Lady Cultivator

“Young Master, please come inside.”

Following behind a first layer Aura Refining female cultivator, Mo Tiange passed layer upon layer of hanging screens and bypassed one passage after another before she eventually arrived in a hall.

This hall was naturally far smaller than the market square’s hall where the Dao Convention was held several days ago. However, it was so luxurious and gorgeous that people couldn’t help but sigh upon seeing it.

The floor was paved with jade bricks, the walls were daubed with gold powder, the tables and chairs made of hundred-year-old spiritual wood were arranged inside, and even the teapots on the tables were made of extraordinary jade. Furthermore, precious stones were embedded all over the place.

Even if precious stones from the secular world were completely worthless for cultivators, it was evident that this kind of hall definitely cost a lot. Besides, most of these stones possessed spiritual aura; they obviously weren’t just ordinary stones from the secular world.

With such overbearing wealth, this Hu Clan really deserved to be called the greatest cultivation clan in Tiandao Sect.

Mo Tiange stood at the entrance, dazzled by the view. Everything was indeed too gorgeous.

“Young Master, please take out your identity tablet.” A voice came from her side.

Mo Tiange turned her head to the side and saw a low-level female cultivator standing reverently beside her.

She was finally aware that she had forgotten her place. Fortunately, the female cultivator didn’t show any ridicule; it was as if Mo Tiange’s reaction was a common occurrence. In fact, this was quite reasonable. Since most cultivators weren’t fond of precious stones, such a gorgeous view was rarely seen in the cultivation world.

She handed her identity tablet over. The female cultivator took it, wrote down her number, and gave it back to her before saying with a smile, “Young Master, please feel free. If you fancy anything, you just need to take it to the payment counter at the back. If there’s anything you don’t understand, you may also call our attending servant and have them explain it to you.”

Mo Tiange furrowed her brows slightly. She nodded without saying anything and directly walked into the hall.

It had come to her attention that this female cultivator was the same as the female cultivator who welcomed her before. Both of them addressed her as young master instead of fellow Daoist. Their attitudes were also very respectful and cautious. Obviously, they were here as attending servants, not cultivators.

Once she walked into the hall, she saw that many beautiful female cultivators were standing in the corner, waiting to handle guests’ requests or orders. They should be the servant girls mentioned by the female cultivator who recorded her identity tablet earlier.

There were at least fifty or sixty of them. Their cultivation levels ranged from the first layer to the fifth layer, and all of them exceeded the standard level of beauty. All of them were also gentle and sweet-tempered women with both modest and respectful bearings. This Hu Clan was truly extravagant. They were actually using women’s beauty to satisfy their guests!

Seeing that some of the guests were bringing along the so-called attending servants with them as they strolled around and teased these attending servants from time to time, Mo Tiange felt very uncomfortable. When she reflected on the fact that the largest cultivation clan in Tiandao Sect actually used this method to entertain their guests, she instantly lost any favorable impression she had of this Hu Clan.

However, it didn’t matter whether she had a favorable impression of them or not. She came to buy things, not make friends. It’d be fine as long as she could get what she came here for.

After scanning her surroundings, she realized that although this hall couldn’t compare to the previous market square’s Dao Convention hall, it also couldn’t be considered small. Presently, the hall was filled with more than a hundred closely arranged tables, but it still felt spacious.

On these tables, numerous kinds of objects were on display. Most of these objects were materials of all kinds, while only a few of them were spirit tools and medicinal pills. This was normal. The demand for spirit tools and medicinal pills never ended; only materials which were hard to identify or had very few uses ended up as stockpiled goods. The spirit tools and medicinal pills arranged here were most likely gathered by the Hu Clan themselves to widen the variety of things put on display.

There weren’t too many guests at the moment. Among the ones present, most of them were Aura Refining cultivators in the eighth layer and above, and a few others were Foundation Building cultivators, but no Core Formation cultivators were present. This wasn’t at all strange. Although this Market Gathering sold so-called highest quality goods, Core Formation cultivators and above usually required precious plants and stones. How could common highest-quality goods meet their needs?

