The Supreme Wild Young Master
Chapter 375 Mysterious Small Cauldron_1

Chapter 375: Chapter 375 Mysterious Small Cauldron_1

Duan Hong hesitated for a moment, then nodded, refraining from additional comments.

Zhu Qing, Mu Cheng, and Wen Yulan were all somewhat worried. However, they knew that their staying would merely add burden to Zhang Xian.

"Don’t fuss over them."

Zhang Xian chuckled and proceeded downwards.

Even though the trading venue was rudimentary, it occupied a large area. Hundreds of stalls filled the eye.

"Huh?"

Suddenly, Zhang Xian’s eyes lit up, and he quickened his pace unconsciously.

"What’s going on?" Jun Wuhen followed her perplexedly.

Zhang Xian said, "I’ve spotted something good. Seems like I’m in luck, finding something desirable among all the stuff at this trading fair."

Jun Wuhen and Qiu Yun glanced at each other, confused.

He was walking so fast, and the item should be up ahead. Without even seeing the item, how did he know it was something he wanted? Could he be joking?

Zhang Xian was unaware of Jun Wuhen and Qiu Yun’s thoughts. If he knew, he might have been driven to feign illness. He didn’t rely on his eyes to spot items, but his spiritual mind.

Earlier, he noticed a faint spiritual energy fluctuation ahead. Regardless of what the item was, if it radiated a spiritual energy fluctuation, it should be of some use, no matter how trivial.

Walking fast to the stall, Zhang Xian’s eyes were drawn to a fist-sized, dark gold small mortar.

The small mortar seemed quite ordinary on the outside, three-legged, without any carved motif. If not for its distinctive shape, it would simply look like a metallic pot for holding water to the ordinary people.

Nonetheless, such an inconspicuous object emitted spiritual energy fluctuations, indicating that it was not ordinary.

The stall owner was a common-looking man in his forties, dressed casually, the kind you couldn’t pick out from a crowd.

Seeing a customer approach, he smiled and said, "Young man, what do you want? My merchandise is pretty great."

"What is this thing?"

Zhang Xian picked up the small mortar and asked, "Where did you get it?"

"This..."

The stall owner laughed, "Young man, just focus on what you want to buy. If you like it, then buy it. As for the source, all I can tell you is that it won’t bring trouble. I cannot reveal anything more."

Zhang Xian understood that some items had questionable provenance and didn’t inquire further. Instead, he asked the price, "How much for this?"

His eyes swiveling, the stall owner finally said, "The items here are all good stuff. Since you are my first customer today, I’ll give you a discount—two hundred thousand."

Zhang Xian weighed the small mortar in his hand and laughed, "It’s unclear what material this is made of; it’s a bit heavy. Judged by its metal value, it shouldn’t be too expensive, right?"

"Uh..."

The corner of the stall owner’s mouth twitched involuntarily. He asked, "How can you price this by its weight in metal?"

"Fine then, tell me what purpose it serves."

Zhang Xian grinned, "If it were an antique piece with artistic value, please tell me what it is, from which era it originates, and whose work it is. Otherwise, I can only price it by weight."

"This..." at a loss for words, the stall owner admitted that the item wasn’t an antique.

Zhang Xian said, "Speechless, are you? In that case, its price can only be determined by its weight. Otherwise, what use would it have for me? I just thought it was a bit unusual."

The stall owner asked, "How much are you offering?"

Zhang Xian pondered for a moment, "I can’t let you lose money, so I’ll offer you ten thousand. How about that?"

The stall owner shook his head, "I can’t sell it at that price, it’s too low."

Zhang Xian looked at the stall owner, who seemed uneasy, then smiled and said, "I have already shown you enough face by offering you ten thousand. If you continue being greedy, I will pass. To be frank, this object is only a bit unusual. I am not sure if it would be useful when I buy it. You’re asking for a sky-high price straight away, which feels like driving the customer away. Do you want to sell it or not?"

The stall owner shook his head, indicating he had no intention to sell.

Zhang Xian chuckled without saying anything more and got up, ready to leave.

Seeing Zhang Xian’s decisiveness, the stall owner ran up after Zhang Xian hesitated for a bit,"Hey, brother, 10,000 it is. It’s my first business of the day, so I won’t complain."

Zhang Xian chuckled, paid, and took the merchandise.

Jun Wuhen took the small mortar to inspect it and asked, "Brother Zhang, why did you buy this item?"

Zhang Xian replied, "I’m still not sure of its use; I’ll need to research that back home. However, this item should be unusual. As for precisely what it is, we’ll only know after we test it."

Qiu Yun took the small mortar to examine it thoroughly, "I really can’t see what’s special about this. Hopefully, you didn’t waste your money."

Zhang Xian knew that ancient martial artists didn’t possess a spiritual mind. In the later stages though, their sensing abilities greatly increased, so he didn’t bother explaining himself.

"Let’s continue our tour to see if there are any other good items."

After returning the small mortar to Zhang Xian, Qiu Yun moved on to more stalls.

Zhang Xian followed behind, sweeping his spiritual mind over each stall. However, he didn’t run into any more good items afterward and he was somewhat disappointed.

At noon, after having lunch, Zhang Xian let Da Meng and the others take Duan Hong, Wen Yulan, Zhu Qing, and Mu Cheng away. This place wasn’t safe, and he wouldn’t be able to take care of the girls properly.

