon shard, Li Fuchen used his consciousness to scan it.
He couldn’t help but laugh.
This was a shard of yellow class, peak-tier weapon shard. On the core of the tool pattern was a simple design, but this shop did some alterations and added intricate tool patterns. When two different tool patterns were combined, it gave off a complex outlook.
For martial artists who were novices, complex meant mystical. After all, they couldn’t decipher it right?
But Li Fuchen’s consciousness was competent. After he progressed to the Earth Realm, his consciousness wasn’t any inferior to a Heaven Realm martial artist's. Li Fuchen wasn’t clear on how competent it was exactly, as he didn’t have any reference to check with.
Using his consciousness to scan, he immediately spotted the difference between the two tool patterns and was clear it wasn’t made naturally.
Putting down this weapon shard, Li Fuchen picked up yet another shard.
This time, it was even worse. It was only a yellow class, high-tier weapon shard and it had additional tool patterns engraved on it too.
Without much effort, Li Fuchen looked through a few dozen weapon shards and didn’t find any mystic class weapon shards.
"Let’s look through a few more."
Li Fuchen randomly picked a piece of weapon shard that was coated in dust and scanned it with his consciousness.
"Eh? This seems like a mystic class weapon shard."
The tool pattern wasn’t on the surface of the weapon shard but within the weapon itself. Regular martial artist normally used qi to sense the tool patterns, but Li Fuchen used his qi along with his consciousness. He could sense the mystical tool patterns within this weapon shard. It didn’t feel like it was added on after the forging either.
Going in deeper with his consciousness, Li Fuchen got rid of all his past experiences. This wasn’t an ordinary mystic class weapon shard, not even the black gold sword’s tool pattern was this complex and mystical.
"Could this be a mystic class, high-tier or even a peak-tier weapon piece?" Li Fuchen wasn’t too sure.