ă€ŠEarthly Treasures Pavilion [Discontinued]ă€‹


 Chapter 1: Into the Rabbit Hole with no Return Tickets

    A lone girl was looking around the small but clean room. It looked like a mix between a shrine and a shop, decorated in a way that gave her a cozy and homely feeling even though it was rather dark in color. Most of the crystal glass displays were empty and even those which had a description looked odd to her.

    In the center of the hexagon like structure was a counter running all the way to the back wall and encasing a stairway at the back that seemed to be leading down below as well as up to the next floor. All the wood seemed to be of a black color. A dark red carpet was leading all the way from the front of the corner to the entrance door, which seemed quite big, looking more like a gate of a castle rather than a regular door. The other sides had large supporting pillars on each corner as well as large windows made of wood and crystal in between.

    The girl, Tai Yui, arrived just recently in a way that she still could not believe herself. One moment she was standing at the top of the highest skyscraper in the city, and in the next she found herself in this small shop.

    "Hello? Is someone there?"

    Instead of an answer, the girl suddenly felt a blazing heat all around her before something tugged at her for a moment. It was not a physical pull, more like something totally different that she never experienced before. A link, a sort of bond that was hard to describe.

    "Hi dear, good to see you have decided to come here!"

    She turned around only to see a girl. Not just any girl though. With long black hair, pale skin and a slender figure she was quite pretty. It was not her looks that caused Yui to stare with an open mouth though. The important part was, that this girl in front of her, looked like a twin of herself.

    Not only did they share the same body proportions, height and facial features, even their hair color matched completely. The only thing that was slightly different was her eye color, pose and the glint in the girl''s eyes that spoke of confidence and a fiery temper.

    Yui was rather introverted and shy, most would see her as a gentle, peace loving girl. Easily scared and easy to make friends with, but sadly also easy to take advantage of. The girl in front of her obviously had a very different personality and temperament.

    "Ah, hello! The message said you are looking for someone like me? It also offered a way to start over new, get a new outlook on life."

    She was still a little bit confused by the message, but for some reason she could not deny that she was interested. Now after having just travelled to this shop in a magical way, she was even more curious.

    "Well dear, it''s rather simple. This place needs someone to watch over it. You have the chance to start living here, but there is no chance to go back anymore. This is a different place than the one you know, a different world, unlike your own."

    "If you agree then you leave everything you know behind and jump into the rabbit hole. If you agree this little shop is all yours, though there will be quite some limits and restrictions of what you can do with it."

    Yui was surprised and wanted to know more, but she had a feeling that she would not get a lot more information. Feeling like her life in the world she had known for so long was pretty much over for her anyways, she did not even consider for a long time before she agreed.

    "Sure, there is nothing back home that I would miss anyways, no one that would miss me either." she replied with a little bit of a sad look.

    "I guess I will need clothes and all those things, I didn''t bring any of that with me."

    Chuckling at her answer the copy of her started to laugh.

    "Don''t worry, we find you some clothes and a toothbrush or something for you to use here. Welcome to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion! Let me give you a quick rundown of the things here."

    Following the girl around the shop, Yui did her best to remember everything she was told.

    "Most of the Pavilion''s formations are still sealed. We will need to increase our power reserves first before they will be open to you. When we have enough items sold, we will be able to release more options and variations."

    Yui nodded and inspected the two cases that were available for now. Both did not look like items, but more like a little replica of a mine entrance and a forest respectively.Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    ~

    [Spirit Copper Mine Ticket] ¨C 5 First Tier Cores or 500 Spirit Shards

    Enables the user to enter the Spirit Copper Mine for two hours

    [Old Vine Forest Ticket] ¨C 5 First Tier Cores or 500 Spirit Shards

    Enables the user to enter the Old Vine Forest for two hours.

    ~

    "Am I going to sell these ˇ­ things?" she asked, not sure what to do about it.

    "Yes, these ticket talismans can be used to enter the respective places. Diligent people might find a fortune there that is well worth the price. You can obviously sell things you find or make yourself, but for now I''d recommend you stick to the basics or talk to me if you plan on something unconventional."

    Nodding, Yui looked around once more. There did not seem to be any other things for sale currently, it seemed easy enough.

    "You can sleep in the rooms downstairs. How long you open the shop is up to you, same as how much you earn. Your share of the profit depends on how much and what you sell, everything else is used to keep things running here. Once you unlock more formations, your cut might become higher as well as we might produce and restore things in a more efficient way, but we''re a bit low on power, as such the good stuff is all inactive currently."

    Not having an idea of the money system in this world, Yui just nodded again.

    "Here let me give you a little welcome gift. If anyone is making trouble just call me. I''m bound to your soul after all."

    "Thanks." Taking the gift box Yui wondered what being bound to her soul would mean. "Is this why you look like me? Do you have a name?"

    "You can call me Tora. See you sweety."

    Yui barely had time to say goodbye, now just remembering that she never even introduced herself at all, before Tora had already disappeared in a cloud of mist, as if she didn''t exist before.

    Staring at the place in disbelief for a while, she then opened the gift box and found the inside quite a bit larger than the outside, which by itself was extremely impressive for Yui. Various items could be found inside, among others multiple sets of clothes, a charm with a note telling her it was a translation artifact, various toiletries, some books about the local area, about minerals and herbs and various tools that she had no idea what they would be used for as well as a small purse with 100 small golden coins.

    The clothes themselves looked like a more elaborate version of a kimono, or perhaps Miko clothes, completely in black with red accents. They all sported a symbol of a bonsai tree growing on a mountain, enclosed by a simple circle. Overall the design of the clothes was extremely intricate, but not gaudy looking. With long sleeves and an elegant flowing look.

    There was an area below the shop, similar to a basement, where her own rooms were located at, among others. There were two bedrooms, one of them had a sign above it reading ''Yui'' while the other had a similar sign with ''Tora'' and there was also a kitchen as well as a large bathroom.

    All of them had windows that could be closed and locked and Yui quickly figured out that it was not a cellar, but still above ground level. Instead the shop area was quite a bit above the ground, reachable with some stairs from the main entrance and the windows were actually openings at the side of a small artificial hill the Pavilion was built on.

    "It seems like Tora is living here as well. I wonder where she disappeared to."

    Once she settled down, put her items away and got a bath to get clean again, she decided to take a look outside. She dressed in the black and red shop outfit before leaving, taking a stroll around the small streets.

    Yui felt slightly odd with her priestess like outfit, but as it was provided by Tora, she did not think it would be out of place to wear it.

    She quickly noticed, that while the city and environment around her, reminded one very much of a fantasy like setting, with mystical things and unexplainable happenings and strange items all over the place, it did not exactly seem like atown that she was used to in her homeland.

    The culture, clothes and buildings had some eastern flair, but also had various other influences that could only be found in Europe or America in her own world. It was an odd mix, that completely clashed with her knowledge, yet seemed to make sense for this place in its own way.

    Looking at the various food stalls, her stomach started to grumble, and she quickly decided to buy some of the sweet-smelling food, that reminded her a lot of crepes.

    Made out of some type of sweet dough, with added honey and fruits, it looked quite good. There was a little sign that said a portion would be 3 copper coins.

    "Oh, this looks delicious, give me a portion please."

    The shopkeeper had a big grin on his face and respectfully handed her some of the food.

    "Here you go miss, these are the best waffles you will find in the city if I might say so myself."

    Yui handed him one of the golden coins wondering about the exchange rates. For a moment, the shopkeeper stared at the coin before he looked at her in embarrassment.

    "I''m sorry milady, but I would not be able to exchange that. I could at most return you a little bit more than 4o silver. Why don''t you treat the food as my gift?"

    "Ahh, thank you, but it''s alright, just keep the change. I will make sure to bring some smaller coins next time I''m here."

    Not used to being treated in such a respectful way, not to mention that someone just wanted to give her the delicious snack for free she was slightly embarrassed. After wishing everyone a good day, Yui quickly walked back to the pavilion, one could say that the girl has fled the scene, even though no one really meant her any harm.

    The shopkeeper and the people who heard their conversation were just staring at the girl who was quickly leaving the market, not sure what to make of it.

    "Did she really just pay you a gold coin for a portion of waffles?" one of the customers asked.

    The shopkeeper once again looked at the golden coin in his hands and inspected it some more. One gold coin would be exchanged into a hundred silver coins, while a silver coin would be exchanged with a hundred copper coins. This was no longer a small or even a large tip, this was just utter madness!

    "It really is a gold coin." he laughed, happy about his fortune. "Seems like this miss comes from a rich family. We better not offend her in the future. It never hurts to know someone of noble birth."

 Chapter 2: Miners be Minin

    Back at the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, Yui was leaning against a wall, her face looking as if she had just watched a horror movie.

    "Aaahh, I''m still not good with people, I wonder how I''m supposed to be a selling anything in the store."

    After a while once she had calmed down again, Yui decided to open the shop. Still a bit reluctant about having to deal with all these people, but nonetheless motivated to find a place in this world for herself, the sign of them shop was quickly turned around from ''Closed'' to ''Open''.

    "It doesn''t look like I have to clean anything, it seems to be pretty clean already." she mumbled, while inspecting the building once again. Even the dark red shingles on the roof seemed to be shining as if someone had just polished them recently.

    The large garden area was also very well kept, with the main pavilion located on top of a little hill with a stone stairway winding up to it and many bonsai trees among other plants planted everywhere in nice looking stone areas.

    "It''s not exactly located right at a market. I wonder if people will even find their way here."

    None of her questions were answered, however. In the end, she just decided to sit back at a chair inside of the counter area and read the books she was gifted with.

    "It seems like these books are all specific to the pavilion, even though much of the information inside can be used as general knowledge as well. Like the Spirit Copper. That''s what the mine is about."

    "The Spirit Copper Mine here is properly aligned with the surrounding area and has pure spirit veins added in certain ways to nurture and replenish the ore quickly. To do that, a certain amount of spirit energy is necessary either by using spirit cores from beasts or from spirit stones."

    Looking through the books, she quickly found information on various minerals and plants, including the descriptions of Spirit Copper and the herbs from the Old Vine Forest as well as many others.

    Yui was just wondering if she could go and gather some of these materials herself, when her thoughts were interrupted by a soft chime noise coming from the entrance gate.

    ''It seems like it makes a sound on its own when someone enters, similar to a doorbell for smaller doors. That''s quite neat.'' Yui thought to herself.

    "Welcome to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion." she started with her best shopkeeper imitation, but quickly paused after she didn''t know what to say next.

    -

    Sato Teika entered the pavilion, curiously looking around. His task among others was to scout the markets and find promising deals that his clan could make use of. While normal metals and herbs were easy to be found, it was quite a challenge to regularly procure a large amount of spirit materials.

    With humans expanding more and more, resources become more and more important as their supply with not limitless. The various clans and families would go to great lengths to procure such materials, because in the end, cultivation was a lot slower and harder, if not impossible without them.

    Not having resources would be the same as not being able to advance. For a cultivator this was the same as not advancing their own status, power and lifetime.

    "I see there seems to be a new shop here. What do you sell here miss?" he looked around but was not exactly sure what this shop was really all about.

    Other shops had lots and lots of displayed wares, making it easy enough to see what they sold, but this shop was different. It seemed rather empty, making him wonder if the shop was really open already.

    "We sell tickets to grant access to our Spirit Copper Mines and to our Old Vine Forest!" Yui replied enthusiastically.This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

    "It will grant you access to the respective area for two hours, so you can gather resources in these places. Whatever you find or mine will be yours to keep."

    She pointed towards their only two display cases with the prices listed along with the small replica of the areas.

    "Five hundred spirit shards just for access to these places?! Isn''t that quite expensive?" Sato Teika had heard of quite a lot of new ways of making money, but never had he heard of any scams that would sell access to a place for such a price.

    "I.. I''m sorry sir, but that''s what they are sold for. Our mine is exceptionally well established and will provide the best possible environment for pure spirit copper to form. Not only will the quality of the ore be superior, but it is also much easier to find it in larger quantities."

    "Our vine forest is also suffused with spiritual mist, making the quality and density of spiritual herbs much better than elsewhere."

    Yui tried to appear calm, but she had a hard time not shaking.

    "Spirit Copper? Ye have a mine with spirit copper?!" Yui just wanted to elaborate on the nice locations, when another person entered through the gate. Other than Sato Teika who looked more like a scholar, it was easy to see that the new person was some sort of craftsman.

    "What would yer Sato family even know about minin''? Better go back to yer golden tea cups and let people who understand their profession do the talkin''."

    Sato Teika seemed quite upset about the newcomer. Not only was he humiliated right in front of a young girl, but he couldn''t even properly argue with this person.

    "Araki Hachiro. Since when were you guys loitering around in the city. Why not return to your mud infested holes and dig for some more metal."

    After a while of some harsh words, both had started bringing up insults and soon started to shout at each other. As both sides not only seemed to know each other but were ready to get into a brawl if things didn''t calm down, Yui became more and more nervous.

    "Excuse me, do you want to buy something? If not, can I please ask you to calm down a little bit or leave the shop. We like to have a friendly, peaceful atmosphere here."

    They both looked at her, quite stunned to see that she would interfere in their argument.

    Araki Hachiro laughed, and gave her a little bow.

    "I am sorry miss, me sorry self should not have caused trouble for ye here, no matter how unlikable this person is."

    Sato Teika on the other head just turned around and left the pavilion. "As if there would be anything here our family would be interested in. Go play around in another mudhole then if you wish to. I don''t care."

    "Ahh much better." Hachiro was visibly happy now that his rival had left the shop. "Back to business it is. I''m not sure if yer mine''s quality is really as good as ye say, but I have a request from one of me customers and to complete it we need some spirit copper."

    "Now that all of them available stocks in the city are depleted, I guess I can only take this gamble. Even if I only get a little and the price for entering the place isn''t worth it for the material, at least I can complete the commission for the project on time and avoid any fees for being late ye see."

    Yui nodded her head in understanding.

    "I guess that makes sense. You don''t have to worry though, as the ore in our mine is of excellent quality."

    Praising the mine, when she had not even been there herself took quite a bit of confidence. She was already worried about the outcome, if this mine did not meet the customers expectations, but she had no chance but to advertise it properly if she wanted anyone to buy access to it.

    "What are ye called miss, are ye offering this access in the name of yer family or clan? Where is it located and how do I get me old bones there?"

    "I''m Tai Yui and this shop''s offers are not related to my family or any clan. You will receive a transportation talisman when you make a purchase. You can use it to enter the place you bought it for, for two hours and you will be returned to the place you entered once the time is up, along with anything you gathered."

    Hachiro was rather surprised. This simple looking girl, that was obviously not used to being in this position, judging by her nervous looks, did not get sent here by her family?

    "A transportation talisman? Now that sounds like an int''restin'' concept to me. Hide the location of yer mine, so no other can go there on their own. Didn''t even know that such talismans could be made in large quantities or still be cost effective for such a purpose."

    Scratching his chin, he seemed to give it some more thought. Charging someone for access to a place that you could only reach with a transportation talisman still seemed like a rather novel idea.

    "Well well, let me take a look at this mine of yers. If yer place proves to be of some value to us, I can offer ye the support of the Araki family. With how rare spiritual copper is around here, ye''d likely make a fortune if this mine spot is halfway decent."

    "I hope you will be happy with what you find."

    Yui happily took the spirit shards that were handed over to her in a small pouch and in return gave her first customer a glittering talisman for a two-hour access to the spirit copper mine in return.

    The talisman itself appeared on the counter once she dumped the contents of the pouch into the area designed to gather the spirit stones and cores. Yui had no idea where those shards were going to, but as the pavilion seems to use them on its own, she did not have to worry about it anyways.

 Chapter 3: Master, Please take care of the Shop and let me take a Nap

    Araki Hachiro stepped into the spirit copper mine after using the talisman in the pavilion.

    "It really is a transportation talisman! Who would have expected such a high-quality service for an old miner like me, ha! I get dropped off right near the mine and even picked back up and returned to the city. No prospectin'' for those veins, no fightin'' for territory. If this really works, I''m gonna make meself a fortune."

    His steps echoed in the mine as he explored the many tunnels. It did not take him a long amount of time, before he shouted out in joy.

    "Spirit copper! It really has spirit copper here. If I can mine a few catties of this, the whole journey was a worthwhile bargain."

    His tools soon connected with the rock and extracted the spirit copper ore, while his bags were filling up much faster than he ever expected. He was in the middle of yet another strike when he suddenly felt spiritual forces take hold of him.

    Before he could even do anything, he found himself back at the pavilion where he started, instantly catching a curious look from the little shopkeeper lass.

    Rubbing his head and smiling in an awkward way he quickly stored his tools again in excitement.

    "Got me so worked up in that mine, that I totally forgot about the time limit. Lass, you really did speak the truth there. This mine is truly wondrous. I nearly got a stone''s worth of spirit copper in me bag here and it''s all of excellent quality! That''s more than a hundred catties I''m tellin'' ye!"

    With the middle-aged guy in front of her so excited, Yui couldn''t help but laugh happily. While the man was rather rough with his behavior and speech, he seemed really good natured. An honest and direct fellow that did not bother much about social niceties and manners, but with a kind heart.

    "I''m happy that we could meet your expectations. It''s what we are selling here after all and it is good to hear that people are happy with our products."

    "Expectations met and surpassed, that it has Tai lass. I''m keeping me praises short for now though, as I still have to bring back that ore and get me ass back to refinin'' and smithin'' those parts. I will come back for sure though and tellin'' all me friends too. Wish ye a good day!"

    He picked up his bag, which contained all his newly mined spirit copper and made his way out of the pavilion, leaving Yui once more alone in the shop.

    "Well, it looks like this might actually work." she mumbled to herself. "I hope there are more nice people that are easy to get along with in the future."

    -

    The new shop selling access to a spirit copper mining location caused quite the stir in certain circles. No one seemed to know however where these rumors came from, or where this shop was supposed to be, as Araki Hachiro didn''t provide any details yet, due to his busy schedule.

    With the main culprit of these rumors busy in his forge and out of sight, many miners and craftsmen were on the lookout for this new shop, but by the time Yui closed the shop doors, none had found her.

    After all, the Earthly Treasures Pavilion was rather far removed from any of the common marketplaces in town.

    When Yui woke up the next morning after a good nights sleep, motivated by the small but nonetheless exceptional success in meeting her customers expectations, she was surprised to see Tora sitting in their small kitchen.

    Her twin seemed to be munching on something with a happy smile, blissfully unaware that she was being watched.

    After a while of standing there without a response, Yui decided to start the conversation herself. "Good morning Tora!"

    Finally opening her eyes, she sighed once more before nodding happily. "Good morning, good morning. What a fine day, finally I am able to eat something delicious again." she picked up another piece from the kitchen table and stuffed it into her mouth munching on it as if it were a delicacy.

    "Are you eating spirit shards?" Yui was rather surprised about her breakfast. She had no idea that spirit shards were edible. They looked like crystallized stones to her.

    "Mmm..yes ... those are really good. We don''t have a lot of them yet, but something is better than nothing right, I need to replenish those ore veins after all somehow."

    "Can I have one as well? I wonder how they taste." Yui was curious about this type of stone. What would it taste like?

    "You?" Tora looked up and for the first time focused her attention on Yui instead of her spirit shards. The curious and confused face of her twin sister made her break out in laughter.

    "You can''t eat those, you are no artifact spirit like I am, how would you eat them?! Silly girl, there are some pastries in the kitchen larder, don''t be funny and try my spirit shards, you''d just get indigestion and break off some of your teeth."

    "Oh." Now realizing that her expectations that Tora was a human, just one with strange powers, seemed to be drastically wrong and her request to eat a spirit shard made it quite awkward.

    "What''s an artifact spirit?" her next question seemed more on point at least, because the look Tora gave her turned from an amused smirk to a more serious expression again, like an older sister explaining something to her little sibling.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

    "The Earthly Treasures Pavilion is at its core a powerful artifact. Stronger artifacts have an artifact spirit to make it easier to control them. I''m obviously the artifact spirit of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, so you better sell a lot of our products and feed your older sister well, because otherwise I''d be really sad if I have no tasty snacks to eat!"

    Finally understanding Tora''s relationship with the Pavilion, all of what has been going on lately seemed to make a lot more sense now to Yui. Unaware of the mischievous smirk on Tora''s face, she immediately decided to do her best with selling their products in order to prevent Tora from ever going hungry.

    "If you are the artifact spirit though, what exactly is my role in all of this?"

    Another question that made Tora nearly roll her eyes and burst out into laughter.

    "Silly girl, you''re the master of this artifact now. You''re way too na?ve and kind hearted though, don''t tell anyone of my real identity or what the pavilion is all about. I''m just your strong twin sister Tai Tora for now. We still have to make sure you get stronger yourself."

    Tora sighed and wondered why such a kind girl would become her new master. Not that she didn''t like Yui, but it would be extremely hard to keep her from harm in the near future with such a personality.

    "Maybe I should stay around in the shop for a while, otherwise people are going to bully you. You have to learn to take care of yourself."

    "Uhm, thanks?"

    Yui still did not understand why she was picked to be the new master of this artifact, but she was too shy to ask any more questions, after Tora was having such a good time because of her earlier questions. She was quite sure she would figure it out later.

    "No need to thank me, I''m your older sister remember? Don''t worry too much about it, we will get your confidence up in no time."

    After rubbing her ''younger sister''s'' head in a reassuring way, Tora was going down to the main shop hall and sat there in one of the corners taking a nap. She would not interfere in the daily business unless someone caused trouble, but as Yui seemed to be such a na?ve and shy girl, she wanted to make sure to throw a remark out here and there.

    She wouldn''t let anyone take advantage of her new cute master after all.

    -

    The shop had just opened for the day when a young man walked inside.

    Yui''s sudden enthusiastic welcome, nearly scared him enough to make him jump slightly, ready to run away as if being attacked.

    "Ah, yes, thank you. Is this the shop that has an Old Vine Forest?"

    Yui just nodded confirming his question. "Would you like to buy a ticket granting access to it for two hours?" she asked, lowering her voice slightly.

    "My master asked me to gather some Black Shaderoot and Salamander Thousandleaf in the beast forest, but as it''s nearly a week away and there are some dangerous magic beasts, I wanted to see if your forest is less dangerous. I only heard a rumor that people can get access with a transportation talisman."

    "Oh, yes it shouldn''t be very dangerous in our forest. The only beasts there are peaceful, unless you attack them or provoke them in some way. As long as you do not threaten them, there shouldn''t be any issues."

    Yui might be shy and a little na?ve sometimes, but she was very dedicated to her job and always tried her best to offer good customer service.

    "Are you experienced with gathering herbs? Would you like some reminders about Black Shaderoot and Salamander Thousandleaf?" she asked carefully, vaguely remembering them from her herb book that she read not too long ago.

    She was confident, that those were part of the forest and there were also various additional documents that she would be able to provide for each of their gathering spots.

    "Thank you, some helpful advice would be very appreciated miss. I''m just an alchemy apprentice and didn''t get many chances to see those plants for myself. I''m only relying on the little bit of information that was available in the beginner books that I got."

    With most of his time spent learning about all the various things an alchemist had to know, where would he find the time to know the best ways how to find each single one of them.

    While he would obviously read up about the basics of where to find them and how to harvest them, there was no time for him to find more detailed information, not to mention this information was not always available or sometimes rather expensive.

    "I''m sure you don''t have it easy, learning how to become an alchemist. You''ve come to the right place though. We are doing our best to provide people with an easy and rewarding time in their resource collection tasks. That''s what we specialize in after all."

    She gathered a few copies of tips and information about various plants, all specifically designed for their very own old vine forest. As each of their available locations had such an assortment of leaflets, it was easy enough for Tai Yui to provide assistance with such gathering tasks. The pavilion would even copy the information for her.

    "Here you go. Our Old Forest is known for having an abundance of first tier spirit herbs, overall you will be able to find a large amount of at least 17 herbs of this tier. There are also 4 tier 2 herbs to be found in this forest, although they are less common than their tier 1 counterparts."

    She handed him a small stack of such leaflets, all with very detailed information about each plant, several pictures about their appearance, tips about where to find them and important information about how to gather them as well as plants that might look the same but are of a different species.

    The alchemy apprentice, who happily introduced himself as Terada Sen of the Greenfire Sect, paid for the access ticket and immediately started to look through all the information Yui provided him.

    "Obviously you will also find countless peak grade mortal herbs that do not fall under the category of spirit herbs, but I collected the information of the most important spirit herbs for you. Oh and since you mentioned the Black Shaderoot and Salamander Thousandleaf, I put them at the very front for you."

    "Thank you miss Tai, even the information about these herbs alone would be more than justified for this price, I hope the forest is as amazing as the mine I have heard about."

    "I''m sure you will have a rewarding trip. Our Earthly Treasures Pavilion only provides the best service after all."

    Confident after yesterdays success, Yui once more praised their own services, this time with a lot less guilt and worries than the day before.

    Once the apprentice alchemist disappeared from the pavilion into the forest after having studied the leaflets for a while, Yui happily ran over to Tora and gave her a hug.

    "Toooora we already had two customers, isn''t this great!?"

    Surprised by the unexpected hug, Tora nearly fell off her spot from the bench in the corner, but at the end still managed to catch herself and hug Yui as well.

    "Ah, yes ... yes that is excellent. Oh and call me sis while we are here." her encouragement might not be the most enthusiastic, but Yui did not even seem to notice the lack of emotion.

    "Now go and sell some more and let your older sis sleep, taking care of a pavilion''s maintenance is hard work."

    "Sure, sis, I let you nap some more and don''t bother you. I''m sure we will have lots of customers soon!"

    "How great." Tora mumbled to herself. Living like this seemed like it would be a good time for an artifact spirit. Her other masters would have her do the work of the shopkeeper as well after all, not that she would ever let her sister know about this. With a happy smirk on her face, she drifted off to sleep some more.

 Chapter 4: Our Pocket Dimensions are all Eco Friendly

    In one of the training halls of the Greenfire Sect grandmaster alchemist Koda Senzo was looking through the herbs his disciple had gathered. Not only was finding and identifying various herbs part of their training, but it also kept the sect from spending too many resources on new disciples.

    While low ranking disciples of the sect might only be allowed to use low tier materials during their training, as the majority of the disciples were part of the lower rank after all, it would still be a considerable effort to buy resources for each one of them.

    "I did not expect you to return so fast. Did I not tell you to gather these herbs on your own and not just buy them? How will you learn how to find them on your own and support yourself if you rely on the financial aid of others?"

    It was easy for a master alchemist to find out, that the closest place where the required herbs could be found should have been the beast forest about a week''s journey away from the city. How could his disciple therefore bring back so many herbs after just a single day without buying them from someone else?

    "Master you misunderstand. I did not buy these herbs, I gathered them myself in the Earthly Spirit Pavilion''s Old Vine Forest."

    Terada Sen quickly justified his quick completion of the assigned task. While he might have picked a faster and simpler route to gather the herbs, he still completed his task that had been assigned. Who could blame him for using his wit and find a different place in order to gather the herbs.

    "Earthly Spirit Pavilion? Old Vine Forest? I know of no Old Vine Forest close to the city, where would such a place be?"

    Grandmaster Alchemist Koda was slightly confused. While he never heard of such a forest close to the city, he also did not think that this disciple would lie to him. He had always been an honest person after all.

    If there really was such a place, then he could not fault his disciple for taking a shortcut if there was one available. What alchemist did not strive to improve on their efficiency and quality all the time?

    -

    Yui had just opened the gate to the pavilion not long ago, when they already had their first visitors.

    "Welcome to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, what can I do for you today?" she started her usual greeting, when she noticed Terada Sen stepping into the shop behind an old man.

    "Young girl, get the owner of this place. I have something to discuss with them."

    Being confronted with such an unusual and abrupt question, Yui was slightly nervous.

    ''Could this old man not at least say hello or properly greet me? Such a lack of manners is kind of rude.'' she thought to herself, but stuck to her customer friendly approach and did not let anyone notice her anger.

    Even Terada Sen frowned slightly at his master''s disrespect, but how could he say anything as a little alchemist apprentice.

    Keeping her usual customer service focus at it''s best Yui kept her smile and did not comment on the lack of greeting at all.

    "Senior, I''m Tai Yui and I own this Pavilion. If you have any requests, you can just let me know and I will do my best to help."

    The old man''s look turned into surprise and then after looking around the shop and only finding what appeared to be two mortal girls around became a frown.

    "How can a mortal kid own a shop like this? I''ve been told that this shop even provides transportation talismans, how would someone like you, who is still green behind the ears even manage to make them?"

    "Get your elders out so I can talk to them properly and don''t waste my time!"

    Grandmaster Koda let out a little bit of his cultivation aura, thinking that even though he should not harm them, scaring them a little bit would be fine, as they were obviously not telling him the truth of who owned this place.

    Seeing Yui all nervous and intimidated, made him think that this approach obviously worked. What he didn''t know was, that Yui was so easily scared, that even though the Pavilion blocked all of his aura on her to the point where she did not even notice it at all, his angry voice scared her even without his aura.

    Yui was just about to reply to all of his accusations when Tora''s voice came over from the corner, followed by a wave of her own aura. Before her words were even finished, storm clouds could suddenly be seen above the Pavilion and thunder and lightning was rumbling in the sky, as if the heaven itself were making a thinly veiled threat.

    "Old man. My sister might be kind and not take it to heart if such a lowly person as yourself spouts such bullshit in front of her without any manners, but if you disrespect her again, I make sure that will be your last words ever."

    The strange aura from the girl, pushed away the aura of Grandmaster Koda as if it didn''t even exist in the first place, like a storm blowing against a single small leaf, there was not even any resistance he could bring up against this kind of power.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

    He was sure, that if this girl wanted, she could have easily killed him without even lifting a finger, crushing him with the power of her aura alone, but it seems like he was let off the hook once more, as the aura passed him by, causing him to freeze in terror for a moment, but didn''t harm him at all.

    ''Have I been wrong? Are these girls powerful cultivators and not mortals?''

    Grandmaster Koda was sure the earlier spike of aura came from the girl in the corner. It would only make sense if these two were twin sisters who lived with each other for both of them to have a somewhat similar cultivation strength.

    ''Is one of them perhaps unable to cultivate for some reason? But why would this girl be the owner of the shop and not the other one? Is she perhaps really kind hearted and was nervous that her sister would harm me and not because of my aura?''

    Koda Senzo had many questions at this point, but there was no time to think about any of them. If he messed this up, the consequences might be dire, not just for himself, but for his sect as well. He had been living for quite a while and was fully aware of the strength of many powerful people around the city, including those of the grand elders and their sect master.

    None of them however would be able to release such a powerful aura, not even close to it.

    "Please forgive me for my disrespect earlier. I, Koda Senzo grandmaster alchemist of the Greenfire Sect did indeed forget my manners this time."

    As a grandmaster of the Greenfire Sect it was nearly unheard of for him to ever apologize, especially in such a formal way. Even his disciple, who had not been targeted by Tora''s aura at all was totally stunned by the quick change the girl''s words had caused in his masters attitude.

    ''What just happened?'' he wondered, but just followed his master in bowing to the girls again.

    Yui was still trembling a little bit but did her best to get the situation back in control. She noticed neither the aura of this alchemy grandmaster in front of her, nor was she targeted by Tora''s aura or the heavenly suppression from outside.

    All she heard were some harsh words from her sister and some thunder rolling outside, that she did not even associate at all with their current conversation.

    Not surprising, she was the most confused of all of them, especially how this alchemist suddenly did a 180ˇă change in his approach and switched to being so respectful.

    "I''m sure it was just a misunderstanding. There is no need to trade anymore harsh words sis."

    Smiling at them once more, she repeated her earlier introduction.

    "How can I help senior today? Even if I might be young, I can assure you, that you will still get the best quality service with our products."

    "Lady Tai, I would like to inquire about the Old Vine Forest that you''ve sent my disciple to before. How large is this forest, how many people can enter and will it be open only for a certain amount of time? Do you have any other places similar to the Old Vine Forest, perhaps even with higher tier herbs, or are you perhaps trading herbs?"

    Bombarded with such an amount of questions, Tai Yui was a little bit overwhelmed. Nonetheless questions were a lot better for Yui to deal with than emotionally charged or even aggressive words.

    Normal questions she would be able to deal with, especially as she was coming from a modern high school background. It was not much different to their teachers at school.

    "I cannot tell you the forests dimensions exactly, only that it will be open on a permanent basis, although each person may only access each of our places like the forest for two hours each day."

    "You can spend two hours in our Spirit Copper Mine and another two hours in the Old Vine Forest but not any longer than two hours in any single place. This is to preserve the resources that are available and prevent any area to be overly burdened by our customers. Keeping our environment healthy is important in our line of work after all."

    Doing her best ''green speech'' that she could quickly come up with, she felt as if she had some exam at her school. It did not seem too different from the topics they might work on at school after all, just increasing Tai Yui''s confidence even more.

    Grandmaster Koda just nodded from time to time and listened attentively. It was obvious to him as a grandmaster how important preserving areas with spirit plants would be, not just for them, but also for future generations. It greatly surprised him though, to hear such words from a girl that did not even seem to be two decades old.

    "We are currently watching the current market trends, assessing possible options to make investments and are considering a way to crowdfund certain projects. According to our statistics and comparisons of this country''s income situation, compared to the long-term return of investment for our offers, we are confident that we can soon offer more services and places to visit.

    "However, I am currently unable to give you any specific details on any new products or sales of herbs, as I am bound by various non-disclosure agreements with other third parties that we are depending on. I am thankful for your support and understanding."

    Yui once again gave the grandmaster her best smile and hoped for the best.

    Well, after thinking it through again, Yui was sure that this was perhaps a bit much bullshitting. Only half of it made sense, and a large part of the other half was a straight lie. She just hoped that it sounded better to the alchemist than to herself.

    In the corner, Tora was obviously more informed about Yui''s home world, as well as all the complex words she had used just a moment ago, as such Tora had a hard time to keep herself from laughing.

    Unlike Tora however, the grandmaster was totally floored by all the complex words he had never heard of in such a way before. What did crowdfunding mean? What was return of investment or a non-disclosure agreement? While all of these words were pretty self-explanatory, sounded just right and seemed to make sense, Grandmaster Koda had never heard of them before.

    He was sure though it was not because they didn''t exist, but just because of his lacking aptitude and his experience in handling business transactions being too low. After all he was an alchemist not a merchant.

    ''Now I understand why this girl would be leading this shop even though she seems rather shy and easily scared. She must be a once in a thousand years seen business genius! No wonder her sister would be upset about my words. With such a young age and her insights into business aspects, she must come from a grand background.'' he thought to himself.

    For the simple cultivation life and technical level of this world that Koda Senzo came from, it was obvious that he was rather impressed.

    "Lady Tai''s words are as precious as gold. I can only give my thanks for your enlightenment on such business matters and will eagerly await news of more services."

    "We are always happy to have such a respectable alchemist as Grandmaster Koda as our customer. We will make sure to inform you if we release any new locations or services that concern herb lore or alchemy."

    When Grandmaster Koda finally left, Yui was sitting down on her chair exhausted.

    "Do you think I managed to convince him sis?" she asked Tora without looking at her.

    A slight chuckling could be heard from the corner of the room. "With such a business genius that even invents crowdfunding in such a place, I''m confident that golden times are ahead of us."

    The laughter in the shop took quite a while to subside.

 Chapter 5: Get off Mah Lawn!

    While the two girls on the inside of the pavilion were laughing, people in the city on the outside were rather worried and confused. Many of the cultivators were watching as the storm clouds gathered just minutes earlier and while untrained people might be clueless as to their real meaning, the more powerful people recognized the potency and hidden power in this storm.

    What started as a simple rumor of a shop that sold some excellent services, quickly caught the powerful cultivator''s interest who were living in or around the city.

    "Don''t provoke the people from the Earthly Treasures Pavilion!"

    The Greenfire Sect was the first to directly tell their disciples to avoid confrontation. This commandment caused even further curiosity among the other population.

    What was this Earthly Treasures Pavilion and what powerful people were behind it that even the Greenfire Sect wanted to avoid trouble with them?

    With the storm clouds still hovering over the pavilion and the sky only turning back to normal after quite some time. No one else dared to approach on the same day. People just watched from afar, did their best to gather more information and informed other people who might not have heard of the news.

    -

    Yura Isei, a captain of the City Guard, arrived in front of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion early in the morning.

    The shop itself did not seem to have opened already, but several people were already waiting in front of the stairs that would lead up to the gate entrance.

    Most of them seemed to be tough looking people, all gathering around a brawny person who seemed to be leading them.

    Yura Isei quickly figured out that they must all be members of the Araki Family, while the remaining people that were standing a short way off were from other factions.

    ''Miners, craftsmen, alchemists? That guy looks like a city official if I remember correctly. It looks like the rumors about something strange going on at this place were true.''

    He nodded to the gathered people before he could not do much else rather than wait himself. Isei did not intend to start any serious conversation with these people, he''d rather let them do the talking and listen to their conversations to find out more about this place.

    His wishes were soon fulfilled as the miners were holding a conversation among their own.

    "Boss when do ye think that tower will open up? If this goes on half the day will be over before we get some minin'' done."

    "How am I supposed to know. I was only here once and that was a little later, as I was tailin'' that dumb Sato monkey. He was jumpin'' around all over the place, took us a while to get here."

    It seemed like their leader considered their options for a while, as the gate really didn''t open even though the sun had already started to shine over the mountaintops for quite some time.

    "Maybe we just come later next time, only get two hours for each of ''em talismans anyways, might as well not get here early and wear down our shoes standin'' around."

    The small talk continued for another half hour, but he couldn''t really glean any more information from their conversation than he already had.

    Finally, the gate opened up and a young woman looked outside, a little bit surprised to see so many people waiting in front of the pavilion.

    Yura Isei expected someone more ˇ­ impressive perhaps you could say, not such a little lass that you might find on every other street.

    Quickly all the people entered the shop, with the Araki Family taking the lead to buy access to the Spirit Copper Mine for all of the people they brought today.

    "I hope you have a rewarding trip! Please make sure to remember the time limit. The talisman will start to blink when only fifteen minutes are left."

    The girl''s voice was very enthusiastic about every single one of them, not like all the other shopkeepers he was used to, who would mostly be bored and disinterested unless they made a big sale.

    While one of the girls was busy dealing with the customers, the other seemed to be assembling a large brick structure on the side of the room.

    "Sis are you making the new forge already?" Yui was excited to see that Tora already started working on her idea of a place to refine and work on the gathered materials right in the pavilion.

    "Mhmm, it''s too noisy here anyways to get some sleep."

    Tora placed brick after brick directly on the wooden floor and not only did the bricks come seemingly out of nowhere, but they also melded themselves right into the structure of the building, changing the floor and melding into each other once they were arranged.