As for the afternoon, he still spent it at the trade fair. But, to his dismay, he didn’t find anything good.

"Let’s see if I can find anything good at tomorrow’s auction."

When Zhang Xian returned to the hotel, he didn’t dwell on his bad luck, instead, he brought out the small mortar.

From the outside, the small caldron looked very ordinary, it even lacked a pattern-- far from exquisite. However, there was a fluctuation of spiritual energy within, which proved the caldron was certainly not ordinary.

After inspecting it for a while and confirming there was no problem on the surface, Zhang Xian sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and slowly extended his divine sense into it.

Just then, a burst of energy suddenly erupted, forcing his divine sense out.

"Huh? There are restrictions within?"

Zhang Xian paused, then extended his divine sense into it again. This time, he condensed his divine sense into a pinpoint, much like a flying needle, aiming at the energy within.

Given the presence of restrictions, this small caldron must be something out of the ordinary, possibly a treasure. But right now, he didn’t possess the ability to break these restrictions.

"Buzz...." A sound, akin to the hum of a mosquito, rippled out.

The feeling of his divine sense being pushed out left Zhang Xian even more astonished. Restrictions typically weakened as time passed, and they tended to dampen faster in an environment like Earth.

There was no telling from what era this small caldron belonged to, but despite the long years, the restrictions within were still robust.

Of course, his strength was quite weak at this point.

"Let’s try again."

After suppressing the excitement in his heart, Zhang Xian focused again, pushing his divine sense to its limits, and fiercely jabbed at the small caldron.

"Boom...."

This time around, the energy couldn’t hold back his probing divine sense.

It was in this moment, that the small caldron suddenly emitted a faint glow, and its size instantly grew larger. It had been the size of a fist, but now it was as big as a car wheel.

"Huh? Could this be a Spiritual treasure?"

Zhang Xian jolted out of surprise at the small caldron’s sudden growth. While startled, he was also shocked.

He wasn’t originally from the Cultivation World but had only become a cultivator after receiving a legacy. Thus, he didn’t know much about the affairs of the Cultivation World.

The legacy, though, included quite a number of introductions about the Cultivation World. The fact that this small caldron could change size confirmed that it was indeed a spiritual treasure. The question was - its grade.

"Hehe, this is actually a Pill Furnace."

After breaking the restrictions, Zhang Xian allowed his divine sense to delve into it, and he suddenly started laughing. He had been in need of a Pill Furnace, and what a surprise, he had stumbled upon one today.

One had to say, he was pretty lucky. What he needed, happened to come his way.

"Let’s try it first."

After a moment of smugness, Zhang Xian took out some medicinal materials, ready to practice his pill refining skills.

Even though the legacy had the alchemy technique and numerous pill formulas, he had never refined any before and didn’t dare to attempt refining a strength-enhancing Ascension pill directly.

Those medicinal materials were precious, should he fail, he would be left sobbing without tears.

Sitting cross-legged on the ground with the small caldron in front of him, Zhang Xian began to meditate on the knowledge from his legacy. After he had fully memorized and became familiar with it, he began to refine pills.

Inducing flames, refining impurities, fusing medicinal liquids, and condensing the liquid into pills were the four necessary steps in pill refining.

However, these were only steps for refining low-level pills. The process of making high-level pills was far more complicated.

"Dang... this is exhausting!"

A while later, Zhang Xian suddenly moaned. He found that with his current strength, he could only refine one batch of pills. The spiritual energy within his body was limited, and the flames he could produce were very marginalized.

As it was his first time, he failed a few times. He had only barely progressed to the second step when his spiritual energy was almost depleted.

"My spiritual energy is insufficient. In order to refine Ascension pill, I need to first refine a batch of Qi returning pills. Thankfully, Qi returning pills are not a high-grade pill, and I should be able to gather the materials."

After grumbling for a while, Zhang Xian began to cross-legged and practice, replenishing his spiritual energy.

Upon completion, he continued to familiarize himself with the alchemy techniques. Over and over again, his entire night was spent in alchemy and replenishing spiritual energy.

"Knock, Knock...."

Early in the morning, someone was at his door already.

Zhang Xian stowed away the Pill Furnace into his storage ring, opened the door, and smilingly said, "Brother Jun, you’re up so early?"

"Today is the auction day, I was so excited I couldn’t sleep, so I just woke up."

Jun Wuhen gave a cheeky smile, "I have already gotten Brother Qiu up. You go clean up, and we’ll go out to eat breakfast afterward."

"Mm...."

After nodding his head in agreement, Zhang Xian turned and went back into his room.

After cleaning up and having breakfast, the three of them headed towards the trading venue.

Today was the auction day, and compared to yesterday’s trading conference, it was bound to make the Ancient Martial Arts Practitioners even more frenzied. The trading conference was all about luck, but the auction was where all the treasures lay.

The only items allowed to be auctioned were genuine treasures—with the exception of a few unknown special items that were hard to appraise.

"The crowd today is quite large!"

Upon reaching the auction venue and seeing the line up, Jun Wuhen chuckled and said, "Logically, there should be fewer people than yesterday. Quite a number of people aren’t qualified to enter the auction."

Zhang Xian asked in surprise, "Really? Do you need to meet certain qualifications to enter?"

Old Man Qiu explained, "Of course, but the conditions aren’t too harsh. Imagine if anyone were allowed to go in. Wouldn’t that create chaos?"