I walk into the Meng Clan’s storefront, and admire the displays of low, mid, and high grade talismans all over the walls and display cases.
There are no other shops in this whole city with as many high grade talismans for sale, and I have to say the low and mid grade offers here look extremely intricate and better quality than any other shop.
Even the standard products in the Mu and Wang Clan’s shops can’t claim to be as well crafted as these.
“What are you doing here?” Meng Ruo remarks, spinning open her umbrella, and giving off surprised and stressed soul fluctuations.
Her brown eyes are deep and sharp, ready to fight, but I raise my hands in innocence and toss a spatial ring to her. “I told you I’d pay you back for those talismans, didn't I?”
She catches the ring and looks inside, seeing ten thousand spirit stones, but it only makes her grip tighten on the defensive artifact.
“Perfect Grade Talismans go for two thousand a piece, you’ve overpaid.”
I walk forward, and see a single perfect grade incineration talisman sitting on the main display counter. It has no enchantment.
“Maybe one like this would go for that price, but surely the one’s you gave me are worth a bit more… You know, I’ll buy as many as you have available."
Meng Ruo gulps, and shakes her head, “I don't know what you’re talking about. Whatever assumptions you’re making, they’re false. Even these perfect grade talismans, they’re made by my grandfather, the Patriarch of the Meng Clan. You would need to wait at least a few weeks in between each purchase.”
I squint my eyes, as I know she’s lying straight to my face, but I don't know why.
[Ding!][A more valuable secret within the target has been located. Old data overwritten.]
[The Meng Clan’s Patriarch died 2 years ago. She has burned through the majority of their clan’s wealth to secretly perfect her physique. She has been crafting perfect grade talismans and claims that they are her grandfather’s, keeping up the facade of a foundational clan to maintain influence in Lingshi City.]
I pull out a small white beetle from my system storage, and let it fly around the room, letting down a thin layer of a sound proofing array. Stacked with the arrays already in place in this building, my words are fairly safe.
“As you can tell if you’ve paid any attention to the rumors on the streets today, obviously, I do not want the truth of my involvement in the wedding to be public. You know a secret about me, and I know a few about you. You have an innate physique that allows you to somehow enchant talismans… None of them ever seem to make public appearance, but these perfect grade talismans do. You say they’re made by your patriarch, but he died two years ago.”
Meng Ruo’s eyes widen even more, and the hand gripping her umbrella starts to shake.
“Who are you? No one else in my clan even knows about this. How could you know…?”
I calmly reply, “Does it matter? I just wish to do business. We have mutually destructive information on each other, we should be able to make a deal…”
She stares at me in shocked silence for a few seconds, backs up, and slowly lowers her free hand to press an array disk built into the back of the shop.
It closes the front door, and puts up another layer of concealment and noise cancelling aura.
The floor beneath her behind the counter glows hot with qi, creating some kind of defensive array on standby, with qi density at the perfected stage of tier 1.
She takes a deep breath in and out, and her expression slowly shifts from fear, to just skepticism now that she feels more protected. Her voice still comes out shaky in the quiet room.
“Fine. I should not question the information gathering abilities of your backing… If you have spirit stones, I won’t turn away a paying customer. Do you want me to infuse this talisman? It’ll take a few hours. If you want me to make more, I’ll have to craft a few perfect grade talismans from scratch and infuse them too. Each one will take about a day in total…”
I glance around the shop and pull a small low grade earth bullet talisman from a shelf nearby, holding it up between us. “Can you infuse low grade talismans faster?”
She nods in confusion, “Yes, much faster, but they’re no stronger than mid grade talismans. There’s no point….”
“I don’t mind if it's an inferior product, I’ll pay the going price. I just want to watch.”
Meng Ruo grabs the small brown sheet of paper, and pulls out a sleek silver pen-like artifact from her storage ring.
“A thousand spirit stones per infusion.”
I nod accepting the offer without caring to negotiate and cross my arms.
The mature woman sits down, concentrates, and a layer of vibrations form around her body.
Intricate tiny characters form all over the low grade talisman, both infused with qi and her physique.