    More and more of the forge area started to take shape and a good part of the up to now nearly empty shop room was quickly covered with a shining black stone floor.

    Isei was impressed by Tora''s work, but as storage magic was not completely unheard of and most larger families or clans had a few storage items, he was not shocked either.

    He waited until all the miners and alchemists had received their talismans, which didn''t take very long, not because he thought himself of lower status, but because he know how troublesome those people could be. It was better to wait till they were gone. Stepping closer to the counter himself, only the lone city official was still standing behind him.

    "Excuse me miss, are you the owner of this place?"

    Yui looked at the person that did not look like a miner or alchemist and tried to make sense of why he was here. He seemed to be some sort of soldier or guardsman as he was wearing armor and all kinds of emblems and badges that she had no idea about.

    "Yes. I am Tai Yui and own the Earthly Treasures Pavilion. How can I help you?"

    "You see miss, there was an unusual phenomenon near this place yesterday. My name is Yura Isei and I am here on behalf of the city, representing the City Guard in order to investigate and make sure there are no dangers for the capital to be found."

    "Phenomenon? What phenomenon?" Yui was rather confused as she had never noticed anything strange happening here.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    "I didn''t notice any phenomenon, but what would you like to know? I have no problem helping with your investigation as long as it doesn''t disrupt our shop."

    She smiled at the captain with her best smile, totally clueless what he really wanted.

    Yura Isei on the other hand had a hard time believing her words. Who had not seen the huge storm right above their shop? How could the owner not know about any of it? He was sure that she must be hiding something.

    "Why did you suddenly decide to open a shop here? I heard this place was abandoned for a long time. Where are you from?"

    Shrugging as if she had expected such questions sooner or later, she tried to keep her answers simple.

    "Obviously a shop is for selling something. We sell our products here because we have property that we can use for the building, and the location is near the capital, which gives us a high quantity of possible customers who might need our services."

    "I''m from a country quite far away and was invited here by my family who offered me this place along with the shop."

    The captain was obviously not very happy with the answers and was frowning at her now.

    "What assurance can you give me, that you are not a spy, or will bring an army inside our city with this place?" he placed both of his hands on the counter and leaned over to Yui in an intimidating manner, making her nervously taking a step back herself.

    His thoughts were quite straightforward. Even if their backing was powerful, they still had to follow the laws. They could not just do here whatever they wanted and had to submit to the other powers in the city.

    "A spy? Bringing an army here?" Yui was surprised how quick his questions changed to strange accusations. What confused her even more, however, was that this guardsman was obviously not well informed of their situation.

    "Why would it be a problem if I bring an army here? It''s not like that''s any of your business, right?" she replied after a while, a little nervous, but still looking at him with an innocent smile.

    "None of my business? You''re in Sume city, the capital of our Yura kingdom. Even his majesty has his palace here. It is obviously my business what is going on within this city and our kingdom''s territory."

    "If you don''t want to cooperate, I will make sure, that this shop is being closed and the rented land, reissued by the crown to someone else and ˇ­"

    Before he could finish he was interrupted by the city official behind him, who had been quiet all this time.

    "Ah, excuse me captain, there is something you should know before ˇ­"

    "Don''t interrupt me, we can talk about your issues later!"

    The official, rudely shut down with the captain''s words took a few steps back, crossed his arms and then just watched the show.

    "Dig your own grave fool." he mumbled to himself and no longer interfered.

    Yui meanwhile gave Tora a nervous look. "Should I really bring this up?" she mumbled to her. Tora only shrugged and made a ''go ahead'' motion to her before turning her attention back to the new forging area.

    Yui sighed and gathered a box from behind the counter.

    "As the respected representative of the city guard wants to talk about the circumstances of this shop, I have no choice but to comply to his wishes." she started to explain.

    Expecting her to bring out their secrets and submit after being confronted with losing their shop, Yura Isei smiled and had a self-assured look on his face. This would surely get him a promotion when he brings secret knowledge or resources back to the guard.

    He might have the Yura name, but he was only a small branch family member and far removed from the royals, who held the kingdom''s reigns since its foundation after all.

    "First of all, concerning the land our Earthly Treasures Pavilion is built on."

    She put a deed, as well as several old looking documents on the counter and started to explain some more.

    "This land has always been owned by my predecessors and has never been part of the Yura Kingdom. The Yura kingdom''s capital Sume was built right next to our borders. It has been with our goodwill and permission, that travel and various movement of your troops across our borders was granted without requiring our prior consent."

    "As travel to and from our lands without taxes or other requirements was always beneficial to both sides, this has never been an issue so far. If you want us to remove this agreement, due to us being possible spies or moving our own troops with bad intentions into your kingdom, this is indeed possible."

    Now Isei felt like this innocent looking girl had become quite creepy for some reason. He still didn''t fully process what she had just said, but the confident tone and attitude made her seem as if she was a completely different person.

    "Furthermore, Yura Kingdom''s capital Sume, has long since expanded beyond your borders and is occupying our lands."

    "As I have said at the beginning, what we are doing in our own country is none of your business, but as you seem to want to make it yours, this is excellent, please give your king our best regards."

    "We will request an audience with him soon to discuss his occupation of our lands and either have him remove the buildings already here or have him pay rent for the 700-something years that it has been used thus far."

    Initially Yura Isei was just confused, but after the young woman in front of him talked longer and longer and unearthed more of the intricacies of their situation, his face turned from disbelief into a look of utter despair.

    Not part of the Yura Kingdom? Wouldn''t this mean he was currently standing in another country? What did this mean for the people living here? If the owner of this place was this girl in front of him, did this mean he did just try to blackmail the sovereign of another territory within their own lands?

    His face quickly looked at the documents, not believing that her words could be true, but the more he looked at the old scrolls in front of him, the paler his face became.

    "But ... the buildings in this territory ˇ­ that''s nearly half of Sume." he stammered after a while, still not daring to believe this was more than a bad joke.

    The official standing behind the captain had turned pale as well. He had been aware that the land this shop was standing on was private property and not owned by the crown, but never would he have believed that the territory was not even part of Yura to begin with.

    At worst he would have expected that they would need to use the crowns name to forcefully return the land with some excuse, or perhaps pay a sum of money to the owners to avoid any larger conflict of interests.

    Never did he expect the outcome to be drastically different than their worst predictions.

    He was a smart man however and quickly noticed, that while the girl seemed to have some education and a way with words, her confidence and personality was far from what other rulers would be like. In fact, he could even see her slightly trembling. Her courage was nothing more but decent acting on her part.

    She did not seem ruthless enough or perhaps not experienced enough to go through with what she just said if there were other options. Otherwise she would never act as a simple shopkeeper and treat these people so well. Usually with rulers who would easily cower, it was easy enough to pressure them with force.

    Unlike a certain captain though, the official had investigated this shop before coming here. He had already heard about the powers that even a grandmaster of the Greenfire Sect did not dare to offend, as such he was not foolish enough to threaten this girl.

    "Captain, if I may be so blunt, but I don''t think you have the authority to make decisions here. Why don''t you bring this information to your superiors and don''t bother her Majesty any further."

    Normally, as the city official was not in his chain of command and his status was not above him either, he would have just ignored the words. Now though, he felt like the official''s words were a gift and quickly excused himself before leaving the shop.

    "Please .. please excuse me, I have to report to my superiors ˇ­ I wish you well, good day."

    As the captain made a tactical retreat, some might say he just ran away headlessly, the official meanwhile thought things through once more. His attitude had also turned from slightly haughty to respectful.

    While he had the experience to trade blows with a young girl in words, he had neither the guts, nor the authority to start a war. He also wasn''t silly enough to even try, with these immensely powerful cultivators having their home base right inside of the capital.

    Honeyed words however would often work just as well as threats. If you could not defeat your enemy, why not make them your friend. This girl acting as ruler did not look like she would want expansion or power. As long as they kept things this way, they might even be able to make use of her powerful backers.

    "Your Majesty, I''m sorry for the misunderstanding and confusion. While I was aware that this land did not belong to the crown, even I was rather surprised to the extent of this situation. I will bring word to our king and hope that this little issue can be settled peacefully and without the need to use overly drastic measures."

    "I can only hope for your understanding and will also report this matter in order to avoid any future conflict that might hinder our good relationship."

 Chapter 6: When a Sovereign goes out to buy Groceries

    Once the official had left Yui was still staring around in disbelief. She had already known, that this place was not part of another kingdom, but she had never thought about this problem before, as she didn''t expect it to come up at all.

    It was no surprise that in a world, where powerful cultivators would often found their own kingdoms or designate a region where they were the sole rulers, that the owner of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion would be seen as the ruler of a small kingdom.

    This would obviously make her the sovereign of such a kingdom.

    "Sis ˇ­ how did I suddenly turn into a queen? I didn''t think we had a ruler, or it might be you or something."

    Before, she was acting as if this was unrelated to herself, as if she was just reading a script, or roleplaying another person in some theater play. Now however that she had some time to think about all these consequences, she was totally floored.

    "Silly girl, you''re my master, obviously you would be the ruler. Also, if we want to get technical, according to the definitions here, you would not be a queen."

    Yui sighed. "Thank god. People calling me your Majesty and bowing and all that would totally make me uncomfortable. It''s good that I am not a queen."

    Tora''s laughing made Yui turn around her head and give her a cautious look. Having experienced Tora''s teasing for quite a while now, she knew that there had to be some hook somewhere that she didn''t know about, before her sister even raised her voice.

    "Countries here are ranked by their most powerful cultivators. As this would also apply to me, our Earthly Treasures Pavilion and the surrounding land would by definition not be a kingdom but an empire."

    While Yui tried to make sense of this new tidbit of information, Tora''s grin became more and more obvious.

    "I guess this would make you an empress." Tora told her gleefully after a moment.

    -

    There were a lot more customers spread throughout the day, than there had ever been before, as the information about easy access to quality resources spread quickly.

    Yui was mostly watching her sister build the new forge, while their customers were inside of the mine and forest.

    A bit bored, she looked at all the various tools that she received earlier. Now that they could do something with the materials, she wanted to try herself at crafting as well.

    Once all the customers had left and the shop was closed again, she picked up a pickaxe and some other mining gear and prepared herself to head to the mine as well.

    "Sis I''m ready!" she called out to Tora, before she was transported from the pavilion to the mine.

    Being the master of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion she could obviously go use the places to gather resources any time she wanted. With such a large-scale operation and the places also being extremely large, a single person more or less would hardly make a difference.

    Creating something would require materials. The only easily available materials to her right now were spirit copper and various plants.

    An alchemy workplace was planned, but the only thing that was completed currently, when it came to workstations, was the forge, therefore Yui decided to try working with metal first.

    A few hours later all her work was rewarded with quite a bit of ore. Exceptional mining tools, an expansive step by step guide how to mine the spirit ore, as well as some tips and explanations from Tora helped a lot, even though she could still not compare to a professional miner.

    "You should first get experience with smelting it and getting rid of impurities. We can also extract some other spirit minerals from this ore, that might become useful as well. Making items is still a bit much for you without any training, we can work on that later." Tora explained to her.

    Yui was given a special method to use the forge and extract all the various materials. She expected there to be quite a lot more steps, but it seemed as if the forge would help with a lot of these tasks on its own.

    The fire in the forge, was a special earth flame with an insanely high temperature, while the runes and inscriptions on the sides would separate the minerals in the ore on their own.

    All Yui really had to do was throwing the clumps of raw ore into the forge and then arrange all the resulting materials depending on their composition.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

    The liquid metals would be split into molds to make various small and large ingots, other useful minerals like salt or spirit materials were separated in various pouches. Everything that could not be used or was not valuable or useful in some way just remained inside the forge and the flame burned away the remains without leaving anything behind.

    The young shopkeeper just decided what ingot size she would be using or how to separate the materials in the end.

    Meanwhile, the whole forge area had moved into its own separate room, connected to the main shop room with an arched doorway, without a door. The inside of the pavilion with the extra space on the side for the forge now looked bigger than from the outside, which was still a perfect hexagon shape.

    Already used to the strange way of the pavilion, Yui no longer worried about these things and just arranged some more display cases for the various ingots and spirit powders.

    The pavilion seemed to ignore the local measurement systems and just used its own, a system that reminded Yui a lot of her own worlds metric system.

    "Finally, a stop to this mess of various confusing units at least. Who would know how much a catty or a stone would be here anyways." she mumbled while placing the ingots that they would sell properly on the displays.

    Yui had ingots about 10 kilogram in weight, smaller ingots with about 1 kilogram in weight and some powders that were measured in gram. Most of the material was spirit copper, while there was also some spirit nickel, spirit iron and some aluminum, but for now she decided to sell only the copper and nickel.

    A catty was pretty much 500 gram in this world, with quite a bit of a variance between shops, this made it easy to calculate prices. She also added a little info on the side about the weight with various conversion options.

    Todays Special Materials for sale:

    [Pure Spirit Copper Ingot 10kg] ¨C 200 Spirit Shards

    [Pure Spirit Copper Ingot 1kg] ¨C 20 Spirit Shards

    [Pure Spirit Nickel Ingot 10kg] ¨C 300 Spirit Shards

    [Pure Spirit Nickel Ingot 1kg] ¨C 30 Spirit Shards

    "Do all normal metals have a spirit variant?" she asked Tora, after she had finished placing her new products.

    "Not all of them are known by such a name, but pretty much all of them have a spirit variant yes. There is spirit tin, spirit iron and so on and so forth. It is more common for some of these to have certain names though and not all spirit metals are more useful than their regular variant."

    "For example, people usually refer to spirit silver as mithril, spirit copper is also known as orichalcum and you will hardly find anyone who has ever heard of titanium in this realm, let alone spirit titanium, but its other name adamantium is a quite well-known term."

    "All of it depends on the translation charm you haver though. If it''s the same in your mind, then there should not be any issues, but it is probably easier to call it by your own worlds names and just adding spirit to it, rather than confusing yourself with a dozen special names for each metal."

    "The displays will let the customers read the names they know, and you don''t really have to worry about it right now, but if you ever plan on learning the languages yourself it might be useful to be aware of it."

    "That''s great. Then I don''t have to worry about all these odd names. Ahh I wish I could already make some items. Just imagine if we add some pretty gems. How nice would the jewelry be?!"

    Yui was excited for the future. They just started and there were so many things she wanted to do. Learning to work with metal, gathering herbs, learning about alchemy, one thing seemed more exciting than the other.

    -

    Another day passed by and after a good night''s sleep, Yui decided to go shopping for some ingredients. While they had quite a few spirit herbs in their forest, they had no garden for vegetables and fruits, let alone a way to make bread.

    Keeping the larder from becoming completely empty, she had to go out again, even if she preferred to keep hiding inside of the pavilion.

    Walking along a small alleyway that no one else seemed to be using, Yui was trying her best to stay unnoticed. Her big plans of getting to the bakery without drawing much notice to herself had some unexpected side effects, however.

    Right before she left the alleyway, she heard some shouting and loud noises. When she wanted to move around the corner to take a look what was going on, someone came crashing right into her, knocking her over the little hedge that separated the path from someone''s vegetable garden.

    She felt the ground below her slip away and a moment later she was already flat on the ground with a young man on top of her.

    A moment of dizziness passed by, then another moment of just staring into his eyes. She initially did not move due to the shock, but by now she was just mesmerized by this person, whose face was right in front of her.

    "Where did the thief go? Catch him!"

    She could still hear the shouting and with the suddenly nervous look of the young man, she quickly realized that these people must be looking for him.

    Both of them started to blush and were trying to get up again when they heard someone running into the alley. Instead of getting up, he pushed himself flat toward the ground once more, doing his best to hide behind the little hedge, but it was obvious to Yui that such a small obstacle would never be able to properly hide them once the people got closer.

    The scenery changed all of a sudden and both Yui and the young man found themselves transported to a forest area.

    Yui transported them to the Old Vine Forest and was aware of what was going on. The young man on the other hand was totally confused and while he was still having a hard time making sense of what was going on, Yui''s face turned more and more red from embarrassment.

    "Ah, excuse me ... could you perhaps ˇ­ I mean ˇ­ "

    As if realizing for the first time, that there was still a girl, not just next to him, but right under him, he jumped up right away, leaving both of them in an awkward silence.

    "I''m very sorry miss. I did not intend to drag you into any of this."

    "Don''t worry about it please, I did not mind, ˇ­ I mean no ˇ­ ah yes ˇ­ it''s no problem really."

    Yui was already bad with people, having someone she considered cute run into her made all of it even worse. This day''s trip into the city to get some breakfast and groceries started with more excitement than she had bargained for.

 Chapter 7: When you dont find groceries, bring something else back

    Coda Ryoma had no idea where they might be, but the girl did not look confused, nor did it seem as if she had any bad intentions, actually she looked rather adorable with the blush on her face.

    "Where exactly are we?" he asked after a moment, of her just stammering in embarrassment.

    "Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s Old Vine Forest." she told him right away, as if it would not be anything special to just hop to another place instantly.

    "We can return whenever you like, but I think it might be better to wait a bit longer, otherwise whoever has been hunting you might still be in the area."

    Space magic was not really rare, as it was commonly seen in storage items, but it was hard to ever find on this scale. For the first time, Ryoma took a closer look at the girl in front of him. The ''girl'' was actually more of a young woman, she was just rather small for her age, which made the situation even more awkward.

    The young woman was wearing a black and red outfit that had slight similarities to those worn by sect members with a symbol of a tree and a mountain that he had never seen before. The material was definitely not something common and he suspected her to be some important disciple from one of the many hidden or foreign sects.

    ''A sect disciple? She mentioned something about an Earthly Treasures Pavilion, is that a sect? Whoever she might be, her status is way beyond mine, I should better get going as soon as I can.'' he thought to himself

    Relaxing a little bit after he could not find any dangers, he started to stuff the plant that he just recently ''acquired'' into a simple cotton bag, lacking anything like a proper backpack.

    "Why would you run around with a poisonous plant in the middle of the city? Are you an assassin and killed someone?" the girl asked all of a sudden.

    "Poisonous? This is a healing herb, called the Royal River Thornleaf, it''s not a poisonous plant." he answered her, a bit surprised that she would worry that he was an assassin.

    ''Who does this girl think I am? Also, if I were really an assassin, wouldn''t it be dangerous to point that out to someone? She could be killed to keep her quiet or something. Is she not scared that I might be an assassin?''

    Yui just shook her head and pointed at the herb he had just put into the bag.

    "That''s not Royal River Thornleaf, it''s Three Blood Thistle Grass. Royal River Thornleaf has two thorns on its stem and both thorns are completely green, while Three Blood Thistle Grass has three thorns on its stem, and they have a blood red shade." she explained confidently.

    Royal River Thornleaf was after all one of the spirit herbs in their Old Vine Forest. How could she not know about its looks or even the plants that it would be easily confused with.

    Ryoma took out the plant again and inspected it once more, finding that her words were totally correct. He dropped the bag in anger and sat down on the ground putting his face between his hands.

    "All this trouble for nothing, what am I supposed to do now! It''s not like I can go back there to look for another one."

    Ryoma could clearly feel the stare of the girl now. He wondered if she thought of him as a fool now, after all this matter didn''t really concern her at all.

    "Why do you need a Royal River Thornleaf?"

    The question took him by surprise, but as she helped him escape after all, he could not really just avoid the question.

    "My daughter is sick. I had hoped I can use it to help her recover, but there is not enough time to save up such a large sum of money to buy it." he answered gloomily.

    As this herb was not what he needed, it was pretty much useless to him. Perhaps he could sell or trade it for what he needed, but he was not very hopeful. The guards would watch out for anyone selling such a stolen plant now.

    "You have a daughter? You don''t look that old!" she seemed rather surprised.

    "She''s only 3 years old, I''m 19, it''s not that strange is it? She''s all that I have left. I can''t lose her as well."

    Yui was obviously flustered, both by his emotional state as well as the kid. It really did not seem strange for this world to have kids at a young age though, she was simply not used to it. Having a kid with 16 still seemed quite surreal to her.

    "Follow me." she mumbled after some time.

    Expecting her to lead him out somehow, he followed her closely, but it did not seem as if she was walking toward some exit, more as if she was looking for something.

    They walked from one place to the next, paused for a few moments while she looked around and then continued their walk.

    "Found it!" she shouted all of a sudden, making him wonder what she had been looking for. A secret exit?

    When she kneeled down at a spot and started using a little shovel to dig something out of the ground he finally realized what it was that she had found.

    "Royal River Thornleaf!" he exclaimed excitedly.

    "Alright, guess its time to go." Yui waved her hand to put the herb into her storage pouch and transported both of them out of the forest back into the alleyway.

    "Lead the way please." she told him with a shy smile, not handing him the herb that she had just dug out of the ground.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    "Where am I supposed to lead you to?" he asked, still a bit confused.

    "To your home obviously. If you really have a sick daughter, I canlend you this, but I wont give it to you if you just want to sell it for profit. You obviously have to pay it back somehow, but don''t worry I give you a fair price and won''t let you do anything too hard or morally wrong."

    Finally understanding her intentions, Ryoma let out a sigh of relief. At least she would give him the herb and he would be able to save his daughter. Everything else, he would manage somehow.

    ''It makes sense that I have to pay her back for the herb, likely her sect would punish her if she just gave it away for free and she might still get into trouble even if he paid her back.''

    "Thank you very much miss ˇ­"

    "Tai. My name is Tai Yui. Just call me Yui though, miss Tai sounds awkward." she answered him, blushing a little bit. People in this world seemed to use first names in many situations and Yui somewhat adapted to this situation as well, at least somewhat.

    Titles and formal situations would still use someone''s family name, there was not really any strict rule for using first names though and people would not be offended if their first name was used by a stranger either.

    On the way to his home, the young man introduced himself to her as Coda Ryoma. She quickly learned that his wife had passed away two years after their daughter was born, leaving him without anyone to properly take care of the child and he was forced to spend more time at home.

    With the income even less now than the already meagre amount it was before, their situation turned from bad to worse. When his daughter caught a fever and fell ill, all his savings were spent on a physician. Even though he was told what was required to cure her, he had no money left to buy the medicinal spirit herb.

    There was also no one who wouldlend someone like him any money, as the likelihood of him being able to repay it was close to none. Finding no other way, he decided to steal the plant, but as he was not very experienced with spirit herbs, he grabbed the wrong one by mistake.

    When they finally arrived at a little rundown house, Yui was rather depressed and shocked by the living conditions.

    It seemed clean and well taken care of, but that was about the only positive thing that she could say about this home. Too many things were broken and were repaired in a way that made it obvious that there was simply no money for such repairs.

    There was barely any furniture and the few pieces that were there seemed ready to fall apart.

    She handed him the Royal River Thornleaf and then sat next to the young kid on the edge of the bed. The little girl was moving around from time to time, in a fitful sleep, making Yui''s heart ache.

    "Crush the red flower parts of the herb into smaller pieces and then steep them in about a g¨­ of boiling water for some time until the flower leaves have lost all of their reddish hue. That should do it."

    While Ryoma was boiling the water and preparing the medicine, Yui was still sitting next to the three-year-old, taking her little hand into her own and wiping away the sweat on the little girl''s forehead.

    "What''s her name?" she quietly asked, not even realizing how worried her voice had turned all of a sudden.

    "Miyuki" There was a slight pause before the answer, as Ryoma was rather perplexed by Yui''s emotional question.

    By the time the tea like medicine was ready, Yui was totally focused on the little girl and close to tears. Miyuki was barely awake when Ryoma gave her the medicine, but quickly fell asleep again afterwards.

    It was easy to see, that even though her fever was still high and there were no instant magical changes, that the little girl calmed down significantly, and her fitful sleep turned into a more relaxed slumber.

    "You can''t just keep her here like this." Yui mumbled, causing a questioning look from Ryoma.

    "What do you mean? It''s not like I have many options, otherwise I would have already moved to a better place with her." he sighed, knowing all too well that their home wasn''t really a good place for his daughter to grow up.

    "She can ˇ­ you can just move to our place. The little girl needs an environment with a proper place to live, regular meals and someone to look after her."

    Yui just voiced her thoughts, worried he would just refuse her offer.

    "You can just look after her and help us out with the shop later when its closed, then I can keep an eye on Miyuki while you''re busy." she tried to find some arguments that might make sense.

    How did things work out until now? Did he just leave her alone here all the time? Or did he currently not work at all, because of his daughter?

    "Wouldn''t your sect or your family have a problem if I move to your place?" Ryoma asked, still rather bewildered by the offer. It wasn''t exactly common for a young unmarried woman to invite a stranger with his daughter to live at their place.

    Actually, forget about common, he had never heard of anything like this before.

    "What sect?" Yui asked. "I''m not part of any sect. Also my only family member would be my sister and I doubt she would have any problem with you staying at our place."

    "I thought this Pavilion is a sect. I must have misunderstood it then."

    Shaking her head Yui tried to explain. "The Earthly Treasures Pavilion is our shop. It''s near the southern end of the city on a little hill."

    "I see. I don''t think it is very appropriate for a young woman like yourself to ˇ­"

    Before he could even finish his words, he was already interrupted by Yui.

    "Do you think it is appropriate for a young toddler to be left all by herself while you are away, or that it is appropriate that she is shivering from the cold because the door and windows barely block the wind. Is it appropriate that her only blanket has holes in it because it is so old or that her clothes are ready to fall into pieces?"

    Seeing the young woman in front of him now at the point where she was crying Ryoma felt rather embarrassed and did not know what to say anymore. While he still did not know why she suddenly got so attached to his daughter, Yui was obviously very emotional about it.

    "I know you''re doing your best for her, but please don''t let her suffer just because others don''t think it''s appropriate or because of losing a little bit of face." she mumbled a lot quieter now, obviously a little bit self-conscious about her outburst just a moment ago.

    Yui was trembling and with tears streaming down her face she made a rather sorry sight, but she still did not let go of the little girl''s hand.

    "I''m sorry." He sighed. "I didn''t mean it that way. I just didn''t want a nice person like you to get dragged into our issues."

    "Then who is there who will step in and do something? Why is no one else doing something about this?"

    No one seemed to give Yui an answer to her question. She was smart enough to know the answer herself anyways.

    "Well there is none right, otherwise you wouldn''t go and steal medicine for her. I might not be able to help everyone, but if I don''t even help a little girl right in front of me, how could I ever watch myself in the mirror. I''d be disgusted with myself."

    "I ˇ­ well I guess I won''t be able to change your mind about this anyways right?"

    His question put a little smile on her otherwise sad face.

    "Thank you. There''s nothing really that I can offer you for your help, but I will do my best to repay this favor in the future."

    Yui nodded and her mood improved visibly now that he agreed.

    "I guess we just grab some important things and you can move everything else later." Yui mentioned important things but did not even let go of Miyuki.

    With the medicine being rather effective against a simple cold, even if it was a severe one, Miyuki seemed more than stable enough for them to bring her to the pavilion. It was neither raining nor very cold outside.

    She wrapped the girl in the blanket and picked her up, with a little smile.

    Ryoma didn''t offer to carry the girl after he had taken one look at Yui. Her smile was so obvious that he would not have questioned it if someone told him that she was here just to steal his daughter.

    He just grabbed some items that seemed important and then followed her out into the city.

 Chapter 8: Trick & Treatment

    With the little girl in her arms, Yui decided to make a beeline straight across the marketplace. As it was still early in the morning not many people other than a few shopkeepers were up yet, but usually she would still walk in the alleyways instead and take the longer route.

    Little Miyuki on the other hand, didn''t notice Yui''s troubles. She just snuggled up against the unexpected warmth, still too drowsy to notice their change of location. Step by step, Yui walked back, trying to avoid the looks of all the people and occasionally patted Miyuki gently, as if it reassured her, although she mostly needed the reassurance herself.

    When they arrived at the pavilion, Tora was already waiting for them.

    "Did you find some good breakfast alrea ˇ­ " for a moment she stared at Yui and the toddler in her arms. Then she looked at the young man behind her.

    "That doesn''t look like breakfast or groceries."

    "I didn''t get to buy any groceries yet. This is Ryoma and the little girl here is Miyuki. They will be staying with us."

    Tora stepped closer and took a look at Miyuki first, who was still tightly embraced by Yui. She patted the toddlers back gently before moving on inspect Ryoma some more, making him slightly embarrassed and causing Yui to blush.

    "Sis, please don''t be rude to him." Yui had a slightly pleading voice now.

    "Alright alright, I won''t be rude to your boyfriend, I make some more space for the kid and him." she said, starting to walk to the basement.

    "He''s not my boyfriend!"

    "Oh he''s not? Your lover then? I wouldn''t have expected you to move forward so quickly and jump on him right away. Or did he perhaps jump on you?!"

    "Sis! That''s ˇ­ " Yui turned completely red, still remembering how they had first met and Ryoma was just shocked. Did Yui''s sister really believe he would take advantage of her that way?

    Tora laughed and walked down the stairs. "Don''t worry young man." she called from below. "I know my sister well enough, so you''re unlikely to be someone bad. I just made sure you know what you signed up for, can''t make fun of the little one after all, so you''re my only target now."

    "Uh that''s my sister Tora by the way." Yui mumbled. "She''s not bad, she just likes to tease people."

    Relaxing now that he realized Yui''s sister did not seem like she would be against them living here Ryoma only grinned but did not dare comment.

    He quickly understood that Tora''s tongue was sharp, but she did not mean to hurt them, not even emotionally at least he hoped so. He found it a bit odd that he got the feeling of talking to an elder instead of a younger person, however. Not that he had any idea why he got that feeling. They looked like twins and were likely the same age.

    When they followed Tora down into what Yui called the basement, even though it seemed like just another floor aboveground, he was surprised to find a finely decorated bedroom, that looked no different from a nobleman''s.

    What surprised him even more though, that there was also a room for Miyuki, fully decorated for a young child and both of their rooms had the names Ryoma and Miyuki written above the doors. How did they do this so quickly?

    Tora handed her sister a little box and pointed at the bathroom.

    "Why don''t you get her cleaned up and dressed into something a little bit nicer, while I explain things to him?"

    Yui nodded and just left for the bathroom while Ryoma had a worried look on his face. Would she be upset and change her attitude now that Yui was no longer here? Would she threaten him to leave?

    "Well, some simple rules first. There''s a lot of strange stuff going on here. Many things that would make people greedy for wealth and power. If you want to live here you better get used to it, if you notice something odd, keep it to yourself or ask one of us. While there are no great secrets, we''re already getting more attention than sis is happy with."

    "As sis wants you to live here, you''re obviously under our protection. Try not to cause too much trouble. No more stealing while you''re here please, I already have to save one person on a daily basis, I''d rather not multiply that work to three."

    Ryoma was confused how she would know about it, but just nodded. She already told him that there would be strange things, this was probably one of them.

    "As you''re living here, you will help out a little. You can figure out the details yourself and talk about it with my sister. If she has to take care of the little one during shop opening times you better make sure to help with the shop."Stolen story; please report.

    "I won''t tell you two how you handle any of the details, but this shop is our only income. You''re relying on it now as well, so you better make sure things keep running."

    "I also won''t take care of the little girl."

    Tora continued with her speech, then glanced over at the bathroom and thought about it a bit longer.

    "Well, she can take a nap with me in the shop perhaps. Or we can go shopping outside sometimes."

    Her harsh voice obviously wavered.

    "I make sure to bring her back quickly when she throws a tantrum though." she added with a smirk.

    "Well that''s about it, I guess. If you want to do something useful, perhaps go get some groceries and breakfast. I''m sure sis will be unwilling to leave the girl for a while, at least before it''s opening time for the shop and while I''m sure she will find enough to make breakfast for the girl, there won''t be enough for you two otherwise."

    She handed him some silver coins then just left him standing there staring a little bit dumbfounded, while she walked back to her own room. The expected threats didn''t come, neither did she even mention their different status. Ryoma was rather surprised.

    After knocking on the bathroom door and taking a quick look at his daughter and Yui, Ryoma left the pavilion with some reluctance to get breakfast. It was an odd feeling to be around the two sisters and to have someone take care of his daughter, but he was happy that their lives would change for the better now.

    -

    With the little sleepy girl, who was wearing cute looking pajamas in black and red now, slumbering in her arms Yui finally put the little girl into the small bed in her room with a sigh. It was time to eat some breakfast and then open the shop.

    A slight frown on her face, Tora was standing by the door to Miyuki''s room and stopped Yui when she wanted to go outside and switch with Ryoma.

    "That''s not going to work for a long time." she mumbled to Yui, making her stop and turn her attention to the artifact spirit.

    When Yui just looked at her and did not ask, Tora explained some more.

    "Her body is incapable of handling the exposure to spiritual energy. That''s why her condition will be getting worse over the years unless it''s treated properly." she explained.

    "What do we need to treat her?" Yui asked, wondering what it would take to make sure the girl was well and healthy while growing up.

    "Well that''s not really easy. We will need some divine herbs to treat it permanently and there are none in this realm."

    Usually Yui would just accept the little tidbit of information and move on, but as it concerned Miyuki, she could not simple accept the few words like that.

    "How would we get these herbs and what are they exactly?"

    Sighing, as the question would lead to yet another explanation that should have been obvious and unnecessary if Yui would have grown up in a cultivation world Tora finally started to explain a little bit more.

    "Cultivators have a habit of classifying various treasures and materials. Everything below 1<sup>st</sup> tier materials or treasures is usually mortal grade or mortal tier. It''s your everyday things mortals use and make. With 1<sup>st</sup> tier it starts becoming spiritual."

    "As your own home world''s ambient spirituality is too low, for various reasons I won''t explain now, you only have mortal grade materials, making it very hard for anyone to cultivate or find and proper treasures."

    "The higher the grade, the higher the spiritual energy. Starting with 5<sup>th</sup> tier spiritual materials cultivators call them saint grade materials. They have gathered enough energy to be able to form some sentience. Not all of course, not every stone will become alive and most items never see any sentience, but some do or can be awakened. Finished items that cultivators use over a long time have a higher chance to become sentient."

    Pointing to herself she continued with her explanation.

    "When you go to 9<sup>th</sup> tier and beyond, we are talking about divine grade materials, those materials can only be found in the right environment. Celestial realms and the like, places where we currently have no access to. You can make artifact spirits out of divine grade materials for example."

    Yui frowned and considered how hard it must be to acquire these materials. When someone powerful like Tora could be created with divine grade materials, it could not be easy. The name ''Divine'' alone was rather lofty after all.

    "It''s probably hard to get these materials, right?" Yui asked carefully, hoping for a better answer than she expected.

    Tora just nodded and patted Yui''s head, as if to reassure her.

    "There are a few options that we have. You can either cultivate enough to leave this realm on your own, that way I can come along, and we can go and find some divine materials in the ˇ­ let''s call it ''usual'' way."

    "While I have some ways to improve your abilities and your constitution, I see no way to get you powerful enough to break into the divine realm within the next 500 to 1000 years at least. We only have like 10 or 20 years though for Miyuki''s situation to become an issue, if we leave it untreated."

    Now Tora looked a little bit guilty for a moment, but Yui who was worried and oblivious to such small signs didn''t notice it at all.

    "It''s much easier to bring back the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s powers. That way, we can open up locations that will have divine materials and we will be able to cure Miyuki no matter how strong you are."

    "I could probably send you all back to your old world. The ambient spirit power there is nearly not existent, meaning that she would long have died of old age before it became troublesome, but it would also take the remaining power that I have, so I would be sleeping for a few thousand years and could no longer contact you."

    Yui shook her head. This did not sound like a good option and she would only treat it as a last resort. She did not want Miyuki to suffer, but she also did not want to leave Tora hanging like that.

    "We just have to make sure the business for the Earthly Treasures Pavilion flourishes and then get some divine grade materials. I''m sure we can do that."

    Yui''s voice was a mix between motivation, confidence and a little bit helpless optimism, but Tora had to smile at the energetic words.

    "Sure, I''m looking forward to it, you have to make sure you get more confident and become someone Miyuki can rely on. I''m sure we will have success then."

    "Now, why don''t you go get some breakfast and let me keep an eye on my niece."

    Yui rolled her eyes at Tora calling Miyuki her ''niece'' and walked out of the room, getting herself some breakfast, while the artifact spirit sat down next to the little girl and smiled at her.

    "Miyuki, your new mommy is way too easy to trick. Keeping you healthy and fine for a few thousand years shouldn''t be an issue for me, but don''t tell her, she needs some motivation." she mumbled, more to herself than the sleeping girl.

 Chapter 9: Teddy Bears are out of stock, we only have Dire Bears left

    When the shop opened again, there had been quite a few changes.

    There were now metal ingots for sale. While the prices for these ingots were high, their purity alone was flawless, and no other faction was able to get even close to a similar purity with their current means.

    The little bit of stock they had was soon sold out completely, leaving Yui rather surprised. She wouldn''t have expected the metal to sell so quickly.

    A few of the miners asked about the new forge area, but they were told by Yui that the area was not yet open to the public.

    Even more important to the customers though, was the fact that there were some changes to the existing places that could be visited, as well as a completely new place altogether.

    After Tora''s big breakfast of spirit shards, she was now sleeping happily on a chair next to Miyuki''s bed, not even willing to move to the shop or her own room, causing both Yui and Ryoma to smile at her undignified pose and blissful looking face.

    The mine had now an added variety of metals, all in separate mine tunnels with signs above each for easy navigation. Not only did they have spirit copper, but also nickel, tin and iron.

    In the Old Vine Forest on the other hand, there was a volcano like area and an ice cave now, making it possible to find plants that needed extreme heat or extreme cold in order to be able to grow.

    "Ah sorry miss, but how did those additions suddenly appear? I could understand it if they were empty, but if your words are correct, they already have plants and all."

    Yui smiled at the customer in her typical hyper motivated way, having already expected such a question.

    "It is the same area, but the landing point where you will be transported to is now farther away, as such its not exactly the same place. It takes time to improve on our transport talismans to keep them working well and efficient enough to offer these new locations to you."

    "The more we can invest in our shop, the more offers we will have after all."

    As the whole landscape changed quite a bit, no one would even notice that it was the same place and Tora just added everything that was different now. Yui did not worry that her little lie would be detected.

    She handed over a small letter to one of the alchemist apprentices from the Greenfire Sect when she had the chance too. After all she told Grandmaster Koda that she would inform him about changes to the herbal areas.

    The highlight of the day however was the new crystal display which offered a completely new location

    [Thousand Beasts Grasslands Ticket]

    <Lower Tier ¨C Half Spirit Beasts: 100 Spirit Shards for 1 day>

    Recommended for Initial to Mid Level Qi Cultivation Stage

    <Middle Tier ¨C First Tier Spirit Beasts: 500 Spirit Shards for 1 day>

    Recommended for Mid to Higher Level Qi Cultivation Stage

    <High Tier ¨C Second Tier Spirit Beasts: 20 First Grade Spirit Stones for 1 day>

    Recommended for Initial to Mid Level Foundation Cultivation Stage

    "Miss Tai, what is this new location? It seems like it has beasts there unlike the other two?"

