Chapter 16:
Frost Jade
“MEOW!” Pawpaw got angry and swiped at him. Insolent disciple! How dare you ruffle my fur!
Mo Tianliao hissed in pain and pulled his hand out from the cloak—as expected, he was already bleeding.
Not daring to further incur the wrath of His Feline Lordship, Mo Tianliao pulled his hands out and let the cat wriggle around underneath. This cloak had cost him three medium-grade spiritual stones. As long as no one used their divine soul to probe, it could mask the faint spiritual aura emitted by a cultivator, hiding their cultivation.
Mo Tianliao headed over to the easternmost public square. According to the shopkeeper, there was an auction house there.
Aside from shops like those in the mortal world, cultivator marketplaces also had auction houses. Rare materials, elixirs, or spiritual treasures with no fixed prices had to be traded in places like this, where the highest bidder would get to claim possession.
Mo Tianliao approached the black stone building, and an attendant came over to meet him. “Greetings, sir. There’s no auction today. You’ll have to wait for tomorrow.”
Auctions naturally wouldn’t be held every day. Usually, they took place every few days. After all, rare items didn’t simply fall from the sky.
“Consignment,” Mo Tianliao said from under the cloak in a deep, raspy voice, sounding like an old man.
The attendant, a junior cultivator at the second level of the qi-refining stage, guessed that the man in the black cloak might be an artificer or elixirist. Not daring to slight him, he led him inside.
“May I have a look at the treasure you’d like to consign for sale?” There was an appraiser in the room who would determine if the goods were worth putting on auction, as there was no lack of people trying to pass off inferior stuff as quality goods.
Mo Tianliao glanced at the appraiser, who had to have at least reached the foundation establishment stage. When he probed a little with his divine sense, however, he was startled to find that the man was actually at the early core formation stage. It did make sense. Even the smallest auction house had precious treasures, and they’d have a hard time running any auctions without several people with high cultivation overseeing them.
Mo Tianliao stayed silent as he took out a long wooden box from his inventory bracelet, lifted the seal on the box with a hand, and gestured for the appraiser to go ahead.
The appraiser’s pupils contracted. This box was made from thousand-year-old Sinking Agarwood! What a waste!
He slowly opened the lid, finding the box to be full of wooden spikes. He picked one up. It was a simply crafted nine-inch wooden spike, with two rings carved at the end for grip. The tip was coated in dark iron. Even for something so simple, the workmanship was well done, as the extremely thin layer of dark iron blended so seamlessly into the wood that it was almost impossible to feel the seam where the two materials met.
The appraiser held one wooden spike between his fingers, infused it with spiritual energy, and threw it. The spike pierced through a thick stone pillar and lodged firmly in the wall. No matter how he tried to pull it out, it wouldn’t budge.
“A high-grade magical artifact, comparable to a low-grade treasure artifact.” The appraiser took out all the wooden spikes and compared them individually. They were all identical, and precisely the same length.
“Fifty-eight spikes, single use only,” the appraiser stated, looking somewhat regretful. If this had been a magical artifact that could be controlled by the divine soul, it could be sold to cultivators who’d reached the core formation stage and above. With this many spikes, they could form a killing array, and the price could be at least ten times higher.
Mo Tianliao naturally understood this principle. However, to refine a treasure artifact, he’d have needed to add a luminous stone, a pricey material that wasn’t available on the back mountain. Besides, the Sinking Agarwood wasn’t some marvelous material, and refining it into a treasure artifact might not even be worth the cost.
“It can be retrieved and reused if you use it against a person.” Mo Tianliao took out nine spikes, leaving forty-nine of them. Cultivators were particular about following Heaven’s will, and as forty-nine was regarded as auspicious, it would be more marketable that way.
The appraiser nodded. “The estimated value is fifty medium-grade spiritual stones. You can consign it for sale.” Then, he took out a wooden token inscribed with the auction house’s emblem and split it in half. He embedded one half into the Sinking Agarwood box and gave the other half to Mo Tianliao, explaining that the auction would begin at noon the next day, and Mo Tianliao could enter with the wooden token instead of paying an admission fee. Once his item was sold, he could collect the spiritual stones by presenting the token. The auction house would take a 10 percent commission.
“Urgh…” Mo Tianliao abruptly grunted as the furball under his cloak crawled to his neck and bit the back of it, startling him.
“Is there a problem?” The appraiser paused, thinking that Mo Tianliao was dissatisfied with the price. He couldn’t see Mo Tianliao’s face beneath the hood, so he ventured tentatively, “It’s your first time here, so 10 percent is quite reasonable. The rate can be renegotiated with repeated visits.”
Ten percent wasn’t low, but it was fair, so Mo Tianliao said nothing further and left the auction house, leaving the wooden box behind. Most auction houses valued their reputations and credibility, so Mo Tianliao wasn’t worried they would default on his payment.
