"One hundred taels. Esteemed guest, please wait here until I inform the matriarch."
"Alright then…" He said and waited for the so-called matriarch to come, which did not happen. Instead, the woman returned alone, panting.
"Esteemed guest, matriarch would like to treat you to some delicious breakfast."
"Alright then, lead the way."
He followed the woman as she led him into a grand looking palace. The paintings and calligraphy scrolls that were hanging on the walls kind of made everything look foreign to his eyes.
He was a guest so he would stay silent and keep his opinions for himself. After all, he knew nothing about both of the art forms.
The matriarch was extremely beautiful and treated him to some really good breakfast as she had promised.
When he was done with eating everything, he looked at the matriarch and said, "Matriarch, would you be willing to sell your pill making methods? I promise to never disclose it to anyone else."
The woman nodded her head calmly, "I can agree to it but only if you agree to a few of my conditions."
Alex nodded in response and the matriarch continued, "If you wish to learn our methods, you will have to marry my daughter."
"….. that doesn't make sense…"
"It does. If you marry my daughter, I can let you learn our sect's secret arts without getting into trouble."
"What trouble?"
"Umm… my husband… the current sect master of Azure Dragon. We have some unwritten rules that are quite hard to explain."
"I'm only eleven years old though."
"That does not matter, child. My daughter is thirteen."
"No no, what I mean is that we don't do child marriages from where I come from."
"That's fine. Get engaged now and marry when you come of age."
Alex felt his head hurt due to the woman's stubbornness.
"Is there no other way?"
"No."
"Oh well… nevermind then, I'll get going. Thank you for the hospitality."
"Huh? Didn't you say that you wanted my sect's secret art?"
"Yes, but I do not wish to marry some child. You guys have weird rules which will undoubtedly tie me down at some point."
"You're only eleven and you call a thirteen-year old girl, a child?"
"Whatever, I'm going. I don't want to waste my time here."
"Alright then, this matriarch won't be seeing you off." She said, clearly upset about the rejection.
Alex walked out and quickly left the sect before he went into an inn and rented a place to rest for a day.
He forced himself to fall asleep and woke up at night before he took a nice warm bath and set off towards the Scarlet Phoenix sect after he used all kinds of concealment charms on himself.
He flew until he was close to the entrance and then sent the rope back into the bracelet. He walked without making any sound and he didn't have to even make an effort as the spells were in effect.
He quickly found the main palace and went inside where he spotted a lot of women having their dinner like they did in Hogwarts' great hall. While they were happily eating, he sneakily searched every room he could find. He cleared every single room and found a stairway that lead him downwards.
'Hopefully, I can find the stuff I need in here….'
The area was dark and silent which make him wonder.
'If there was someone here, they would be used to this darkness and since there is no sound yet… most probably I'll be safe. If something unexpected happens, I should be able to escape after all.'
He used Lumos and found the whole place empty except for a huge metal door which he examined for a few minutes.
'The hell… it's just a normal heavy door. Not even enchanted… maybe there is nothing inside? I'll probably find out only when I open this thing. Alohomora.'
The door creaked open but Alex was extremely fast to cast a silencing charm surrounding the door which made sure that the sound wouldn't go too far.
He looked inside with the help of Lumos and all he could see was gold bricks neatly piled up in one corner and a large bookshelf in the other. The rest of the room was filled with many swords and cauldrons.
Alex hurriedly duplicated every single book and took a few cauldrons before putting them all into his bracelet
'I do not lack gold right now… I'll let them keep it I guess…'
He turned around and returned after closing the doors. The journey back was smooth and nothing unexpected happened.
On the way, he talked to his guide and gave him all the duplicated books he had.
"I used the duplication charm on these. Turn the contents into jade tokens yourself. I don't want others to know about the contents of the book, lest I get into trouble."
"Understood. What would you like to do next, young master Tom?"
"Maybe visit one of the so-called demonic sects of yours? I really want to learn blood magic."
"Young master Tom, I don't think there is any need for you to go there since we have every single book of the demonic sects with us."
"That's convenient…. I guess I'll just spend my time lazing around for a week then… oh you can just give me all the jade tokens you have stock piled until now. This way, I won't have to waste my time when I get back to my room."
"Understood. Please wait a minute, I'll go bring all the tokens he refined today."
Alex spent every single day screaming his heart out as he enjoyed the wonders of pain and practiced all the new kinds of magic that he recently learnt from the jade tokens.
He finished everything for the day and glanced at the calendar, 'Two more days to go… I still have half of the money I converted… hmmm I guess I'll have to go on a spending spree.'