I stay silent as she works for a few minutes.
Her movements become cleaner, her soul calms down, and for a moment it feels like she’s forgotten that I’m even in the room.
I’ve seen this same unique infatuation before, while watching that puppet master from the Lin Branch Clan study my emerald swallow. It is a pure devotion to her craft.
It feels like the inscription pen in her hand, the chair beneath her, even the walls of this shop; they’re all witnessing this strange occurrence with me.
A light burst of qi and vibrations pulses off the low grade talisman and she looks up, sliding it across the table.
The moment of intense focus ceases, and the room returns to its natural state.
“Even if it only took a few minutes, enchanted talismans can't be found anywhere near this city, that’s a fair price, even for a low grade.”
I lift the paper up, now layered with a few thin additions of strength. It’s almost at a mid grade talismans strength as she said, but in my mind, its potential is far greater.
A smile grows on my face, and I fill a perfect grade ring in my system storage with fifty thousand spirit stones.
“Here, take this as an upfront payment. I want 49 more. Give me a variety, defensive and offensive, all low grade to make it faster.”
She looks in the ring, then stares at me with a blank expression, “I can… but why…?”
I shrug, “I won't pry into your family business, and you won’t pry into mine.”
More confusion in her soul grows, but she still takes the ring.
“It will be done.”
She starts to move toward the control disk to open up the shop again to let me leave, but I raise another question.
“Do you by chance have any enchanted soul contracts? Or normal one’s higher in qi density to bind a foundation establishment cultivator into a deal?”
Meng Ruo shakes her head, “Soul contracts that would work on two cultivators? There’s nothing of that quality in a small city like this. Maybe you’re thinking of the ones with false names made for spirit beasts? They use soul metal dust in the craft, but it doesn’t actually affect the soul of an awakened qi refiner. If you don’t have the beast mastery physique, or don’t bond with a beast while it's still in its egg form, they’re basically the same as spirit contracts.”
She looks under the counter, and pulls out a stack of thin papers, ”If you want peace of mind in our deal, high grade spirit contracts are strong enough. They’re only qi based, and work to form shorter term contractual agreements.”
I shake my head, thinking about the low grade spirit contract I made with the blue crane at my farming plot back in the sect. It only worked because that bird was conditioned to follow orders already, if it really wanted to, I’m sure it could break our bond without dying right now.
“No, it is not for you. I’m in the middle of another deal. One where I need a much higher level of trust. They’re much stronger than both you and me.”
Meng Ruo stows away the papers, and thinks for a few seconds, then her breathing quickens.
“There is one tier 2 spirit contract talisman I have leftover, but I couldn’t sell it for spirit stones alone. I’d have to trade it for at least… I’d say, three foundational crystals.”
I reach into my system storage, and pull out three of the dense white tier 2 stones without hesitating.
“If that’s the best you have, I’ll take it.”
The woman exhales with surprise, and hurriedly nods, putting out a hand.
“I’ll sell it to you if you really want it. I need the crystals more than that old contract anyway…”
I nod, and drop her the bright white stones. She stows them away before walking into the shop’s back room.
I’m left standing in silence for a few minutes. She returns with sweat droplets on her forehead, and places a thin rectangular piece of white jade on the counter. It has carved characters on the front side, and the back is smooth.
I pull it into my storage. “Now how exactly does it work?”
“It is the same as lower tier spirit contracts, though, it will take a considerably larger amount of qi to imprint and mentally add conditions. Whoever imprints it next will have a dense strand of qi tethered around their dantian until the contract jade itself is destroyed, or they fulfill what you’ve asked.”
I tighten my gaze, “Could you enchant it to be stronger? How strong would someone need to be to manually overpower the imprint?”
Meng Ruo Chuckles, “No, I only know how to enchant a few select talismans, and only up to the perfected tier 1. This is far too intricate for me to even consider messing with, I’d end up ruining a perfectly good talisman. There is nothing to worry about though, even an inferior grade tier 2 spirit contract like this is secure enough to hold a level 10 foundational cultivator accountable. They wouldn't risk the backlash of a fractured dantian.”