Tales of the Teal Mountain Sect

Year 663 of the Stable Era,

Third day of the eleventh month

Seventeen minutes past the start of the 1st Inner Hour

"400 spirit stones, and I'm cutting off my own arms with this deal," the merchant declared, slapping his wrist for emphasis. The sharp sound was quickly swallowed by the buzz of the market, and the hundreds of cultivators perusing the assortment of items collected from everywhere between the four corners of the world.

The gathering of the sects always drew a crowd, and the Teal Mountain Sect always sectioned off a sizable portion of the western slope to host the ever-popular bazaar. There was something of everything to be found within, if one had the time to find it.

Tents ranged from the slightly shabby to the entirely too elaborate, only eclipsed by the temporary buildings erected by the largest of the merchant clans. Some formed theirs out of wood and qi, while others simply built theirs from materials transported in their abundance of spatial storage mediums.

Everywhere between was filled with disciples and loose cultivators, hawking whatever curios they had found, inherited or invented from blankets and borrowed tables.

Yeung Lin gave the merchant, a thick fellow with a bright pink robe and a smooth silk hat, a contemplative 'hmm' as he idly twirled the brush in his hand, as if he was giving the offer a critical consideration.

"Given the state of the ring, particularly the severity of the cracks along its outer rim, I cannot go any higher than 300," Yeung Lin eventually replied after a minute. Sufficient time to allow unease to creep into the shopkeeper. "Even if it has held together up until now, and the ring does indeed hold as much as you say, it won't for long without serious repairs. And even then, it is unlikely that the ring will ever hold the same amount again, unless I can find a craftsman of sufficient skill. And that, and the materials involved, would be at no small expense."

"I believe that I can offer you some assistance with that," the merchant said, smoothly lifting a tray of stones from the small set of drawers on his countertop. It was a clever little arrangement, which made use of some sort of spatial formation to contain far too many drawers than it should be able to fit. Under other circumstances Yeung Lin would have loved nothing more than to inquire about its make, but he had long since learnt that anything past surface inquiries tended to bog down negotiations.

"The finest specimens of jade, from far east of the Great Dessert."

"Regretfully, I doubt that you can offer me a better deal than I might otherwise find," Yeung Lin said, gesturing around him. Spirit jade was ubiquitous in the market, and there was always someone selling the Teal Mountain Sect's signature good around every corner.

A very ordinary thing for a cultivator to say, even if they weren't a member of the sect.

Yeung Lin wasn't in his sect uniform today. Lan Yun had insisted that they dress as loose cultivators for their get-together. As it would allow them to attract less attention, as well as possibly allow him to obtain a better deal, Yeung Lin had readily agreed. Despite what many would think, there was always a slight bias towards the host sect, and he had found that he was more likely to pay less if he pretended to be a fellow visitor, from some strange sense of shared solidarity.

Yeung Lin had originally selected an outfit of his own design for the occasion. A thick robe of red silk, green wool, and various metal plates to best optimize the defensive properties of the designs stitched into the fabric's inner layer. He had worn it for all the time it took to make his way to meet Lan Yun, who had balked at his appearance.

She had insisted that he wear something more suited for an afternoon of light activity rather than an expedition into the wilds, and so he was currently wearing a plain robe of blue silk that she had selected for him at the first shop they had visited.

"Bah," the merchant said, swatting at his concern. "That's just what they want you to think."

"Well, it is quite flexible," Yeung Lin said. "It can be used for a wide variety of purposes."

"It's too flexible. Useful in a pinch, but best at nothing other than that. What you need for the core of a storage ring is a good, solid jade. One that can maintain its form for centuries. Consider this Blood Moon Jade. Colored only by the light of the dyed moon, which illuminated it through a narrow crack in a deep cavern once every decade." The merchant gestured towards a rough red bit of jade towards the corner of his tray, which seemed content glittering faintly in the noon sun.

"That is a rather middling piece of Rose Jade with a minor deviation," Yeung Lin said, giving the stone the curtesy of a brief inspection before returning it to its place. "It would also be better suited for something involving water."

"Perhaps, then, this White Dessert Jade?" said the merchant, gesturing towards a piece of white stone with delicate flecks of pink and green. There was a distinct curl to its shape, ending in a sharp spiral not entirely dissimilar from the cone of a sea snail. "Hardened over millennia and harvested at no small expense. Yours for only 35 spirit stones."

Yeung Lin almost laughed aloud at the audacity offer. It was an absurd price for such a stone, especially when he could easily get a larger, higher quality piece for half the price.

This merchant had probably thought he was getting a good deal when he purchased the piece from the Great Dessert Walkers, possibly on his journey to the Teal Mountain Sect. He'd likely thought that he could pass it off on some inexperienced disciple that wouldn't know it from a stone on the roadside, relying on its nature to outweigh any sense of fiscal responsibility.

