Chapter 23

The next day, after Lin Zhangqing finished his cultivation, his family had already gathered at the clan square. Today, Clan Leader Lin Qinglong and Grandfather Lin Fandao were leading the team.

Another Foundation Establishment stage elder, Sixth Elder Lin Fanxuan, was responsible for guarding the Ancestral Mountain.

Quite a lot of people were going today. When Lin Zhangqing arrived, there were already more than forty people. He hurriedly went to meet up with his mother and aunt, while his father stayed behind to look after his younger sister.

Seeing that almost everyone had arrived. Grandfather discussed it with the Clan Leader, and finally, the Clan Leader sacrificed the second-grade high-grade spirit artifact Wind-Running Boat. It carried everyone together and set off for the Pingyang Prefecture market.

This Wind-Running Boat was an important strategic spirit artifact of the clan. Every time the Qingyun Sect had a conscription, the vehicle was this Wind-Running Boat. It could accommodate sixty cultivators, and it was barely okay to squeeze in seventy or eighty people.

The speed of a second-grade high-grade spirit boat was indeed fast. In just over an hour, they arrived at the entrance of the market. Because no one was allowed to fly inside the market, they landed at the entrance of the market. When they returned, they would also gather at the entrance of the market.

There was already a long queue at the entrance of the market, all cultivators who wanted to participate in this grand event. Of course, there were also many who came specifically to set up stalls to sell things because the popularity of this grand event was high.

The thirteen Foundation Establishment families of Pingyang Prefecture would definitely all come. In the queue, they had already seen clansmen from several families.

Following his mother and aunt, he queued honestly. After waiting for a while, it was finally Lin Zhangqing and the others' turn. Because it was Lin Zhangqing's first time coming to the market, he paid two spirit stones and obtained an identity jade token.

He wouldn't need to get one next time he came. Like his mother and the others, they already had jade tokens.

They entered the market smoothly. It was very lively, with people coming and going, but there was no phenomenon of people squeezing people.

After all, cultivators were different from mortals, and cultivators who were not familiar with each other consciously left a safe distance.

The auction was still more than two hours away from starting, and his mother and aunt were preparing to browse the stalls. Lin Zhangqing could only follow, who made him young.

There were all kinds of people in the stall square, and their attire also had its own characteristics. Most of them wore bamboo hats, and some even wore spirit-isolating robes, making it difficult to see their faces clearly.

In the cultivation world, using divine sense to look at other cultivators at will was a very impolite behavior, and could also be regarded as a provocation. So very few people did this.

His mother and aunt were browsing slowly, and they had to look at every stall.

Especially the stalls with spirit herbs. Most loose cultivators, if they obtained good spirit herbs and felt the price in the shops was not suitable, or were afraid of being suppressed in price, would choose to come here to set up stalls.

Dharma artifacts and spirit talismans were relatively rarely seen. There were still relatively few loose cultivators who could refine artifacts or draw talismans. After all, even if they had the inheritance, they still needed resources to support it.

Occasionally, there were spirit pills sold on the stalls, but they were all first-grade lower-grade, and occasionally there were sporadic first-grade mid-grade ones. The only advantage of these pills might be that they were a bit cheaper.

Anyway, Lin Zhangqing didn't look down on them; if he wanted to buy them, he would buy them at the clan's Affairs Hall. The quality was guaranteed and he felt at ease.

After browsing dozens of stalls, his aunt finally took a fancy to a first-grade spirit plant, Purple Bamboo, at a stall. The main material for Lin Zhangqing's Purple Bamboo Sword was Purple Bamboo.

This was a seedling one foot high. The stall owner wanted 20 spirit stones, and his aunt bargained for 10 spirit stones. The two of them pulled back and forth for a while. Finally, it was settled for 15 spirit stones.

His aunt had a harvest and her mood was even higher, pulling Lin Zhangqing and his mother to sweep through the rest of the way with great interest.

After browsing for a long while, in front of a stall, Lin Zhangqing simply couldn't believe it. He actually saw a halo at a stall, and this thing emitting light was not a spirit herb or spirit plant.

This was a bit messy, but no matter what, he should buy it first! He pulled his aunt and signaled her to wait a moment.

On this stall, there were many messy sundries, a few spirit herbs, and a few mid-to-low-grade dharma artifacts, but Lin Zhangqing didn't take a fancy to them.

His target was a piece of insect eggs emitting a purple halo on the side, visually estimated to be about more than a hundred.

Actually, Lin Zhangqing didn't recognize these insect eggs, but the problem was that there was a purple halo around these insect eggs.

Lin Zhangqing knew that no matter what, he had to take them down.

"Boss, what are these insect eggs? How do you sell them?" The stall owner was a middle-aged cultivator with a fierce face. Hearing someone ask the price, he looked up at the three people and said: "These are eggs of the first-grade high-grade spirit insect, Purple Cloud Scorpion. There are about 120 here, give me 360 spirit stones."

Hearing this, Lin Zhangqing looked at his mother, and his mother knew it was time for her to come forward.

She directly offered 150 spirit stones, and of course, the boss didn't agree.

After the two sides fought with knives, guns, sticks, and clubs, it was finally settled for 260 spirit stones.

Refusing his mother and aunt's kindness to help him pay the spirit stones, Lin Zhangqing paid the spirit stones himself. Then he used a jade box to pack the spirit insect eggs and put them back into the storage bag.

His mother and aunt were both strange as to why Lin Zhangqing bought these insect eggs, but it wasn't suitable to ask now.