    "Our new location has three different variations, each of them has different spirit beasts, one for beginning cultivators, while the others are respectively intended for a bit more experienced people."

    Yui pointed to all the three available options, giving out some rough information what spirit beasts could be found inside.

    "Why should we pay to hunt spirit beasts here, when we can easily hunt them outside of the city as well?" one of the cultivators asked, but quickly caught the looks of many others as if he were a fool.

    Yui though did not mind and happily explained the benefits of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s Beast locations.

    "First of all, you will not find any beasts of a higher rank than mentioned here. We have a formation set up that prevents any beast from reaching a higher rank. This means that you don''t have to worry about stumbling into a spirit beast beyond your current means and you don''t have to risk injury or even death as you would outside."If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    Everyone in the shop nodded. It was obvious that such a benefit would greatly change the way people could hunt. They would no longer have to hunt in a lower area just because a higher area would have the danger of having some rare beasts that were much higher ranked.

    "Not only do we provide detailed information about what beasts you will find, where you will find them and possible ways to defeat and even tame them, but the talisman is also useful as a means of escape. If you are in a critical situation, you can always return to the pavilion."

    "While you have to make sure to bring enough healing medicine to treat your injuries yourself, as we currently don''t sell any of those, the talisman will also make sure to cure any deadly poisons, curses or other ailments caused by the beasts in our locations once you leave the place."

    Yui''s further explanation made many cultivators gasp. They had already expected that the benefits were good if there were no higher ranked beasts to be found, but having such escape and life saving mechanics on top of the transportation itself was exceptionally convenient for them.

    "The talisman will make sure to provide enough distance between various customers and you will not have to worry about others finding you or any hidden threats from other people while you are inside our locations or the pavilion itself."

    Now pretty much every cultivator who had even the slightest interest in hunting beasts was attentively listening to Yui''s words. The benefits were simply too good to be true.

    "It is possible to form groups up to five people if you would like, however the Earthly Treasures Pavilion can not take responsibility for any internal conflicts between group members. We will make sure that everyone gets out alive, but please pick your party members carefully."

    With the introduction of the Thousand Beasts Grasslands, the business for the Earthly Treasures Pavilion boomed. While rare metals and herbs were useful to certain groups working with them, there was nearly no cultivator who would not be interested in hunting wild beasts to improve their battle prowess and cultivation.

    In the end, Yui decided that it was all about expansion. Expand their own portfolio in order to have a broader target audience, then expand their reach by opening either branches or make their Earthly Treasures Pavilion accessible in other places.

    ''I guess to improve on our business even more, making some more powerful acquaintances would not hurt. We won''t face any issues with production as well just sell access and Tora can make as many talismans as we need. Seems like we need to do some more role playing after all.'' she thought to herself.

    -

    In a large room inside of the palace, not too far from the by now well-known Earthly Treasures Pavilion, King Yura Tetsu was having a discussion with his closest advisors.

    It was not a typical court session, as he did not have time for all the useless talk of self-centered nobles or families who wanted to improve their standing by using such a court session to make ties with whoever offered the most.

    "Did I understand you correctly? Do you really want to tell me, that we suddenly have a foreign nation in the middle of our kingdom, no even worse right next to our capital?!"

    The elder who had just given a short summary of the situation to their king nodded.

    "I''m afraid that seems to be the case here your Majesty. The piece of land was unused for hundreds of years and just recently its owners seem to have made use of it, this is why it was treated as just ownerless land all the time, handed out by the crown as if it were part of our kingdom."

    Most of the other people in the room frowned, all of them either powerful individuals in their own right, or representatives of major powers in Yura.

    "Who cares about some claims made several hundred years ago. It was unused all the time, why bother about some treaty ages old. Just take the land back and silence them." one of the generals proposed.

    "They have at least a late stage Core or even an Origin state cultivator." someone else mumbled and the faces of everyone else turned even more unhappy.

    Qi Condensation, Foundation Establishment and Core Formation were the only commonly seen cultivation stages in the Yura Kingdom, with most stronger cultivators being in Foundation stage and only a handful of powerful elders in the Core stage.

    Beyond all of that was Origin stage and Immortal Ascension, but none of the gathered people had any experience with such powers. Even a late stage Core cultivator was not someone they could deal with easily.

    "Can we perhaps poison that cultivator?" Another person asked, as it was a simple way to deal with someone that could not be fought in direct combat.

    "We simply don''t know enough of them to make a proper decision. We don''t know their numbers, we don''t know their backers, we don''t even know their true power or abilities. As long as we know nothing about them, how are we supposed to take action? What if they have backers that are even more powerful, and we step on their toes."

    King Yura sighed and just nodded his head.

    "Master Aoki is right. We cannot risk antagonizing a power we know nothing about. I highly doubt two young girls would cause such a scene all on their own. Who sent them, if they are really on their own, then who trained them."

    "According to the law official, the girls were not even twenty years old. Whoever trained them is able to bring up a disciple that reached the late Core stage in twenty years. They would be at least in the Origin stage themselves."

    Aoki Bokkai, sect master of the Five Winds sect added yet another thought.

    "We are still assuming that they are at late Core stage, what if they are way beyond that. We all felt the disturbance some days ago that was obviously caused by the young woman. A Core stage cultivator cannot call down heavenly suppression like that. What if we''re not dealing with an Origin cultivator either, but kids from the realms above?"

    Everyone trembled slightly at the thought of having two immortals sitting inside of their capital.

    Grandmaster Koda from the Greenfire sect just agreed. "That girl treated me as if I was not even worth her time. If not for her sister''s kind nature, or perhaps her unwillingness to cause a larger disturbance, there is no doubt that I would not have made it back alive."

    "We are not really getting anywhere with this. Elder Moriai will try to get more information about them and will be representing us to see what they want to sort this land issue." King Yura decided after some time.

    "Me your Majesty?"

    "I know you are retired, but I have no doubt that there is no one who is as universally liked as you are. Some people would argue that your words alone make merchants tremble and kids would hand you their only candy willingly."

    "As you wish, I will make my way over there and see what can be done."

 Chapter 10: Batteries and the Dao of Shortcuts

    "Yui, it''s about time you learn something about cultivation." Tora announced after the shop finally closed.

    "Not only can I not always protect you, but many advanced techniques for alchemy, forging and enchantment will require you to know how to use spiritual power."

    Having come into contact with cultivation only through listening to the various customers they had, Yui was curious how one would cultivate in the first place.

    "Sure, where do I start? Do I sit down and meditate or something?"

    Tora shook her head. "You have grown up in a spirit starved environment and are already rather old to start with a regular cultivation technique. Not to mention with your personality, you''re about as useful as a wet log in a campfire when it comes to cultivating."

    With such a blunt way of telling her she''s not suited to cultivating, Yui was rather depressed.

    "Cultivators in the lower realms usually start by using their own body to refine spirit energy. They internalize this energy in various ways, then at some point when they have enough of it, form a core and later an origin infant and then they pretty much connect to heaven and earth to become what they call an immortal here."

    "That sounds rather exciting." Yui admitted. "Can I really not do that?"

    Once again Tora shook her head. "Nah, you''re not suited for this approach, not to mention itˇŻs a big waste of time for you. Other''s have to rely on internalizing energy because they have no other way to progress. You on the other hand are the master of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion."

    "You don''t need to collect energy really. All you need to do is learn to control this energy, learn to understand your own dao path and step by step cross over to the higher realm. While that alone will take you a while, all those little steps in between should be more than enough to have some means to defend yourself."

    Seeing Yui staring at her with big confused eyes she put her palm on her face and tried again with a different approach.

    "Let''s put it this way. People here form their own rechargeable batteries by improving their bodies and carry it around with them. Once they have enough energy and understanding they use that energy to shoot themselves to a higher plane of existence."

    Explained in such a way, it seemed to make a lot more sense to Yui.

    "You on the other hand are an owner of a nuclear power plant. You don''t care at all about the little batteries. All you need to understand is where to find the power socket and how not to blow yourself and the power plant up in the process of using the energy."

    "That''s nice, so I can just skip most of the work!" Yui thought that this seemed a lot easier.

    "Well we do skip a large part yes, on the other hand, as we don''t temper your body, we have to make sure you have great control to protect yourself at all times. Your body will be the same as a mortal''s without supporting it with energy, weak and frail."

    Tora smiled and poked her nose. "I doubt you want to go through years of pain and suffering to temper your body, so you better make sure to learn control properly, understood?"

    "Yes sis, I will learn it properly."

    Tora grabbed her hand and dragged them into Miyuki''s room, before giving Ryoma a task.

    "Ryoma, the shop is closed, we''re going to teach Miyuki a few tricks, perhaps gather some materials that we can work with and sell tomorrow."

    After all the benefits he and his daughter received, he was happy to finally be of some help and quickly made his way to the mine. Yui looked a bit curious what Tora wanted to teach Miyuki though.

    "It''s probably a good idea to train Miyuki at the same time as you." Tora started to explain.

    "Kids learn so fast after all, so I don''t have to worry about her once she is your age and have to start all over again. Also, it should be helpful for her to learn control, to make it easier for her to resist the ambient spiritual energies."

    "Will you teach her the same things as you teach me?"

    "No, unlike you, she has a much better base for cultivation. As long as you keep up your work and make the pavilion grow, giving us enough resources to support her, by the time we can permanently resolve her issues with her constitution, she will likely be ready to ascend and overtake you in terms of personal power."

    "That''s awesome! She''s so lucky to have an aunt like you." Yui had a big grin on her face.

    Unlike others who might be jealous, Yui was totally content with Miyuki becoming strong in the future. Tora on the other hand was surprised.

    ''When did she learn to tease me? She would usually just roll her eyes or be embarrassed when I call the little girl my niece.''

    -

    Early next morning, the peaceful silence was broken by an unexpected outburst of Tora''s voice.

    "No no no! You''re supposed to keep a steady flow of energy on your body, steady, you silly girl steady, what you''re doing here is more like a flickering lightbulb close before it dies!"

    It was the first morning Ryoma was alone with Miyuki again after she has woken up from her fever. While she was already feeling well the last evening, most of his time was spent gathering resources to repay the favor of Yui and Tora supporting them.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

    "Why is aunty Tora shouting so much? Is she angry?" Miyuki mumbled, making Ryoma smile at the innocent question and the worried look in his daughters'' eyes.

    "Don''t worry, she is only like this because she is worried about her sister, she is not really angry."

    "Mommy is not good with cultivation." Miyuki happily laughed, making Ryoma freeze for a moment.

    "Mommy?" he carefully asked, wondering how that came about.

    "Aunty Tora said I can call her mommy if I want. Can I not?"

    With his daughter looking at him with eyes that could outmatch any puppy when it came to pleading stares, he quickly gave up any idea of contradicting her ''aunt''. Seeing his daughters look, he was sure even his late wife would not disagree.

    "I guess if Yui is alright with it, it should be fine."

    -

    Like usual the mornings after opening the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, were by far the busiest time for Yui.

    With the opening of the Thousand Beasts Grasslands, the number of people who wanted access to their unique locations was even greater than the days before.

    When the flood of people finally all had their talismans, things calmed down a little bit.

    "We don''t have so many spirit shards to get all of us inside." Yui overheard the conversation of a group of young people.

    "I don''t want to fight those beasts alone though, they are probably still too tough, we just started after all."

    The group of youngsters, perhaps 13 to 15 years old, was made up of two girls and two boys, all arguing how they would enter the Thousand Beasts Grasslands with the little spirit shards they had.

    "Just go with them." Tora mumbled. "There are no customers anyways so I can keep an eye on the shop. You need some experience in a real fight. Alone you''d probably just run away."

    Before Yui could even argue with her, Tora already shouted to the kids.

    "Hey you there! You want to enter the lower Thousand Beasts Grasslands, right?"

    The group of young people was startled and stopped their conversation, looking over to Tora.

    "My sister has to check on the quality of the environment anyways, she will just tag along. You can keep all the things, but we can waive the entrance fee this time."

    "Miss, you mean we can enter for free if your sister comes with us and we can still keep all the materials we get from the beasts?"

    "Exactly. My sister is going to assess the difficulty of the fights for cultivators like yourself, to improve our services further."

    They all exchanged looks and then looked over at Yui with a happy smile expecting someone like Yui to be of a much higher cultivation level than themselves. This seemed like a free ticket with an escort who didn''t even want a share of the spoils to them, too good to be true.

    -

    The grasslands were just like their name would indicate, pretty much void of a large number of trees, but not as dry as Yui would have expected. The fresh green and vibrant spiritual power in the air, was not just an ideal environment for spirit beasts, but also made one feel refreshed just by being here.

    Mostly flat land with a few soft hills here and there and no mountains in sight, the grasslands were a lot easier to travel around in than the Old Vine Forest.

    Yui walked next to the group of young cultivators, watching how they planned their trek through the area in search for a target, doing her best to keep up the air of an experienced cultivator, rather than a clueless beginner.

    The girls and one of the boys were from the Oshima family and the remaining boy seemed to be from a branch family and acted like some sort of subordinate. With all having grown up together though, there was a sense of equality, with no one mentioning anything about status.

    "These are my sister Nariko and my cousin Haru." the boy who seemed to be the leader of their group introduced the two girls. "My friend over here is Tashiro of the Toma family and you can call me Jou."

    "I see. You can call me Yui. Myself and my sister Tai Tora are owning the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, as you probably already know. Nice to meet you and thank you for taking me along. How are you going to plan to hunt the half spirit beasts here?"

    "Nariko is using a bow, Tashiro will be using a saber and has an aptitude for fire elemental energy, while I will be using my spear and act as a distraction and engage the beast."

    Curious why only three out of the four people of the group were mentioned Yui asked them about it right away.

    "What about Haru?"

    "Ah, well ... that ..." they all had a guilty look as if Yui caught them doing something wrong. Haru herself looked quite embarrassed as well.

    "I''m not very good at fighting miss Yui." she said after a while.

    "We''ve been together since we were young. It seems not right to leave her at home." Nariko explained the problem of Haru''s situation.

    "She usually helps us with various tasks like keeping track of where we are and things like that as she cannot cultivate."

    "Yeah Haru is really smart!" Tashiro added, as if to defend her, making Jou and Nariko laugh, while Haru started to blush even more.

    "Isn''t it just an issue of holding power?" Yui mumbled a bit confused and took a closer look at Haru.

    "The cultivation techniques that our family use are all not working on her." Jou sighed.

    Yui took Haru''s hand and concentrated on what she had learned so far, with her own weird way of thinking.

    To her, a dantian was nothing more like a battery to be charged and meridians were the pathways used to gather and channel this power. She only had to find a proper pathway that didn''t make the whole human short circuit and then it should work.

    What seemed to be so easy in Yui''s mind was pretty much impossible to do for any regular cultivator. They simply did not have the huge source of spirit energy to constantly radiate it around them and use it as a way to sense meridians and spirit energy.

    Regular cultivators could only guess and learn from others, as they had no way to compare things like meridians, unless they had an extremely powerful teacher to help them.

    "You just start from here, go there, and then continue on to here."

    Yui repeatedly poked Haru and pushed some spirit energy into her meridians, opening them and giving Haru an idea of a proper route to circulate the energy.

    "Once that is done, with your dantian active and all of that, you should be able to figure out how to spread out your energy and activate the others on your own. How far you go from these basics though, will rely on your own understanding and effort, as you have to make up something unique that works for you."

    Yui somehow felt like a high schooler teaching a primary school kid basic math under the disguise of a wise monk. With the right way to get to the end result, it was not really hard, but it could be really difficult without someone explaining the basics.

    Not to mention that she had to keep up appearances and hide her own lack of knowledge with phrases like ''how far you go will rely on your own understanding''.

    Seeing the awestruck faces of the people around her, Yui did her best to change the topic, but was actually really excited that her acting seemed to work so well.

    Taking out a few snacks and some blankets out of her dimensional pouch, she sat down on a stone and started to prepare what looked like a picnic, once more catching the others by surprise, both because of the dimensional storage, as well as her relaxed manner of treating this place like some peaceful spot of land without dangers.

    "Why don''t we take a break while Haru figures out how to start cultivating?" she asked them, doing her best to look as if nothing special happened. No one asked any more questions, realizing that Yui didn''t really want to talk about it.

    They just all sat down and enjoyed the snacks Yui provided, hoping for the best that Haru would be able to start cultivating this time.

 Chapter 11: Dont poke a spiritual power socket, it might explode!

    "Haru! Amazing, did you really manage to reach Qi Condensation?" Jou asked the girl once she completed her attempts to cultivate.

    Seeing Haru nod happily all of them congratulated her.

    "Great, go eat a bit Haru, then we can move on." Yui told her, happy that her attempt to help actually worked out fine.

    It did not take long for the group to move on and continue their search for a beast.

    "I found one. It seems to be a bear, rather big, probably close to spirit tier." Nariko announced shortly after. It probably lives in some cave in the little copse of trees on the hill or something.

    Most of the scouting work was done by her, as the other three were not good at tracking anything at all and no one asked Yui to help. Not that she would have any idea how to track something really.

    "Get ready, Nariko will try to hit it from a safe distance to weaken it and we can then try to lure it into a trap. If that won''t work Tashiro and myself will block it. Haru, it''s great that you can cultivate now, but you should get used to your new strength first, so better hang back this time."

    Under Jou''s directions the group quickly dug a pitfall trap before covering it up with twigs and grass that would break as soon as something as heavy as a bear stepped onto it.

    As none of their group was even close to Mid Qi Stage, they did not want to risk any serious injuries by engaging with the bear directly. Tora made it clear that Yui would just be watching and not interfere and they had to rely on their own skills.

    When Nariko shot an arrow at the bear, missing its head, but still managing to hit its back, the beast was roaring in pain and anger.

    It was a world where the strong would hunt the weak and the smart would use their advantage against anyone with less skills.

    Unlike normal animals, spirit animals were far harder to tame and raise, not to mention that the unexplored lands were still hiding endless amounts of spirit beasts.

    Beast waves would threaten and destroy smaller settlements from time to time and it was a constant struggle for humans to acquire resources, not just against other nations, but against the threat from beasts as well.

    A second arrow made its way towards the bear, but being prepared this time, the bear managed to evade the projectile with a quick jump, letting it whizz past its body.

    Nariko did not have time for a third arrow before she had to retreat. The bear was simply way too fast, and she had underestimated its speed, thinking it would take a lot longer to cover the distance between them.

    The girl hopped over the trap, taking up a position behind the two young men who were blocking the path for the bear as soon as she was beyond their line of defense.

    A third arrow found its way over the heads of Jou and Tashiro, this time hitting one of the bears paws.

    Before the bear even managed to close in on them, the trap finally showed its usefulness.

    The floor that was just a thin cover fell apart and the bear ended up in the pitfall trap.

    Unable to get out quickly, it was just a matter of seconds before the barrage of arrows and throwing weapons from above ended its life.

    "We did it!" "Yay that pelt is going to be worth a great deal, this trip was a great success."

    "The claws and fangs can be sold for some money as well!"

    Haru quickly made an estimate of the price they would get for the bear''s parts.

    "All in all, this bear should be worth about 10 spirit stones. ThatˇŻs 1000 shards. Even if we save up 400 shards for coming here again, we still made 600 shards profit."

    The remaining part of the day was spent with dismantling the bear and distributing the parts to everyone''s backpacks.

    "Ready to return to the pavilion?" Yui asked the group and soon they all found themselves back in the shop.

    -

    When Yui was back in the shop room, she took a quick look around. The shop was pretty empty, except for Ryoma who was standing behind the counter with a new robe in the colors of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    Obviously, Tora asked him to take over acting as a temporary shopkeeper, not that Yui was surprised. Tora on the other hand was in the forge with Miyuki.

    "She''s making wooden toys for Miyuki." Ryoma told Yui when he saw her curious look.

    Meanwhile the group of kids who had been hunting with Yui, made sure they were ready to leave and wished Yui goodbye.

    "Come back when you want to go hunting again. Have a good day!"

    It did just take a moment for her voice to attract attention. The three kids were barely outside the shop, when another even younger voice could be heard in the shop.

    "Mommy is back!"

    Forgotten were the wooden toys as Miyuki bolted out of the forge room and into Yui''s arms.

    "Ahh, did you miss me little one?" Yui asked her with a smile and picked her up. "Mhm, I missed you. Aunty Tora made me a pony and a tiger."

    "Oh, a pony and a tiger? That''s an interesting combination. Won''t the tiger eat the pony?"

    "No, it can''t eat the pony! It''s made of wood!"

    "I see, well thatˇŻs good. You have to make sure to show them to me later." Yui gave Miyuki a quick kiss on the head before putting her down on the floor again. Obviously really happy watching Tora make more toys, it did not take long for the little girl to have left the shop room.

    "Yui, ˇ­ there is some elder who wanted to meet you and has been waiting in the shop for a while." Ryoma whispered to her.

    ''This would explain why there is suddenly a little table next to the benches with a cup of tea.'' Yui thought to herself.

    On the bench was an older man in a daoist robe. He looked like your harmless grandfather type, but by now it was easy for Yui to feel his powers underneath his grandfatherly looks.

    This was definitely no ordinary old man.

    Walking over to him with a wary attitude Yui once again tried her best to keep Tora''s training in mind. ''Steady power flow, steady.''Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    Yui did not want anyone to notice her ineptitude with her own spiritual power. That would be like throwing some bloody meat into the ocean water while swimming next to it. Inviting all kinds of nasty people who would behave like sharks if they noticed some kind of weakness.

    Not that she really had any idea what her power imbalance looked like to others in the first place.

    No one but Tora had any idea of how strong she really was, but Yui just expected everyone somewhat powerful to see that she was a beginner.

    "You have been looking for me senior?" she asked the man, who stood up to greet her with a smile.

    "Indeed, you must be the owner of this shop, Lady Tai?"

    Yui just nodded in reply to his question. He seemed friendly enough after all and she could not feel any danger, more as if she was watched curiously.

    "Wonderful. I''m here on behalf of King Yura to make your acquaintance and talk about some topics that would be important for the co-existence of our kingdoms. You can call me Elder Moriai if you like."

    "King Yura? I see, he already sent someone. Well, we might as well find a nice quiet place to talk."

    "As you wish your Majesty." Once again, Elder Moriai seemed to have a strange friendly look, making it hard for Yui to dislike or be wary around him.

    Yui had already given up on rejecting the title, at least when she had to deal with things in an official way. She wouldn''t let anyone else during regular business use that form of address.

    Not thinking much about it, she evoked the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s powers and transported both of them to a nice quiet spot next to a lake at a corner of the Old Vine Forest.

    It was one of Yui''s favorite spots, a scenic location where she would often go to relax after her training with Tora, with several large stones one could sit one and watch out towards the lake, enjoying the view.

    "What a nice place! It''s not surprising that you pick this location rather than sitting in a boring throne room."

    "We might not have a lot of snacks or good tea, but the view is much better." Yui said, giving the lake another look, before sitting down on one of the stones and turning her attention to the man.

    "You said you wanted to talk about some things concerning our countries?"

    Elder Moriai cleared his throat and sat down on a stone as well.

    "Yes, first of all, there is the problem of Sume being built in your territory."

    Before he could go on Yui sighed and interrupted him.

    "I don''t mind, as long as Yura is no longer sending fools, who think they own our land and threaten me with closing my shop. Keep things as they were before, I have neither a need to tax the people on our lands, nor would I benefit from having you remove common people''s houses and livelihood."

    "I could have you pay a sum to compensate me, but that would just weaken Yura to the point where I have to deal with other countries trying to invade and even more troublesome people coming to our doorstep and causing trouble for our customers."

    Elder Moriai did not really expect their discussion to go this way. He never would have thought that instead of pressuring the Yura Kingdom for benefits, she only wanted to be ˇ­ left alone you could call it?

    ''Are they weaker than we expected them to be?'' he thought to himself, wondering what the reason for her strange answer was.

    "I see, what exactly is it that you want to achieve then? Making more profit seems like it would not be too hard, because of your rather interesting offers. You will likely expand quickly. But what of your position as a nation within the Islands?"

    Yura Kingdom was just one of many on an island group in this world. Without easy access to instant communication and fast transport methods, the world was still largely unexplored.

    All that was known to the people in the surrounding kingdoms was that most of the landmass was in the form of large islands, therefore the world got the name of Islands of Eternity, dating back to the mythical founding story of a powerful immortal cultivator, giving up his immortality to bring these islands into existence.

    "As you are in the middle of our Yura Kingdom, for the time being, other countries won''t interfere, but at some point, they might see you as a profitable target. How will we respond to such threats?"

    Moriai wondered what the girl would do to face such a threat. It was an interesting question and he wanted to see a bit more of how she would react. He just had to paint a nice picture for her. As long as he was not the target it should be fine right?

    "We cannot hold back all cultivators at our borders after all. If they are strong enough, they will be sure to find their way to the capital and this place. Many people might suffer because of it." Elder Moriai began to explain.

    Yui''s thoughtful look turned into a frown. She didn''t like the idea of the population suffering just because they were in the way.

    "They might go after your customers to ruin your business. The people who earn something from your regions mostly don''t have very high level of cultivation, like the group that you came back with."

    Yui''s frown turned into anger. Her spiritual power acted on her emotional state and began to tremble slightly.

    ''Calm down, it''s just words, I won''t let anything happen to them. Keep the power steady, like Tora said.''

    "That should not be ˇ­" Yui just wanted to switch to another topic, but obviously Elder Moriai noticed her unstable emotional state. He always had a way to read people''s expressions and gestures to find the right words.

    In a way one could say he was toying with people''s feelings, trying to achieve some sort of response that he wanted in his conversations. It was all too easy to impress common people, but even more useful to him was to use such words on the powerful.

    ''She will have no choice but to work together with us, thinking that it is the only way to protect the people around her.''

    "How will you defend all those people without an army of your own, or without enough people to support your goals?" he continued his questioning.

    "I will make sure they don''t dare to." Yui responded, now even her body trembled visibly in anger.

    "How do you want to achieve that though? You can''t just destroy another country by yourself right. Imagine they would kill your loved ones like that little girl you ˇ­"

    He did not get to finish his words as the last thread of willpower holding together Yui''s grasp over the Earthly Treasure Pavilion''s power finally snapped.

    Spiritual power literally exploded out of her body, flooding the nearby area. The sky turned dark, the whole area as far as the eye could see turned dark, only brightened slightly by the lightning bolts crashing down on the place, each ripping craters of dozens of meters into the earth. The trees started to burn and turned to ashes within moments.

    Without warning, in just a short moment the nice scenery of the lake and forest had turned into a nightmare of apocalyptic proportions. If someone had told Elder Moriai at this moment, that the world was going to end, he would have believed it.

    Power was radiating from Yui''s body, pushing him back against the stone with such power, that even with all his cultivation, he was still smashed against it to the point that he could hear some of his bones breaking.

    He could hardly concentrate on anything other than resisting the immense force, but he still realized that the girl in front of him was no longer standing on the ground. She was now hovering above it, with eyes as dark as the darkest clouds.

    Elder Moriai watched with horror as the earth itself split apart under her feet, ripping the land asunder and creating a ravine that quickly expanded all the way to the lake. What was once a nice lake, turned into a dark bottomless hole, nothing more than a crater.

    He did not even dare to look at the girl anymore, but he could still hear her voice, a voice that was now trembling with power and killing intent.

    "I will never let anyone harm my people. If they want to go to war with my Empire, I will end their rulers before it even started."

    Then as if someone just woke him up from a nightmare, the clouds disappeared, and the girl returned to her normal shy appearance. No he corrected himself quickly from even thinking of her as just a girl, the Sovereign of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, he would never think of her as a girl ever again.

    If the spot where she was now standing and the several kilometers long ravine extending from it were not still there, as well as the crater that was once a lake and all the ash filled space that was once a forest, he would have believed all of this to be just a dream.

    "Let''s return." Yui quietly said, giving her favorite scenic spot that had just turned into a crater a pitiful look. "I''m no longer in the mood for any further discussions."

    Getting up was a lot more painful than he had expected, but as none of his injuries were life threatening, he did not dare to even comment on it.

    Yui just transported them back and headed downstairs to her room, not even giving Elder Moriai another look.

    Poking her head out of the forge, before taking a few steps into the shop room with a mischievous smile, Tora rolled her eyes at the old man.

    "Did you have fun playing with our little empress'' reverse scale?" she asked with a curious look, as if she was really interested in some information.

    "You know. I would have never guessed that anyone could manage to piss her off so much that she''d turn from a little wallflower into a natural disaster ready to crush anything that threatens her family."

    Elder Moriai had no real answer to Tora''s words. Usually he might have said something, but this twin''s looks reminded him too much of what had just happened.

    "Maybe invite her into the palace next time for the chat, if you plan on checking out her bottom line. That way we could share the cleanup efforts after you are done. I''d rather not have to renovate our forest every time."

    Whistling a happy tune, Tora returned to the forge and like Yui, she did not really bother about sending Elder Moriai off.

 Chapter 12: When you stare into the Abyss, the Abyss might give you shinies!

    The next days inside of the pavilion were unusually calm. No new people wanted to meet Yui or dared to make a ruckus, while she was also in a somber, depressed mood.

    Part of it had to do with her exhaustion and feeling as if her whole body had been thrown around and battered by invisible hands after she used way more spiritual energy than she should have.

    The other part was related to Tora''s reminder that she had just used up most of their gathered energy of the last few days and they had to get a lot more again before they could continue to improve the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s services again.

    Throwing around spiritual energy willy-nilly, if you didn''t know how to control it properly, was not just a burden for the body, but also extremely inefficient.

    Like a leaking waterpipe, Yui barely directed her powers and used up way more than would have been necessary if she had actually controlled the output of spiritual power properly.

    At least the forge and other crafting areas, like an alchemy workstation progressed as they had planned, not requiring a lot of additional energy to set up.

    What Yui called a forge area, was more like a general craft related area now to work with not just metals but also wood, leather and other materials, while the alchemy workstation included tools for enchantment.

    They already had a third area planned for talismans and other artwork that required various papers and brushes, but it was still just an idea and had not been built yet.

    "Tora, I don''t think we should sell access to our crafting areas." Yui said one day looking at the newly finished alchemy workstation.

    "Hmm, why is that?" her sister asked, being the lazy type, it sounded like the perfect idea after all. No work to do while still earning something. She didn''t even bother giving it much thought so far.

    "You see, unlike our other locations these workstations have a limited amount of, we could call it slots, where people can work at. It will quickly get crowded."

    Looking at the size of the crafting areas, probably 5 to 10 people could work in each area, but 10 would already have to squeeze in and be bothering each other. They were all concentrated in a single ''wing'' of the pavilion.

    The big gate with the entrance was one side of the hexagon and the second was now occupied by the crafting wing, that split up into various specialized rooms.

    Expanding space in a normal dimension was a lot harder than expanding a completely separate pocket plane, like they used for their resource locations, as such Yui did not want to cause too much of a drain by endlessly expanding their workstations either.

    "I think it would be more worthwhile for us, to use the area we have as good as we can and sell the products made here for a premium. Making special items that cannot be found anywhere else will be sold for a high price."

    "Ah that sounds like trouble! I''m only making items for Miyuki." exclaimed Tora, annoyed by even the idea that she had to work.

    Giving her an amused grin, by now Yui knew of Tora''s habits well enough to no longer become surprised by her sister''s words.

    "I always wondered. Why can you change the land and mines and forests and even grow plants in a short time, but you never simple create the finished resources outright. Wouldn''t that be easier?"

    Tora shook her head. "You can''t do it that way, it''s not a natural process, it won''t work for spiritual treasures. You can''t directly influence spirit treasures with spirit power, it interferes with their growth and composition."

    "All you can do is make a suitable environment to speed up their growth and give them a little push. I could create some normal minerals for you if you want though, but if you look at the amount of power I have to spend, on outright creating something bigger, it is a lot higher than creating environments."

    "The Earthly Treasures Pavilion is in the end an artifact, specialized to create various places for treasures. It is the most efficient when using it for these tasks. For small other things it''s fine, but on a larger scale we are more efficient to buy them elsewhere or hire help to make them. The same applies to gathering the treasures. If I use too much power to gather them, it might influence the quality of the treasures."

    "Right right, you''re busy with the pavilion. We should hire some people who have some idea of the basics and who can focus on such tasks. I have way too many other things to worry about right now to really become good at any of the crafting professions anyways."

    Yui did not want to mention that her attempts at creating quality goods all ended in disappointment and a lot of laughter from her sister.

    Miyuki even asked what the finished products were supposed to be, unable to recognize the strange shapes and forms that looked like especially artistic modern art sculptures.

    "We should also hire some more people to help with administrative tasks. It would be nice to have someone to run an auction or some people to scout for locations for branch offices or something. Ryoma could help with assigning people and giving them tasks. I don''t really want him to get bullied by you to gather resources every night."

    It was not rare for Yui to have these little brainstorming talks with Tora. Many of their projects came up during these times, with Yui throwing out idea after idea and Tora ruthlessly shooting down most of them that seemed like too much effort for her.

    "It''s not like I ask him to go out every evening. I guess he just feels like he has to do something, men here would see it as odd if they just stay at home looking after the kid. The idea of men and their role in a family is more traditional than in your old world, but I''m sure if you ask him to spend the night with you instead, he won''t go out."

    Tora had fun again teasing her sister as usual, but even though Yui was already used to it, she would still blush every time.

    -

    Yui walked over to the board near the marketplace, commonly used for various requests. From groups hiring members for some exploration or hunt, to item requests, all kinds of private announcements could be found here.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

    She added her own request to the others before heading off to do some shopping of her own. While they had various means to create things with Tora''s help, she liked to take a look at other shops and what they would come up with. It never hurt to be aware of their competition and the market situation after all.

    -

    It did not take long for her actions to make people curious. The Earthly Treasures Pavilion was no longer a hidden secret. By now the shop was somewhat of a sensation and most people in the capital knew about it.

    Yui as the one who acted as shopkeeper most of the time and the owner and face of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, was rather well known among the population.

    "Look look, it''s a job offer from the Earthly Treasures Pavilion!"

    "You mean they are looking for people? Who are they looking for exactly?"

    "I can read it for you ˇ­ but the gist of it is, they are looking for people who have experience with collecting minerals and mining, logging, herblore, farming and some for hunting beasts. They are also hiring craftsmen of at least journeyman rank, as well as alchemists, enchanters and spirit scribes of at least apprentice rank."

    "If they have their own craftsmen and people gathering resources, will they close their gathering locations for outsiders?"

    "Not mentioned here, I have no idea. That would be rather bad for a lot of people. Now that I think about it, I''m rather surprised how reliant some professions have become on this Earthly Treasures Pavilion and their places to harvest stuff in such a short time. Who would want to go back to their old spots and make much less in a much longer time with way higher risk?"

    "Wait, did you just say farming or did I hear that wrong?"

    "Nah farming is written here, can''t tell you more than that."

    "Well, it does take a different skillset than gathering or growing spirit herbs for sure, even if it is related to herbalism, I do wonder what the outcome of this will be though."

    -

    Meanwhile Yui bought some groceries and then hired some merchants who planned to leave for other areas to check for some suitable cities to start branches.

    Most of this was still beyond their current means, but collecting information early was always a good idea, especially as travel crossing borders would take a lot longer here. No airplanes or trains existed after all, just carriages drawn by various animals and beasts.

    Happy having achieved all the tasks she had planned for today, Yui was on her way back when she heard a few people talking.

    "ˇ­ yes seven villages near the border were already destroyed. Those people will likely have a really hard time with all their homes and fields gone."

    "At least most of them could keep their lives. Running away is still better than getting killed and eaten by the beasts."

    "Well, what did you expect. With Yuzena Empire being all expansion happy these days, most of the troops are stationed in the north, no one worries about the deep forests in the west really. Tanawa isn''t a real threat as the beasts in those forests are way more likely to invade than any army they could field."

    "Yeah, it''s not like I don''t know about it. Just makes me uncomfortable that all our soldiers are along the northern border when the people living near the west are being treated as necessary sacrifices without protection."

    ''A beast tide in the west? An expansion happy empire in the north? There are obviously many things going on I should inform myself about.''

    Yui gave the topics some thought, thinking about ways how to help the people affected and how to turn this to something positive for both the Earthly Treasures Pavilion as well as the population.

    ''So many things to do!''

    -

    The next day Yui had prepared a lot of changes. After several days without anything really going on, she was excited for new things happening in their shop. Most of the time, she would just sell talismans and then wait around on her own for a long time.

    Whenever something new was added it brought some excitement and it was the same feeling on this day as well.

    A new crystal display was now there, offering two more tickets.

    [Crop Farm Ticket | Limited Edition] ¨C 10 Silver coins.

    Enables the user to enter the Crop Farm for eight hours.

    [Spirit Crop Farm Ticket] ¨C 100 Spirit shards.

    Enables the user to enter the Spirit Crop Farm for eight hours.

    With many people struggling to survive in some areas of the kingdom and imports of large quantities of goods from other lands becoming a logistic nightmare, having a steady supply of food was not an easy task.

    With a mostly temperate climate in the region, while the winters would not be too harsh, it was not warm enough to grow crops around the year. Summer had long passed, and winter was quickly approaching.

    All the crops would have already been harvested and sold, even though it might influence a few people who were trading these crops, she did not worry too much about it. Being able to give people access to fields in the middle of winter for a reasonable price might not help the pavilion a lot, but it would make it a lot easier for many people to keep themselves fed and alive.

    They could easily just remove the offer once it was time for regular crops to grow again and with the prices set at a level that wasn''t too low either, merchants would not find themselves in a situation where they had no chance to compete as long as they did not jack up the prices in an unreasonable way.

    Obviously, spirit crops were a totally different thing. As luxury goods, Yui did not worry about keeping their high prices or standards.

    "Ha, this looks great, our shop slowly fills up!"

    Ryoma was standing next to Yui and inspected the new display.

    "Yes, looks decent. What should we do with all the applicants? Who should we pick?"

    His question made Yui turn her attention away from the display for the first time.

    "Uh, just pick people that seem nice and have the right skills, I guess? I thought that is your decision. Go give it a try, if it doesn''t work well, pay them what we owe them and find someone else?"

    "Very well, then I will do my best to select some people who seem trustworthy and have the right skills. We should be able to start producing some items soon."

    "Sounds good. Have them start with things that can heal or protect. Tora can make really high-quality things, but I don''t want to have to rely on Tora for every simple injury and we can''t be involved with every single street brawl."

