Chapter Four: The First Money

On the third day after leaving the mountain, we reached Graystone Market.

It was the largest trading town within a hundred li. Wandering cultivators, small merchants, and purchasing disciples from nearby sects all came here. The town itself was not large. One could walk from one end of the main street to the other in the time it took to burn a stick of incense. But both sides of the road were packed with stalls.

Spirit herbs, magical tools, talismans, pills, spirit beast cubs, damaged manuals. Everything had a price.

Mira followed behind me and looked at everything as if she had stepped into a different world.

"Ancestor, what are we selling?"

"What are we selling?" I scanned the stalls. "First we look at the market."

We walked from one end of the street to the other, then back again.

The prices were padded. More important, the good goods were scarce.

Most stalls carried mediocre stock: old herbs, rough tools, pills with unstable scent, copied manuals missing pages. Whenever something decent appeared, buyers crowded around it and bid the price up.

"Supply and demand are out of balance," I said.

"What?"

"Too few good things. Too many people who want them." I pointed at a stall ringed by buyers. "That Foundation Establishment cultivator is selling three Foundation Pills. Medium-high quality. Five hundred spirit stones each."

"Five hundred?" Mira's eyes went wide. "But the cost is only—"

"Quiet."

She shut her mouth, though shock still filled her face.

The cost was not high. The main herb for a Foundation Pill cost a little over ten spirit stones. With support herbs and labor, the full cost of one pill barely reached one hundred. Selling at five hundred meant four times profit.

"Ancestor," she whispered, "can you refine pills?"

"Yes."

"Then are we going to sell pills?"

"Not yet. We keep looking."

We rented a cheap room at an inn: three spirit stones a day, two meals included. Mira stared at the price for a long time. Three stones would once have covered her expenses for a month.

For the next few days, I took her through every corner of Graystone.

We were not only looking at goods. We were looking at people.

Who were real buyers? Who were middlemen? Who had supply? Who cheated newcomers? Who sold bad goods with a kind face?

At first, Mira only followed and listened. Slowly, she began to see the pattern.

"Ancestor, the man in gray always offers lower than everyone else."

"He buys in bulk."

"That old man sells poor goods, but people keep buying from him."

"He isn't selling goods. He's selling trust. Those are regular customers."

On the fifth night, I said, "Tomorrow we open."

"What are we selling?"

"Talismans."

I took several sheets of talisman paper from the bundle. We had bought them at the inn shop, the most ordinary kind. Then I took out an ordinary brush.

Mira stared at them. "Ancestor, you're using those? Can they make good talismans?"

I dipped the brush in cinnabar and placed the first stroke on the paper.

The Azure Cloud talisman art was something I had excavated from an ancient ruin. It did not rely on expensive materials. It relied on intent. The brush was a tool. The paper was a vessel. The real quality came from the will the maker poured into each line.

After one stick of incense, I finished three talismans.

"Take them."

Mira accepted them, looked down, and changed color.

"Fire Talismans," I said. "The most basic kind."

"I know, but this spiritual fluctuation..." She lifted her head, eyes round. "They have to be medium grade at least."

"High grade."

"High grade?"

"Yes."

She looked at me as if I were a monster. "You made them with this paper and this brush?"

"Yes."

"Ancestor, what level are you?"

"Soul Transformation."

She sucked in a breath.

"That was three thousand years ago," I added. "Now... still about Soul Transformation."