The three of them had only browsed one-third after browsing for so long. Lin Zhangqing suggested browsing separately. His mother and aunt considered it and agreed. They also instructed Lin Zhangqing that if he couldn't find them later, he should meet up at the entrance of Wanbao Pavilion.

He could finally move freely. Lin Zhangqing swept through at a relatively fast speed, mainly to see if there would be any more halos appearing.

And he specifically paid attention to other insect eggs to see if other insect eggs would also have halos.

Walking and looking along the way, the halo didn't appear again, and the stalls were soon browsed. At the edge of the stall square, there were some stalls that occupied a relatively large area. This kind of large stall had to pay more rent.

Now this stall was surrounded by people, the atmosphere was lively, and from time to time, one could hear, "Lost, lost, this one lost. Oh my, this one is powerful, big rise, made a fortune."

Lin Zhangqing was confused by what he heard. He walked over and took a look. Many people were surrounding pieces of stones studying them, and there were people on the side slowly polishing the stones with dharma artifacts.

Wasn't this stone gambling from Earth? He didn't expect stone gambling to be popular in the cultivation world too! Lin Zhangqing was also very curious, so he went over to take a look. He didn't expect to have a discovery upon looking.

On a piece of raw stone, he actually saw a golden halo. This was the first time Lin Zhangqing had seen a golden halo.

He hurriedly went over to understand the rules.

It turned out that these raw stones were dug from spirit mines. Because the outer shell of the raw stone was hard and dense, it was difficult to probe the interior of the natural raw stone. There was a sentence that described it very vividly, that was, "Immortals have difficulty judging an inch of jade!"

So natural raw stones had strong gambling potential, thus the trade of stone gambling was born.

Here, spirit stones were calculated based on the size of the raw stone. Generally, fist-sized ones cost about ten spirit stones, head-sized ones cost dozens to hundreds of spirit stones,

Large raw stones that were about the same as a millstone cost one or two thousand spirit stones. There were even larger ones with prices of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of spirit stones.

After Lin Zhangqing understood the rules, he started to go in and select raw stones.

He didn't dare to directly take the raw stone that emitted a golden halo. He pretended to study the raw stones on the side, and after looking at more than a dozen, he dared to pick up that raw stone. This one was about a little bigger than a head. It was heavy, estimated to weigh more than ten catties.

Fearing any omissions, he scanned the whole field again, and after confirming that there were no other raw stones emitting halos, he took two smaller ones to make up the number. To avoid opening something good later and appearing too sudden.

He went to find the stall owner to settle the bill. The three raw stones cost Lin Zhangqing 320 spirit stones. The stall owner also asked if he wanted help opening the raw stones on the spot, for free.

And the professional stone-opening master was experienced. He could ensure the integrity of the spirit objects inside to the maximum extent.

Lin Zhangqing understood that this was the stall owner's routine, wasn't it just to open raw stones on the spot to attract other cultivators?

He thought about it and expressed that he would open the two small raw stones first! The stall owner immediately summoned a middle-aged cultivator. He said: "This is Master Hu, who has more than thirty years of stone-opening experience. I guarantee to open it for you completely intact."

Lin Zhangqing glanced at this Master Hu, nodded, handed the two small raw stones to Master Hu, and thanked him.

After all, people were helping for free, so he had to be polite.

Master Hu didn't speak, just nodded, took out a special dharma artifact for stone opening, and started polishing layer by layer toward a place. After polishing for a while, a little red gradually appeared.

The people around had already started to let out a sigh. Master Hu continued to polish slowly around this red point, and soon it was all opened.

"Lower-grade fire spirit stone, worth about thirty or forty spirit stones!" Master Hu said.

Lin Zhangqing nodded and didn't speak. The people around sighed one after another that his luck was bad.

There was another one, and he also let Master Hu start opening it. Using the same method, he chose a place and polished it layer by layer, and slowly a little cyan crystal was revealed.

The experienced cultivators around had already started to boo. It was a mid-grade wood spirit stone, and more people surrounded them.

Soon the raw stone was all opened.

"Mid-grade wood spirit stone, this is worth about thirty-five mid-grade spirit stones. That is, three thousand five hundred spirit stones." Master Hu said.

After the people around heard it, they had already started to boil.

Lin Zhangqing was overjoyed, hurriedly thanked Master Hu, and offered 10 spirit stones to express his gratitude.

The raw stone stall owner also immediately seized the opportunity to vigorously boast about his raw stones, often producing good goods. He fooled a bunch of cultivators into rushing in to select raw stones.

Lin Zhangqing put away the unopened raw stone and the two opened ones. Lin Zhangqing, who already had some guesses, didn't dare to continue opening them now.

He expressed to the stall owner that he would open the remaining one slowly himself, and proposed to buy a dharma artifact for opening raw stones from the stall owner.

Actually, this thing was just a file, but the material used was a first-grade spirit material. Seeing that Lin Zhangqing had also helped attract business, the stall owner sold Lin Zhangqing one at the cost price of 15 spirit stones.

The stall owner also expressed that he was willing to buy the mid-grade wood spirit stone raw ore in Lin Zhangqing's hand for 3,800 spirit stones. However, he was refused by Lin Zhangqing. And he expressed that an elder at home needed it. He wouldn't consider exchanging it for the time being.

Lin Zhangqing thanked him and left. The stall owner was still shouting behind him, telling Lin Zhangqing to go to his shop in the market to see other good raw stones when he had time.

Lin Zhangqing expressed that he would definitely go if he had the chance.

Seeing that the time was almost up, and the stalls were basically browsed.

Lin Zhangqing looked around, didn't find his mother and aunt, and walked toward Wanbao Pavilion. He prepared to meet up with his family.

(End of chapter)