    "You mean, we give them to our workers?" Ryoma was surprised by Yui''s way of handling things.

    "Yes, we start with the hunting teams, as they are likely going to face the most danger. Make sure they all have healing pills or elixirs on them and some protective enchantments. Then stockpile additional healing pills until we have a certain amount that will last us some time, before moving on to other alchemical pills."

    "Same for the protective items, once the hunting teams people have one each, make one for each person. That will be our gifts to them if they stick around and finish their training period or whatever you want to call it. If they decide to leave before that time, they have to return them."

    Ryoma nodded, before he wanted to leave.

    "Oh right, Ryoma, also make sure that they don''t provoke people or cause trouble with our name. We will cover for them if someone is being unreasonable, no matter who it is, but we won''t defend someone if they break the law or think they can be asshats just because they think no one can touch them."

    "I will make sure they are aware of that. Don''t forget about taking a break for lunch today." he smiled at the thought of someone messing with their people or treat them unfairly.

    "Uh, thanks Ryoma. I will see you later."

    Turning back to the task at hand, she placed another display case, putting it next to the mine display, which had now been renamed to just [Spirit Mine], as it was no longer specific for spirit copper after all.

    [Depths of the Star Mountain] - 50 First Tier Cores, 5 Second Tier Cores or 50 Spirit Stones

    Enables the user to explore the Depths of the Star Mountain, an area rich in second tier metals of all kinds.

    Happy with its location, she moved on to look for another nice place and put a slightly different colored display case down.

    Instead of the typical black and red colors, this one was best described as rainbow colored. With many different hues and a playful design.

    [Yui''s Dungeon of Many Things] ¨C Free Entrance 1 / week

    Rewards depending on skill & luck. Limited to people of Qi Condensation Stage or lower.

    With a smirk, Yui was now looking forward to all the customers and her first guinea pi ˇ­ serious adventurers to test her dungeon.

 Chapter 13: Food for Thought, Smart people get tasty things

    It did not take long for people to find out about the changes in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion. Soon an endless number of bags made its way out of the shop. People were coming in with empty bags and were leaving with filled ones, full of various goods. Sometimes just on foot, sometimes with a cart that they left outside the shop.

    Fruits like strawberries and melons, bananas and oranges, as well as all kinds of vegetables, some of which the population did not even know about.

    "Have you heard about this new exotic fruit? You can harvest it in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion and don''t even have to wait for it to grow! It''s a field with fully grown fruit trees and plants and you simply have to pay a little bit to harvest them."

    "I heard of someone who harvested the spirit crops. They said they are coming from a famous restaurant in some far away city, hoping to compete with some other place that obviously has some superior ingredients as well. Seems like this restaurant business is not as simple as I thought it is!"

    "Yeah, people paying so much just for a meal, I''m just happy to have all of these regular exotic fruits. They might not be special in spirit power, but at least they are affordable for me and taste really good."

    -

    Terada Sen, apprentice alchemist of the Greenfire Sect and frequent visitor did also find out about the new crops. People were all happily talking about it and some were even sharing a few of their recent spoils by letting everyone try the exotic fruits.

    The inside of the shop had all of a sudden turned from a mostly empty place just for buying talismans to a place of gathering and conversation.

    Reason for this change, was not the introduction of the new crops, however. While many people were curious about them and happy about the delicious fruits, most were still hanging out here to share their experiences about this [Dungeon of Many Things] the owner introduced.

    "Miss Tai, can you not give us a hint how to solve the riddle on the third floor? How are we supposed to get to the other side of the river without the chicken eating the corn, or the fox eating the chicken?"

    Yui shook her head and smiled.

    "You have to figure it out by yourself. Also, the riddles will change every time you enter the dungeon. You can discuss it with others, but different people are unlikely to find the same riddles."

    "That is so difficult!"

    Terada Sen looked at this dungeon and asked the other people what it was all about.

    "I heard about the new crops, it is simple enough to understand even if there are exotic fruits, but what is this about the owner''s [Dungeon of Many Things]?"

    "Oi lad, ye see, the Tai lass has made a real tricky place filled with riddles. If ye solve a riddle ye can move through the place to another floor and after each riddle ye get a reward. Tellin'' ye it''s real'' fun. Nothin''s tryin'' to eat ye either."

    Araki Hachiro, one of the frequent customers and miners explained. He would usually leave as soon as he acquired some more metals, but this time he stayed around to share his experience of the dungeon with the other people.

    He took out a box colored in the typical red and black style of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    "Look here lad. I only managed to pass two riddles before failin'' and gettin'' kicked out of the third, but I got meself these two new tools that are real'' useful."

    "This box here is workin'' with spirit power on its own and ye can use it like an ice cellar or an iced box. Cools down things on its inside but isn''t cold on the outside. Came filled with some brown stuff in a wrappin'' that looked really odd but turns out it''s some sweet stuff called chocolate."

    "Chocolate?" Terada Sen was always curious about new things. "What is it? Can you show it to me?"If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    "Ahh sorry lad, me got so excited by the taste I already ate all of it. The Tai lass said it''s called chocolate and made of some beans of some sort and milk."

    Hachiro put away the cooling box and reached into his pocked to take out a small rectangular shaped item instead.

    "This here is some splendid thing too. Ye can start a flame, just by holdin'' down the button here. Might not be something special for ye powerful cultivator people, but real'' useful for meself."

    "Why is it only open to Qi Condensation stage or lower? I''m already at the beginning of foundation stage after all. I think this is the first time I regret progressing with my cultivation so fast."

    Everyone laughed at Terada Sen''s distraught look. Everyone but those other people who were also above Qi Condensation stage that is.

    "Ah boss, boss I''m back! We''ve got a problem!"

    Hachiro looked over to the subordinate who entered the new mining area [Depths of the Star Mountain] not long ago. He was sent there to scout the area and gather some ore pieces to inspect it and see if it would be useful to them.

    "It''s not been an hour and ye''r already back. What''s wrong with ye you wood skulled moron! That talisman''s got two hours of time, ye tellin'' me ye wasted one!"

    The miner looked unhappy about his boss'' choice of words but started to explain, nonetheless.

    "Boss, those ore deposits are way too hard to mine. All my tools barely scratched ''em."

    He took out his pickaxe that was visibly dented, showing off his efforts with acquiring said ore.

    "Aww, that''s no good. Hey Tai lass. Why''s it that yer new mine''s ore is so sturdy and cannot be mined with me regular tools?"

    Yui looked over and thought about it for a while.

    ''I''ve never worried about that aspect, because I''ve always used the tools provided by the Earthly Treasures Pavilion. All those mortal and low stage cultivators however will have a hard time mining them with their normal iron and steel tools.''

    "You have access to first tier spirit metals, obviously in order to mine second tier spirit metals your normal iron tools won''t be enough. Why not make yourself some spirit tools instead?" she offered some advice.

    "Spirit tools? Ye mean lass, I am s''posed to use that expensive spirit metal on tools?"

    Mining regular first tier spirit ore was all he had ever known about. Second tier metals were something beyond the grasp of regular people. Even sects would treasure them and not let others get easy access to it.

    While second tier metals were not much to powerful cultivators, it was a different story when talking about mortals and low-level cultivators after all.

    Yui nodded to his question, picking up the dented pickaxe of the miner and giving it a closer look.

    "Is it not obvious? To acquire better materials, you need the appropriate tools. It''s the same with hunting spirit beasts. If you''re not strong enough you won''t have a good chance of hunting them, right? Why should it be any different with tools and mining?"

    Thinking about all the people who came here, who didn''t all have access or the skills to make their own tools she considered a different approach. After all they wanted to offer great service.

    "I guess we could start selling some tools of decent quality for people who have none, not that I think the famous Araki family will need any. I''m sure as craftsmen, you can make your own."

    Taking pride in Yui''s words but knowing the tricky tongue of a merchant all too well Hachiro was rather amused. "Haha! Didn''t know ye lass could be this flatterin'', ye''r right though we should look into makin'' some better tools before we try to take on that tool wreckin'' place."

    "Lads, take yer spoils and stop stuffin'' yerself with all the food here, we still have work to do and it''s gettin'' crowded here as well! Take care Tai lass, we see ye again tomorrow."

    "See you tomorrow." With Yui happily waving goodbye to them, many of the newer customers wondered what their relation is.

    "Is that shopkeeper lass always so nice? I wonder what those miners bribe her with to be this friendly." The person only mumbled his words with a lewd smile but he quickly got many people staring at him, some looking upset, while others looked at him as if he were a fool.

    "Ouch. Oy why are you hitting me?" his friend had obviously smacked his head.

    "Don''t spout nonsense. If you mess with the owner of the shop, not even the Royal Guard would be able to protect you." his friend whispered in an upset voice. "Don''t make me regret bringing you here."

    "Owner?" ¨C "Yes she''s the owner of the shop and she''s this friendly to everyone. Everyone knows that she is charming like a celestial fairy, but nearly everyone has heard the rumors of what happens to people who mess with her."

    "Is she dangerous? She looks like a normal young woman."

    "They say that a powerful elder sent by the King himself got so trashed recently that he could barely walk back by himself. The Greenfire Sect has already thrown out one of their disciples who flapped his mouth in public and talked trash about the Earthly Treasures Pavilion due to ignorance."

    "Some say this alchemist sect has cut its costs by over 80 percent while improving the quality of their pills and elixirs at the same time, all because of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion. If you mess up, the owner of this shop won''t even have to raise a finger, everyone else will rip you to pieces just to make a favorable impression."

    Now with his friend explaining all these things, the stares of these people who were obviously upset felt a lot more dangerous. He gulped and reconsidered his approach.

    "Ah I''m sorry I''m sorry, I didn''t mean it that way." he quickly said, before people went back to ignoring him again.

    "Who would have known such a hidden scary place existed in this town."

 Chapter 14: A Knife in the Dark

    "Hey Yui, got a moment?" Ryoma asked her once the shop closed again.

    All the people in the shop room had already left and the few who were still inside the mines, the forest or the other dimensional places would be transported outside into the courtyard. None of them wanted unexpected nightly visitors after all and Tora made sure that no one would have a way into the shop like that.

    "Oh Ryoma, you have any more questions about the new people you recruited?"

    "Ah, no no thatˇŻs not it. There are a few that look promising and one of them will likely end up living here in the future, at least Tora wants her to, but that''s not what I''ve wanted to talk to you about."

    "Is it about Miyuki?" Yui made another guess, feeling a little bit nervous when thinking about how she had pretty much tried her best to avoid Ryoma lately.

    With everyone treating Miyuki like Yui''s own kid and even some customers believing that the little girl was her daughter, she was not really sure how to talk to him.

    "I''m sorry about it, Tora just mentioned it to her one day and I didn''t want Miyuki to feel sad if I ˇ­ well I should have asked you first. It must not be easy with your wife and all that ˇ­" she looked at the floor with a sad face, avoiding his eyes.

    Ryoma was surprised by Yui''s unexpected ''confession'' but as it wasn''t really why he wanted to talk to her, he only smiled and took a step closer to embrace her.

    "I''ve already mourned my wife for over a year and Miyuki really needed some family. I can''t say it didn''t surprise me, but there is nothing wrong with her calling you mommy, don''t worry."

    "Actually, I wondered if you would like to go have dinner some time when there is less to do in the pavilion?"

    Yui paused her stammering and replayed his words in her mind. He still had his arms wrapped around her, which did not exactly help her thought process though. Ryoma was way too close to her now for her mind to work properly. Not that she didn''t enjoy it.

    "Go have dinner? You mean ˇ­ with Tora?" ¨C ''Wait Tora doesn''t really eat dinner other than spirit shards. That doesn''t make much sense to invite her right? Is he asking me out on a date?''

    "No, I thought about just us. We can invite Tora some other time though, not that she enjoys good food, other than her spirit stones." Ryoma quickly refused the idea of having Tora come along.

    Somehow Yui felt as if the atmosphere in the room had turned quite strange.

    "Just the two of us. That sounds quite nice." she agreed in a quiet voice, resting her head on his shoulder.

    If Tora were here, she would tease her again about them being all lovey-dovey, but right now Yui didn''t care at all and just enjoyed the moment.

    "Great, then I go look for a decent place and we find a day to go out and enjoy a nice evening."

    Finally realizing that she was blushing quite a bit and he was still holding her, he patted her back a bit more before letting go.

    "Ah, I should get back to organize our new people. They will all be arriving tomorrow." he said, obviously reluctant to leave.

    "Yes, that''s going to be interesting."

    She still stood at the very same spot even minutes after Ryoma had left, with a silly smile plastered on her face.

    "Oh, did he say someone is going to live with us?" she suddenly remembered their earlier bits of conversation.

    "I wonder why Tora would want someone else to live here. Perhaps the person is poor and has no home? Well it''s not as if I would mind some craftsman living here."

    Not giving it too much thought, she decided to not worry about it and just go look for Miyuki.

    With Ryoma busy with the new people they hired, she would better make sure the little girl didn''t get into trouble. In the last few days, she had turned from a weak feverish adorable kid into a stormy little devil.

    Miyuki reminded her a lot of Tora and while she was still just as adorable, the mischief she would often cause and the risks the fearless little girl would take made Yui really worried from time to time.

    "I better take a look if she is still playing peacefully with the other kids in the garden or if Tora took a nap again and she climbed a tree or set something on fire." she mumbled, still in a good mood.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

    With the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s large garden area that somehow always looked as if it was in the middle of spring or summer and no one turning them away, the kids in the neighborhood had all decided that it was not just mystical, but also a prime place to go when they wanted to play.

    Not to mention that lately there would often be some happy people who just harvested a lot of tasty things and would even share a bit.

    Miyuki quickly found some kids that were her age or a bit older to play with and Tora enjoying her naps had decided to join her outside with a blanket and some pillows.

    Looking at the adorable and comical scene with both Tora and Miyuki sprawled all over the blanket and sleeping, Yui once more got motivated to improve the pavilion and make sure the little girl had nothing to worry about in the future.

    -

    The light brown hair worn open and only slightly held together with a thin braid and the deep green eyes of the woman clashed quite a bit with her expression, which was about as friendly as that of a bandit who wanted to take your life.

    The owner of the rather rundown and shady place in the southern parts of the town, acting as both a bar with cheap ale and food as well as an inn looked the woman in surprise. Not many would come and stay here, even more so a woman who was on her own.

    She wore a long grey old cloak with a hood covering her slightly from the weather and somewhat from curious eyes. Leather armor that was visible whenever the cloak moved that had seen plenty of hardships, made it obvious that the woman was not your usual civilian.

    "What can I get you?" he asked, expecting her to get a drink and then leave again.

    "I want a quiet room. I will leave tomorrow morning." She told him in a cold unemotional voice that sent a shiver across his spine.

    Her looks would make her a rather good target for many of the more questionable people, but this time, the innkeeper decided not to inform his acquaintances who liked to play with such lone women.

    Handing her a key with a room number and pointing to the stairs leading up to the next floor, he wanted to avoid any problems with this person.

    "A room is 5 copper. Dinner is in two hours and breakfast is starting at 7 bells in the morning, both services cost extra." he mumbled, before taking the 5 copper coins she placed on the bar.

    -

    The woman, obviously not interested in exchanging any more words, went up the stairs and sat down next to the window in her room after making sure to lock the door. She was watching the people come and go up to the pavilion building, that could be seen not too far away.

    Taking out several weapons, both normal knives and daggers as well as hidden blades and needles, Rinomi made sure all of them were well maintained. Placing them next to her, she took off her armor next, before quickly taking off the bandage that became visible below with a new one.

    "Damned wound. If I had not been so careless during the last mission, I would have never fallen so low as to accept a job in such a no man''s land, let alone one that leaves such a nasty feeling behind." She muttered, obviously annoyed by her own mistakes.

    With a long deep gash running along the left side of her body, all the way from her hips to her chest, it was hard to even move around properly, let alone travel for longer distances. The remaining poison that she could not really get rid of, preventing the normal healing pills and elixirs from working just made it worse.

    It did not help that most of her belongings were seized by her enemies when she had to flee.

    "If I don''t get some antidote quickly to get rid of this poison, this wound is only going to get worse."

    It was not easy to find a source for a high-grade antidote. Most places around did not have the means to procure it, while the few places that had something available would likely be watched by her enemies. Buying it openly would be the same as waving a flag announcing her identity.

    While none of them had seen her face, she could not take the risk of getting attention. It was easy to figure out that she was hurt if an expert looked closely and she did not have the means to defend herself properly in her current situation.

    In the end Rinomi had to rely on a private person of questionable morals to acquire what she needed, but at least her contact could confirm that her client had a high-grade antidote. She would not get any second chances. If this mission failed, she would likely be too weak to get another try.

    "Ahh I should relax some more, its not like I ever worried much about my targets. Every single one of these rich brats has been totally deserving of meeting their ends, it won''t be any different now."

    "Really though, entering this place as some kind of maid? Who is the owner of this shop, a noble? I wish I had the time to properly gather information, there is nothing worse than dealing with the unknown."

    She was surprised that she even got the job, but never would she have expected them to offer her a job as a maid.

    Initially Rinomi did not think it would be hard to get one of the positions, as they needed quite a lot of people, but when she found herself to be just one of several hundred people, she realized that she might have underestimated the appeal of this strange place.

    "The guy seemed to be some senior manager of this shop and the girl was likely part of the family that owned the business." Rinomi did her best to review what she had heard and found out about the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    She was not the strongest looking person, as such she never planned to get any of the miner of woodworker jobs. As she did have some skills with alchemy though, mostly as it was beneficial for her job to be knowledgeable about poisons, she applied for a role as an apprentice alchemist.

    The girl however seemed to have something different in mind.

    Rinomi tried to recall the exact words again.

    ''Ryoma, we still need a lady-in-waiting for my sister, well whatever you call the position, some role of an assistant would be good, why not offer her the job? If she currently has no home in the city, she can live here.''

    Yes. It was definitely about that woman''s sister, whoever that would be.

    "It should give me access to their private quarters, makes the job at least achieveable. If I have to climb the roof and into windows, I''m not sure if I would manage in my current condition."

    She sighed and after having replaced the bandage of her wound she decided to get some early rest.

    It would be a troublesome time ahead of her.

 Chapter 15: Id rather take the demon lord! A lady-in-waiting sounds way scarier.

    Steps echoed across the hallway between the private rooms. Tap Tap Tap. They moved to one end, then turned around and moved back to the other end again.

    "I have the people gathering materials scheduled for early morning and then the craftsmen shortly before noon. Tora will take a look at the alchemists, enchanters and other spirit inclined people later today."

    Ryoma had been running around in the hallway for the past half hour scribbling information down on his notebook. As one of many children of a merchant, who didn''t inherit any parts of the business, he was not uninformed about any of these tasks, but knowing about something and actually doing them was quite different.

    His official title was currently Chamberlain of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, but none of the positions or titles in this place conformed to anything that he heard about outside. It was mostly given to him, because neither Yui nor Tora wanted him to get ignored when he had to deal with people outside the Pavilion.

    Whatever his actual title might be though, it could not be denied that the twin sisters relied a lot on his help. He did not expect the Tai siblings to hand over so much responsibility to him but considering their personalities it was not really unexpected.

    Yui had a hard time dealing with strangers. While she had a decent understanding of economics and always surprised him with her strange and innovative ideas how to handle the shops business, she was shy and reluctant to manage their servants and workers. She did well acting as a ruler from time to time, but it was stressful for her to play such a role. It would not be wise to permanently force her into a situation she wasn''t comfortable with.

    Tora on the other hand, simply wasn''t interested in involving herself with any of the administrative tasks that had to do with people. She was the person who managed most of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s mystic abilities, whatever that might include and Yui had already made hints to him that she was not her real sister, but the details were still unknown to him.

    "We still have to make sure to check their backgrounds though. If the are not freemen and bound to some lord, we will have to settle on an agreement to have them work for us instead. Yui has no idea how any of this works, I guess I have to handle this myself. I wonder where she comes from and how their own commoners are arranged."

    Yura as well as many of the surrounding regions had a semi-feudalistic government with many intricacies involved in the rank and status of its people.

    While noble born and cultivators were obviously free to go where they wanted as long as they were not bound to defend a place in some way by their own lords, regular peasants and workers had a rather different status.

    Where they lived and worked, who they were allowed to marry, and many other aspects of their lives were often controlled by whatever lord ruled the area they lived in. Craftsmen and merchants often had a lot more freedom, but also had to rely on their own skills to make a living.

    The common folk had a hard, but unless the country suffered hardships or their lord was corrupt, a steady live, where food and lodging was guaranteed and provided for them as long as they were employed by someone.

    Small landowners were situated somewhere in between. They had more freedom to act on their own than regular workers, while also being responsible to take care of the mostly rented land they were given.

    "Oh and I guess I also have to introduce that Rina woman to Yui." His face turned into a frown.

    He could hardly argue with Tora about it, but the idea of suddenly pushing a lady-in-waiting on Yui without even telling her about it beforehand ˇ­ he already worried about her reaction and the outcome.

    "I just hope it doesn''t ruin our relationship somehow." sighing he got ready to introduce the new people to their new tasks and show them around.

    -

    The early morning, some time before the shop officially opened, was not as quiet as usual and filled with conversation in the shop room.

    Taking care of the various people who were hired to gather materials and acquire resources directly from their own dimensional locations, Ryoma took a look at their identities and quickly settled possible debts or responsibilities they might still have.

    Already used to showing people around and explaining the shop locations to them, they were soon equipped with the necessary gear and were taught the basics of what was required of them.

    Unlike the craftsmen and people who would hold administrative tasks, these workers were not real retainers. They acted independently and were hired in a similar way to what Yui would call freelancers. Gathering resources for the pavilion while being paid with a small share of the gained resources.

    They had no fixed quotas or worktime but were paid purely on a performance basis. If they fell below a certain amount of gathered materials over a longer time though, chances were high that someone else would be hired instead.

    Some might prefer money instead of goods and their share would be bought by the Pavilion with coin instead.

    Craftsmen on the other hand would have a longer lasting contract. They were given various tasks and were paid a fixed amount of money, as well as possible bonuses depending on their performance.

    The woman who introduced herself as Rina was currently the only real hired administrative assistant, if one wanted to call her that.

    "Yui, this is Rina, she will be living with us from now on. Rina this is Tai Yui, the owner of our Pavilion."

    Ryoma stood in front of Yui with a young woman in her early twenties right behind him.

    "Oh, right, you already mentioned that someone would live with us soon. Welcome to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion Rina."

    Yui smiled at the woman, who was a bit taller than herself, but not exceptionally tall, with brown hair and green eyes. The dress she was wearing was of decent quality, but not overly elaborate while her hair was bound carefully, giving her a youthful, but composed and elegant look.

    "It''s a pleasure to be able to work here lady Tai." Rinomi curtseyed and did her best not to wince in pain. It was not the first time that she worked in a noble household and she was well trained in etiquette, but not letting anyone get suspicious about her wound and condition was harder than she expected.

    "Ah, yes, well Yui, you see, Tora said you needed an assistant and miss Rina is going to be your lady-in-waiting. She comes with various skills that you would benefit a lot from and has experience in working on various households of important nobles.

    "What?"

    Yui looked at Ryoma in shock and confusion, then started glancing at Rinomi, who just looked confused too and then her stare returned to Ryoma before turning slightly angry.

    "I don''t need a lady-in-waiting, I''m quite fine all on my own."

    "But Yui, Tora said you need someone to help you, as ˇ­"

    "I said I don''t need a lady-in-waiting." Suddenly aware that they were having a discussion about their new employee''s necessity, Yui felt slightly guilty and awkward.

    "Uh, what does a lady-in-waiting even do?" she quietly asked Rinomi, not quite pouting at Ryoma, but also far from happy with him springing such a situation on her.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    "Lady Tai, among other things, my duties would entail proficiency in etiquette, languages and various arts like dancing, painting, music, helping the lady with her wardrobe, as well as various miscellaneous tasks like keeping track of activities at court or relaying messages."

    Yui just grumbled even more, the only thing holding her back from shouting in anger was Rinomi, who seemed rather innocent in her eyes.

    "I see, so Tora wants to tell me that I am socially inept, and I better have someone with common sense around me in order to avoid causing some war with some other nation."

    "Hey hey sis, you could of course look at it this way, but you really do need an assistant who helps you with the local customs and the habits of nobility. If you don''t like a lady-in-waiting you could always hire her as your spy master or as a bodyguard."

    "If she knows how to use half of the small arsenal of weapons she carries with her, it would be more than adequate in that regard."

    Tora shouted from downstairs, not further involving herself in the conversation.

    Yui and Ryoma looked slightly confused, while Rinomi froze like a statue at the unexpected words. The young woman who was invited as a lady-in-waiting took a moment to consider her situation.

    ''She knows I am armed without even meeting me face to face. How strong is this woman? Should I go on with the job, or does she know about this as well? Would I even have a chance? She does not seem to be worried about her sister at all even though someone is standing in front of her with hidden weapons.''

    Rinomi thought about fleeing, but with her wound it would not be able for her to get away fast enough. It would be hard to escape a normal fit person, let alone someone who she thought of as powerful like Tora.

    ''I guess I have no chance but to hope that they don''t know about my job and act like it is normal.''

    By now the stares of both Yui and Ryoma were rather curious.

    "Uhm, well I also do know how to defend myself, not that I expected for anyone to find out about it. If there is a need to protect the lady, I would obviously use my abilities to defend her."

    Yui on the other hand thought that it would be much better to have a spy master rather than a lady in waiting and seriously considered the role of this woman now.

    What modern high school girl would want a lady-in-waiting? Looking over her shoulder all the time, nagging at her choice of clothes, giving her lectures about etiquette. She''d rather hire a demon lord than a lady-in-waiting!

    "Do you have any close ties with the Yura kingdom, or any of its lords? I can''t argue that it wouldn''t be beneficial to learn some more about society''s norms here, but I don''t want to have someone around with split loyalties."

    Yui''s words changed, her intonation and gestures changed. Her whole attitude that was a moment ago still that of a shy young shopkeeper girl, now reflected a very different person. It was as if the girl had put on the mantle of a ruler, surprising Rinomi quite a bit.

    "Lady Tai, you don''t have to worry, I have no ties to any powers of a kingdom. I have been travelling for a while due to various personal reasons, but plan to settle down here."

    "It would make sense for an empress to have a bodyguard and it can''t hurt for the Earthly Treasures Pavilion to set up some information network in the long run."

    Ryoma seemed to agree with Tora as well, especially as the idea of Yui getting a typical lady in waiting was obviously discarded. Maybe they could get her someone as a companion at least, even if it was under the disguise of a bodyguard.

    "E..empress?"

    What was business as usual between Ryoma, Tora and Yui was absolutely baffling to Rinomi. A royal person was someone you didn''t want to mess with, let along a sovereign like a king.

    With this world''s strict classification of nation ranks, an Empress, in other words the ruler of an Empire would be even more of an untouchable personage.

    To be able to use the title of kingdom, they would require at least a Core stage cultivator as a permanent retainer or an army that would be of equal power.

    An empire on the other hand required an Origin stage cultivator as a retainer or enough Core stage cultivators to be able to defend against one.

    There were no empires on their island region and in all the world that was known to Rinomi, even in her birthplace, there were only a few nations that would have the power to use that title.

    ''I messed up, I messed up big time. I knew I should have informed myself better about this place. There were even some rumors about a powerful cultivator in this shop, but if what they said is true, that would be on a whole different level from what I''ve expected!''

    Rinomi was a low stage Core cultivator herself and even though she was wounded, she still held quite a lot of strength if she ignored her situation and risked her wound becoming worse.

    Never would she have expected that in such a small kingdom, other than her enemies who might still be chasing her, as well as a handful of major powerholders, there would be others who could be a true threat.

    "I don''t like that title very much." Yui snorted. "Just call me Yui when we are alone or with friends. Miss Yui when we are in the shop with customers should be fine too. The formal stuff is when we have to do formal things or meet stupid people."

    Her voice had already returned to that of a shy girl.

    It became increasingly harder for Rinomi to accurately judge the situation. Which one was her real personality, and which one was a mask?

    "If I may be so bold, I would have a question lad.. miss Yui."

    "Sure, what would you like to know?"

    "I have ... a certain task that is still left incomplete, by a certain client of mine. I would rather not work with them anymore, as their morals are quite questionable, but I rely on their help. As you mentioned, while this would not exactly tie me to them there might still be a conflict of interest."

    "Oh? Go on?" Yui seemed interested what this young woman''s motive might be. Obviously, there was a bigger story than just randomly arriving here on her travels.

    "I would need a high-grade antidote. I''d prefer not to get it directly on the open market, like the auction houses or the big medicinal halls as I''m worried that some old acquaintances that have bad intentions might track me down that way."

    Rinomi was worried that bringing up her past might be the reason they would not accept her, but she would rather risk this, than taking the risk offending this Tai family.

    Neither did she have any real idea if she would even succeed, nor did her expectation of Yui being a spoiled brat come true, making her feel even more guilty about the situation. It seemed in her own best interest, both for her guilty conscience as well as from a logical point of view to side with this Earthly Treasures Pavilion instead.

    "Don''t worry Rina, we won''t let any of our people get harmed. I''m sure we can find such a high-grade antidote. Do you have any family member who needs it?"

    "It''s Rinomi. My name that is ˇ­ I usually go with Rina if I need to hide my identity. You can also call me Rin if you like miss Yui. I would rather keep this to myself if thats alright."

    While Rinomi hoped for the best, mentioning her own weakness seemed like a really foolish idea at the moment.

    "Rin. I see." As Rinomi did not want to tell her more about why she needed such an antidote, she didn''t mention it anymore. "Well let me welcome you to our little family again Rin. As you probably already know, this is Ryoma. He''s currently acting as our Chamberlain if anyone asks."

    She really wanted to call him ''boyfriend'', but as they didn''t even have a date yet, it seemed like an odd title and situation.

    "His daughter Miyuki also lives with us. She''s an adorable little girl who is three years old but likes to pretend she is a grown up and loves to go on adventures like climbing trees. You could see her as a little princess when it comes to such matters, but I''d rather not let her hear that. She should grow up in a normal way without any of this royalty business in the way of her happy childhood."

    "I think you''ve met my sister Tora yesterday. She is somewhere down in the living quarters probably taking a nap. Don''t ask me what her official title is, but I guess it might be princess or something as my sister."

    "Her tasks usually range from taking care of the pavilion itself and maintaining the various dimensional locations to teaching and helping out with anything our craftsmen won''t be able to do."

    "This land and half of Sume city is property of our Earthly Treasures Pavilion and not part of Yura kingdom, but as it''s quite a mess we don''t bring that up unless someone causes trouble.

    "We don''t tax people, we don''t have real borders that we defend, and we don''t really have a standing army, if you want to exclude Tora, who could probably raze a city or two on her own without much effort."

    Yui talked about many of the things that were going on inside of the pavilion. There were not really all that many secrets, except for Tora''s true identity that Yui didn''t mention, but even though there did not seem any real secrets, Rinomi was still having a hard time believing what she just heard.

    Just when Ryoma was getting ready to invite the craftsmen, Tora came up the stairs, holding Miyuki in one arm, while she was handing two small bottles to Rinomi with the other.

    "Here. Drink the antidote to get rid of the poison, then apply the other potion on the outside of your wound."

    Surprised, Rinomi took both flasks. "Thank you miss. How did you know about the wound?"

    "Kid, you still need some more experience to fool me with something this basic in our own territory. Don''t worry about people you cannot deal with. As long as you can help her with getting a grip on at least some everyday tasks of a ruler and make sure the small fries don''t annoy her too much, itˇŻs a good investment for all of us."

    "Wound? Poison? Are you hurt Rin?"

    Before Rinomi could even wonder why someone who looked younger than herself would call her kid, Yui already turned her ''worry mode'' on and inspected her once more to see if she was hurt.

    "With miss Tora''s help I should be fine, thank you."

    "Today will be really busy, go get some rest for now, we can figure out what I''m supposed to learn and what you''re supposed to do in more detail later, after the shop closes." Yui suggested, before leading Rinomi downstairs to a new room.

    "If you need anything let me know, no one can enter here without our permission, so don''t worry and get some rest."

    "I didn''t expect my job application to turn out this way but thank you a lot miss Yui."

    "I''m no miss." Yui laughed. "Good to have you around Rin."

 Chapter 16: If you dont know what to do, hire someone who does!

    With all the new people working here, Yui was a bit overwhelmed remembering all the new names. Men, women, older and younger people, thereseemed to be no clear distinction on who got the jobs other than their skill and perhaps their personality.

    Ryoma seemed to be a good judge of character, as none of them felt out of place in the pavilion to her or had any disagreements when everyone met and groups were formed depending on where they would be working. They were all excited about their new task and did their best to follow the instructions that were provided in order tomake a good first impression.

    For some of these people, who were coming from a poor background, this job was as if they just found a treasure. Their salary was so much higher than they would have ever been able to make in a regular position and some of them were even in debt to their prior lords, not much more than slaves would have been in Yui''s own world in the medieval times.

    Now all of their lives seemed to have changed for the better and no one complained or had the slightest inclination to slack off during their working time.

    "I feel bad not knowing any of them. Maybe I should keep an eye on one group each day to learn a little bit more? It will likely be easier to get to know the craftsmen, but these gatherers will be in the dimensional places most of the time and I won''t see them a lot." Yui mumbled to herself.

    Perhaps she could invite them out to lunch from time to time in smaller groups? She quickly shook her head, still not comfortable with the idea. Getting to know people was one thing, going out for lunch with people a totally different one.

    It could also count as a mental training for her, to keep part of her focus on the shop, while she concentrated on what was going on inside one of their dimensions as well, whenever there were no customers.

    Nearly all groups collecting resources consisted of five people. Yui took a look at the miners first and did her best to get an idea of what they were doing and the people themselves.

    It was a rather odd mix. Four of them were males while one was female. Being unable to remember their names, she quickly assigned some nicknames to some of them after watching for a while. She would have to look up their real names at some point, but for now just getting an idea of what they would be like seemed enough.

    There was ''Old Rock'' who was the de facto leader of the group. He looked to be about fifty and in the late Qi Condensation stage. Obviously having the most experience and a rough but charming personality, he reminded Yui a little bit of an older version of Araki Hachiro, without the strange accent.

    All of them started in the simple spirit mine with first tier ores to get a better feeling for the location and how things worked, but they quickly got the hang of the exceptional tools and easy pickings in the various caves. Old Rock and two others were experienced miners and had an easy time, while the girl and a boy were still trying to figure things out on their own.

    "Hey you there, what''s your name?" Old Rock asked one of the younger miners in front of him and Yui did her best not to let this chance pass to learn of their names again. She could look it up, but she would have to ask Ryoma and that was just embarassing somehow.

    "Senji boss!" - "Good, good. Listen up lad, stop your shaking and stammering, we''re all no fancypants or rich kids you have to be careful to be around with. You just swing that pickaxe and do your best and I will make sure none of you leaves here without a good share of the spoils right?"

    "Yes boss, I''ll do my best."

    "Good, then keep an eye on the young lass and help her out a little. She''s likely too stubborn to ask for help on her own." he mumbled, easy enough for Senji, and unknown to him Yui, to hear, but not the others.

    Senji was, besides the girl in their group, who in Yui''s estimation could not be much older than 13 or 14, by far the youngest. Maybe he was about her own age or a year younger?

    Yui was slightly unhappy to have a young girl work in such a place, but for now she would just keep an eye on things. In a world where 10 to 12-year old kids were already working and due to the spiritual energies having stronger bodies, it was not too strange to see older children in such jobs.

    She was at a loss of how to deal with this though. It''s not as if she could just abolish child labor in this world. Well, she could force people with her power, but it might bring more harm than good.She decided to learn more about this world first, before she started anything drastic. At least if there was no immediate danger to the involved people.

    The boy''s pale blonde hair contrasted quite a bit with the girl''s fiery red shoulder long mane. It was a deeper and more intense shade than any of the ginger colored hair Yui had ever seen in her own world, more like the color of a polished red garnet.Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    Was it the hair color that would often reflect a person''s personality, or was its people''s expectations that changed the way you would act?

    No matter if there was any relation between her hair color and personality, or if it was just some fitting clich¨¦, the girl was as energetic and fiery as her hair, stubbornly swinging that pickaxe with more motivation than actual skill or strength against the cave walls.

    She was a little surprised to find Senji next to her holding out a leather water flask when she was in the middle of getting back her breath after a few minutes of swinging.

    "Thank you." She said with a quiet voice and a slight blush shattering both Yui''s as well as ''Old Rocks'' expectations of the girl being stubborn with a fiery and tsundere attitude.

    As motivated and energetic as the girl looked before, it was obvious she was even more of a wallflower than Yui, with an adorable shy voice and a sweet attitude of a soft-spoken lady.

    Senji meanwhile, had no clue how to interact with girls and nervously started to chat with her, without worrying too much about proper manners and etiquette.

    "Uh, no problem, I''m Senji. What''s your name? How did you end up here?" he asked, curious how a little girl without much experience got this job.

    "I''m Kirano." she mumbled, taking a sip of water before handing it back to him.

    "I just came to take a look as I was curious and had a chance to sneak away from the fields. Master Coda caught and questioned me when he noticed me looking through the window, before he let me go again after he was sure I was just curious."

    "I was really scared for a while to get punished, but nothing happened to me. The land I live on was bought and the serfs on it just go along with the land, basically changing lord I guess."

    "I''m still not sure why I''m here though, but it seems obvious that it is somehow related to me sneaking to the window before. One day the Reeve just told me to come here. I guess he expected Master Coda to have taken a liking to me. I just hope he''s not really interested. I''m not sure I want that kind of attention."

    Yui was a bit taken aback by the lack of emotion in the girl''s explanation, as if she did already accept whatever fate would fall on her. Kirano being slightly nervous was the only real sign that she was rather uncomfortable with it.

    It was very different from modern people, who would be upset and angry if their freedom of choice was taken away, or perhaps be scared and afraid being confronted with such a situation.

    Yui never got to listen to more of the conversation as another customer had just entered through the gate though and she had to focus on what was in front of her.

    "Welcome to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion!" her voice sounded out as usual, making a few people who were standing around chatting grin. It was so typical Yui that by now people were making good natured jokes about it when she was not around.

    Soon afterwards, yet another alchemist was excitedly looking through the plant descriptions on the leaflets he received from Yui and it did not take long for him to have conversations with the people who were standing around, as if he had known them for a long time.

    Meeting in this shop felt similar in some ways to joining a group or a circle. With Yui''s enthusiasm, her brightly optimistic attitude and the total lack of respect or obeisance when it came to rank and status, as well as her modern upbringing treating others with a certain amount of respect no matter their rank, it put a strong impression on the gathered people.