Every cultivator was walking around the various objects displayed on the tables, examining and judging the items. Mo Tiange, who could only get a short glimpse before her line of sight was blocked by others, walked towards the stall beside her to ask a female cultivator, “Excuse me, could you tell me where the spiritual plants are displayed?”

Upon hearing her question, the attending servant girl bowed respectfully before she once again raised her head to answer, “Allow me to show Young Master the way.”

“No need.” Mo Tiange refused. She really couldn’t bear being served as a young master by a female cultivator. But after she refused, she realized her tone was too rigid so she added, “I want to stroll around slowly. It’s fine for me to go by myself.”

The female cultivator didn’t comment and simply pointed the spot out for her and said with a low voice, “It’s over there.”

Following her finger, Mo Tiange could see her target. She nodded and said, “Thank you.”

The female cultivator bowed. “Please take your time. If you need anything else, please don’t hesitate to ask us.”

Although the female cultivator had a good attitude, Mo Tiange couldn’t help but feel even more uncomfortable. She had long known that the status of female cultivators had always been low because they generally had low cultivation levels, but blatantly forcing them to use their beauty to wait on guests was completely unacceptable to her. Nevertheless, she wasn’t qualified to comment on other people’s way of doing things. She could only pretend she hadn’t seen anything and forget about it.

The spiritual plant tables were surrounded by quite a few guests. Feeling a bit anxious, Mo Tiange headed directly for those tables. She prayed in her heart, hoping that the Purple Ganoderma hadn’t been sold yet. Additionally, she also hoped it would be more than 500 years old. Otherwise, her excitement would be in vain.

Spiritual plants naturally received the most attention. At the moment, most people were continuously moving around several tables where the spiritual plants were on display.

As Mo Tiange approached the tables, she saw about five to six people completely surrounding a certain table. One of those people commented, “This is a thousand-year-old ginseng. Although ginseng is a medication commonly used in the secular world, this one’s strength lays in its old age. Ordinary plants that are a thousand years old and older will turn into spiritual plants. Moreover, since ancient times, it’s been said that some ginseng cultivated and managed to transform into a human shape. Thus, once it reaches more than a thousand years old, it’s certainly far superior to regular spiritual plants.”

Another person said, “This Star-leafed Grass is also pretty good. This is a type of plant that rarely appears and is needed for some special pill recipes. So although it isn’t too old, it’s worth buying indeed.”

“There’s also this Neither Flower Nor Leaf plant. Everyone knows this plant is good. Although one that is merely 100 years old isn’t old enough, it still isn’t easy to obtain one. However, this plant is only required to concoct Look-Preserving Pills. It has limited usefulness.”

Mo Tiange pretended to be interested as she leaned close and listened for a while. After she took a peek at the table from a gap between the visitors and saw no Purple Ganoderma, she headed to another table. She had to do this several times before she finally found her target on the seventh table.

This Purple Ganoderma lay still inside a small case. It looked like a dark purple stone the size of a palm and was as thick as a blade.

Mo Tiange read the placard in front of it: Purple Ganoderma, 600 years, final product, 500 spirit stones.  She stepped forward and softly took a sniff at its scent. Its scent was strong and slightly sweet, which matched exactly what was written in the book.

Seeing that no one was paying attention to her, Mo Tiange composed herself and calmly picked up the case. She then went to another table and walked around it, pretending to examine the things on the table. After selecting a 300-year-old Single Step Grass, she headed for the innermost counter.

The person behind this counter was finally not a female cultivator. It was a grizzled-haired, grizzled-bearded, steady-looking old man in a tidy blue robe.

Mo Tiange gave the two jade cases to him. Once this cultivator opened the cases, he cast a rather surprised gaze at her and said, “One 600-year-old Purple Ganoderma, and one 300-year-old Single Step Grass. The total is 700 spirit stones.”

Without any hesitation, Mo Tiange took out her spirit stones and paid for the items in full. She then took the two jade cases and stuffed them into her Qiankun Bag.

The reason why she paid directly was because everyone there was relatively rich. Moreover, 700 spirit stones for a 600-year-old Purple Ganoderma and a 300-year-old Single Step Grass could be considered cheap. Had she hesitated, people would get suspicious about why she came to the Market Gathering.