He reached under the cloak, removed His Feline Lordship from his neck, and tucked him back into his outer robe. The annoyed cat promptly poked his head out of the collar, only to be covered again by the black cloak. Unable to see, he clawed at the cloak, ripping a hole in the fabric and exposing a pair of bright, gleaming eyes.
Mo Tianliao let him be and strolled around Auspicious Bazaar with his new cat eyes accessory.
Auspicious Bazaar was a small marketplace, but it still sold everything a cultivator could need. Mo Tianliao walked into a jade shop that sold a vast array of raw, uncut jade in varying sizes, along with intricately crafted jade jewelry. His gaze landed on a piece of bright and flawless light blue frost jade. Faint mist swirled around it, thanks to its inherent chill.
“This is superior frost jade that can preserve water-element spiritual herbs with no loss of spiritual energy,” the shopkeeper explained enthusiastically. “It would also make the perfect gift for your sweetheart, if you craft it into jewelry.” He displayed a hairpin carved from frost jade. It was pretty, despite the simple cloud design.
Mo Tianliao glanced disdainfully at the crudely made hairpin and picked up a piece of uncut jade. “Five medium-grade spiritual stones.”
“That won’t be enough!” The shopkeeper rejected him. Top-grade frost jade could be forged into spiritual artifacts, and a piece as big as this was worth at least ten medium-grade spiritual stones.
“Flawed frost jade can produce ice essence, but this flawless piece is only good for making jewelry. Five is already generous.” Mo Tianliao bargained mercilessly.
“Nonsense.” The shopkeeper rolled his eyes. “Even ten high-grade spiritual stones wouldn’t be enough to buy frost jades that can produce ice essence.” Uninformed buyers always assumed that flawless jade was better, but it was a different story for frost jades, where cracked pieces were worth more. They weren’t as pretty as this flawless piece, though.
Eventually, Mo Tianliao haggled the frost jade down to fifty-five low-grade spiritual stones.
He visited the other shops and bought a set of carving knives and some inexpensive raw materials for refining. By the time he was done, it was near dusk, so he found an inn to stay the night.
Cultivators weren’t particular about where they stayed. Had Mo Tianliao been alone, he could’ve just meditated anywhere, but since he had his cat with him, staying at an inn would avoid unwanted attention and be safer.
The moment he entered the room, the cat leaped onto the bed and inspected the surroundings with his tail sticking straight up.
Mo Tianliao took off his cloak and took out the piece of frost jade to examine it.
Seeing this, the cat came over and looked at it over Mo Tianliao’s arm. This is just an ordinary piece of frost jade. Why did this fool buy it? Then, he remembered the shopkeeper saying it could make pretty jewelry even if it couldn’t be made into spiritual artifacts.
“Meow!” Displeased, the cat swatted the jade out of Mo Tianliao’s hands.
Mo Tianliao caught it and tapped the furry head with a finger. “Behave yourself. I’m going to carve something good.”
He took out his carving knives from his inventory bracelet and sized the jade up with the knife.
So he’s really making jewelry! the cat thought. Who is it for? Damn it. A female disciple from Woqing Sanctum, or an attendant from Qingning Palace?
Mo Tianliao channeled spiritual energy into the blade and cut effortlessly through the jade. He worked quickly, first cutting a square and then hollowing it out like he was peeling an apple, before changing to a smaller blade to trim the edges.
The cat turned his back to him, refusing to admire his masterful skills.
“Done!” Mo Tianliao finished his work in no time. “Pawpaw, look!”
The furball ignored him.
Mo Tianliao poked him. The cat continued to ignore him.
He tugged at his tail. Still no response.
He lay down and brought his face close to the cat. “Paw~paw~”
Light-colored eyes slowly looked up. A moment later, the cat opened his mouth and bit him right on the nose.
“Yeowch!” Mo Tianliao rubbed his nose and ingratiatingly placed the carved jade in front of the rude little creature. “Look, Your Lordship, this is for you. Don’t be mad.”
Instead of the hideous hairpin he had imagined, the cat turned to find a small, smooth bowl. Perfectly engraved, the bowl was shallow and raised slightly in the center, so that the rim wouldn’t impede his whiskers during mealtime.
It was exactly the same as the bowl he’d had in Mo Tianliao’s former palace.
“Just make do with this for now. We’ll buy something better later.” Mo Tianliao petted the cat apologetically.
Cats couldn’t handle food that was too hot, and the same was true for cat spirit beasts. Using bowls made of frost jade cooled down the food without making it too cold, making it just perfect for meals. In the past, Mo Tianliao had dug out ice essence the size of a fist from a ten-thousand-year-old frost jade so he could use it to make an identical bowl for the cat in his former palace.
The cat looked at the tiny, light blue bowl, then at Mo Tianliao, who was watching him with a gentle gaze. He slowly pulled the jade bowl toward himself.
Hmph! Seeing how filial you are, I shall grudgingly accept it.