    She had by far the highest rank of everyone here and seeing her treat everyone well was no different than forcing them all to do the same. While most did not know her exact status or titles, they were all aware that she was quite a formidable and powerful figure.

    How could all these normal people or low ranked cultivators put up any airs when the lady herself did not? How could they look down on others, when the owner of this shop, who was even praised by people like Grandmaster Koda, did not?

    It did not take long for this attitude to take hold and people would usually start to have conversations with others of quite different rank. Unexpectedly, they found to have more in common than they would have expected.

    Especially when it came to Yui''s strange dungeon, it was easy enough for people to discuss their experiences and show what they got without holding back, not caring about social norms. The dungeon treated all as equals.

    In a way, the Earthly Treasures Pavilion had become a place where everyone would be ''just another customer, just another person who would try their luck in the dungeon''.

    There were no other places like this, making it quite unique. Over time, more and more people gathered in the shop, not because they were here for materials, but just because they could talk to others and share opinions and thoughts freely.

    -

    After a few hours, the first gathered materials came into the shop and their craftsmen were starting to work on them.

    Metalworkers and jewelers were busy making simple, but with the help of the wondrous tools still exceptional jewelry and Tora did her best to help her new ''students'' with the basics of enchantment and alchemy.

    While there were a lot of professional artisans, even some masters among the metal, wood and leatherworkers, they barely had any experienced enchanters or alchemists, but Tora was actually rather happy about that. This way she would have less work making them all forget the wrong things they were taught before and it was easier to teach them properly.

    Unlike regular craft skills, alchemy and enchantment needed a certain cultivation base much earlier in order to achieve a decent result, making the entry point higher in terms of cultivation.

    "You call this enchanting? What kind of moron taught you such a mess and gave you the idea that this would ever lead you down any path other than throwing stones on your head!"

    Yui smirked at the shouting and yapping as the looks on these poor students'' faces were all too similar to her own when she studied cultivation with Tora.

    While Tora was rather expressive and had an imposing manner, below the outer layer of letting off some steam, she was actually a rather kind teacher, not to mention that her teachings were exceptional even in the divine realm, let alone such a simple lower cultivation realm as they were currently living in.

 Chapter 17: Chaos at the Dinner Table

    At the end of their workday, everyone was exhausted, but happy about the current situation.

    The Earthly Treasures Pavilion was now always crowded even though the people who were actually buying something, quickly got what they wanted.

    "Thanks everyone for your visit, I''m afraid though the shop is closing. We will be opening tomorrow at the 7<sup>th</sup> bell. I hope to see all of you tomorrow and wish you a wonderful day!"

    "Our craftsmen and workers please stay here for a little bit longer."

    The customers and visitors all left after some time of saying their goodbyes and only the employees of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion were left.

    "Alright, thank you everyone for your hard work today. We had a very successful day and made some wonderful progress and I want to thank you all for your efforts."

    "As you already know, payday is usually once at the end of every week, but as some of you might need to spend some money due to the change in living conditions or the like, I decided to hand out a bonus today."

    Cheers could be heard as Yui gave all of them a decent amount of coins.

    Spirit shards were worth quite a bit more than gold coins and few normal workers would even get to see or use any gold coins, let alone spirit shards or stones. It was common for a lord to own the land and they would never share the majority of the profits.

    Even the Araki family, who Yui had many dealings with, while on the lower end of all the powerful families, was still far beyond the reach of regular peasants.

    As such, most experienced workers would simply earn a regular salary of 2 to 3 silver coins a month, while serfs would just receive a few coppers if anything and were given some food.

    They would not even get the chance to access a place like the Spirit Mine or the Old Vine Forest, because it would take several lifetimes worth of their savings to be able to pay for a ticket.

    Yui handed everyone 20 silver coins, which was nothing to her, but made everyone grin happily. To them it was a good half year of a normal salary.

    "We have made quite some progress with the first batch of enchanted accessories today." Yui continued.

    "As hunters have by far the most dangerous jobs, they will be the first to get them, but once we make more of them, everyone will get one."

    Surprise and confusion could be seen on most faces.

    Yui brought out a few rings, forged with spirit copper. They did not have any gemstones embedded and did not look too gaudy either, but the real worth of these rings was quite high. A few small runes were carved on the rings inside, granting the wearer a protective enchantment that could be activated with a slight mental command.

    It would not last long against a true cultivator, but it might give street thugs some pause to reconsider their actions. The rings could even deflect a blow or two from weak spirit beasts, making it a life saving treasure if a hunter were surprised and unprepared against an attack.

    "For now, I will give them to you, if you quit your position before the trial time is over, you have to return these. If you stay around for at least a month, they will be all yours though. You can see it as an extra reward to keep you safe."

    "I''m sure Ryoma has already told you about how we value decent behavior. Don''t use the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s name to brag or cause any trouble. If people are threatening or provoking you though, without any mistake on your end you can tell them to back off, otherwise they have to face me or my sister."

    Such an announcement to make in front of regular peasants and simple freemen, was quite an oddity to these people.

    "Thank you miss." , "Yes boss!" , "We will not bring shame to the Pavilion milady!"

    All kinds of answers could be heard, but everyone was happy and motivated to do their best.

    "Alright, work is over. Senji, Kirano, you two come with me please."

    Most of the people made their way out the gate, while Senji and Kirano stood there a little bit confused. What did the lady want of them?

    Their first thought was that they would get dismissed. Kirano was the youngest of them, without any experience as a miner. She would obviously have the lowest achievements.

    While Senji was helping and teaching her, his own efforts were obviously a lot lower as well, especially as he could not really compete with the other experienced miners in the first place.

    "Ah lady, these two are still young, I''m sure they will learn quickly and improve fast."

    "Huh?" Yui turned around surprised and found the old miner speaking up for the two young people from his mining team, expecting her to single them out because of their performance.

    "Yeah I think so too, don''t worry Old Rock, I make sure Tora isn''t too harsh on them, cultivation can be rough, but I''m sure they will be doing well."

    "Old Rock?"

    "Uhh .." Yui blinked. ''Did I really just call him Old Rock? Oops''

    "Sorry. I didn''t mean that in a bad way, it was a nickname that came up earlier and I wasn''t thinking straight ˇ­"

    ''Old Rock'' started to laugh out loud in the room. "My name''s Mitsuaki, but I''m honored to be the first of our bunch to get a nickname from our lady. Old Rock I see, I guess it is kind of fitting."Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    "May I ask what milady has in mind for these two? Pardon an old miner like me for asking, it really isn''t my business actually, but ˇ­"

    "Don''t worry. They are still young, and mining is hard on them. I thought if my sister taught them some cultivation then it might be a lot easier for them later on."

    Mitsuaki raised an eyebrow. "Isn''t the girl a serf?"

    "Is there any problem with them being able to learn cultivation? How did you get to learn it?"

    "Well, I was actually a reject of a sect, if you are asking me like this milady. Not being proud of it, but I still learned enough to start on that path, even if I didn''t get extremely far."

    Sects would never even think about teaching someone like a serf cultivation. It was already rare for a freeman to get invited into a sect and that was usually because they had extremely high potential or some influential backer as their friend.

    "Well, we can teach whoever we like, right? I see no issues with teaching her cultivation. I''m sure she will do well."

    Throughout their whole conversation, Senji and Kirano just stared, never having expected such a strange twist of fate. Cultivators had their own status depending on their strength.

    While they were not outside the law, powerful cultivators had a lot more leeway than others. Having a freeman raised to such a status could be seen as a rare chance to turn from a fish into a dragon.

    Having a serf turn into a cultivator though, people had never thought about the implications or consequences of doing such a thing. Yui was the first one, to not only consider, but simply do it.

    Unlike the problem with the child labor, Yui never expected this to become such a big issue. All her big words about not trying to make any drastic changes did not seem to really make it far.

    ''Well, I already said we''d teach her, I''m not going back on my word now, especially not as she never did anything wrong to get such a low status in the first place.'' she thought to herself.

    "Old Rock, I see you tomorrow then." Yui basically dragged the two young people behind her, considering what Ryoma and Tora would say if she brought some new people home again.

    ''Well, last time Tora sprung Rin on me, it shouldn''t be a big deal.''

    She knocked at Rinomi''s door calling out to her new bodyguard. Or was it spy master?

    "Rin, are you awake? We''re going to eat dinner soon."

    Before Yui could turn around, the door already opened and Rinomi walked out.

    "Haha, that was fast. Rin how are you doing? Feeling better?"

    "Yes, miss Tai, I''m feeling a lot better thank you."

    "Great, just come with us, Ryoma is still outside with Miyuki, but if I don''t have something ready when she comes in with her stomach grumbling then she will ask me every minute if it is ready."

    "These two will join us today. Senji, Kirano, this is Rin. Rin, drop the miss, no need around here."

    She was nearly at the kitchen when she suddenly remembered that both of the young ones were just coming out of a mine.

    "Well, you are a little bit dusty."

    "A little." Rinomi agreed with an amused grin, as the clothes of the kids were dusty from top to bottom.

    "Well, Kirano, can take a shower first. Senji has to wait till she is done. Shouldn''t take too long."

    "Lady, it is alright, you don''t have to invite us to dinner." Kirano tried to argue but was quickly shot down by Yui.

    "Don''t you like my cooking?" ¨C "I .. I didn''t mean that, I have never eaten something cooked by the lady."

    Rinomi gave her a strange look. "Wait, you mean, miss ˇ­ you will cook it yourself?"

    "You don''t eat Ryoma''s food if you don''t want food poisoning, Tora won''t cook even if she knows how to and Miyuki is way too little to have any idea about cooking, so who did you think would be cooking?"

    "I can try to cook in the future, you shouldn''t do these kinds of things with your status miˇ­ Yui"

    "Pff, and you shouldn''t either right, not worth it hiring a chef just for the few of us, but we can both cook from time to time and share the task. No more arguing, Kirano, go get a shower, the bathroom is over there. Senji can take one when she is done. I go find some clean clothes for you two in the meantime."

    "Uh lady, what is a shower?"

    "Oh. Right, I totally forgot that other places have no showers here. Come on, I show you."

    After all the things they had heard and seen so far, Kirano, Senji and Rinomi were already too dazed to worry about yet another strange thing like a shower. Once they all understood how it worked, Yui put some clean clothes in the bathroom, ushered Senji and Rinomi outside and closed the door.

    "Alright, Senji, you wait here, when Kirano is done taking a shower and is dressed you can switch with her. Rin and I will start with making dinner."

    -

    When everyone was finally at the table, Rinomi and Yui had been preparing dinner for a good hour and the table was laden with various dishes.

    It was a rather flat table and people were sitting around it on various really comfy mats and enough room for everyone to not feel crammed. It was not as big though as those tables of noble families that made you feel as if the table was much too big for the amount of people eating.

    Some of the dishes were cold, some warm, some were well known to them, while others seemed totally foreign as Yui made them herself. Even Tora was coming to join them for dinner in order to taste all the new and exotic dishes.

    By the time Yui realized that she came to this world alone and now was sitting at a table with six other people, she stared at all of them in amazement.

    "Sis, is something wrong?"

    "No Tora, nothing''s wrong. It''s all quite right actually. I was just surprised about this strange feeling of being surrounded by people eating dinner. I wouldn''t be comfortable outside, but here on our table. It''s nice."

    -

    Neither Senji nor Kirano had been taught any cultivation techniques. Not because Yui or Tora wouldn''t teach them, but mostly because by the time they were done with dinner, it was already rather late.

    "Don''t worry, we will just start tomorrow with it. You just skip a few hours of the regular mining. Once the early morning rush has passed there should be some free time when either myself or Tora can help with it."

    "Rin, would you mind bringing Kirano back home? Having a young girl like her go back on her own at this time seems like a bad idea."

    "That should not be a problem. Please stay inside the pavilion though while I''m away."

    "Sure. I told Miyuki I''m going to tell her a good night story today. I still don''t know which story I should dig up from my memories and if I even remember any of them correctly, but I guess I will just make up something if I don''t."

    "Lady, the clothes ˇ­" Kirano pointed out.

    "Just keep them on, I wash your old ones for you."

    The looks Yui got made her roll her eyes.

    "What, it''s just washing some clothes, don''t look at me as if I''m inept and can''t even do that much."

    "Lady Yui, you''re not supposed to do this kind of work. It''s what servants are there for." Rinomi pointed out.

    "You see any servants here?" Yui asked with a smirk. "I only see my sister, my ˇ­ eh boyfriend and his daughter who I treat like my own, my bodyguard I guess and two guests."

    Ryoma just smiled when she called him her boyfriend, but he didn''t want her to have to wash clothes.

    "I will wash the clothes, don''t worry about it. I guess we could also hire some help for these tasks. It was an oversight on my part. I should have considered about hiring a few servants."

    Flustered by the words and not wanting to argue with her lady, Kirano just bowed and accepted that she would just go home with the strange clothes from the shop, that were of far better quality than anything she had ever worn before.

    The high quality robe, made her look like a young cultivator and nothing like the serf she really was.

    It didn''t take long for Senji to do the same and finally they were on their way back home.

    With Rinomi by her side, making sure that nothing happened to the girl, it all felt like a weird dream to Kirano. A dream about her lady, a person so much above her, yet at the same time a person who had just made dinner for her.

    "What a strange place this Earthly Treasures Pavilion is" she mumbled and looked back at the now distant tower, that had changed her life so completely.

 Chapter 18: Stepping on a Griffons Tail

    Quite a lot of people stared at Kirano once they reached the little community with her home. A small cottage where her family lived was all they really owned. They had no farmland and without any way to earn money, all they could ever save up were the few coins made with odd jobs.

    Most of their money had to be used for clothes and other necessities and there was no real way for them to ever pay back their debt.

    Having experienced the overly full dinner table and the great workmanship of the rooms in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, Kirano was even more aware now how large the gap in status between their lady and herself was, when looking at the dilapidated old little cottage.

    It was home and she loved her family and even the memories she made here, but there was really nothing good to say about their place to live, other than it being better than sleeping on the ground.

    "Well, here we are. You better tell your parents that you might come home quite a bit later over the next few days. Cultivation is a large step for someone like you, but there is no reason to make them worry." Rinomi told her and prepared to leave again.

    "Thank you miss Rin for bringing me here."

    "Yes yes, I see you tomorrow. Get some sleep and don''t be late."

    Rinomi kept her face cold and distanced, obviously not interested in getting too attached to anyone. Her habits might change over time, but they would not change very quickly.

    When the new spy master was halfway back to the pavilion, she suddenly turned alert. She had no idea what was wrong, but she trusted her instincts. The unnatural silence, the slight vibrations in the ambient spirit energy, it was hard to pinpoint the underlying issue, but Rinomi felt as if she was being watched by someone.

    ''For someone to hide from my senses, they must know what they are doing. I''m not back to my peak strength yet and still recovering, but unless it''s an expert of similar strength I should still be able to notice them.'' she thought, raising her level of alertness even more.

    When Rinomi suddenly burst forward with a lot of speed, she could still feel the harmless looking attacks that missed her by just a tiny bit. The ground was sliced apart by the attacks that contained a lot of hidden power.

    Escaping the first wave of attacks, Rinomi noticed that it was likely not just a single person attacking her. There were no factions in this kingdom, or even the whole island group that could send not just one assassin of such skill, but several.

    ''They must have found me!''

    "Oh, you managed to avoid that? It seems like you got rid of the poison somehow." A voice Rinomi never expected to hear in this region of the world called out to her from the shadows.

    The Earthly Treasures Pavilion was already on the southern edge of the city and Kirano''s small community was even further away from the city. Other than a small road leading further south and then curving eastward, there was not much to find in this empty land.

    A few trees here and there, enough for those people to hide, but not enough to call it a real forest, as well as a lot of tiny hills and plains in between the city and its outskirts. No human buildings or constructions to be seen anywhere.

    Even the capital itself, would not have anyone who would be able to deal with two or more Core stage cultivators. Except perhaps a very mysterious young woman of a certain pavilion that Rinomi got to meet recently.

    Her pursuers obviously expected her to try and fight them and already prepared for a confrontation. Rinomi could run from them for a certain amount of time, but it was just a question of time before she would run out of spiritual power in her still weakened state.

    When she did not stop and fight though, but instead increased her speed even more, the leader of the group who tried to catch her cursed.

    "After her, she won''t get far. Don''t let her out of your eyes."

    Three shadows were rushing out from the trees and after Rinomi''s fleeing figure. Their leader followed right behind them.

    Mori Eshin was a small captain of a group of assassins when Rinomi was still part of the Grey Order, one of the top hidden factions in the distant Central Island Union.

    The group of large islands had five empires vying for power, a fragile balance between all of them granting a long-lasting peace treaty and keeping each other in check.

    None of the empires wanted to take the first step in a war, as the ''victor'' would suffer enough losses to become simply another prey for the empires uninvolved in whatever war there might be.

    As one of the strongest regions in the world, there were not many powers who could resist any single one of these five empires and as a result, the surrounding kingdoms were all vassals to one or another of these five.

    Grey Order was a faction that was based in all five of them, using the disagreements and tension between the factions, that would not openly start a war, but always tried to change the status quo and power of another behind the scenes for their own benefit.

    Some even considered the Grey Order as a sixth faction by now, able to rival the empires with their many Core stage cultivators, even though they had no Origin stage cultivator yet.

    "You can''t escape from here traitor! Give up and yield and there might still be some chance that you will not lose your life!" Eshin shouted, but Rinomi did not even respond to his words.

    ''It was you who framed me in the first place and got me into such a stupid situation. Not only would I be a fool if I turned myself in, but I would have run for the past months for absolutely nothing.'' she thought.

    She could finally see the city wall of Sume and increased her speed once more to cover the last remaining distance.

    "Do you really think that you can hide in the city? There is no one there that can protect you, you''re just wasting time!"

    Eshin was annoyed by her actions. It would not be too hard to follow her into the city, but it would be quite troublesome as they might attract lots of attention from the local government and its army and cultivators.

    "Ignore the others. If they block your path, kill them, there is no one we have to watch out for here." he told the others in their group.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    When Rinomi was finally over the city wall, a wall that might be useful against low stage Foundation cultivators but no one beyond that, as they could just jump over it, she quickly made her way to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    Once inside she shouted out for help, alarming Yui, Ryoma and Tora.

    "Enemy attack!"

    Even Miyuki was shaken from her slumber, but soon her father put her back to sleep, confident that Yui and Tora would deal with the problem.

    A part of him was a little bit worried about Yui and another part wanted to go and face this enemy in a heroic way. The biggest part though, told him not to be an idiot, die a horrible way before anyone could step in and leave Yui as a widow before they even had a chance to get married.

    Rinomi''s voice caused a certain artifact spirit to frown. Tora had just gone to bed and was close to falling into a nice slumber. Who was foolish enough to keep her from her wonderful nap time?

    -

    Eshin watched as his subordinates entered through the still slightly opened entrance gate of this pavilion. Obviously Rinomi seemed to have some reinforcements or help in this place that was why she would want to fight them here.

    He did not worry too much about it though. Even if she found another Core stage cultivator to help, with their numerical superiority it would not be a big difference.

    He had stayed outside in order to prevent her from fleeing again, but no one seemed to be leaving the place at all.

    ''Why is it so quiet? Why were there no sounds of fighting?'' Eshin had a rather bad feeling about this place after more than a quarter of an hour had passed without the slightest bit of noise.

    It had strange materials that were not typical for such a far-off place. In fact, he could not really tell what the building was made of. The black and red colors, dimly lit by the spirit fire torches around the place, gave it an ominous majestic look and did not help him stay calm either.

    "Report, what is going on in there!?" he called out, but no one seemed to respond.

    ''Is there some formation that is trapping them? Did they run right into a trap?''

    Mori Eshin did not think much about this country when they came here for the first time. It was a rundown kingdom of no real importance without many powerful people.

    Faced with this tower like pavilion however, he had to adapt his way of thinking. If this building was an old relic of some ancient cultivator, it might very well be that there were formations in there that could confuse or trap even a Core stage cultivator for some time.

    He had not heard of any formation yet that was powerful enough to trap a Core stage for a long time, but even a few minutes would be a risk they couldn''t afford. While Rinomi might be weakened, it was obvious that she was not weakened to the point of no longer being a danger to them.

    "If you lay a trap in this tower, then I just rip a hole into it to avoid it!" he snorted in disdain, and his spirit power blasted against one of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s walls.

    Eshin expected the wall to get turned into rubble, or at the worst some defensive formation to protect the building and tremble under the impact. The wall however did not break down, nor did he see any protective formation.

    It just seemed as if all his power was completely absorbed, disappearing without any trace.

    Angry about the outcome, he attacked the building yet again, using an even stronger strike, but the outcome was the same, leaving him with a frown.

    ''This does not seem at all normal. Maybe I should get some distance and just wait for the others to break out.'' he thought.

    The idea of entering himself made him uncomfortable and as he could not break in from outside, there did not seem to be any way for him to assist his subordinates either.

    Mori Eshin was always a person who above all else looked out for his own wellbeing and power. Never would he risk himself to save anyone and it was no different here.

    ''If it really is some ancient relic, the leaders of the Order would be very interested. Even if we lose a few Core stage cultivators finding such a relic might be more than worth it.''

    He just wanted to leave the area when he heard a cold voice from behind him. Just the voice alone made him shiver.

    The strength of the aura washing over him only a moment later, however, was far far worse. He did not even get to turn around, when his body completely froze in fear.

    "Where do you plan on going? Now that you woke me up, you better stay here and atone for your sins."

    -

    Yui watched the group of cultivators in one of their dimensional realms, who were now joined by their leader. Tora had gone outside and caught him rather quickly, before throwing him inside as well.

    "We just capture them there?" she asked her sister. "What should we do with them?"

    Tora shrugged her shoulders. "You said you didn''t need them and gave them to me, as such we just let them stay here. No need to worry about them afterwards."

    Her voice this time felt slightly creepy. This was not a voice Yui was used to hearing at all. It was a voice that had a slight hint of something otherworldly, something that was not completely human.

    For the first time Yui remembered the saying that a tool is neither good nor bad and that a sword can be both used by an honorable defender to defend their home, as well as by a tyrant to torment the innocent.

    She frowned slightly and as the Earthly Treasures Pavilion''s master she was innately aware that if those assassins stayed in there, it would not take long for them to become nothing more than drained husks void of any life.

    "You can drain their powers there?" Yui asked, more to confirm her suspicions even though she was quite sure about the answer already.

    "They will be quite the help on our road to getting stronger. While a Core stage cultivator is not really all that powerful, in our current stage they are still quite useful. Much better fuel than just some first-tier spirit stones."

    A depressing silence weighted down on Yui. She wondered if that was really a good thing to do.

    "Don''t kill them." she said after a while. "Just drain them until they are no longer able to cultivate and then let them go. A bunch of mortals should not be any more of a threat."

    "Ah, what a kindhearted soul you are Yui. I''m sure this will turn rather annoying and come back to bite us in the backside at some point in the future."

    Tora raised her hands in an annoyed manner but did not really argue with Yui much. In the end, she did not really care enough. The power they provided even if she did not kill them off, would still be substantial.

    "Fine fine, have it your way. At some point we will have to repaint the pavilion all in white with such an innocent master like you. Heck, you''re the first master I had in aeons that wanted to spare some assassins who tried to kill their subordinates."

    "Get some sleep Tora." Yui laughed and was quite happy about the decision now.

    "We deal with it when it tries to bite, even if thatˇŻs the case, there are some things that should not be done. Killing them in a fight is one thing but killing them when they are no real threat ˇ­ it''s just not something I want to do."

    Rinomi meanwhile just stared at Tora and Yui, wondering what exactly had happened to their attackers.

    Yui seeing Tora going back to bed already, not planning on informing their spy master about the situation at all, decided to explain things herself.

    "Rin, they were caught by Tora and will soon be drained of their powers to the point where their cultivation is gone, leaving them with nothing but a body that has a little bit longer of a lifespan than mortals. We can just throw them out then and no longer worry about it."

    "Will this not become a problem in the future miss?"

    Smiling, as Rinomi was still not used to just calling her Yui, she just shook her head.

    "We are no group of assassins or evil cultivators. If there are problems in the future, that is just the price to pay for sleeping without feeling all guilty every day, I guess."

    "Kill if you have no other choice and if there is a risk you or others we want to protect might be harmed, but don''t kill anyone who is helpless."

    Yui said it as if it were just some recommendation, but Rinomi realized there was much more to it.

    It was still not much more than advice, but to Rinomi, it might as well have been an order, it was a moral pillar that somehow felt important. Maybe Yui herself did not realize this yet but having her make such a decision seemed like an important step.

    In a way, this was the first time Yui acted as a real ruler, different from the simple play-acting she usually did to impress someone. There was no majestic pose, no powerful show of force this time. Just a request.

    A powerful sovereign''s wishes though, might as well be laws.

    "Is that it? Did we just ˇ­ neutralize a group of Core stage cultivators without them even getting the chance to really fight back?" Rinomi asked after some time of silence.

    "They decided to wake up Tora when she wanted to sleep, what did you expect?" Yui smirked heading back to her own room to get some sleep as well, letting Rinomi just stand there in awe.

 Chapter 19: Inviting Small Forces to the Auction

    The forge area was lit with several spirit torches, making the mostly windowless area somewhat bright even though there was barely any sunlight shining inside.

    The black wood of the pillars and walls, with the red accents of the various fabrics and metal parts inside of the forge area, seemed mystical and otherworldly, even more than looking at the pavilion from the outside.

    The craftsmen who were tasked with creating a lot of jewelry out of the mined spirit copper were doing their best to provide everyone with the promised accessory that will give them some protection. Working in this forge was a lot easier than working in a regular workshop, as many of the tasks could be improved by the features of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    As the quality of the materials was also a lot higher, as well as Tora''s expectations and requirements being quite stringent, it was still not an easy task overall. There would at some point be items for sale in the pavilion, but it was not really their primary concern.

    Most of the things they created would always be used by their own people, giving them an edge in whatever tasks they would undertake for the pavilion.

    The various metals and pieces of wood stacked up, as did the fabric woven from the harvested spirit plants and crops.

    It was quite the collection of materials and all the craftsmen and artisans were doing their best to make full use of them.

    Some of the people were standing around a table with some blueprints curiously inspecting what Tora wanted them to make.

    "What are these parts going to be used for?"

    "I''m not sure, but they look rather intricate and part of something bigger."

    "It looks like a gateway." one of the younger ones mentioned after looking at it for a while.

    "Could it be some kind of reinforcement for the door?"

    "I heard the boss lady say something about an auction realm." one of the enchanters mentioned, making everyone grow even more curious.

    "Maybe it is a gateway, just not the regular type."

    "You think they would create a portal?" While many of the craftsmen never heard about more intricate formations and items powerful cultivators would use, there were still a few, who had heard various stories about those lofty treasures.

    Spirit formations and mystic towers, portals leading to faraway places and cages able to catch the strongest spirit beasts.

    "It''s not that strange is it? The skill of the lady with creating transportation talismans is exceptional, would a portal really be hard to believe?"

    "Why would they need a spirit ship then?" one of them who was working on such a ship asked.

    "How are they going to get the gates to their destination otherwise?"

    "Oh, yes that makes sense."

    -

    While the craftsmen had a good time working on and discussing the various projects, most of the customers could be seen inside of the main shop room, listening to the stories of the various challengers of Yui''s Dungeon of Many Things.

    "Miss Tai, will there be more items being sold soon? Those metal ingots were of really good quality, I wonder if we will see more of them. None of our own refining methods seem to be able to come even close to the purity you seem to achieve here."

    After interacting with so many different customers for many days, Yui got used to their questions and banter.

    "We are selling various tools that are required to gather resources now, to make it easier on everyone who cannot make their own tools, but we will no longer sell any raw or purified materials in the foreseeable future."

    Yui pointed at the new range of tools on one side of the wall, all with various descriptions. A set of tools for a certain area would be exactly 10% of the cost of accessing this area. The higher the tier of the area, the better the tools would be in order to still be able to gather the resources.

    "There will also be a few special items being sold from time to time in an auction, but we will provide more information on the exact details later."

    There were many plans for the future, but most of them had yet to be even started. Scalability, proper logistics and a certain amount of fame were Yui''s current targets. Achieving them would be her primary concern, as would be increasing the amount and quality of the locations they could give customers access to.

    Yui was already quite happy with the variety, but the quality was still somewhat lacking. She quickly found out, that the price and the interest in the better-quality metals, was a lot higher.

    While first tier ore and plants were pretty much always required as the basis of many alchemical formulae and items, it would mostly be apprentices and less skilled alchemists and craftsmen who would use them.

    Even the people in a weak kingdom like Yura would reserve second and third tier materials for their stronger foundation stage or even core stage cultivators, increasing the value of such higher tier materials by a lot.

    Using such premium quality materials would attract the attention of strong cultivators, rich people who would provide them with more funds in a short amount of time, a lot faster than having to rely on a very large amount of low tier cultivators.

    Investing in a few craftsmen and have them improve a lot, would still be possible, but if they started selling large quantities of items, they would not be able to focus on their core business enough.

    Even the auction was just Yui''s way of increasing their fame and spreading their name further.

    Not many people would come to their place for some raw resources if they did not know about the details or quality of what the Earthly Treasures Pavilion provided. They were not a trading company though, they did not have the people or the infrastructure for any of it.Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

    If there was an auction to showcase some items, that were made with the materials they could give people access to however, this might be a chance for them to accrue both credibility and make people more interested in acquiring some materials themselves.

    "Maybe it is time, to look into better logistics as well. We pretty much cornered the market here, at least with the resources that we currently provide. If we want to expand further with the materials we have right now, we will have to reach out into other areas and perhaps even different kingdoms."

    "What about better resources?" Ryoma asked, still not totally sure, how Yui and Tora would scout for locations and then make them available.

    "We will obviously improve on the quality of our resources. I think we will soon be able to open another area for spirit herbs, but in order to improve even beyond that, we need to be able to support these places. It won''t help if we open up such an area too early, only to lack the necessary spirit stones to replenish the land with enough spirit energy."

    "I see, you think there will be a lot of people coming to the planned auction?"

    Yui nodded. "We have some things prepared that should grab their attention. Once we have a few important people from other places interested in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, I am confident that I can open up branch shops in other areas to lure even more people here."

    -

    A fist crashed onto the surface of the exquisite stone table, shattering some of the material. The person who had just ruined such a piece of furniture, however, did not even care and took the crystal that had been offered to him by a subordinate.

    "What do you mean they failed?! Four Core cultivators, two of them in the middle stage and they were defeated in a lowly third-rate kingdom in the south? That''s nearly a tenth of our whole force!"

    "Yes, Division Leader. We don''t know a lot of the details yet, but it seems like they were hunting for a traitor and were lured into some trap. All communication with them ended suddenly."

    Having taken the short straw, the subordinate felt really unlucky to be the one to bring back this type of bad news today. The Grey Order was powerful but losing so many strong cultivators was not something they could simply ignore.

    Even worse however was what the crystal contained. How would Division Leader Shin react once he watched the message contained within? What was even on it?

    "Then what''s this thing here? The latest report from the group before they ended up missing?"

    "Not exactly division leader, erm, you see this ˇ­"

    "Don''t spout nonsense and just tell me what''s going on!"

    "Leader Shin, this was sent to us by the people who captured your subordinates."

    "They sent us a message!" Division Leader Shin was quite a bit more than ''slightly'' surprised this time.

    What did it mean if someone did not try to hide and outright sent a message after capturing four of their Core stage cultivators?

    They were pretty much telling them that they were not afraid. If it were just some foolish kingdom provoking them, he could still ignore it and destroy the kingdom whenever he had the time, but this was different.

    Not only did they send a message, but whoever these people were had already shown that they had enough power to back it up.

    "Interesting. You may leave, I will give further instructions once I have heard the contents of this message crystal."

    The subordinate quickly bowed and left the room, giving a sigh of relief as soon as he was outside.

    Leader Shin sent some of his spirit energy into the crystal activating the message contained within it.

    He could see a young, black haired woman standing in the image, projected right into his mind. Leader Shin would have expected someone older. He would also have expected someone with an angry or upset expression.

    The woman however had a happy and friendly smile on her face though, which was unexpected to say the least. Did she want to curry favor? She seemed to look around, before focusing in right on his face. It gave him a creepy feeling, as if being watched by the projection of this young woman.

    Before he could however properly think about it, he noticed something strange. This message crystal was not a simple message crystal. There seemed to be a lot more to it, as it did not look like a pre-recorded message at all.

    He had heard about communication crystals before, ancient crystal enchantment technology that had been lost for thousands of years already. Two-way communication without the need to record a message, but he would have never expected someone to actually waste such a treasure for anything else but a dire situation in an important war.

    "Ah, it seems like it already arrived, wonderful. I am Tai Yui, Empress of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, may I know who I have the pleasure to talk with?"

    Curious with a gentle voice, the young woman did not look like anyone of power, but the circumstances made him really wonder who this person would be and why there would be an empire he had never heard about down in the southern regions.

    "I am Division Leader Shin of the Grey Order." he replied, still not used to talking to a crystal image.

    "I was informed you have captured some of our subordinates. Why would you interfere with our people and disrupt our operations?"

    Yui smiled at the image happily.

    "Oh, you''re wondering about those fools. Yes, I thought you would be interested. You see, they were barging into our pavilion in the middle of the night, with weapons drawn and ready to try killing all of us."

    "Initially, I thought you wanted to declare war, but my sister convinced me that a small force such as your own would not want to do that, and it was probably some misunderstanding. I''m not disinclined to just forget about this little offence, especially as we decided to keep miss Rinomi as our own follower from now on."

    Division Leader Shen was rather upset, but he just kept listening, the girl obviously tried to rile him up. Acting on such a simple provocation seemed like a bad idea. He didn''t know why she tried to anger him, but he would stay calm and friendly, not falling for such petty little tricks.

    The more she tried to anger him, the more she would be disappointed if he didn''t seem to be affected and just ignored such provocations, right?

    "We will be holding an auction in about a month''s time, with various goods you might be interested in. Usually we don''t send out information to small forces, but as we plan to expand and set up some portals near your Central Island Union, it might be beneficial for both sides to get to know each other some more."

    Division Leader Shen''s calm and collected smiling expression now changed slightly to astonishment. Did they really plan to set up a portal? Was she bluffing? He could not say for sure, the communication crystal was already a strange thing to see, did they have some lost technology?

    Yui''s smile became even brighter seeing his expression.

    "Why don''t you attend our auction. I''m sure you will find many things you might be interested in. We can also have a little chat about other matters."

    Leader Shen did his best faked smile, already planning to go to this strange auction and make sure to take revenge for this affront. Calling them a small force? Who did they think they are? Capturing their people and then talking about ''not taking offence'', wasn''t this outrageous?

    He would definitely go there, but he would not shout in anger at this na?ve girl, no he would be smiling and laughing and then watch the girls face twist in despair, when she becomes aware of the horror she invited. They would steal their lives, their resources and all their technology and benefit immensely from it.

    "Your majesty we will be delighted to attend such an auction. We will make sure to arrive at the Earthly Treasures Pavilion in Sume city in time for it."

    "Wonderful, Division Leader Shin, I look forward to seeing your Grey Order in about a month then."

    The communication crystal turned dim, obviously having been deactivated and used up. Finally, Leader Shin could express his anger and the table soon had yet another set of cracks.

    Unknown to this Division Leader, there soon circulated a message crystal among the Central Island Union''s five empires upper ranks. It was a recording of their conversation. Well part of their conversation to be precise.

    It seemed to start with Division Leader Shin doing his best smiling at the image of a young woman who offered him an invitation to an auction they would be holding.

    To Leader Shin it was obvious that he was acting because he did not want to give in to the woman angering him.

    To everyone else however, his fake smile seemed as if he wanted to curry favor with this young woman, totally changing the way they looked at this strange ''Earthly Treasures Pavilion''.

    What kind of empire might it be, that even a Division Leader of the Grey Order would do his best to smile at a young woman when they were being called a small force to their face?

 Chapter 20: Heralds of a Shopkeeper

    The craftsmen and workers made decent progress over the following days and weeks. Most of them were working on the many parts necessary to create gateways and portals for the auction, none of them, other than Tora and Yui themselves knowing what it would really look like, or where it would be located at.

    A few were working on a sky ship, but it would still take more time for it to be completed, as it was quite a big project.

    Tora meanwhile was creating some higher quality treasures out of the rare materials they would occasionally find. Something that was rare in their dimensional locations was a hardly ever seen treasure everywhere else and the quality of these finished items would be exceptional as well.

    Handling the shop was mostly done by Yui herself during the normal business hours, sometimes Ryoma would help with being shopkeeper, but most of the time he was busy taking care of all the administrative tasks, like managing salaries, keeping track of everyone''s work and various other necessities like accounting, bookkeeping and the like.

    During the evenings, Yui was teaching some of the younger people cultivation and ways to defend themselves, while Rinomi did her best to keep everyone safe.

    "Once we have the auction ready, I think we can start making branches and outposts. As much as I doubt there will be any danger for the shop itself, most of the people working for us won''t really be safe here." Yui pointed out one day.

    Even though they tried their best to provide some protection for their people, it quickly became obvious that it was not enough.

    As long as they didn''t want to make their own army, which seemed too much work, they would have to find other ways to protect those people, especially now, that they angered a force that was on par with your regular empire.

    She held a map of their southern island group in her hands, still not very clear on how big this world might be.

    The island group itself was about 6500 kilometers by 3500 kilometers with perhaps 22 million square kilometers in area, if the ocean is included. Most of her calculations were based on guessing and information provided to her by Tora, as the local population did not really have a simple way of measuring such distances precisely.

    In terms of climate, most of the island group was in temperate or slightly tropical climate, with lush forests covering most parts of the land, some jungle areas, some grasslands and in the few mountainous parts tundra could also be found.

    Yura Kingdom was located on the south western parts on the islands among several other small kingdoms. None of all the places in their southern island group had any empires, at least other than their own Earthly Treasures Pavilion, showing the overall strength, or lack thereof, in this region of the world.

    Tanawa Kingdom was along their western border, Kamiecu on the peninsula to their east while a little bit of their northern border, shared with Tanawa lead towards the Kingdom of Yuzena, the largest kingdom on the southwestern islands.

    Yura''s southern border was completely covered with ocean, but what surprised Yui was that they did not have any real seafaring here in this world. It seemed as if strong beasts would roam the oceans and the only safe passage across islands was a sky ship, as no one dared to brave the oceans under these conditions.

    "There seem to be a few unoccupied islands in this island group. Why not just move the pavilion there and just leave a branch here?" Tora asked, pointing out the dots on the map that were not part of any state yet.