Besides, 700 spirit stones was only small business for Hu Clan, the greatest cultivation clan in Tiandao Sect. People might not even remember the two items she bought.

Now that the Purple Ganoderma had gone into her Qiankun Bag without a hitch, Mo Tiange finally heaved a sigh of relief. At last, she was in the mood to stroll around this Market Gathering.

Yesterday, although she obtained news of Purple Ganoderma on sale at this market, she didn’t expect that things would go this smoothly. She imagined a lot of scenarios she might encounter, but none of them happened. She was indeed very lucky.

With no other purpose in mind, Mo Tiange suddenly realized that this Market Gathering really did have a lot of good items. Many materials she had only seen in the book were arranged one by one on top of the tables, creating an urge for her to buy them. But after thinking carefully, she discovered that she didn’t need to buy them. If items with unusual functions were used neither to refine unusual spirit tools nor concoct unusual medicinal pills, what was the point of buying them? If they couldn’t be used, they were still a waste of money no matter how good they were.

However, once in a while, some people encountered a fated chance. When they found the materials they wanted to buy, they would get exhilarated, grab the things and rush over with their spirit stones to pay for those things.

With the passage of time, the number of people gradually increased. Although this hall was quite large, it felt crowded because the tables spread all over the hall were crowded with people.

After choosing several kinds of materials that might be useful for her and a large bottle of Restorative Panacea, Mo Tiange wanted to look for a slightly quiet spot.

Once she did, however, she was thoroughly shocked.

Jiang Chengxian!

She saw that not too far away in front of her, Jiang Chengxian and two youths in Tiandao Sect’s uniform were walking towards her accompanied by several female cultivators. The three men bantered with each other as they walked, looking very happy.

Mo Tiange, feeling extremely baffled, quickly stepped around a table to avoid them.

Had this Jiang Chengxian been going the same way as her all along? He and the two Tiandao Sect’s disciples seemed very familiar; could it be that he was visiting his friends? That was quite unlikely… It’d be weird if this pampered guy was willing to suffer more than twenty days of travel on the road just to visit his friends. But if he wasn’t visiting his friends, why did he look so happy being with these two people? They even came to the Market Gathering together!

She shook her head, unable to think the matter though. Sure enough, this Jiang Chengxian wasn’t a good guy. The disciple who traveled with him a few days ago had just died, yet he was actually having fun with other friends like he was completely alright.

Mo Tiange naturally knew her whereabouts mustn’t be discovered by Jiang Chengxian. She had to prevent Jiang Chengxian from seeing her to prevent him from realizing that she looked familiar and becoming suspicious. Although Young Master Jiang certainly wouldn’t pay any attention to an insignificant disciple like her, in any case, they came from the same sect and frequently saw each other, so knowing some familiar faces was completely normal.

Thus, Mo Tiange lowered her head, blended into the crowd and slowly made her way towards the door.

Just as she was about to step out the door, she was stopped by someone. That person said, “Pardon me Young Master, but you can only leave after the Market Gathering is over.”

Dumbfounded, Mo Tiange asked, “That’s a rule?”

The female cultivator guarding the door nodded and said, “Yes, please wait another two hours. After that…”

“Two hours!?” Mo Tiange didn’t dare to take any risks, but being in Hu Clan’s territory, she certainly couldn’t act according to her wishes.

From Mo Tiange’s expression, the female cultivator could sense that she was unwilling. Therefore, the female cultivator smiled and said, “Young Master, even if I let you pass, there is a Foundation Building cultivator from the clan guarding the outer gate, so…”

In that case, Mo Tiange basically didn’t need to think about trying to leave. She sighed before saying, “This… What should I do if I don’t want to continue looking around?”

The woman still kept a smile on her face as she said, “That being the case, please wait a moment.” Right after she said that, she beckoned at someone. Another beautiful female cultivator came towards them and bowed as a greeting.

The woman guarding the door said, “Take this young master so he can rest for a while.”

After receiving her orders, the female cultivator turned towards Mo Tiange and said, “This… Young Master, please come with me.”