Unfortunately, while it was indeed an exotic good in most other circumstances, selling it now was like trying to sell a wool coat to a sheep guai. The Great Dessert Walkers had brought an abundance of such stones this year, to trade for other supplies in preparation for an expedition deep into the heart of the Great Dessert itself.

It was seeming more and more likely that he was getting the spatial ring for a steal. The merchant was clearly more experienced in fleecing disciples than in serious negotiations, or even the evaluation of his own stock. A master of a single skill, but an amateur in most other areas.

Unless, of course, this was simply another ruse. But there were, of course, ways of checking for that.

"Let us stop wasting each other's time," Yeung Lin said, slamming a hand against the table. He made sure to emphasize the sound with a subtle application of a sound amplification technique, so that the merchant could tell that he was a serious customer.

"We both know that such a stone is far too soft for a spatial array. It would be able to sustain it for a short while, but would wear out in less than a decade or two. Which is far too short to be of any real use for any purpose except the lining of your pockets. So, bring out whatever stone you are clearly building up to, so that we can complete this transaction and go our separate ways."

The slightly confused look on the merchant's face as he mentioned the details of the stone told Yeung Lin all he needed to know about the man's expertise. He prepared himself for disappointment at whatever this man thought his best offering would be, and so was ready when it ended up being a piece of dark stone that the merchant claimed was recovered from the depths of an ancient tomb from the Primordial Era.

In reality, it was a small piece of turtle shell, and not even a particularly powerful one at that. It was simply dark from a dietary imbalance, and after a short refusal to view any additional gems, even with the promise of a generous 3 spirit stone discount, Yeung Lin made his way out of the tent with his newfound treasures.

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Most of them were unremarkable. Some common ingredients that he'd needed to restock on, a petrified yew branch that he had acted particularly excited to see, and, of course, the object that he'd acted that way to deceive the merchant into ignoring—the worn storage ring.

Old jade turned almost black by time and disrepair, capped with green copper bands on either side, and a pronounced crack along its inner curve. It had the space to store a small room's worth of items, although the removal of most of them presented a problem to most cultivators. There was some sort of spell on the ring, a curse as the merchant had called it, which tormented any cultivator that attempted to withdraw its contents with visions until they relinquished the items.

Yeung Lin had been intrigued as to whether this was a defensive measure or some other strange effect of the ring, which was why he had purchased it. Its storage capacity was a secondary concern, even if it was slightly larger than most of the other rings in his collection. He inspected the ring intently as he made his way through the crowd, contemplating the sharp geometric angles of its engravings.

He'd love nothing more than to start investigating it here, but there were so many other vendors he had yet to visit.

And he couldn't just abandon Lan Yun, who he had just spotted at one of the booths run by a member of the Great Dessert Walkers. Sliding the ring into a pocket, Yeung Lin made his way over to his old friend, who was attempting to negotiate her own purchase.

The paperman selling the goods had his arms crossed as Yeung Lin approached, his face crinkled in annoyance. He was red in the face, but that was more a testament to his physique than an indication of mood. The paper men of the Great Dessert had skin of six shades, each a different color of the decorations that a long-forgotten Immortal had used to decorate the dessert that they hailed from.

The Great Dessert was one of the many Immortal Scars of Karano, and the largest, assuming that you were of the school of thought that considered the Wailing Coast to be a remnant of the Primordial Era. Originally a five li long dessert prepared by an Immortal whose name had been forgotten for reasons that were similarly lost to history, it had spread across the countryside like a plague after its fall to earth millennia ago.

The magics that had kept it perfectly preserved had converted much of the surrounding area into more of itself, as it attempted to repair the damage it had suffered by inexorably assimilating everything in its path. Its spread had only been halted by the Age of Drought, as there was no longer enough environmental qi to sustain its expansion.

Thankfully the dessert hadn't resumed its expansion in this era of qi, although whether that was the result of a shattered enchantment or another factor was still unclear. To this day it remained a sticky blight on the land. Nothing could fly over it, and the divine nature of its composition was lethal to almost anything that attempted to consume it without cultivation that matched its maker's.

It was also quite miserable to traverse, as Yeung Lin could personally attest.

The Great Dessert Walkers' had spent centuries honing their movement techniques against its treacherously clingy expanse, and attempting a journey across it without their aid could add years to one's journey. Assuming, of course, that one was too impatient to spare the months it took to circumnavigate it.

"Can you at least consider lowering the price a little?" Lan Yun asked, sliding a pile of spirit stones across the table. "I can take it off your hands right now for 5 stones."

"The price is the price," the paperman replied. He spoke with the dry voice common to his people, its rasp like the gentle sound sheets of paper rubbing against each other. "Others will buy if you don't."

As beings folded from a single sheet, papermen lacked the organs so many other cultivators possessed. The descendants of the decorations that once adorned the tiers of the Great Dessert, they had forged their own path in their maker's absence, defying fate to achieve what others were born with.