    "It''s not as if the pavilion is bound to any location really. Moving it shouldn''t be very hard, as long as we can supply enough power for a few stable portals."

    "Can we support that power drain on a permanent basis?" Yui wondered, but Tora just shrugged.

    "That''s exactly what the Earthly Treasures Pavilion specializes in. Giving access to various different locations. The essence of it is efficient use of dimensional energies and transportation magic as well as various ways to improve and guide the development of nature''s bounties."

    "It should be manageable, especially once we move on to expand the herb and spirit beast locations to earn even more."

    "Easy enough to restrict access to the portals to only people who buy something. If they want to just use the portals as a quick way to move between places, then they have to pay a certain fee."

    "Something like 1 spirit shard per person for every use of a portal should more than cover our costs, but we can simply have them pay 10 shards each person to make a profit and waive the fee if they are customers."This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

    Yui gave it some thought and had to agree. As long as the costs were not too bad, many people would be interested in fast and simple travel across huge distances, with a few spirit shards.

    Peasants like farmers and workers, would rarely have the money to get their hands on spirit shards, but they were unlikely to move long distances on their own anyways. As much as Yui would feel bad about their situation and try to help them, they were not really their primary customers.

    Rich merchants however, who sold luxury goods would definitely jump at a chance to cut the often month-long trade route distances down to a matter of moments. Nothing had to be said about the purchasing power of nobles or cultivators.

    "We would have to work together with the other kingdoms and empires if they want to use the portals to access places other than our pavilion and return back home, but I''m sure as long as they post a guard station or the like next to the portal, they would welcome the options for trade."

    "Isn''t this what you wanted to achieve with the auction anyways? Convince them of the convenience of portals and access to easy resources?" Tora smirked.

    "As if I would have come up with that idea myself!" Yui rolled her eyes at her sister.

    "Who would have thought that old man Shin would be smiling at me in such a silly way even though he probably wants to kill us all. I''d never have thought to use this to our benefit."

    "Hey, don''t blame me, I''m just used to making the most of a situation. You already spoiled my fun by preventing me from killing those fools who tried to break into the pavilion. Using this Grey Order to hook the other empires just seemed like a good plan to take revenge on them."

    "How are the new locations coming along? Can we open them to the public?"

    "Should be ready. Even the surrounding kingdoms have been informed. While catching the interest of some far away empires was a lot harder, grabbing the attention of the surrounding kingdoms was rather easy. I''m sure we will see some representative of all of them at the auction, along with many rich people from Yura."

    -

    The guards in front of the palace in Satsumita, capital of the Kingdom of Tanawa stared at the young man who stood next to his very unusual mount. They had seen a variety of beasts and mounts before, but never had they seen such a tamed beast.

    It was easy enough to see spirit horses among the nobles, but never had they seen such a wild and ferocious looking spirit tiger as a mount.

    The young man himself wore a scholar''s robe of excellent material, the style typical for cultivators, colored in deep red and black with the symbol of a mountain and tree inside of a circle, giving him the appearance of someone with high standing, even though he looked rather young.

    His strength was hidden somehow, as if a misty cloud was hiding his power, leaving the guards clueless as to his real cultivation stage.

    While the guards looked at Senji in awe, the young man was rather nervous on the inside. Lady Tai sent him and Kirano among a few others, towards different kingdoms as messengers.

    It was obvious that she had various other means of communication, but sending the young people she trained herself, seemed like a task that was given to them in order to have them see the world and adapt to their new standing as cultivators.

    Behaving like a cultivator and changing their mindset about no longer acting like a regular worker was not easy, but with the task and responsibility given to them and without anyone else to support them directly, they had to overcome their own insecurities and do their best.

    None of them wanted to disappoint Yui, who always treated them well and Senji told himself that he would not disappoint her either.

    "Young master, may I know your name and the reason of your visit to the royal palace?" one of the guards asked.

    "I''m Senji, a disciple of Empress Tai Yui of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion. I''ve come here to give a message and invitation to your royal family."

    Senji now held various titles, as did his fellow disciples. None of them had been given any real land to rule over yet, but with the quick expansion of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, as well as their access to dimensional realms, it was just a matter of time.

    He was now a Baron, as well as Yui''s direct disciple. He also held the position of a herald, though once again, Yui used titles and positions in a strange way and it was hard to tell the rank or exact specifications of his rights and responsibilities as no one took the time to write them down or explain them.

    In the end, using his wits, it was easy enough to tell who held power. At the top were Yui and her sister Tora, with Ryoma and Miyuki basically counting as their direct family. Besides those four, Lady Rin held the most influence.

    All of his fellow disciples were smart enough not to argue with any of them when they issued a command. Well, except perhaps for Princess Miyuki if she wanted something outrageous or dangerous.

    It was also a wise choice to listen to the advice of the various craft masters and leaders of the groups who were gathering resources. While people like boss Mitsuaki ''Old Rock'' were not really their superiors anymore, they were still working for lady Yui and would usually not ask anything of them without a good reason.

    If they wanted something done and needed their help, it was pretty much the same as if lady Yui wanted it done. Not helping was the same as making things hard on their lady.

    "I will announce your arrival immediately. Please wait a moment." The guard answered respectfully.

    The guards were trained enough to know about the basics of rank and status. While it was hard to tell the exact status of the young man in front of him, being the disciple of an Empress gave the guard enough of an idea that this was way beyond his paygrade.

    "No need." Senji told him and handed over a message crystal. "Just give this to your rulers. I will be on my way again, as I still have other places to visit."

    "I see, then I wish you a good journey my lord."

    With the guard receiving the crystal, Senji''s work was basically done here at the palace, he still had to bring the invitation to other rich or powerful people in this country though. They did not simply want to invite the royal families after all.

 Chapter 21: I made a Fortune with this Auction and spent Three Fortunes on the House

    Back at the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, many people were excited when they found that there were new places to visit.

    "Look, there''s another location to hunt beasts! This will be excellent, I always wanted to get a tamed beast, but the ones found in the old area were simply too weak to be of any use to me with my current cultivation."

    "Is that a new area for gathering herbs and wood? It looks like some type of jungle. I wonder what plants can be found there and what medicinal properties they have."

    There were two new display cases offering access to new locations.

    [Lake of Spirit Fog] - 50 First Tier Cores, 5 Second Tier Cores or 50 First Grade Spirit Stones

    A land covered in dense fog, covering the area in a high concentration of spirit power. An excellent place to search for second tier herbs of all kinds.

    [Jungle of Fury]

    Lower Tier ¨C Second Tier Spirit Beasts: 20 First Grade Spirit Stones for 1 day,

    Recommended for Initial to Mid Level Foundation Cultivation Stage

    Middle Tier ¨C Lower Third Tier Spirit Beasts: 20 Second Grade Spirit Stones for 1 day,

    Recommended for Higher Level Foundation Cultivation Stage

    High Tier ¨C High and Peak Third Tier Spirit Beasts: 40 Second Grade Spirit Stones for 1 day,

    Recommended for Peak Level Foundation or Lower Level Core Stage Cultivation Stage

    -

    This jungle is home to various ferocious beasts, most of them highly aggressive. Beasts often fight using poison, stealth and have various means to adapt their appearance to hide in their environment.

    Unlike the beast grasslands, the jungle was a lot harder to defend against the unexpected and to move around. Not to mention that most beasts here would be a lot more aggressive and go on the offensive rather than trying to keep their distance.

    The lake, as a peaceful gathering area, once more did not have any wild beasts. It was a dream come true for any alchemists and physicians who needed the various spirit herbs.

    "Miss Tai, can we get the supporting leaflets for these areas as well?"

    "If you pay for access of course you will receive them." Yui smiles. "How could we let our customers go into our areas unprepared!"

    "This is excellent. Grandmaster Koda will be delighted to see a new area with spirit herbs opening."

    "I heard the Greenfire Sect has got into quite the competition lately with another upcoming sect that called itself the Cauldron''s Abode, miss Yui who will the Earthly Treasures Pavilion support?"

    Shrugging, not even knowing about any competition between sects Yui did not mind about any of this.

    "We don''t take any side, we are a neutral establishment. Everyone can come and buy our services and we don''t provide benefits to any specific customer that others will not also receive."

    "What our customers do with their materials and who they compete with, is really not any of our business. I wish them all success though."

    -

    "Sect Master, there is a young alchemist here wanting to see you. She said she had a message for you."

    The sect master of the Greenfire Sect looked up from the scroll he was just reading and at the disciple who just disrupted his work.

    "Why would I want to talk to some apprentice? There are more than enough senior disciples who can handle such matters right? Does she want to buy some herbs, then point her to the trading place."

    "But, master ˇ­ she is from the Earthly Treasures Pavilion. She already took an exam and said while she is here, she would also inform you about their new location. She mentioned something about an agreement with Grandmaster Koda."

    "What did you say, the Earthly Treasures Pavilion? Why did you not tell me right away? Let her in, if she is sent by the Earthly Treasures Pavilion it has to be something important."

    The young woman was not a disciple of Yui and had to rely on herself for learning about cultivation, but being trained by Tora as an alchemist gave her insights into the workings of alchemy, that many senior alchemists could only dream of.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

    "Sect master, I have been sent here to tell you about our new spirit herb area opening. We now provide access to second tier spirit herbs in our Lake of Spirit Fog, with some rare third tier spirit herbs to be found there as well."

    "Second tier spirit herbs? There might even be a few third-tier spirit herbs in the new area? This sounds excellent, we can once again improve the amount of elixirs we can make."

    By now, even the leader of the Greenfire Sect was fully aware of the importance of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    People who were usually gathering higher grade spirit herbs in dangerous far away locations would soon be recalled and told to use the pavilion''s services to acquire the necessary plants.

    "Young miss, I have not seen you around here, may I know your name? I know about the pavilion training some new people, but I would not have expected their teaching methods to be this efficient and already let you take the exam as an alchemy apprentice in such a short time. You must be very diligent with your studies."

    Greenfire Sect, as well as a few other sects had the rights to grant someone the status of an alchemist. The profession was strictly regulated even across regions, with precise requirements for each rank.

    Kaiya was just the daughter of a farmer when she started working for the pavilion, with some experience how to identify herbs, but Tora quickly saw her potential and trained her as an alchemist.

    "I thank the sect master for his kind words. Lady Tora is teaching us alchemy and I am just a simple disciple. Sect master can call me Kaiya." she was giving the sect master a bow, and felt a little bit awkward, especially as the Greenfire Sect disciple was rather astonished as well and had obviously been around for her exam.

    "I still have to get back to the pavilion, I hope the sect master doesn''t take offense."

    "Oh, yes I should not keep you from your tasks, thank you for the information miss Kaiya."

    When the girl had left and the disciple who led her in was still looking extremely awkward, the sect master couldn''t help but ask.

    "What''s with your face, why do you look like this? Did I say something wrong?"

    "Ah, sect master. She didn''t take the alchemist apprentice exam. This lady took the alchemist master exam. I think she was simply too self-conscious and did not want to point out your mistake."

    The sect master stared at the disciple for a moment in disbelief. How long could this girl have possible trained as an alchemist? What methods did the pavilion use to train them to achieve such an outcome?

    "This pavilion obviously grows young talents at a rate that is unbelievable." The sect master could only sigh, as it would not be possible for them to receive some of this training as well.

    -

    The sound of Yui''s steps was dampened by the thick fog surrounding her. This place had a rather peculiar charm of its own. There was no direct sunshine and the sky looked like it would soon rain, giving off a little bit of a gloomy look. The lake area had this tranquil feeling making it no less special than the Old Vine Forest on a sunny day.

    Water lilies, various spirit lotus flowers and other rare plants could be found here. Among the multitude of second tier plants that could be found everywhere many of the third-tier plants that preferred shadow and areas with lots of water would grow as well.

    "Get a feeling for the land, in order to make my own for the auction. This is easier said than done. How am I supposed to make my own land?"

    Yui was told to build the auction area on her own and now scouted the various places that Tora made in order to get some inspiration and a feeling of their basic structure.

    Earth element and wood element for the Old Vine Forest, a lot of water and wood element for this Lake of Fog, metal and earth elements for the mines, some fire element for the volcanic areas. Yui could feel all of these basic building blocks, but it seemed really hard to shape them properly.

    "I guess I just have to give it a try."

    She moved herself to a new dimensional space and like a painter might do to a painting, she started to create what would soon become their auction hall.

    Hours passed by and by the time she was happy with the foundations for this new area, the night had already passed, and it was the morning of the next day.

    Yui was completely exhausted and decided to get some sleep right away. It was the first day since coming to this world, when Ryoma would take over her shop keeping duties completely and Yui did not appear even once in their shop.

    -

    Tora took a closer look at the world that had been created by Yui after she noticed the immense drop in their power reserves.

    "What did that girl do again to drain so many of our resources? The last time this happened was when she was exploding in anger and scaring that old man."

    The new dimension was far from perfect when Tora looked at the basic rules of the world and she helped to improve on them some more, but she was still impressed by the creativity and design of it that Yui had made.

    There was not any land to be seen outside of the garden. The world was built quite literally on top of clouds one could walk on. Like a dark celestial palace, there was a huge building in the center, hundreds of meters long and wide, made out of black polished onyx and surrounded by a huge garden filled with red leaved trees and plants.

    The only term fitting for the sheer size of this palace like structure would be colossal. While the center hall was large, it was still easy to see from one end to the other.

    The height of the tall pillars with the dome like structure on top, however, was so high and massive that even the greatest empires on this world would be impressed. It was so large, that the only thing holding it together were the supporting formations embedded in the walls of the structure.

    Without them, it was very likely that the whole structure would collapse under its own weight.

    It was a massive work of architecture, with gothic style windows with crystal clear glass and dome like structures, archways grand enough to dwarf even palaces of royalty. The roof style had an eastern touch, with the dark red shingles reminiscent of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion back in Sume city.

    Blood red banners with the symbol of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion were hanging from the archways and walls, giving the building a mysterious and awe-inspiring feeling.

    The black stone seats in the main auction hall were covered by blood red cushions with fabric made out of spirit cotton and winding stairways would lead up several floors to accommodate hundreds of thousands of people.

    White buildings were quite commonly seen, but buildings out of black stone were really unusual.

    "No wonder all the energy is gone again. I didn''t expect her to make an auction hall of this size. If this won''t impress those guests, then nothing will. Even some celestial masters don''t have a place of this quality."

    Happy with the added finishing touches and making sure this world wouldn''t collapse while Yui was sleeping, Tora was already looking forward to their auction.

 Chapter 22: A Table at Dragons Gate

    The date of the auction was coming closer and closer, but this did not seem to be on Yui''s mind at all today. It was early in the evening and the shop was already closed, but Yui was unusually nervous.

    "Rin, will you and Tora be alright looking after Miyuki?"

    "Yes, you even prepared some food miss, we will be alright, don''t worry."

    "I will likely be out a bit longer today, I won''t be able to tell her a story tonight."

    Yui was still a bit reluctant, but Rinomi just smiled at her and told her not to worry. Trying to calm down some more, she once more inspected her clothes to make sure everything was in place.

    Since she had started to cultivate, there was barely any need for makeup, not that this world really had all that many products that she liked in the first place. With neither the experience of this world''s makeup nor the simple products that she was used to from her own world, Yui had long ago decided to go without any of it.

    It took a lot more time though, to get her hair properly arranged, in a way that felt right to her. Yui would usually not worry too much about her hair, simply combing it and making sure it would fall straight down her back.

    She liked her hair open, unlike Tora who had trimmed her own hair a bit and would wear it bound in a ponytail. Today Yui had used two thin braids, starting close to her ears and meeting behind her head in the middle, to hold her hair together, with a small pink flower ornament as decoration.

    This way, her hair would still be open, but with the braids and ornament it would not look as boring as it usually did.

    Instead of her shop outfit, Yui was wearing an outfit strongly resembling what was known as a kimono to her, with a strange shade of white and soft pink.

    It was also extremely soft and was comfortable to wear and Yui was immediately impressed when she had seen it. Their craftsmen and tailors were all too happy to make this kimono for her and with Tora adding some finishing touches to the design it had become a real masterpiece.

    The outfit not only had various changing shades as it was made from Illusion Lotus, but Tora enchanted it even further, making it look like a white soft canvas with cherry blossoms moving around in the wind.

    "Do I look alright?" Yui carefully asked, making Rinomi grin even more.

    "You''re very pretty miss, I''m sure Ryoma will be impressed."

    With a bright smile, she quickly made her way to the entrance of the pavilion, waiting for Ryoma. Even though she was here way too early, too nervous to wait inside any longer, she quickly found Ryoma heading up the stairs and joining her.

    "That material!" Yui was surprised to find Ryoma wearing a similar outfit made from the same white material, just with various shades of blue and an ocean design with dragons instead of her cherry blossom pink ones.

    She did not mind at all to be the girl wearing pink while he was wearing blue, the craftsmanship of these outfit much too high for such simple clich¨¦s.

    "Haha, I was rather surprised when Tora wanted me to have this, but as it is really matching your outfit, I was happy to agree." Ryoma was nearly as excited as Yui and it took him a while just to stop staring at her.

    "What? Is something wrong with my outfit?"

    "No, not at all, you look very beautiful in it."

    His words made Yui blush and freeze on the spot for a while, until Ryoma offered her his arm.

    "Shall we head out?" he asked and nodding happily, Yui quickly joined him.

    All too used to Yui wearing the black and red outfit of the shop, it took even the people on the streets who knew her a while before they noticed who the young lady was.

    It was a bit unusual for nobility to walk around the streets and not use a carriage, but as neither Ryoma nor Yui were used to such things and Rinomi did not want to turn their date into a training of etiquette, no one seemed to really care about this part.

    People were still making way for them wherever they passed by, staring at the young couple with curiosity.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    Ryoma lead them on roads that would take a bit more time to reach their destination, but was also more of a scenic way, following along the side of little river, before crossing over the little bridge and heading deeper into the city.

    When they finally reached the restaurant, there were already rumors about the strange couple all over the city.

    Most of the people had heard about the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, but very few had actually seen Yui or Ryoma in person.

    Other than the people going there for resources and for hunting spirit beasts, Yui was shy and would only go out shopping for various items and groceries. It was not strange that quite a lot of people wondered who they might actually be.

    "Welcome to the Dragon''s Gate Restaurant, please come in!" One of the waiters led them inside, doing his best to be respectful and friendly as their clothes looked expensive.

    ''Those two are definitely not some commoners.'' he thought to himself, already looking forward to a big tip.

    "Where would you like to sit?" Ryoma asked, not really used to such high-class restaurants himself, but doing his best to fit in.

    Yui, not having any better idea than Ryoma, just looked around and picked a place that looked nice.

    "They have a little terrace, looks like a nice place. Why not sit there?"

    The Dragon''s Gate Restaurant was known as the best restaurant in the whole city. Commoners would not even be able to enter, and even most wealthy merchants would be declined at the front door.

    If Ryoma and Yui had not dressed in expensive outfits, they would have been stopped and turned away at the entrance.

    Rank and status were very important here and the seating arrangements in high class restaurants and other establishments was rather strictly regulated.

    There were a lot of tables and many other guests were already here, but no one seemed to have picked the terrace spot. Yui and Ryoma did not know why but were heading there anyways, as it seemed like it was a free table.

    The waiter was just wanted to tell them that this table was reserved for the royal family when he was stopped by one of their guests.

    "Ah, sect master Bokkai is there anything I can help you with?" the waiter was a little bit surprised to be stopped.

    As the sect master of the Five Winds Sect was a frequent visitor of their restaurant, he was rather well known.

    "Young man, I''m sure the royal family would not mind having the Empress sit on their table today. It might be a good decision to let them know subtly that our royal family is very happy to have them enjoy their time here."

    The sect master did not say more and turned back to enjoy his food, but it was more than enough for the waiter already.

    ''Empress? What Empress?''

    He had not heard of any sovereign visiting Yura Kingdom or their capital and he would never have expected this young couple to be of such high standing. They did not even arrive here with an escort or a carriage.

    He would not doubt the sect master''s words though. It was easy enough to see, that he wanted to avoid having any disagreements here. If she was really an empress, even such simple things could become a major issue after all.

    It did not take long for him to inform the young couple of their restaurants specialties and gave them a menu to look through before he quickly made his way to the restaurant owner to inform him of their special guest.

    -

    Yura Takiha Harue, the little princess of the royal family of the Yura Kingdom was on her way to the Dragon''s Gate restaurant with a few of her friends for dinner.

    It did not take long for the owner to become aware of the untimely visit of this princess, as their table was obviously no longer free.

    "Your highness, perhaps it would be possible for me to arrange a table at some other spot today?" the owner asked while bowing in a respectful manner.

    "Oh, our table is reserved by someone else today?"

    While some of her friends were feeling rather indignant about the whole situation, Harue was mostly curious who it might be that was here today.

    "I''m afraid that there are royal guests from an empire today. To show your family''s hospitality and magnanimity we thought it would be in the kingdom''s best interests to offer them the table."

    "Guests from an empire? There is no empire around here, why would there be people from an empire here? This must be a lie. They probably fooled you." an attendant of Harue''s entourage voiced his displeasure.

    "No, it''s alright. Let them have the table, I''m curious what they are like. Just show us to another table perhaps the one over there?"

    With the princess herself not wanting to argue, the attendant and her friends could only respectfully accede. They sat down on one of the tables next to the terrace and Harue was watching these strange guests intently.

    "Who are they exactly, she quietly asked the owner of the restaurant, but did not receive an answer right away."

    "I''m not quite sure your highness, we were informed by the sect master of the Five Winds sect about them, but he has already left."

    Harue had an easygoing manner and was known for her various escapades and troublemaking that frequently made her father scold her. As much trouble as she caused when it came to her own and the royal family''s reputation, she was still loved by the general population.

    "Look look Yu." She poked the girl at her side, who was doing her best to look through the food menu. "They are not much older than I am, do you think they are both royal kids?"

    "Are they engaged or married already? They look kinda like a couple, but also rather nervous."

    Tsuchiya Yumine, princess Harue''s best friend and daughter of the city lord of Sume, sighed and looked up from the menu in her hands and over at the couple sitting on the terrace. Most of the time she acted more like a chaperone or older sister.

    "It''s rude to stare your highness. They don''t really look like what I would expect royalty to look like. They ˇ­" she paused a little bit. "Well honestly they behave more like you do, like totally ignoring any form of etiquette whatsoever. Their clothes do look amazing though."

    "That''s so mean Yu! I can behave like royalty just as well as anyone else in my family if I want to." pouting, but not really offended the young princess kept her attention on the terrace for a while before their own food arrived.

 Chapter 23: The Beauty and the Cake

    Yui barely had time to concentrate on the food, which was excellent, let alone the other customers eating a table or two away.

    Half of her attention was on the dishes and the cutlery, while the other was on Ryoma''s hand, which was holding her own for quite some time now. None of them wanted to let go and concentrate on their food completely, which made it a bit harder than she would have expected.

    "Uh, perhaps we should eat first and then ˇ­ " she stopped her sentence mid-way, not exactly sure what they should be doing afterwards. Holding hands again? Cuddle? More than that?

    ''No, no no, let''s go about these things slowly!'' Yui told herself but couldn''t hide a blush.

    A lot more experienced than Yui, Ryoma just laughed and slowly released her hand.

    "Yes, let''s eat the food first, we have all the evening and night for other things."

    They returned their attention to the food for some time, before picking up the conversation again.

    "What do you want to do with your life Yui?" Ryoma asked a question Yui had a hard time answering right away.

    "I''m not sure. I guess having a family is nice."

    "A family?" Ryoma got curious now. Did this family include him? He was just a commoner, or at least had been before Yui gave him various titles.

    "Yes, you and Miyuki and Tora. I never had any family before."

    "Neither Miyuki nor I really provide you with any benefits. You could easily marry some prince of a powerful nation." Ryoma pointed out carefully.

    "Why would I want that? I''d rather stay with you and Miyuki and then the story ends with ''they lived happily ever after'' , you know."

    "They lived happily ever after? I''ve never heard of this phrase, but it sounds rather nice." Ryoma was amused by this simple way of looking at things.

    "I''m just worried that you might change your mind and regret your decision later on."

    "Don''t be silly, I will not change my mind about this." Yui took the glass of wine in her hand before putting it back down again after she figured out that hiding behind a glass was rather pointless.

    "What about yourself? You''ve had a wife and ˇ­"

    "Shh, that''s over. There is this lovely girl here now who for whatever reason seems to like me. How could I still hold on to the past like this. I loved my wife, but this does not mean that I will hold back loving you just as much."

    "You love me?" Yui asked, more to confirm his words once more rather than really questioning him.

    "How could I not?"

    "Would you marry me?" she suddenly asked while watching his expression change from surprise, to happiness.

    Ryoma had a hard time following their conversation. It was rather uncommon for a marriage to be decided in such a strange way, especially as she was the one bringing it up, but he was happy, nonetheless.

    "Yes." His answer seemed simple, but it made Yui''s smile all the more brilliant.

    "Well, we don''t need to have the wedding right away." she mumbled after a moment, still feeling rather young and having a hard time thinking about marriage at her age.

    "Whatever you like. Does that mean I can call you fianc¨¦ now?" he asked with a mischievous grin.

    ''Where did he get that attitude from? Tora is ruining all his good morals!''

    "Mhm, you can. Miyuki calls me mommy already so there should not be any changes there."

    For the first time since coming to the restaurant, Yui felt uncomfortable and noticed all the people glancing at them. One of the girls seemed to be outright staring at them, barely even touching her food, as if she was watching some show.

    "Let''s go home." She whispered to him and he just nodded.

    When Harue noticed that the two had paid for their meal and wanted to leave she quickly turned to them.

    "Miss how did you like the food?"Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

    Everyone else on their table wanted to hide in embarrassment. How could their princess just call out to these strangers in such a way?

    Yui did not think too much of it though.

    "It was really good. Better than anything I could cook at home. Though I really miss good cake."

    "You cook? What''s cake like?"

    Yui looked at the young woman, who seemed to be about the same age as herself quite surprised about being caught up in a conversation, just when they wanted to leave the restaurant.

    "I do cook yes, I might make some cake at some point too. It''s a sweet pastry usually made with a lot of sugar or chocolate or cream."

    How did one describe cake? Wikipedia probably had some nice description, but she had no clue what it might be like. Sweet pastry was all that she could really think of. After all, there were so many types of cakes.

    "That sounds delicious. May I know who you are and where you come from? This cake doesn''t sound like something that I have ever seen around here."

    Yui was both surprised by the blunt and energetic young woman as well as quite amused. In a way she seemed to Yui like a puppy wanting to get attention, making her relax somewhat in the otherwise high-class atmosphere of the restaurant she wasn''t really comfortable with.

    "I''m from an island quite far away where cake is quite common. If you stop by the Earthly Treasures Pavilion after the shop closes in the evening, I can show you how to make cake. Just ask for Yui."

    Giving a little wave of her hand, Ryoma and Yui left the restaurant, leaving a smirking Harue behind.

    "I''m totally going to learn how to make cake!" she announced to her friends and attendants, making all of them groan.

    "Your highness, you can''t. Cooking isn''t something someone of high birth like yourself should do." One of them argued.

    "But, she''s doing some cooking too! Do you want to tell me that something an empress would teach me can be low class?"

    While the attendants were clamoring about proper etiquette, Tsuchiya Yumine had a thoughtful look on her face.

    "Your highness, you mean this was the shop girl?"

    Harue just nodded. "I might not be the best when it comes to behaving like a proper princess, but I''m not dumb. There is just one Earthly Treasures Pavilion and from the looks of it, she''s exactly the owner of this shop."

    "Which would also make her the sovereign of their territory." Yumine now understood the remark about an empress.

    As weird as it was, it seemed like their princess would yet again cause her family''s reputation to drop like a free-falling stone. She could already imagine the rumors and uproar when it became public that her highness princess Harue would be cooking, making a foreign sweet pastry called cake.

    "I need some vacation time." Yumine mumbled, already dreading the next few days.

    -

    When Yui and Ryoma arrived back at the pavilion, it was unusually quiet. Rinomi and Tora were obviously leaving them to their own devices and Miyuki was already sleeping.

    "Why don''t you stay in my room for the night?" Ryoma asked with a smirk, not expecting a positive answer, but having fun asking anyways.

    "Sure, but no funny things." Yui agreed right away, blushed and then explained her boundaries some more.

    "We can read a book or something and cuddle."

    He looked at her kimono and she quickly understood the meaning.

    "We can change into our pajamas first."

    "Pawhat?" Ryoma had never heard of something like pajamas.

    "Uh, I guess you can just keep your underwear on. I go grab my pajamas, thatˇŻs some sort of nightwear."

    "Alright. I will wait for you then."

    When Yui came back from her room, having changed into a rather fluffy set of red and black Earthly Treasures Pavilion pajamas, she did her best to slip under the blanket of the bed quickly, not looking at Ryoma directly. As much as she liked him, it was still rather embarassing and new.

    He joined her a bit later, still not sure what she would include with ''cuddle'' but decided to just lightly embrace her and watching her read the book.

    "Usually I read a story to Miyuki, today I read a story to you."

    "As long as I can hold you, I won''t argue, no matter how bad the book is."

    "It''s not that bad. It reminds me of those classics back home. They a were also written in such a weird way."

    "Oh? What was it like there?" As Yui had never mentioned where exactly she came from, Ryoma was curious.

    "Well, you see, I come from a different world."

    Yui waited for some big reaction, like shock or outrage or confusion, but Ryoma didn''t even move or let go of her.

    "Tora brought me here when I became the master of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion. It is not just a simple shop, but a powerful spirit artefact."

    "I guess that makes sense." He finally replied, taking all of this much better than she did in the beginning.

    In the end, ascending to another realm, or moving to a different dimension for storage and various other purposes was all too common in their world. Having Yui tell him that he came from a different world with the help of a powerful artefact was not very hard to believe. At least it did not bother him.

    "I already mentioned that Tora is not really my sister. She is the artefact spirit of the pavilion."

    "This would explain her experience and power. A strong artefact spirit would know of many things that would usually be limited to the divine realm"

    "My homeworld is very technologically advanced, but as the spirit energy is too thin there, there are no cultivators or spirit beasts. There are machines that help humans to fly in the sky, carriages that drive without horses on their own and many other things."

    Yui talked quite a bit about her world, trying to explain it in a way that he would be able to understand what it might be like.

    "Why would you leave such a place where even commoners had such high-quality food and living arrangements and come to a simple world like ours?"

    "I''m not sure. I guess I was just lonely."

    Her sad voice made him embrace her even more.

    "Don''t worry, I''m happy that you''re here now. I will not let you become lonely ever again."

    Yui happily snuggled up to him, the book already forgotten.

    "Say, why did you offer to teach the princess how to make this cake?"

    "The princess? Oh so that''s the princess. Well she seemed nice and why would I not teach her."

    Yui was only half aware of their conversation now, she seemed drowsy and ready to fall asleep any moment.

    "I see."

    Not wanting to disturb this quiet moment any further, Ryoma stopped his questions. He didn''t explain to Yui that it was rather strange for a noble born to cook, he just silently held her in his arms until she was fast asleep not much later.

 Chapter 24: Knowledge & Power

    The usual spike of customers in the morning was already over when Yui decided to go enter the Jungle of Fury area. Her cultivation strength was hard to define, as she had a lot more raw power than most other cultivators but she was still lacking control. She also wanted to test her new bow that was recently made for her by some of the craftsmen. They needed someone to test their new bows, which were simply made, but of good quality nonetheless.

    Hunting in the jungle, with danger being everywhere, no buildings that she could destroy by accident as well as lots of room to move, seemed like a good idea to hone her skills some more. Yui regularly went into the beast areas, but usually she would just tag along with their own hunters in order to protect them or to acquire new tamed beasts.

    None of their current hunters had high enough cultivations to go into the Jungle of Fury on their own, but with their rapidly advancing cultivation, as well as the support from their newly acquired tamed beasts they would soon be able to manage on their own.

    "Ryoma, can you look after the shop for me?"

    "Yes, sure, I just move my work over here to the shop while you are away."

    Yui stuffed some food and other things into her dimensional pouch, wondering what she might encounter in the jungle.

    "Miss Tai, are you heading out to go hunting?" a familiar voice called out to her.

    While Yui was busy with packing her travel gear, a small group of people had entered the pavilion. They did not look like regular customers, but some of them seemed familiar to Yui.

    "Oh, you''re the one who asked about the cake." she remembered a moment later.

    "Yes, yes, can we make some later?"

    The people standing and sitting around in the shop area were all rather surprised.

    "Isn''t this the princess? What is she doing here?"

    "Yes, it definitely is her highness. Do you think she will cause some trouble?"

    "Whatever she is going to do, it''s going to be fun to watch."

    Various whispers could be heard all over the shop room with the regular customers discussing the royal family and their all too well-known princess.

    "Sure, we can go make some cake after the shop closes."

    The princess was already excited before they had even started

    "Awesome, I can''t wait. If you go out hunting, we can join you! It will be easier with a group, right?"

    "I ˇ­ I guess." Yui was not very used to someone who absolutely held no regard to things like keeping their distance. Most people she had met so far were rather reserved.

    "I''m going into the Jungle of Fury. If you want to join me, make sure your people are at least of mid foundation stage. They should at least be able to defend themselves somewhat."

    "Mid foundation stage?" Princess Harue paused for a moment. Out of their whole group only Yumine and herself were at mid foundation stage, yet this girl who did not look any older than herself, mentioned it, as if it was the bare minimum someone should have.

    True, this jungle listed the various beasts'' strength and it made sense to not ignore the recommendations of the pavilion, but Harue was all too used to be one of the strongest people of her own generation.

    There were not a lot of young people in Yura or even the surrounding kingdoms who could compete with her in terms of cultivation strength. Decent talent, along with being fed countless spirit resources since she was young, not many could compete with her.

    "Yumine, you tag along, the others wait here for us." She quickly decided.

    "But your highness, we can''t just ˇ­" A glance from Harue made Yumine sigh and give up what she just wanted to say. Harue turned to Yui again and introduced herself.

    "I''m Harue, this is my friend Yumine. Do you think we will be alright, with just the three of us?"

    "Mhm, we should be fine. I''m Yui, but you likely already know that. Just don''t run off too far and let me handle anything that is getting troublesome."

    While the princess and her friend put on some soft grey leather armor, obviously Harue also had a dimensional storage of some kind, Yui just put on a cloak as if she wouldn''t go to fight beasts.

    The princess was not very tall, but obviously a lot better trained than Yui had ever been. Her body was rather athletic, not to the point of no longer looking feminine enough, but still rather different to someone like Yui who was until recently just a high school girl, spending most of her time sitting in front of her PC or watching TV shows.

    Harue had light brown hair bound into twin tails reaching a bit over her shoulders and eyes that looked like a mix of brown and gold, a color Yui had never seen back in her own world.

    Her friend Yumine had a much more refined appearance, with the bangs of her black hair forming drills and the remaining locks falling a bit over her back, with two little buns on each side holding it together somewhat.

    Deep blue eyes and a very ladylike pose made it obvious that this woman was a lot more concerned with her appearance and style than a certain princess she would watch over.

    Yui quickly considered letting the two of them pay, but as this was not a regular hunting trip for them, she decided to waive the fee. It seemed way too troublesome to figure out how to split the rewards and she also did not want to stay a full day in the jungle.

    Thinking about it some more, Yui preferred this ''puppy girl'' who enthusiastically followed her around when she compared her to the old people who were sent before, who all thought they could threaten her just because she was young.

    Maybe improving their relationship with the Yura Kingdom with this princess might actually work out.

    Having received a new title from Yui without even knowing about it, Yura ''Puppy Girl'' Harue was checking her armor and equipment once more before walking over to Yui.

    "All ready!"

    Ryoma meanwhile glanced at the gathered young women and felt slightly sorry for the anxious looking Yumine.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

    Yui''s optimistic and happy attitude she showed as a shopkeeper was already rather extreme and only offset by her shy and introverted personality when she wasn''t taking care of the shop.

    This princess on the other hand, seemed outgoing and not shy at all, with her temperament of a volcano and enough energy to move mountains being all natural and not just some mask that she used to interact with others.

    All three of them disappeared in a flash and found themselves in the Jungle of Fury.

    -

    The first thing they encountered was a spirit tiger, one of the more common spirit beasts to be found here. Harue was engaging it right away, wielding a long snake spear with a sharp pointy metal tip and a wavy blade on a wooden shaft.

    It was not adorned with any decorations and did not look very special by itself, but the material could easily handle the impact and did not even bend slightly. Yui had heard that some spears were designed to bend in certain ways, but obviously this was not one of them.

    While Harue took the tiger head on with the advantage in range her spear offered her, Yumine was flanking the beast with a one-handed sword. A straight blade and a typical intricate design reminiscent of various ceremonial weapons that Yui had seen, except this seemed to be a spirit weapon of some sort, the weapon cutting straight through the fur and flesh of the tiger.

    "Watch out!" Yumine was worried about the princess as the tiger was rushing right at her, swiping its claws at the young woman viciously. If these claws hit her, even her cultivation strengthened body would not be able to protect her completely.

    Harue twirled around moving out of the way of the tiger''s charge and at the same time changing her spear stance from a position to stab to a horizontal blow with the shaft.

    The tiger however, barely noticed the blow, it''s body far tougher than those of cultivators of the same stage. Harue was excited. She rarely had a fight that made her feel like she was in any kind of danger, but this tiger was obviously a strong enough opponent to require all of her attention and skill.

    With such a strong beast, she was sure it would be a long but rewarding battle.

    As the tiger was in melee combat, Yui had enough time to take out her new bow. It was a design that was not much different from a japanese daikyu. A bow larger than herself, with the handle about two thirds from the upper end.

    The materials were all of some spiritual nature, making the bow far better and more resilient than what she was used to though.

    Yui didn''t have any arrows, making them with pure spiritual energy, training her control by only releasing a tiny bit to form this arrow, before releasing it in a controlled way, training both her skill with handling smaller amounts of power, as well as her aim and how to use it.

    The bow made a whining noise, as if protesting about the huge amount of spirit energy rushing through its string and limbs and Yui frowned a bit.

    ''I used too much power again.'' she thought, and it was already too late to change the output now. A bright flash brightened the whole area for a moment, before it dimmed down again.

    Disappointed, she looked at the remains of the tiger, with a big hole in the middle of its body and a twenty-meter-long ditch behind it. The spirit arrow not only had enough strength to shoot right through the tiger, but it wasn''t stopped until all that earth was dug up.

    "Ah, sorry, I used a little bit too much power."

    Harue and Yumine were in the middle of a fight, when the tiger suddenly dropped dead with a hole in the middle. It was a good thing that Yui did not aim in a direction where they were in the way.