Alex walked out of the pavilion and on the way, he sent out a thread made of magical energy which entered the shop.
'Old man, I'll be going to some places where I can buy some things that are interesting. Keep the tokens with you for a while and I'll take them when I return two days later.'
Alex was about to fly off but stopped when he saw the old man run out of the shop.
"Young master Tom, you can now send out mental threads?"
"Yes… looks like you can't."
"You guessed it right. I cannot use them. In fact, most of them cannot use them as it is a very complex form of magic."
"Can't you guys just use the jade tokens instead of wasting time?"
"Those tokens only give you the knowledge. It's like reading a book mindlessly for most people but some talented ones have the ability to memorise everything after a single use.
There are also people who can understand the whole thing after using the jade once. I wonder which one of these categories you belong to?"
"I can memorise everything but I most probably can't understand everything. I had to do a bit of trial and error to be able to use these threads."
"En, this old man understands now. Young master, I can accompany you if you want as the owner of this shop seems quite sincere so we don't have to worry."
Alex nodded slowly before giving him a thumbs up and brought out four ropes that intertwined together and formed a thicker rope.
"Okay then, stand on this rope. I want to buy things that will help me deflect or block tracking spells and help the user pass through alarms without triggering them."
"Don't worry young master, this old man will take you to a good place."
"Alright, stand on this rope and we can set off." Said Alex as he stood on it.
"Is this a flying artifact, young master?"
"No. It's actually a means of offence for me but since I don't go around fighting people every single day, I use it to fly. Come on now, don't waste time."
The old man stood on top of the rope before Alex controlled it to zoom through the sky, which made the old man hold Alex's shoulders for support.
"Pardon me young master, I am not used to so much instability when flying. We normally use our flying swords and they are extremely stable and fast when compared to your um … rope. I mean no offence, young master."
Alex said nothing and focused on flying for a while.
"This is actually hard to control and is not made to fly. Even now, it's hard to talk as I have to use my thoughts to control it. If possible, I would like to buy some materials which have information on how to make your flying swords."
"Those are already stored in a container. I didn't give it to young master because I thought u needed the other things more."
"Alright, that's not a problem. Tell me where to go."
"Straight north-west from here. It will take about a day from here at this speed and those teleportation arrays don't take us there."
"One whole day…." Alex muttered and more than twenty rope flew out from his bracelet before they weaved into the four to make a carpet.
He then sat down and asked the old man to do the same.
"Alright now, don't talk to me. I have to focus on flying and you, hold on tight."
The moment he said that, one of the ropes curled itself up as it formed a hand hold in front of the old man who happily used it. Alex then sped up to an insane level of speed, surprising the old man behind him.
'This… this is faster than any flying sword I have seen… this kid, just who is he?'
The journey was sixteen hours long and when they arrived at their location, the old man's hair was extremely messy and dry.
"Young master, please go in. This old man will follow you soon."
Alex said nothing and walked inside to see an empty room with no shelves or displays. The only thing in the room was a counter and a bell. Not knowing what to do, he did the thing that anyone in his situation would and pressed the button on the bell.
Metallic ringing sound permeated the air for a few seconds and sometime later, after the ringing stopped, a middle-aged man appeared behind the counter out of nowhere.
"What would you want to buy sir?" he asked in a very deep voice which, for some reason sent shivers down his skin.
"Ah.. well, I want something that can bypass alarm traps and deflect tracking spells or something of the same sort."
"We do have a few of those but they also cost a lot."
"How much does the most expensive one cost?"
"A hundred and fifty thousand taels."
"Show me everything you have, please. Don't worry, I have enough to buy more than one." Said Alex as Ling entered the shop.
"Uncle Ling? What are you doing here?" the man behind the counter exclaimed.
"Oye kid, stop using that annoying fake voice of yours."
"Ahaha… sorry about that." The man said, this time it sounded like a child.
The unexpected change in tone made Alex force himself to not laugh while the man displayed three different artifacts.
"This steel armour is the one that costs the highest and it has the functions of deflecting most spells and doesn't trigger any kind of alarm spells as it completely disables any kind of pre-set spell at a hundred meters radius around it.
These two come in a set. One is a tight fit clothing that sticks to your whole body while the other one is a cloak. When worn together, it makes you invisible, deflects any spell up to mid-tier ones and while the alarm traps don't get disabled, they won't be able to detect you for approximately half an hour if you plan on staying near the trap."
Creation is hard, cheer me up!
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