Speech was considered a high achievement among their kind, as it required a thorough understanding of organic anatomy and the folding nature of their paper bodies to accomplish. It was a skill that cultivation could aid, but not replace, though many of their kind still fervently pursued the path of body cultivation to shed the other traits that limited their physicality.

After listening to his companion and the merchant exchange words for a stick, Yeung Lin left Lan Yun to her business. She could more than handle herself in a negotiation, and it didn't seem like she was going to be finishing hers any time soon.

In fact, it was ideal. He had a matter that he needed to attend to without her presence, and he would reunite with her after he was done with it. Turning east, he wove his way through the crowd, heading for the field where the Thousand Grain Pavillion had established itself this year.

As ever, their shop was an impressive affair. They were one of the few sects that operated out of a single location, eschewing tents and stalls in favor of a singular building to house all their wares. Five stories tall, it towered over the adjacent training fields, the closest of which were occupied by the lines rather than practicing disciples.

The Thousand Grain Pavillion had grown the small pagoda over the course of a single night, shaping it with qi alone. The wood was a species they had spent generations breeding; a hybrid of rosewood and cedar that possessed the beauty and luster of the former and the speedy growth of the latter. Aquamarine tiles lined its roofs, the sole inorganic feature of the building glinting faintly between artfully trimmed branches.

Each room had been carefully shaped, formed with the intention of housing the fine cabinets and displays that the sect had brought with them. Bright banners proclaiming their wares and prices hung from the lower branches, which had been left uncut precisely for that purpose.

It was ostentatiously designed for a temporary structure, but the care put into its appearance served a twofold purpose, as it represented the skill of the sect just as much as it did their wealth. Skill to grow such a large structure so fast, and with such beauty and detail. The sort of skill that was only to be expected from one of the continent's Great Sects.

Yes, the Thousand Grain Pavillion had been on quite the rise as of late. Once a mid-sized sect like the Teal Mountain Sect, their efforts to grow had finally borne fruit after centuries of bided time.

Spirit herbs, as well as most other spiritual plants, were not a crop that could be rushed. This was because it was not qi, but rather time, that allowed them to produce the effects that they did. Time for the plants to develop, forming their own microcosms of cultivation, in a process that could take anywhere between decades and centuries to properly mature.

In many ways it was a principle similar to spirit food or cultivation pills. While there was some small benefit to eating something that was saturated in qi, as the body would still absorb the energy, the composition of the energy mattered more than the quantity. Good spirit food and pills enriched the body rather than simply nourishing it.

Similarly, spirit herbs shaped qi into new, more potent effects, the refined results of their growth altering their properties in profound ways that were only possible after being shaped by nature for generations. It was these properties that made them so valuable to cultivators, as they could produce powerful effects that would take centuries to replicate, if such a thing was even possible for some of the more exotic specimens.

And it was for precisely this reason that the Thousand Grain Pavillion was the only sect of their kind in the modern era.

The Age of Drought had not been kind to endeavors such as theirs. With so little qi and so much hunger amongst cultivators, most nurturing sects had perished. Many had been cut down for what little they'd been able to raise, while others simply dissolved as they grew disillusioned by the impossibility of continuing down such a futile path. The oldest had fallen the hardest, millennia of information lost in decades as they tore each other apart for some method of preserving their way of life.

The Thousand Grain Pavillion had been one of the few that had been able to endure those adversities. Formed during the Age of Drought, they had played the part of a small wood-based sect on the surface, all the while keeping their true goals a secret from those around them. They had been able to quietly sustain a somewhat sizable rotation of decade-old crops during those dire days, which they had been able to extend the growth periods on when the era began to turn.

As centuries passed their crops had grown in potency, and with it their influence.

Their abundance of such scarce resources had let their members progress their cultivation faster than their rival sects, allowing them to easily push back their advances once they learnt of the Thousand Grain Pavillion's wealth. It also made for a powerful bargaining chip, one that had allowed them to join the Xan Empire as one of its founding members.

Their growth had exploded in the last century, when their first crop of thousand-year ginseng had hit the market, followed soon after by a slew of other varietals of the same age. They had generations more of such plants on the way, and their need for land for future crops had led to their expansion across at least five continents.

Sects were clamoring over themselves to offer them reasons to choose their lands over rivals, as guaranteed access to even a small quantity of their crops would immensely increase their own local power.

Yeung Lin had been meaning to try their thousand-year ginseng, but it was something for the future. Perhaps once he reached the fourth stage of his cultivation. Such things were better used to increase the depths of one's own cultivation, rather than as a method of elevating it.

Approaching a member of the Thousand Grain Pavillion managing the line, he showed her his Instructor's seal, making sure that only she could see it. The green-robed cultivator inspected it quickly, then signaled one of her companions to take her place while she escorted Yeung Lin to the side entrance.

The line grumbled about the unfairness of such preferential treatment, but Yeung Lin paid them little mind as he followed his guide into the pagoda.