    Yumine still held her sword raised for another slash, while Harue was ready to stab the deadly beast once more. Both were now looking at the more than dead beast with open mouths.

    "What kind of arrows are you using to produce such results?" Harue asked, after some time of making sense of what had just happened.

    She was curious what type of arrows would bring such disaster and destruction. She wanted to have some too!

    "Uh, I simply make them with spirit power."

    "I have never heard of someone shooting arrows made of spirit power. Why not just use it directly without a bow?"

    "It''s sort of a training for me. My sis told me that my control isn''t good enough, I should improve my skill with just using small amounts of power to avoid any problems in the future. Also, with a bow, if I shape my power into the form of an arrow, it will have a much bigger range with less spirit power consumption."

    "I''m sure uncle Yafuu would be pretty happy if you train your shooting at his place." Harue chuckled.

    "Uncle Yafuu?"

    "Ah miss Yui, master Yafuu is a general of the western border. The forests and hills near the border to Tanawa Kingdom are filled with many different spirit beasts and the fortress at the border region is often sieged." Yumine added some tidbit of information.

    "Uncle Yafuu always complains that they have no good way to deal with all the critters before they are at the walls." Harue added, smiling as she had to think of the grumpy uncle of hers who spoiled her just like everyone else in her family.

    "Why don''t you deploy archers there?"

    "There are many archers, but I have never heard of a way to form an arrow out of spirit power. We also don''t have such great spirit bows. I don''t think we''d have to funds to acquire them for our regular soldiers."

    "They are only Steel Bamboo bows though, perhaps like 100 spirit stones a piece." Yui mumbled, not sure what else to say and still confused why they would not use such a simple thing.

    "What? 100 spirit stones? You mean first tier stones? For such an excellent bow? How many could you make or sell us?"

    Turning from her clueless hunter personality to her businesslike one Yui quickly calculated the prices and the work effort.

    "Currently we have enough to do with the upcoming auction, but once that is done, we could sell you about 1000 bows the following month as a one time offer. I usually don''t want our craftsmen dragged down with work like this, but it would be good training for them."

    "That sounds really like a great deal. I will check with father and I''m sure we can come to an agreement. Too bad our people don''t know how to use spirit power instead of arrows though."

    "I could teach them?" Tora never really bothered much about many of the techniques she taught Yui as they were much too weak in her opinion. Her sister wouldn''t mind if she taught some people these skills.

    "Oh, you would share this knowledge with our people? What do you want for it?"

    It did not take long for Yui to think of something. "A school. I want to build a school."

    "Why would you want to build a school?"

    "I cannot teach everyone. I cannot do everything on my own either. We don''t have a lot of people but hiring more people would also mean taking care of more people. I have neither the time, nor the patience to do that."

    Yui quickly outlined her plans for such a school.

    "The people who work for the Earthly Treasured Pavilion are important to me. I don''t want them to just become stupid work beasts who can do no more than follow orders. I want them to be smart, think for themselves and be productive beyond manual labor."

    "If I want them to become smarter, they need a better education. I can teach them cultivation methods and they can share it with others, but life is not all about cultivating. They should learn about many other things, like language, literature, architecture, laws, economics and all the various topics."

    "I see, that is a rather odd idea, but I see no reason why not to have such a school. How is this related to battle and combat techniques?"

    "Simple. Cultivation and combat are part of a well rounded education for this ˇ­ place." Yui nearly said ''world'' but that would have caused some questions she would rather avoid.

    "If you provide some decent teachers and a place where our people can learn, then our Pavilion will provide various cultivation, battle and manufacturing techniques as well. A certain number of students will come from the pavilion, while your family will also get a share of student slots. The remaining will be for the general population and will be selected on a fair selection process open to everyone in the Yura Kingdom."

    "Open to everyone in the kingdom?"

    "Yes, if the workers on your fields show effort and aptitude, then they will be given the same chance to join as nobles and the like. There will be no shortcuts because of rank or status."

    "How would they be able to join though?"

    "The pavilion will provide a transportation talisman for every applicant in the kingdom once a year for kids of a certain age. I handle the way of transportation, your family handles the distribution throughout the kingdom."

    "Sounds like quite the challenge, to get these things to every place in the kingdom."

    Yui just shrugged, fully aware of how interesting all these techniques were and how much effort people would go to learn them.

    "I''ll bring it up with dad. I''m sure we find a way to do this. Why don''t we head back?"

    "Uh, we only got one tiger so far." Yui looked at the remains once more, suddenly realizing that these two likely didn''t want to hunt with her any longer, feeling depressed by her show of force.

    "Oh well, you''re right, we still want to make cake too." Shrugging, Yui transported them back into the pavilion, her mind still on the plans for their new school and what she would do with such a place.

 Chapter 25: Something Different for Breakfast

    Ryoma checked the various reports that he received from the Central Island Union once more. It looked as if their plans did indeed work out, just as Tora had expected them to. They had no direct influence in his far away island group and simply had to rely on second or even third hand information, making it a lot harder to actually act in a predictable way.

    Nonetheless, Ryoma as a former merchant''s son still had quite a few contacts, and with some money as incentive, it was easy enough to get a few message crystals to the right people, without alerting the Grey Order, at least not before the plan was already in place.

    Now everything seemed ready for the upcoming auction. They had various quality materials or items to sell, they had an amazing auction building to gather all the visitors as well as enough people to manage the auction itself.

    His life had also changed quite drastically from a nobody trying to just survive somehow, to an important figure in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    It was not easy to replace the mind-set that was ruled by rank and status with something totally different, but when Ryoma started working for Yui, he had soon realized that there was simply no place for such thoughts.

    Not only were skills, loyalty and effort valued a lot more than social status or fame in the pavilion, but everyone would get a chance to show what they could do. There was no discrimination between social rank and gender and getting used to this new way of living had quite a lot of benefits, though there were also new challenges to be found.

    With people being expected to contribute in whatever way they could, with often no one giving a clear idea of what they would have to provide they would have to take the initiative to come up with new ideas or constructive ways to improve their situations.

    For some people this was a chance to improve their standing, their skills and show what they could do. Other people had a hard time adapting, feeling as if there was no clear direction and not enough guidelines of what they should, or should not do.

    Selecting the right people for the right tasks was what he was mostly doing lately. Giving those people who would need it some direction and a clear cut task, while he let others just grow up along with the Earthly Treasures Pavilion and find their own roles and positions, where their strengths could be used in a good way.

    Watching Yui bringing up new and interesting ideas about trade and economy made him feel rather stupid. If he would have used his mind a bit more and use his energy to improve his situation instead of falling into despair and convincing himself that there was nothing he could change, he might not have fallen so deep, before Yui had quite literally picked him up from the street.

    It was about time he would use his skills, his creativity and knowledge as a merchant to get things done and he was confident that with the support of Yui and Tora and the whole Earthly Treasures Pavilion, he would be able to achieve it.

    "What did you find out about those markets in the surrounding kingdoms?" he asked the gathered group of people they had been sending out quite a while ago.

    "Tanawa is mostly reliant on crops and metals as their area is covered with various forests. We will not see a big profit from herbs and none at all from our beast hunting locations. They already have more beasts in their own lands than they are really able to deal with."

    "Yuzena on the other hand is a lot more developed. They will be more interested to have easy

    access to hunting areas. Their region is well known for their crops and farms. We will see more interest in metals, herbs that can only be found in forest or jungle areas and various rare types of wood."

    Not hearing anything unexpected, Ryoma looked at the details of what they could expect of the various taxes and laws regarding imports and exports from these kingdoms and made notes on what to bring up during the visit of the various powers at the auction.

    ''Kamiecu will be a lot harder. They are rather reluctant to trade and to let others into their kingdom. Building a transportation gateway will be tough.'' Ryoma thought.

    "Are there any big merchant guilds in Kamiecu that we can rely on to distribute access talismans?" Ryoma asked the group of people.

    "If we cannot open a portal in their place, we can still bring them the talismans and have the interested people come to us that way. Once enough people use our services there will obviously be more support to have an outpost in their lands as well."

    "Master Ryoma, there are three large trading groups in this kingdom. While they are rather reluctant to work with outsiders, they are also rather competitive."

    "You mean, we can get them interested if we use the other groups as incentive?" he still remembered ToraˇŻs trick to get the Grey Order to ˇ®helpˇŻ them advertise in the Central Island Union.

    An evil glint could be seen in his eyes. "Invite all three of the groups to the auction. IˇŻm sure we can use this to our advantage."

    It was about time to show the world how big of an impact the Earthly Treasures Pavilion could really make.

    -

    Yui woke up early in the morning and was just getting ready to make some breakfast, when she found the usually empty breakfast table filled with various types of food for two people as well as some decoration that was definitely not anything normal.Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

    Ryoma and Rinomi were both out this morning, dealing with various merchant things that had come up and as Tora was not eating breakfast like they did, it was obvious who the food was for.

    Pastries and fresh spirit fruit juice, her favorite cheese and some butter on a cold enchanted little plate. Some thinly sliced pieces of bacon and some scrambled eggs kept warm in a small pan. A nice bouquet of flowers and a tiny stuffed plush tiger on the second plate completed it all. There was even a little heart symbol made with honey on her plate, making Yui giggle in delight.

    Ryoma had prepared breakfast for Miyuki and herself. Yui was not really experienced with relationships and some might argue that her depression and loneliness made her view rather skewed and unreasonable when talking about Ryoma, but Yui didn''t really care.

    In the beginning Yui got together with Ryoma mostly because of Miyuki as well as her curiosity what it would be like to have a boyfriend. It was hard to deny the emotions and feelings when being confronted with the other gender growing up after all.

    Beyond that however, over the last couple of days once things calmed down more, she realized that she actually liked Ryoma quite a bit. He was mostly calm, wasn''t as outgoing or impressive as Tora and if one didn''t look for him, one might miss him completely.

    Nonetheless Yui never really wanted a knight in shining armor to save her. Tora would always be way stronger and more of a protective figure than Ryoma could ever hope to be, but it was the little things that made her realize that she completely enjoyed their relationship.

    Having him make breakfast, rub her shoulders after a long day in the shop and his eye for all the little details that came up because she missed something that he fixed for her. It was not simply gratitude because she saved Miyuki and him from a bad situation, she could feel his love and attention in all kinds of things he did for them.

    Ryoma was handling most of the administrative work with their workers and craftsmen these days and other than teaching them new ways to make things, all their various problems ended up on his table. It was more than enough work to justify all that he had received.

    Their relationship was much more than that, however. Yui liked the fact, that he didn''t pressure her, like she expected other boyfriends in her own world might have. She could feel his interest in her, but he still held himself back, even when she was cuddling up to him and gave her the time, she needed to get comfortable with their situation first.

    What did a couple do in her world? What would a couple do in this world?

    Yui really had no idea how she was supposed to act around Ryoma and if it would even make sense to act in a special way.

    ''Should I just be myself? Am I missing something and making him sad?''

    Her thoughts were soon forgotten as a little storm cloud was coming into the kitchen happy about all the food on their breakfast table. With Miyuki in the room, all of Yui''s musings were disrupted.

    "Mommy! Let''s eat breakfast!"

    "Yes, let''s eat breakfast. Daddy prepared some really yummi things we can eat today."

    "Mhm. Daddy is the best."

    -

    While people in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion were eating breakfast, King Yura Tetsu was sitting at his own little breakfast table together with some of his children, discussing the recent happenings in their kingdom.

    His two sons were usually bringing up topics of some importance, both of them already grown up and each holding an important position in their kingdom.

    Harue, his youngest daughter would usually just stuff herself full of whatever food she liked before running off causing more uproar somewhere in their lands.

    Nonetheless both of her brothers as well as King Yura himself spoiled her without end.

    "What is that strange round looking thing you''re eating there sis?" one of the princes asked when he noticed a new type of food he had never seen before.

    "It''s a cake. It''s really sweet and tastes great."

    Harue had already eaten more than half of the cake she made together with Yui yesterday, but now that she had time to make more room in her stomach, she decided to not even wait for lunch or dinner and just eat some more of it during breakfast.

    "Oh, it tastes sweet? Where did you get it from?"

    "I made it myself."

    "You ˇ­ made it? You mean, you told our chef what to put into it and how you ˇ­"

    "Nooo I made it myself. I made the dough and kneaded it and then we put it into the cooling box and waited until it was ready and then we added jam and chocolate and ˇ­ and ˇ­ well it''s complicated."

    Everyone at the table stared at Harue who was avoiding their looks and just stubbornly focused on eating her cake.

    "Couldn''t you just tell the chef to make it for you?" King Yura asked his daughter.

    He was all too used to her acting like a wild child and not caring about her reputation but making her own food was a rather new situation that they were never confronted with before.

    "No, Empress Tai taught me how to make it our chef wouldn''t know how to. It was really fun. She is really nice too and scary strong."

    Using Yui''s title that some among their court still somewhat questioned if it would really apply, always worked for Harue in the past.

    "You were cooking together with the Empress of this Earthly Treasures Pavilion?"

    Did he just hear his daughter''s words correctly? This troublesome place even his elders dreaded to go to, this pavilion that was more of a festering wound to his court where no one wanted visit? All their usual approaches for diplomacy and to get some share of their power did go wrong in this place, yet this was where his daughter was yesterday ˇ­ to learn some cooking. With the Empress herself no less!

    "Yes. Yui is really nice. She''s about my age and she''s not like all the people here with a stick up theiˇ­ uhh ˇ­ well it''s easy to talk to her and I don''t have to worry about reputation and titles."

    "I guess if you get along well with the people in this place, you will handle all the diplomatic relations with this Empire from now on."

    Harue and the two princes looked up from their plates and stared at the king.

    "Me? You want me to handle ˇ­ diplomatic relations dad?"

    "Why not? The usual approach doesn''t seem to work. Obviously, you will have a much easier time than any of our ˇ­ what did you call them? People with a stick in their ass?"

    The two princes couldn''t hold back a coughing laugh. Calling the high ranked nobles of their court by such a name was something Harue might say to them in private but having their king spell it out in such a blunt way, that was new.

    "It''s about time you grow up a little and help your siblings out. So far, they have shouldered all the work, while you did not much besides causing trouble for them."

    "Fine dad, I''ll do it. Oh, by the way. She wants to build a school. I told her I''d talk to you about it. They also sell us some good bows for a really decent price and a nice skill to go along with it. Might be useful for our archers."

    "A school? Bows? I''m happy that you took the initiative to think about our kingdom for once and didn''t just play around. What''s this school about and what exactly did you want to do with these bows?"

    This time, their breakfast conversation was for the first time no longer dominated by just the two princes, but instead the young princess of the kingdom.

 Chapter 26: Tutorial Complete! Lets start with Hard Mode now.

    Yui was getting ready to open the shop, when she noticed a little bit of an oddity to her daily routine. The barrier keeping everyone away from the second floor of the shop was no longer there.

    First, she wanted to ask Tora about it, but it didn''t look likely Tora was around, likely either napping or busy with something elsewhere.

    Curious, Yui stepped on the stairway that she would usually take to get downstairs into their living area, but now following it up further.

    The room was a bit smaller than their regular shop room and other than some sort of table seemed to be completely empty. What was this place for? Why so much room for just a small simple table?

    Thinking back about the lack of decoration and things to sell when she first entered the pavilion, she decided not to judge this place too quickly.

    ''Will it fill up as the pavilion grows or we add more things?''

    She stepped closer to the table and inspected it some more. Yui just wanted to touch the surface when a glowing orb of energy started to materialize above the table, pulling at her consciousness in some way.

    It did not take long for Yui to have her mind dragged into this orb completely and find herself in a dimensional space. Or was it some mental world? Would her body still be standing around in the pavilion? She could not tell for sure.

    Yui was standing on a circular stone platform in this world, all around her was just a big void, lightened up by stars or something similar. It felt empty, but at the same time this world seemed to react to her thoughts.

    Not in a way like she could manifest things with her magic or influence their dimensional worlds like the auction house. It was more like a blueprint, an unfinished design made on an empty canvas.

    It was like a big box of building blocks she could pick from and put something together. There were larger compositions in this ''box'' like mountains and rivers to form a big landmass, there were smaller things like a single tree or stone as well as the smallest building blocks with separate minerals or particles she had a hard time focusing on. There were also complex things like spirit beasts.

    Yui played around with this toolset for a while.

    "Oh, nice I can have an ocean and set an island inside of it. It feels like one of these world building simulators just way better."

    A small body of water with a single small island was quickly made, as the ''toolkit'' easily reacted to her wishes, adding the details she did not specify, while she just played around with her new toys to her liking.

    Yui just made a little pond on her new landmass wanting to add a few ducks when she noticed something interesting.

    "I have no ducks available?"

    Mentally ''scrolling'' through her options, she could see a few options for birds, but not all that many really.

    "Are there no ducks in this world?" she mumbled to herself and quickly discarded the thought.

    ''Even if there are no ducks exactly like in my home world, there should be a bigger variety of other birds and even water birds instead.''

    "You obviously have to add them silly." Yui heard a familiar voice, but still inside of the mental world, she could not see anyone.

    Leaving the mental world with a thought, she found Tora standing behind her.

    "Sis, what is this place?"

    "It''s the Divine Treasures Archive. A place to work with the various creations that you have collected."

    "Creation''s I have collected? That sounds really strange. What does it do exactly?"

    Tora rolled her eyes again. Did she really have to spell everything out for her silly sister?

    "Well, the Earthly Treasures Pavilion is bound to your soul. I just skip the technicalities, as you wouldn''t understand most of them yet anyways."

    "Basically, in order to make the Earthly Treasures Pavilion secure and safe to use, without being able to be stolen and abused by others, it is bound to your soul. You still remember this part, right?"

    "The one about only you and the ones you designate can use its functions. Me assisting you with the process as I''m part of the artefact as its artefact spirit."

    Yui nodded, bobbing her head up and down like a good school girl listening to teacher Tora.

    "Yes sis, we already talked about that."

    So far so good. Yui understood the basics at least and Tora nodded happily before continuing her explanation.

    "Now as much benefits such a way of security this might bring, it also has its downsides. Everything that''s bound to a soul, will obviously require that soul to work properly. This archive is part of this very problem. Like a specific key to access the information, if the soul is gone, you lose the key and along with it, all of the things that were bound to the key."

    Yui frowned slightly. That seemed too bad.

    "You mean. All the information in the archive collected by others is bound to them and worthless to me?"Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    "Even more than that, once the soul dissipates, so will this information bound to it, but yes that is the gist of it. If you want to fill this archive, you have to fill it by yourself. You didn''t expect that the pavilion would provide you free and easy divine resources just by selling more right?"

    "It''s not?" Now this seemed like really bad news to Yui.

    "Not really, at least not all out of the box, you just get the basics that you can say are hardcoded with the pavilion. I helped you make some sample locations because you couldn''t access this place yet."

    Now this was information that was rather shocking to Yui.

    "You mean ˇ­ Tora ˇ­ you really mean all we''ve been working on so far, all that I have been doing all this time, was just the tutorial!?"

    This time Tora''s mischievous smirk gave Yui shivers all along her spine. Once more her view of the pavilion, it''s functions and all of what she expected to know about this artefact was blown away, replaced with a massive, but at the same time scary challenge ahead of her.

    "You''re right! Welcome to New Game Plus! To be able to make locations with all the better goodies you will have to travel around the various places and find them. Or buy them from somewhere."

    "Others would still call it cheating, as once you have added something to the archive its available to you in any quantity, provided we have enough spirit energy to fuel and maintain it."

    Pouting a little bit, Yui did not really know what to do in the future. She did not like going out to meet people and exploring the big open world was nice to read in a story, but it actually really scared her and made her nervous.

    "This isn''t gamelike at all. Can''t I just make something if I know it''s composition?" She grumbled making Tora laugh.

    "I think you were the one who said it was like a building simulator game. It''s just a bit more hands on than the video games of your world."

    "Obviously if you know exactly how something is made down to the very particle and atomic structure, you can adapt other materials to create it. That''s how regular lower realms are usually made by cultivators. You need enough knowledge and cultivation strength for your brain and soul to process such a massive undertaking though and it gets far more complicated with spirit materials."

    It now explained a lot why Tora did not just talk about expansion, but also various ways to travel around.

    "So that''s why you wanted to build this sky ship. I thought it would just make it easier to build portals in other places. It seems like we do actually have to move around a lot if we want something new."

    "Yes Yui, finding treasures to bring back to the pavilion is also part of the deal. Either that or you buy it. Many good things however are hard to find, and you will not be able to buy everything you might want or need."

    "Any more surprises for this Pavilion Master job no one told me about?"

    "Many little sister, many more, but don''t worry, I will tell you about them once they come up. It will get really interesting when you have enough skill with using your spiritual powers to actually influence existing things and change them around."

    Once again Yui was feeling as if she had bitten into a lemon.

    ''What other surprises will the pavilion have in ''store'' for me? Other than the store that is.'' Yui rolled her eyes at her own silly thoughts.

    "What exactly do you mean by changing things around?" she asked her sister instead of starting guessing-games in her mind.

    "Like drastically changing a species, changing one of your created worlds or dimensions, adapting metaphysical laws, things like that."

    "You mean we can do all of that in the future?"

    "Silly, how did you think this lower realm we live in ˇ­ nearly all lower realms actually, started to exist? Someone obviously made them. The worlds that evolve on their own are rather rare."

    "Guess that explains why it''s called divine realm and these strong cultivators are seen as gods to the people here. They seem to quite literally create worlds like this. Also explains why so many worlds look and feel really similar."

    Having someone strong enough to create a world was still unbelievable to Yui, but all the veneration and respectful attitude to such strong beings now really did make sense. It also explained why all of them had similar living conditions and even though slight differences existed, they were still pretty much the same.

    Different languages, different technological evolutions, but the very basics of the world, like gravity, orbit time around the sun, atmosphere all of that was close to identical. If you have humans create worlds, it would make sense they make worlds they are familiar with, with rules to have humans survive properly. Why reinvent the wheel right?

    Were mythical people in her home worlds fables real too? All their gods the like?

    Yui decided not to ask Tora. She might know, but it felt really strange to hear about her own gods and she kind of dreaded the answers to these questions. Were they all real? Neither a yes nor a no answer seemed like the right answer. In this case, Yui decided that it might be for the best to not have these questions answered in the first place.

    "There are many worlds that are really different as well. Other strong species make their own strange worlds. You have probably heard stories about demons and angels, of strange celestial and mythological creatures, divine beasts and all of that stuff."

    "These worlds are often very different from human shaped worlds. Some have no gravity, some have no days or night or even lack a sun. Not all of them would be inhabitable by humans without a lot of cultivation strength."

    "Sis, can I make my own worlds in the future as well?"

    Tora chuckled at the question.

    "If the creator of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion heard such a silly question, he would really be sad how far I have fallen. The Earthly Treasures Pavilion was the first successful creation of an artefact that could, with enough skill and power, be used to craft a divine world. A place where all these cultivators who create the lower worlds and realms live."

    "It''s rather sad, that my creator also used his very existence in order to create the Pavilion, not even having the chance to make his success in creating it known. I was still too young and unaware at the time and sleeping. When I woke up, ready to tell everyone of my creator''s achievements the Pavilion had already been discarded, misunderstood by others as a failed product."

    Tora''s story was somewhat sad. Her creator had spent his very life on making the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, yet no one really acknowledged his success. Yui in her typical motherly way gave Tora a hug and tried to cheer her up.

    "Don''t worry Tora, we find a way to this divine realm and show everyone how amazing the Pavilion really is."

    "Oh silly girl, that''s nice of you to say, but I''m not sure that''s even the right way to go. As much as I''d love for my creator''s life''s work to be acknowledged, as much as I myself would like to be seen and appreciated by the divine realm ˇ­"

    There was some silence when Tora didn''t finish her sentence, contemplating things that might have happened in the past.

    "Don''t worry about it Yui. My creator would not have wanted you to get into trouble because of his work. Don''t take silly risks to get some fame or some acknowledgement for the pavilion and bring trouble upon yourself."

    "I''m sure my creator would also feel that living a happy life would be much more important than silly fame that might just get you killed because of a greedy person. In the end, he didn''t make the Pavilion to get famous. He loved creating things, it was all he really loved in his life."

    They left the Divine Treasures Archive soon after, getting ready for another day of taking care of the shop. There were many new options and challenges ahead, but without a real way to travel properly, it was still a bit far away for Yui.

    ''Let''s just enjoy the days as they come and worry about things when they come knocking at my door.''

    Yui cheerfully welcomed the customers, happy to just live for the moment, not worrying about future travels that would surely bring both excitement and more trouble than she really wanted.

 Chapter 27: Gathering of Empires (1)

    The Empire of Asho was the largest in terms of landmass in the Central Island Union, with several islands and areas occupied by them or their vassals.

    Located mostly in the eastern parts of the region, their holdings were diverse, with their large sky fleet and army well known and respected. Not the most technologically advanced empire in the Union, they were still more advanced than nearly all of the larger kingdoms, let alone such a small place like Yura.

    With a very militaristic tradition and the various important people all holding a high position in the empire''s army, it was no surprise to see a commander of the sky fleet selected as the representative to visit the Earthly Treasure Pavilion''s auction.

    Aristocrats and nobles, even royalty as long as they held no power in the military, were not really taken seriously in this empire and the idea of might makes right was stronger than anywhere else in the Central Island Union.

    The large Asho skyship carrier, along with several smaller vessels was heading south across the ocean, on a direct course to Yura Kingdom.

    "Commander, according to the information we gathered about this southern region and their kingdoms, we should arrive at our destination in about two weeks."

    Kita Ihito, commander of the third sky fleet of Asho was about 90 years old, a veteran of many battles and both an expert in military strategy as well as personal battle.

    As a late core stage cultivator, with his life span far exceeding regular people, he was still in the prime of his life. His scraggy short beard and weather-beaten skin along with his sharp and rough facial features, made the formal clothes he was wearing now seem a little bit out of place.

    "Blasted political foolishness again. Why did the council send us to such a place?" he grumbled once more.

    If he were sent there to wage war on the kingdom, he would not have minded at all, but sending him as some foppish dandy to spout sweet words and niceties? It conflicted quite a bit with his usual approach.

    "I think the council wanted to make sure to make a good impression. Sending someone without proper skills or backbone might make us appear weak. Don''t forget that the other empires and even the Grey Order will have representatives there as well and each of them will likely try to get the largest piece of the cake."

    Commander Kita raised an eyebrow at the answer his captain offered to his question. When it was about dealing with politics, his captain was far better than him, always able to say the right words and keeping tricky situations from escalating.

    Not that his explanation was wrong, commander Kita simply did not expect an answer to this question in the first place.

    "What are we going to expect?" he brought up the question that he wanted to ask for a while now. This time it was not just some mumbling to himself.

    "Well, from what I''ve heard about the recording crystal, I''m pretty confident about this Empress'' acting skills. The scholars said there was not even a hint of this young empress not being anything else than a sweet and kind girl."

    "If the division leader of the Grey Order wasn''t extremely unsettled for some reason, they would never expect her to be a danger to anyone. We shouldn''t let some sweet attitude lull us into some false feeling of security."

    With the captain''s explanation about this ''Empress'' even commander Kita had to think it over once again. He did not take this kingdom seriously before, nor did he really feel that the title of empire would be justified for some overhyped merchant shop.

    "It would be nice if we saw this thing ourselves, rather than just hearing about it now like this." He grumbled, but there was nothing to be done about it. The message crystals that were sent to them only worked once and it was not as if they could just replay it as much as they wanted to.

    "If this thing about her acting is true this will get complicated. I hate these kinds of two-faced snakes. Telling you one thing and holding a dagger behind their backs ready to stab you when they get the chance. What is this Earthly Treasures Pavilion anyways? I''ve never heard of it."

    The captain looked at some documents and sighed.

    "I don''t exactly know sir. Even the information we have got from the scholars doesn''t tell us much. All I can say is that it seems to be extremely old and extremely well hidden, disappearing from time to time only to be heard of hundreds of years later once more."

    He flipped through a few reports but there was not much more to be found, no matter how many times he looked through it.

    "The last time we heard something about it was several hundred years ago and even then, just tidbits of some sort of strong merchant business remained."Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

    Kita Ihito nodded. It was not much to go with, but it was not the first time that they had to confront an opponent without a good idea of their strength.

    "If they call themselves an empire, we have to expect at least some peak stage core cultivators. Perhaps they have none of their own, but if they are business focused, they might have enough resources to hire some people. Not exactly a real empire if that''s the case, but who would argue in this backwater south region?"

    "Commander, I''m not sure why a division leader would behave in such a way if that was the case. The Grey Order has more than a few peak core stage experts. They might be wary of a strong merchant group, but there seems to be more to this we don''t know about."

    "We won''t know for sure before we reach the place. Let''s just make sure not to get into trouble before we know more." The commander decided, before heading back into his cabin.

    -

    Yui''s aim was still horribly off when compared to a skilled archer with cultivation strength, but with the help of all the spiritual power enhancing her senses, even a beginner like herself would be more than enough to make her arrows fly somewhat true.

    The gap between a regular person and someone with spiritual power was simply extreme. She might not be able to hit a target miles and miles away, but against someone close by trying to attack her, aiming was much less important than raw power anyways.

    It was not just Yui herself who did her best to improve her skills though.

    In the beginning, no one really noticed but over time, it became more and more obvious that all of the people who were part of the Earthly Treasure Pavilion increased their strength and skills quite drastically.

    Excellent resources to help them improve their bodies, enough materials to work with to improve their skills and the best training methods to improve their minds and cultivation.

    It was not just their physical skills or their skills with their cultivation that improved. More than anything their mindset and confidence got a large boost.

    When the first sky ships and carriages from other kingdoms and empires arrived for the auction, the small group of people in the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, seemed more like a gathering of experts, rather than the simple regular workers they were not too long ago.

    Yui herself, having to deal with various customers on a daily basis also got a lot more relaxed when interacting with others, but she still worried about the upcoming auction. Dealing with a dozen people in the shop and being confronted with thousands of people at an auction was quite different after all.

    "Miss Yui, miss Yui, yet another group has arrived in the capital for the auction. I would have never thought that there will be so many people coming just for this auction."

    Everyone seemed excited, not just her own people, but also the people of Yura Kingdom. The whole town was preparing for the auction as if for some kind of festival.

    Inn''s and other places where people could stay were soon filled and the streets were filled with the various banners and symbols of kingdoms from far away. Even the smaller kingdoms from further away were gathering in Sume city without an invitation. They heard about the auction from others and simply decided to come as well.

    Yui was happy with all the various forces who had arrived. At least she was happy for the progress of the pavilion. Personally, she''d still rather hide in the shop, but there would be no hiding during the auction.

    "Ryoma will be our auctioneer. I don''t have to worry so much." She told herself, but all the people coming and going made her nervous.

    -

    "Commander, I think we are the first to arrive here. With our superior sky ship forces, it was to be expected though."

    Kita Ihito looked around the small city and could not really see anything special. The various representatives of this kingdom welcomed him with a lot of fanfare, but he could see no one from this Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    "I heard it was an open auction, right? It''s not like we got an invitation. Only the Grey Order had an invitation after all."

    "I don''t think it should be a problem. We only have to pay a small fee to enter the auction, there seem to be no restrictions of any kind, just some strange rules." his captain replied.

    "Strange rules? What kind of rules?"

    "Basically, people are not allowed to threaten others with their status during the auction. I''m not really sure if they would act if someone does, but it seems like a strange rule to me. Large sects and factions suppressing smaller ones with their status rather than their wealth is quite common everywhere else."

    "I keep it in mind. We don''t lack funds if there really is anything useful to be found here. It''s not like we are here for the items, we''re here to find out what this Earthly Treasures Pavilion is all about."

    He told most of his men to guard the ships while he headed in the direction of where this Earthly Treasures Pavilion was supposed to be with the remaining small group.

    "Let''s take a look at this place first, before the other forces of the Union arrive."

    The people gathered into a carriage before they headed through the city''s southern edge.

    When they arrived at the property of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, they all disembarked and made their way through the alleyway of red leaved trees following the small stone stairs up the hill until they finally arrived and the pavilion.

    Some might call the building a pagoda perhaps, with the several tiered floors and the sloped shingles on each floor, with the smallest forming a tipped roof at the very top.

    The color of the trees and the pavilion itself, was rather impressive and gave a special atmosphere, though the building itself was a lot smaller than Kita Ihito had expected.

    How would all the people fit in there for an auction? Was the actual auction held outside or at some other place?

    His eyes scanned the surrounding area, all tinged in red as even the garden was filled with the fallen red leaves of the trees. A few benches here and there to sit and relax, a little pond and some stone gardens. It looked like a regular garden area, with young kids of varying status playing around.

    It was the first time he had seen noble born kids play with commoners. A rather strange sight.

    Perhaps the only other strange thing about this place itself, was the stone steps leading through the sea of red leaves in the center of the garden to a big metal archway of some sort.

    There was no door, no decorations, just a metal archway with various engravings. Never having seen anything like this, Kita Ihito expected it to be some sort of religious or ritual place and didn''t worry about it anymore.

    The commander entered the shop itself after finding nothing special outside. Perhaps there would be more interesting things to see inside?

 Chapter 28: Gathering of Empires (2)

    The shop room of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion was filled with various people as usual, discussing various crafting methods, riddles in the dungeon and cooking recipes. Some were even starting trade agreements right here and there.

    A whole section of the room had expanded, and a large alcove had formed, separated only by a few black wooden pillars. This alcove was filled with various pillows and blankets on top of the material the floor was made of. Low tables were also arranged next to the pillows and people could sit and discuss, as well as eat snacks.

    There was a direct door leading outside into the garden, with windows making it easy to see outside. From time to time some of the kids would run inside, quickly stop running or get scolded by the elders around before grabbing some food and returning back outside.

    Kita Ihito really wondered if this was really a shop or some child daycare. What seemed more interesting to him rather than the unusual atmosphere of this shop, was the way these snacks seemed to refill whenever a plate was empty, without anyone actually doing something.

    The alcoves and all the rooms extending to the sides were obviously much larger than the outside made it seem too. Spatial technology used for such a simple building?

    He was still inspecting the shop when a very enthusiastic shopkeeper welcomed them inside.

    "Welcome to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion!"

    He had the urge to jump slightly and draw his weapon but managed to hold back his instincts at the last moment.

    -

    "I heard you had a shop here and I wanted to know what you''re selling."

    The person with the scraggy beard who looked as if he could use a relaxing bath and some skincare products approached Yui, who wondered in turn who he might be.

    "We are selling access tickets to our various managed locations where you can gather materials in an efficient and easy way." she started to explain and pointed to the various displays and quickly explained the locations a little bit.

    "Third tier spirit metals and herbs? You are giving others access to such strategic resources?"

    The leader of this new group, a group Yui had never seen before, was obviously rather smart, as he quickly understood the concept of their shop.

    "Yes, exactly, we are limiting the time each person can enter each day, but otherwise they are free to gather as much as they would like."

    The man seemed to ponder for a while, then turned around to the others in his group to discuss it.

    "Miss, how many mines or places do you have and how many people can you accommodate?"

    A regular mine would obviously have a limited quantity of ore. You could only mine it once and it was best to limit the number of miners, otherwise with too many people they would just step on each other''s toes and not be very efficient at mining.

    The Earthly Treasure Pavilion''s places were rather different though. The more people gathered and paid, the easier it would be for them to expand their places.

    "We will make sure to have enough locations for everyone, no matter how many people you bring along. It is advisable though for larger factions to consider the influence of overmining. If you hire a lot of people to mine a lot of ore, the prices of this ore might drop."

    "Our prices for the access of the locations are fixed however, if ore prices drop, we won''t lower the price to access the mines."

    Prices would quickly find a balance, not only because the access was at a fixed price, but also because getting to the Earthly Treasures Pavilion in the first place was limited to people who lived in and around Sume city.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    While other spirit mine owners in the area suffered severe losses as they simply could not compete with the pavilion at all, Yui did not mind much about it. That''s just the way competition worked in this world after all.

    Miners who lost their jobs in other spirit mines would often form groups and start their own small business to enter the pavilion''s spirit mines instead. Serfs and other people bound to the mine owners would usually be sent there as well by their lords.

    Not much changed overall, other than prices for various spirit materials dropping and access to good quality spirit items becoming much more reasonable.

    Yui''s answer was unexpected for the commander. How many mines could they possibly have? Why would they allow others to access them, were they short on manpower? Why did they not just hire more people?

    Lot''s of questions that the commander found no answers for.

    "I heard this place is working with the Grey Order? What''s this all about?"

    How would they react to such a question? The commander was rather curious if he could find out more.

    Yui paused for a moment, as this was obviously a question, she did not expect. This knowledge was not widely known, other than in certain circles with people far away. She looked once more at the clothes these people wore and finally understood where they must be coming from.

    "Ah the Grey Order. I guess you could say we are working with them, they helped with some manpower issues. They sent us some people, but sadly we quickly noticed that most of their cultivators were not really strong enough. We just decided to keep the more talented ones and sent the others back."

    "You kept the more talented ones? Somehow, I cannot really believe this. Are you sure you did not hear this wrong miss?"

    Never did Kita Ihito hear of Grey Order members leaving, at least not alive, let alone joining some other faction.

    "Rin, do you have a moment?"

    Rinomi quickly joined Yui in the shop, curiously inspecting the various people in front of her.

    "Miss Yui, how can I help?" her eyes paused for a moment at the people inspecting her.

    "What would bring the sky forces of Asho Empire here to our Pavilion?"

    Rinomi was a true member of the Grey Order before. While she had learned a lot from Tora over the past weeks, the old cultivation methods had given her spiritual aura a certain feeling shared between all cultivators learning the same cultivation techniques. This aura could be hidden, but it was hard to change or fake such an aura without special means.

    "She really is a Grey Order member!" the commander mumbled, having met more than his fair share of Grey Order envois or assassins to make the distinction. His words turned his subordinates slightly nervous and on edge.

    Dealing with the elusive Grey Order people, was in some ways the same as being confronted with the boogeyman. Their commander could easily fight one or even a few of them in a fair fight, but it was rare for the Grey Order to ever fight fair.

    Not only would they attack you when you would least expect it, but in nearly all situations they had enough information on their target to make all plans of escape very hard.

    "Was. She''s part of our Earthly Treasures Pavilion now."

    "They just let her go?"

    "Well, we didn''t exactly ask them for their opinion." Yui shrugged. "We just told them that they don''t need to expect her to come back."

    Commander Kita glanced at one of his subordinates quickly, who only shook his head slightly with a stunned look.

    "I see." Trying to find a way to change the topic he pointed to a rainbow-colored display case this shopkeeper girl did not explain yet.

    ''The lady'' he corrected himself in his mind. Whoever the young woman in front of him might be, the respectful attitude of not only the Grey Order woman, but pretty much everyone around them gave him a good idea that she had to have some standing.

    "What''s this?"

    "It''s our riddle dungeon. You can enter it from time to time for free and there are little rewards. In a way you can see it as a game of wits. Would you like to give it a try? It''s intended for QiCondensation cultivators though."

    With so many people enjoying the little dungeon with the riddles, Yui had long ago decided to open it up to everyone. The place would limit people''s cultivation strength, otherwise it would be too simple to go around the obstacles or smash through them.

    "Ah thank you, I think I will just do that miss ˇ­"

    "Yui. People usually call me Yui."

    He headed for the strange rainbow colored ''riddle dungeon'' when he noticed the inscription on it.

    [Yui''s Dungeon of Many Things]

    "Captain Kimura" he quietly called out to his subordinate.

    "Yes commander?"

    "What was the name of that Empress again?"

    "I think it was, let me check. Tai Yui." He paused as if considering the importance of this name and why their commander would ask about this now.

    "Commander you don''t think that girl ˇ­

    "Captain, I think the part about her acting skills was right on point. Have you ever heard of an empress who could make a good shopkeeper?"

    No one answered his question. Who would have ever heard about an Empress working as a shopkeeper before?

    Kita Ihito looked back at the young woman, who gave him a big knowing smile as if to slightly mock him that he didn''t realize her real identity sooner. It just confirmed all of his suspicions right away. Not only this, but he also realized that this young woman was fully aware of who they were and why they were here.

    "Captain, are you sure she was telling the truth earlier?"

    "Well, the truth crystal didn''t react at all. It would only react to lies. Even though there are ways to hide the truth, the chance is rather low."

    "Dangit. Well, let''s go see this dungeon place."

 Chapter 29: Conquering the World One Bag at a Time

    Yui watched with some bewilderment as the group of foreigners gathered around the dungeon area. Their leader was obviously rather surprised about something, though Yui had no idea what gave him such a conflicted look.

    Giving him a confident and encouraging smile as she always did whenever she wasn''t sure what else to say surely couldn''t be a bad idea right? After all she wanted to make a good impression on their new customers.

    ''Who is that guy anyways? Rin mentioned something about some Asho Empire?''

    Shrugging, Yui focused on the people over at the dungeon display case again and tried to give others the impression that she had a good idea of what was going on. They did not really trust all of it yet and currently listened to other customers explaining what they might encounter.

    While everyone else focused on what was happening in the room, Yui''s eyes turned a bit unfocused, as she wanted to watch what would happen inside the dungeon.

    -

    When the first person disappeared right in front of them, commander Kita was rather impressed. Not really all that surprised, as he heard quite a few explanations by now of what would happen, but still, hearing about someone getting transported with some spatial power and seeing them disappear right in front of them was rather different.

    It did not take all that long for the person to return to the room, pretty much where he had disappeared before. The elite soldier had a frown on his face, before reporting to his commander.

    "I am sorry commander, but I failed you. I could not even solve the first question correctly."

    Behind them at the counter, Yui had a hard time not giggling, as the soldier did not even manage to get past the first stage of her trick questions.

    "Well, what was so hard about it? What did you encounter?"

    "I was moved ˇ­ transported to some room sir. It had stone walls and a door on one side with a question." he started to explain. "I felt really odd too, like something weighted heavily on me, but I''m not sure what this was all about. I couldn''t properly use my strength."

    "The question read ''If you have a bowl with six apples and you take away four, how many do you have?'' and then I answered ''two'', but ˇ­ well I was wrong."

    The commander sighed, while some of the soldiers didn''t even figure out what was wrong about the answer.

    "You morons, if you take four apples away, you obviously have four apples!" their captain explained to them, while commander Kita decided to head in himself.

    Kita Ihito shortly afterwards disappeared from the shop room. Similar to the other people going through the dungeon, he would first be confronted with a simple question. This stage of the dungeon was very straightforward and similar in design.

    Taking a moment to get his bearings, after getting transported to a totally different place, he walked over to the door to read the question, curious what he would find this time.

    Ken''s father has five sons. Ten, Twenty, Thirty, Forty, ˇ­ What is the name of the fifth son?

    "Well if the sons are named ten, twenty and so on it should be ˇ­ wait."

    He read through the question again, now that he knew that there might be some way to trick him.

    "The answer is Ken." He rolled his eyes, not really expecting this place to outright tell him the answer in such a blatant way.

    The door opened and there was a small room with a little chest, as well as another door at the other end.

    Commander Kita opened the chest and found a paper bag inside. He carefully opened it to see some thin slices of something inside. It smelled a bit spicy and seemed to be some type of food.

    Putting the small bag away, as he did not want to risk eating something in the middle of a strange place. He went through the other door to continue with the challenge.

    The next room seemed to have taken the riddles a step further. There was not simply a question here, but it actually gave people something to do.

    Kita Ihito found two containers, one that could hold 3kg and one that could hold 5kg. Next to these two containers was a larger box filled with rice, likely 10 or even more kg of it.

    ''Measure 1kg of rice with the tools provided.'' The room challenged him.

    No longer a trick question, this seemed a bit easier for the commander than even the first question. After giving it some thought, he picked up the container for the 3kg, filled it and then dumped its contents into the container with the 5kg.

    Once this was done, he filled the 3kg container once more, and then moved over its contents into the 5kg container until it was completely full.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

    With 2/3rds of it moved over to the 5kg container, the remaining part should be exactly 1kg.

    Yet another door opened for him and he found yet another box with some sort of reward. This time it didn''t seem to be food. Rather it was some magical tool with rotating pieces. In a way it looked like a clock, just much smaller and not related to the sun.

    "A portable way to measure time? How does it do that?"

    Other than the food, this seemed to be a lot more interesting.

    The next room had an open door at the other side, but there was no real path leading there other than a lot of pillars one would be able to jump on and a big dark chasm. He couldn''t even see how deep this ravine separating one side from the other might be.

    On the wall at the other end was a round disk that slowly filled up as well as some symbols and numbers. Once the disc completed a full circle and filled up completely all the symbols seemed to change.

    Each symbol had a color and a number, but Kita Ihito could not easily figure out what they were supposed to tell him until he found that the pillars one could use to step on and jump to the other side were similarly colored.

    "I have to pass the number of colored pillars on my way to the other side that the symbols on the wall tell me to?"

    If he still had his full cultivation strength with his superior reflexes all of this would be a lot easier, but now trying to find a way to jump to the other side and then actually doing the jumping before the disc completed a turn and changed all the symbols seemed really hard.

    Kita Ihito did his best anyways and quickly found a way through the maze of pillars to jump on. He was too late to make it through completely though and all the symbols changed before he arrived at the other side.

    His face turned pale, when the pillar he was just standing on plummeted into the chasm along with him, before he found himself back in the shop room completely out of breath.

    "Commander, are you alright?" his subordinates did not know what happened, but if even their commander looked this pale, something strange must have occurred.

    "I ... I am fine. Did you find out more about the other places?"

    "We explored all the places, except for the ones with the spirit beasts, as it would likely take us too long for a quick check. All of the locations really offer what everyone says they would, various materials in big quantities without any dangers around. Our people came back early though and did not use up the full time they were given."

    "Are the materials real? Any tricks or illusions that might make them look like spirit materials even though they are not?"

    "They all seem to be the real thing, I couldn''t notice anyone having dabbled with them, or any illusions to make them appear as something they are not."

    "Any idea what this is?" he held up the bag of food he got from the dungeon.

    "Uh, some sort of food perhaps?"

    "Never seen any of it.", "Sorry sir, I have no idea."

    "I know what this is." One of the other customers of the shop suddenly exclaimed.

    "An apprentice of mine has received this type of food before. Miss Yui called it potato chips. It seems to be made out of a root vegetable called potato sliced into thin pieces, fried and it has added some spices to it. Though, your bag seems to have a different flavoring."

    "Chili, it''s called chili." Yet another customer added his own information into the mix. "Your apprentice got a bag flavored with pepper, Grandmaster Koda."

    "Are there so many different flavors?" one of the soldiers asked.

    "Yes, there are several, I''ve heard of people having found bags with potato chips that were flavored with salt and vinegar, sour cream, barbecue, garlic and a weird green spice no one had heard of before. Miss Yui said itˇŻs a secret and didn''t want to tell us. They tasted rather strange."

    "I didn''t expect this place to have such strange types of food."

    "Master Ryoma told us that while the Pavilion did not have any plans to produce any of this food in larger quantities themselves, they will be looking for partners working together with the Earthly Treasure Pavilion to create and distribute these types of food in the future."

    "Partners? Who might that be?"

    Now that the topic had been brought up, more people were suddenly interested in the strange new type of food.

    "I heard some rumors that there is some deal going on with one of the larger merchant groups in Kamiecu Kingdom."

    "What? That crazy place that treats foreigners like enemies? They have three large merchant groups, right? Which one is it that will get this big deal?"

    "How am I supposed to know. I just heard that it''s one of these groups, not which one."

    While the people discussed the strange food and various merchant groups, Kita Ihito picked up one of the potato chips and gave it a try.

    "It''s really crispy and also rather spicy, but tastes good." he informed his group after a while. "It''s no surprise that various merchants might be interested in this product. Not exactly what we have come here for, but still interesting."

    -

    In the corner of the shop, a person listened to the ongoing conversation before quickly making his way to an inn in the middle of the city.

    He barely entered on of the rooms, with an older man sitting in front of various reports when he reported what he had seen right away.

    "Master Trega, Master Trega! I have gone to this Pavilion, it seems like one of our competitors plans some kind of partnership with this faction here."

    "A partnership? What exactly is this about?"

    "It seems like they have a deal ongoing about some type of new food."

    "Why do I hear about this for the first time now? What are our spies in those other businesses even doing?!"

    "Master, what should we do now? If we don''t act, the balance between the groups will be all gone and with such a strong backing it won''t take long before there will only be one merchant group left! Should we inform the royal family to cancel this deal?"

    "No, of course not. How would the royal family intervene here? Do you think our royal family is only made up of fools? Do you think they would risk angering a force that calls itself an Empire, just because of some merchant group?"

    "I did not consider this master. I have misspoken."

    "No, the royal family does not value any of the merchant groups enough to interfere. In the end, no matter how many groups there are, no matter who is stronger, the taxes will all be collected just the same."

    "What should we do then master?"

    "It''s really simple, if we cannot prevent others from getting a slice of this pie, we simply have to make sure to also get one!"

    "You mean, we start a partnership with this Pavilion as well? What of the agreements with the other groups though? We are not supposed to work together with outside forces?"

    "Don''t be silly. You still have much to learn. If someone else already plans to break this agreement, what point is there in sticking to it?"

    "Let me write a letter, you will bring it to the owner of this Pavilion place and I will meet with them in order to find some agreement as soon as possible."

    "Yes master. I will wait for your letter to be ready and then bring it over right away."

 Chapter 30: A Slightly Different Auction

    The surrounding area of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion was packed with people. It was still early in the morning and none of the customers was really sure yet how all of these people would fit into the shop, but now that the day of the auction was finally here, there was still no information on where exactly it would be held.

    Every invitation just said the auction would start at the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    Finally the doors opened and a few people stepped outside.

    "Look they opened up! Is it going to begin now?"

    "Where will all the people go to though? They don''t even fit into the garden area surrounding the shop!"

    Some people were curious, others were excited and some even had evil intentions. All of them were surprised how many various guests there were this early in the morning.

    All of the empires of the Central Island Union were here, pretty much all the surrounding kingdoms sent a representative, even those not invited specifically, many nobles, leaders of various organizations had arrived, and all kinds of merchants were also here.

    "Welcome everyone to our Earthly Treasure Pavilion''s first auction in this area! We will open the way to our auction building shortly, please keep our rules in mind while you are here. No weapons are to be drawn and no powers of any harmful nature might be used while here."

    While Ryoma greeted the guests and explained their rules, Yui and Tora walked over to the metal archway. Rinomi stood back a bit with little Miyuki, watching the crowd as much as the twin sisters.

    So far no one had acted, as even the people from the Grey Order seemed to be curiously watching the situation first before they decided to act. Everything seemed to be held in suspense, wanting to see how this auction would turn out first before making any decisions.

    Not that she really worried about anyone causing trouble, but not many had as much insight into the inner working of the pavilion, or a good idea of the sisters'' strengths. There might be quite a few who might think they are above their shop''s rules.

    Shortly after a lot of spiritual power was gathering and the metal archway that seemed not much more than some decoration, was coming to life with power.

    The air started to shimmer and fluctuate before an easily visible break separated the space between the garden and the area beyond this archway on the ''other'' side of it. The whole archway was filled with a kind of fog. It was hard to see through this fog, but the little bits one could see were very different from the garden area.

    "It''s a portal! They opened a stable portal to some other area!" one of the people waiting for the auction exclaimed.

    "Well what did you expect, how should this many people fit into such a small area otherwise? They have talismans to use transportation magic, why would they not open some kind of portal for their auction?"

    "It''s a portal though! Don''t you know how hard it is to create a stable portal, instead of just sending something through space for just a moment? The spatial laws for a stable portal are so much more complicated, it''s on a whole different level!"

    "Why would I be surprised? Have you been sleeping under some stone for the past weeks? It''s the Tai sisters creating it, are you still surprised?"

    With the portal now open, the first few people entered this strange area, only to come back a moment later to report and tell everyone that it was safe.

    While none of the regular customers of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion doubted the safety of this gateway, there were still many visitors who did not have such a high amount of trust in what they saw as a merchant group they have barely heard of before.

    The first steps through the portal were definitely an odd feeling. There was no real dizziness or anything like it, as the thick fog offered a more subtle change of scenery rather than stepping from one world to another without any way to hide the surroundings a little, yet it was still something totally new.

    It felt like walking a foggy mystical path into another world, with every few steps on this path offering more of this new strange world.

    The land they were walking on was definitely weird. When the first people walked far enough to see further away many were just standing there and pointing in amazement.

    They were standing on what seemed to basically be an island in the sky, a flying island bordered by clouds. Ahead of them on this island stood a massive building, that made even the biggest palaces they had seen look tiny and insignificant in comparison.

    "Is ˇ­ is this the divine realm? How could there be something this grand existing in our world?"

    "Even if it''s not, it looks amazing. No wonder this Earthly Treasures Pavilion is treated as an empire."

    "What did you say? An empire?"

    Many of the regular customers heard about this for the first time and those people who knew about it quickly explained the details to the others.

    Princess Harue, who was part of the entourage of the King of Yura this time, stared at the massive structure ahead of them, the glittering black walls and red roof parts looming over the island like a gargantuan black dragon covering the sky.

    Was this really the same group whose ruler offered to teach her about cooking? The grand building conflicted quite a bit with the shy young woman, showing her how to bake a cake.

    Even her father was giving her a strange look, wondering about this strange empress even more now and the relationship his daughter had to such a power.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

    "Well at least they didn''t build it in Sume, would make the palace look like the home of some commoners." Harue deadpanned, once she took a good look at the building.

    It took quite a long time for all the guests to settle down and finally enter the building. Ryoma had to answer more and more questions, as many different nations decided that this Earthly Treasures Pavilion obviously held more power than they would have expected.

    Even the empires of the Central Island Union looked at this ''backwater'' merchant faction in another light. Whoever could build a portal and such a place, had obviously a lot more resources than they were led to believe initially.

    Once people started to look around inside the auction hall and found themselves some seats, they became aware of the first oddity of this place, or maybe one should say about the arrangements of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion.

    There were no real seating arrangements. People could just sit wherever they wanted, with no special VIP rooms, no booths reserved for guests to hide their identity or give them any preferential treatment of any kind.

    They did have quite some places to relax, buy food and drinks, as well as some areas to take a break and talk to others though.

    "Hey Yui! How do we get upstairs?" Princess Harue asked and looked around to find some sort of stairway that would lead them up to the many areas above ground level the hall provided.

    "Just take the elevators over there." Yui pointed out a strange magical circle slightly off to one side of the room.

    "What is that?"

    "You go inside and get transported to the top. The circles with an up arrow next to them lead you upstairs, while the ones with a down arrow will get you a level lower."

    "Seems really convenient! No stairs to walk. Nice. What are you going to auction today?"

    "Just wait and see, it''s going to be interesting." Yui smiled at the princess, before heading off to deal with the many tasks she had to take care of.

    Arranging the staff members who were welcoming guests, who provided food and drinks and preparing the various items they were going to sell.

    Tora on the other hand sat down in one of the seats in the first row and started to take a nap, totally ignoring all the people who wanted to engage her in some sort of conversation or asked her various questions.

    "Welcome again to our auction of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion."

    After everyone settled down and found a seat Ryoma started the actual auction.

    "Some of you might already have heard about us, but to give everyone a better idea of what our business is all about, let me give you a quick overview of our products and what to expect of our services."

    "Our Pavilion offers all kinds of resources, people would normally have to take a long time to find. Be it rare metals, plants and herbs only found in special places, taking a long time to grow normally, or wild beasts of a certain strength."

    "Most of our services include access to such places, rich with many rarities. We don''t typically sell the resources found inside those places or products made out of it, except for our auctions, which will be held once every quarter of a year."

    "This will both showcase what can be found in our various regions that we offer access to, as well as what can be done with enough skill and knowledge in the hands of the right people."

    Ryoma pointed towards some tables that seemed to have appeared out of thin air behind him, making a few people gasp in surprise.

    The tables were covered in lots of different raw materials. Pieces of rare wood, strange metals that were even rarely seen in their own places, while barely ever heard of in myths and legends in the regular world.

    Plants that even skilled alchemists could hardly identify and even a few beast eggs that were just as rare and unique. Even the spirit crops that were easier to find on the different island groups were of exceptional quality.

    "Now many might wonder how this might benefit them. Surrounding kingdoms will have an easier time allocating manpower and the little bit of logistics necessary to make use of our services, but it will be harder for those farther away."

    He gave it some time for people to think about the various logistic difficulties that would come with access to a service provided far away. Costs for transport could be a very large factor when it came to distances between island groups.

    "You have all come here through our portal. In the future, we will build more portals all over the world, spanning different island groups with a net of gateways that will provide easy access for merchants and travelers alike, for a small fee."

    It took a while for his words to sink into the minds of the gathered people. A moment of utter silence passed, before there was an uproar, with everyone throwing out questions and wondering what this would be all about.

    An auction with rare and special items was one thing. While they were all curious about the items offered, many places and merchant groups would hold auctions to sell their items, even rare and special ones.

    No one could offer such an amazing way to cover large distances though. A net of portals spanning possibly whole island groups all over the world.

    What would this mean for merchants? Their understanding of trade would completely change. Importing and exporting goods would become a breeze.

    What about military? Would it be possible to quickly relocate cultivators to other areas of the world, saving them weeks of travel time?

    While it might be hard and not really profitable to move a regular army of commoners, moving a few dozen strong cultivators would be easy enough if those fees were not too high.

    It would also bring new risks though as their enemies might also make use of such a net of gateways to quickly invade or attack them in some way.

    "Some people have also asked about our various finished products, ranging from recipes for alchemy and cooking, to enchantments, wood and metalworking and ways to produce exceptional unique items that are currently only to be found in our Pavilion."

    "Even though we don''t sell these products directly in large quantities, we will discuss partnerships for new products after each of our auctions. If you are interested just stay around after the auction and we will be able to discuss such things in further detail later on."

    "Most of our auctioned items will be available from our various partners later on. They provide early access to what can be made with unique crafting methods and we are sure they will be of some interest to many people."

    The whole idea of early access to a product was rather new to their world. People were used to see new products when they released and were ready to be bought, not just to see a few prototype pieces early on, while they could not yet be mass produced in some way.

    Ryoma quickly understood the appeal to own something that others did not possess yet and gain an advantage in this way, no matter if it was a really helpful one, or if it was just about fame. It was yet another interesting business strategy he wanted to make use of.

    A really interesting lure and incentive to make people even more interested in their upcoming products, making the partnerships they offered rather alluring. In way this was not just a typical auction people knew about.

    It was a mix between a regular auction and a reveal of new products, Yui might even call it a convention, with various groups of interested customers, possible partners and merchants taking a closer look at their products in an atmosphere that made it easy to discuss and interact without many barriers like rank and background.

    "A few exceptional pieces will obviously not be easily mass produced, as such there will be many an item that will only be seen during this auction and never again."

    As people were now aware that there would be further discussions after the actual auction, the voices of the people shouting out questions calmed down and the focus returned somewhat to the auction part, even though many were still discussing all the revealed information.

    "I guess I said enough for now, let''s start with actually showing our first items!"

    Behind Ryoma, the tables changed yet again and a single slightly raised dais appeared.

    The auction of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion had officially begun.

 Chapter 31: The Treasures of the Earthly Pavilion

    Ryoma glanced over at the little box that had appeared on the raised dais. There were several magical projections in the air above the seats farther away, displaying the same little box.

    While most cultivators would not have any problem to see even the smaller detail of the items displayed rather far away, the normal people would have a hard time to see anything at all.

    The Earthly Treasures Pavilion provided a simple way for even far weaker cultivators or regular people, to still see everything going on at the stage, in specific, the items that were being auctioned.

    He stepped to the box and opened it. A round spirit pill was revealed, glimmering with an inner light and energy in a deep blue color, making the high quality and skill in refining obvious for every experienced alchemist with just a glance.

    Low grade pills had many different shades, depending on what materials were used and what type of pill it was, but for most of them, the spiritual energy they emitted would be nowhere near the point where they would glimmer or shine on their own.

    The higher quality the pill was, the higher and more concentrated the spiritual energy the pill contained as well, giving it a certain luster that was hard to replicate with regular pills.

    "Our first item up for auction is an Ocean Core Pill."

    "This pill will not only provide a lot of help for anyone trying to break into the Core Formation Stage, but it will also help expand the innate spirit power reserves of a cultivator, more than doubling their potential for storing spiritual power, also improving their bodies to withstand larger amounts of spiritual power."

    A regular pill helping cultivators to form their core was rather common. There were many different pills on the market and while none of them were really cheap, for the powerful and wealthy, these pills were nothing special either.

    With stronger kingdoms and empires, core formation pills were valuable, but well-known resources. None of their pills however provided any benefits to their breakthrough or enhanced their bodies specifically targeting the Core Formation Stage.

    "What about the success rate for forming a core? What is it like?" someone asked straight away, wondering if these other benefits came with some sort of drawback. Out of all the cultivators that attempted their breakthrough, about a fourth of them would manage to reach the next stage and form their core.

    As for the others? Well, most of them would just not be successful and stay at the top of the foundation stage. A few unlucky ones might even harm themselves in the process, ending up with their cultivation much weaker, crippled or with a mental trauma that would lead them down a path of madness.

    The question was quickly answered by Ryoma, his voice holding absolute confidence in the skills of their alchemists.

    "Our alchemists currently estimate a success chance of close to eighty percent with the help of this powerful spirit medicine."

    His words caused yet another heated discussion among the guests.

    "Eighty percent? Are you serious?"

    "I''ve never heard of a pill that could give such a high chance of success with even benefiting the body on top of it!"

    "What kind of miracle pill is this to achieve a success chance of more than two thirds?"

    Ryoma smiled at the stunned faces and the obvious curiosity and interest in the pill.

    "We will go with 500 spirit stones for the starting price." He told them after a while and the discussions changed into the start for a battle of money.

    "1000 spirit stones!", "1200", "1500."

    "2000 spirit stones!"

    The price quickly reached beyond 2000 spirit stones before things slowed down a little bit. A pill for forming a core would mean one of their geniuses could get much higher chance to improve even further.

    Having yet another core stage cultivator might not mean a lot but giving one of their promising young people an easier time reaching the core stage without issues, gave them the chance for reaching an even higher cultivation level.

    Some people were still holding back, as a new and untested pill, especially from a place that was not really well established yet, did pose a certain risk.

    In the end King Yura bought the pill for his daughter for close to 3000 spirit stones, confident this investment would be worth it in the future, even though Harue was not close to breaking through to the Core Stage yet.

    The first few items were sold in pretty much the same way. They offered a wide variety of skillsets and professions, making it obvious that the Earthly Treasures Pavilion had access not just to rare resources, but also the skills to make the most out of these resources.

    "Why do they mostly sell access to the locations and not just gather all the resources on their own?" some people wondered.

    Wouldn''t it be more profitable if they already had the skilled people to work with these resources?

    Little did they know that all these special items for the auctions were made by Tora alone. For a while it even seemed as if she was really working and not just lazing around and taking one nap after another.

    While their craftsmen improved fast, they were still far away from making items that would catch the interest of larger nations and forces.

    Blades enchanted with liquid mercury cores, bows made out of rare thunder wood, strange beast eggs that could be used to raise pets. There were quite a lot of different items for sale covering a lot of areas people might be interested in.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    "Do you think that will be enough to cover the basics?" Yui asked her sister after a while.

    They got pretty much all, but the strongest kingdoms involved in the bidding wars and had them show interest in at least something. The empires and some of the strongest kingdoms still seemed to hold back though.

    While many of the items were interesting, they were not interesting enough for them to act. All of them seemed to wait for some of the other strong factions to do something.

    "I guess that should cover the basics, let''s bring out some of the more interesting stuff." Tora replied, looking forward to the more interesting pieces.

    A quick sign from Yui was all it took for Ryoma to understand.

    "Our next item will be a protective enchantment, the Five Dragon Shield. It will show the best protection when used on a building but can also be used to defend a carriage or person and get transported around."

    Some people looked up in interest when a five colored, glimmering statue with five different dragons made up of different materials appeared on the dais, but there were too many defensive enchantments out there to really cause any kind of uproar.

    "When used on a building, it takes a Mid Origin Stage cultivator to ever break through the defensive enchantments, while it still retains the power to defend against all kinds of Peak Core Stage cultivators when used to defend a carriage or person."

    Suddenly the room got quiet. The best defensive enchantments that were currently known to exist could hold back Foundation Stage cultivators, possibly Low Core Stage cultivators. If it was some type of sect protecting array, it might hold back Mid or even High Stage Core cultivators when all of the thousands of disciples of such a sect infused it with spirit power.

    "Did you just say Mid Origin Stage? What fool would believe such a thing? There exists no such thing as a defensive enchantment that could defend against an origin stage cultivator."

    Count Kasai, one of the representatives of Central Island Union - Yoka Empire - was wondering for a while now why they were even sent here. The building was impressive for sure, but other than that, there did not seem to be anything to catch his interest.

    This southern island region place seemed weak and boring to him and none of the people around had any kind of powerful presence. In the end, he was still here to find out more about this Earthly Treasures Pavilion and not to buy some random item that he could get from any of their own auction houses.

    In his opinion, as they could not catch the empires interest, they decided to scam them with false advertisement, as such a defensive enchantment was surely an exaggeration.

    Lots of discussions broke out, while some people who had worked with the Earthly Treasures Pavilion were interested and believed in the potency of the enchantment, others did not.

    "It seems like some of our guests are not convinced of our enchantments power." Ryoma started and the attention returned back to him.

    "Yes, it might be a powerful enchantment, but it can never defend against an Origin Stage cultivator, you might want to revise your description of this item." The Yoka empire representative called out.

    Instead of looking flustered, Ryoma just smiled.

    "I don''t think that will be necessary good sir, why don''t we just test it right here if it can stand the power of a mid-stage origin cultivator?"

    Count Kasai looked a bit stunned. They wanted to test it right here? How would they do such a test, call out an Origin Stage elder, interrupt their cultivation time for a thing like an auction?

    It was not as if he couldn''t believe that they had such a powerful cultivator. In the end, they were still calling themselves an empire and even the Grey Order, whose representative so far had not really voiced their opinion, seemed to look favorably at them for some reason.

    Never would Count Kasai think of disturbing an esteemed Origin Stage elder though for such mundane things.

    "How do you want to test this?" he asked cautiously.

    "Really simple, there are several experienced and powerful people here at this auction after all, it should be easy enough for them to estimate the strength of a few blows and see if they are really equal to a Mid-stage Origin cultivator."

    The count wanted to shout out in anger but held himself back.

    ''That''s not the point you fool, the point is where do you think to get an Origin Stage cultivator for such a thing like an auction!?'' his thoughts were soon interrupted by a young woman standing by the side.

    "Mid Stage? I will try to lower my blow to that level then."

    It was hard to see through this young woman and none of them could tell her real power. So far all of the guests who had come from far away had ignored her, not expecting her to have any cultivation strength, but with the comment she made people got curious.

    "Who is that girl to say such a thing? It''s not right to make jokes like that, it''s basically an insult to any strong cultivator."

    "Yeah, they should discipline their kids properly. She is old enough not to say such a thing."

    Most people at the auction were not from around Sume city or Yura kingdom and didn''t know Tora. Their regular customers on the other hand did, including all the rumors about the two sisters that were making their rounds around the city.

    "Oh shut up would you! If miss Tora heard you, you''re lucky if there are any remains left of your body. Who knows how strong she really is."

    "Pff, why would I care if I anger a young waif of a girl. I''m at High Core Stage, I''d like to see what even her elders can do to me."

    Tora ignored their comments and just raised her hand, pointed a finger at the item that was now activated and slowly took aim.

    Buzzing with power, covering the area around Ryoma, who did not even step outside, with a force field, the item was more than ready to defend whatever was inside.

    Tora''s cultivation strength, which was hidden before, was now step by step released, rushing through Qi Refinement, Foundation Stage through Core Formation and then slowed down when it reached a power that only the stronger visitors had ever experienced first-hand, Origin Stage.

    It still climbed a little bit more and when it reached mid Origin Stage, Tora released the power and a tightly condensed bolt of spiritual energy rushed out from her finger and hit the defensive enchantment.

    The sheer power of the bolt made the visitors tremble, even though they were not its target.

    Yet another bolt hit the shield again, then more and more blows were raining on the defensive enchantment.

    If Tora continued for several hours, she would likely overcome the defense of the enchantment at some point, but it would still take a long time.

    Done with her demonstration, she returned to the side of the auction stage and sat down next to her sister, her cultivation once more hidden.

    It was hard to tell if the discussions following the demonstration were about the item displayed, or actually about the young woman who had just shown a cultivation strength of at least Mid Origin Stage and if they were taking her comment seriously, she was already holding back.

    The man who had earlier talked how even the girl''s elders would not be able to do anything to him had turned really pale, but it did not look like Tora even spared him a glance.

    ''What have I done? I''ve offended an Origin Stage cultivator!'' he did not dare to say anything more and quietly watched as the auction was going on, doing his best to appear small and unimportant.

    "The starting price for the Five Dragon Shield is set at 5.000 spirit stones, increments should be at least 500 spirit stones. I don''t think there are any more doubts about its potency."

    "5.000"ˇä, "6.000"

    "The Nishi Empire offers 10.000 spirit stones!"

    Finally, even the visiting empires were impressed enough to join the auction. An item that could hold back a Mid Origin Stage cultivator for hours? This was a treasure that none of them had ever heard of.

    "The Grey Order would also like this item, we offer 12.000 spirit stones."

    All the empires fought for the item with the money they took with them. In the end, the Five Dragon Shield was sold for 27.000 spirit stones to the Tomina Empire, an empire of the Central Island Union that focused on trade and economics and was seen as the wealthiest of all the Central Island region''s forces.

 Chapter 32: Auctioneer from Hell

    Division Leader Shin of the Grey Order frowned. He finally knew why his group of assassins did not have any chance against this Earthly Treasures Pavilion. Not only were they really an empire, but if the young woman wasn''t bluffing then they even had a High Stage Origin cultivator.

    Who was this young woman? She looked even younger than 30 years old. Actually, she looked like a twin of the other girl who introduced herself as their Empress and he was confident they were both below 30 years. It was not too hard to tell if someone just looked young or if they were really young.

    Bone structure, small details on the skin, the overall level of saturation of spirit power in the body. It was hard to tell precisely with just a look, but Leader Shin was confident, that their bodies did not seem to be hundreds of years old, an age he would have expected for an Origin Stage ''monster''.

    Who were her elders, if even the young woman was already at High Origin Stage?

    He quickly revised his plans of going against this Earthly Treasures Pavilion. They might still succeed somehow, but not only were there too many unknown variables, if any of their plans failed, the results would be catastrophic.

    It was the same reason why they did never openly fight against any of the Central Island Union''s empires. Little fights among the lower level members would be ignored by the Origin Stage elders, but if they angered one of these strong powerhouses and caused them to intervene directly, both sides would suffer.

    "Where did you get this Five Dragon Shield?" he asked in a friendly manner instead, changing his plans completely, as if he never had any intention to harm them.

    Ryoma was already prepared for such a question.

    "Why, our artisans and enchanters made them of course. The materials for it can all be found in our various gathering locations that we offer access to. While the materials used are a little bit rarer, it still shouldn''t be too hard to find them after a while of searching."

    "Our locations will only get better in the future too. It shouldn''t take too long for us to be able to offer access to locations with saint grade materials."

    "Saint Grade?" Once more people were discussing what was just revealed.

    "Should we make an outpost here to keep an eye on this pavilion?"

    "Why don''t we just invade this little kingdom and take control of the city, then we are sitting right next to this place!"

    "Don''t be silly, what if this angers the people here!"

    Their hushed discussion was interrupted by another item to be sold though.

    "Our next item for sale is the Starfruit Brilliant Elixir. It will raise a cultivator''s lifespan by about 3000 years. They should be at least of Early Core Stage for the effects to not harm the body."

    "Three thousand years?! Have I heard that right? We are not talking about 3 decades or something?"

    Once more this auctioneer with the evil smirk gave all of them a smile.

    "Of course it is three thousand years, we have already sold all the small common items as a warm up, it wouldn''t be good to hold back all the precious items right?"

    Ryoma''s words and smirk once more made the gathered people sit up straight and get interested. There would be more such exceptional items? This auction turned out to be a lot more impressive than they would have expected.

    "Should we test the potency of the elixir as well?" he asked them again with a smile, causing quite a few of the people who were arguing about the authenticity of the earlier item, to look away awkwardly.

    They tried messing with this auctioneer once before, who would risk it again? If someone would ask them about this auctioneer, they would be confident to say that he definitely had an evil personality.

    It was like a really obvious trap and he just waited for someone to step into it, like a hunter waiting for the prey to come. How could his smile be this scary? He was not even a proper cultivator, right?

    "You fools! How could you waste such a treasure just for some silly test? Even a blind alchemist would see that it is far beyond anything we''ve ever seen. Don''t you see the life force barely contained in the alchemic structure, don''t you see the high spiritual density of the potion?"

    Grandmaster Koda was obviously here as well. He did not expect to be able to buy such a treasure, but he would not let anyone slander such a masterpiece. Even an alchemist master would be easily able to tell that this elixir was exceptional, let alone a grandmaster like himself, or even an alchemy saint.Stolen story; please report.

    Strong alchemists had their own ways to tell if a pill or elixir was fake or truly precious. They didn''t have to do rigorous tests unless they wanted to find out a recipe for it. Finding out what an elixir would do, was easy enough to tell and unless there was some poison well hidden by an expert, making a statement about its function was also possible.

    "Obviously we guarantee the quality of our products. The buyer is welcome to test the product or hire someone to test it if that''s what they would like."

    The first offers for the elixir were quickly surpassed by more offers and more and more spirit stones would soon be available for the pavilion.

    Several more items were being sold, each one more impressive than the other. It was only a matter of time until some of the stronger powers noticed the drain on their resources. Even they didn''t have unlimited amounts of spirit stones after all.

    With the stronger kingdoms around as well, there were more and more situations where a kingdom would snatch away an item from an empire.

    "I offer 8000 spirit stones for this Sun Blaze Sword, don''t bid against it, otherwise our Nishi Empire will ˇ­"

    "Now now, wouldn''t that be kind of a rude thing to say?"

    Ryoma interrupted the Nishi Empire''s envoy from saying any more.

    "Our Earthly Treasures Pavilion has various rules and one of them is that you may not threaten our other guests. Please keep your bids civil and don''t try to use your standing or power here."

    "I didn''t mean it that way." the envoy quickly tried to find some sort of excuse.

    "I''m sure you didn''t mean to threaten anyone and it was just a misunderstanding on my part. We wouldn''t want anyone to be blacklisted from our future auctions or our upcoming portal network."

    Again, Ryoma smirked and the envoy shivered slightly. Something about this place made this auctioneer really scary. What might happen if they actually did break the rules here? Would the Origin Stage cultivator step in?

    With the feeling the envoy currently had, he wouldn''t be surprised if the ground opened up and swallowed all offenders whole. Since when did a normal mortal person scare a Core Stage cultivator in such a way?

    "Portal network?"

    While the envoy was still pale and trying to calm down again, many people wondered what this new information was about. Ryoma though kept this information to himself and continued with the auction and no one dared to interrupt this time.

    -

    "Look look Tora, he''s not shy at all, he''s really skilled handling all their questions and concerns."

    Yui seemed impressed with Ryoma''s skill, while Tora just wondered when the young man had acquired such a sadistic streak, or when Yui gave him access to some of the Pavilion''s functions. Using a targeted fear aura, even if the Earthly Treasures Pavilion provided it, required not just a bit of skill, but most of all a good idea about someone''s mental state.

    Making people run away screaming was easy enough, just turn up the aura force full power and see people run away or faint on the spot. Making things slightly scary on the other hand without causing anyone to notice they were targeted by an ability ˇ­ what did Ryoma do over the past couple of days?

    Were all merchants this scary? Keeping people interested, while at the same time shutting up all those who wanted to cause trouble, with a subtle creepy atmosphere and some sense of danger?

    True, Yui would likely not have the confidence to deal with complaints in front of a crowd and as Tora had mostly been around Ryoma when he was together with Yui or Miyuki she never really noticed this other side.

    "Don''t you think he''s slightly scary? You know, in a scary ''I will empty your coin purse'' kind of way? Like cross me and you will regret it."

    "Scary? No, Ryoma is really nice. Look he even smiles at all of them!"

    "Uh, forget about it." Tora just shook her head and went back to nap. As long as this auctioneer from hell would make them a lot of spirit stones, she wouldn''t bother asking any more about it.

    Yui was obviously blind to this side of him and Miyuki was likely the same.

    "Makes you wonder what his family is like to raise someone like him." she mumbled to herself.

    "I think they tried to kill him." Yui ''helpfully'' provided.

    "They what? Why would they try to kill him?" Now Tora got curious. What type of messed up family was this guy coming from?

    "Not sure. Something about trouble with some treasure or something. I didn''t want to ask too much about it, as Miyuki was around at the time when it came up. Maybe I should at some point." Yui looked as if she wanted to avoid the topic. Asking these kinds of questions was always hard.

    "Is he not your boyfriend? You better ask all about it. It could be important. At least it explains why he was in such a sorry state."

    "Mhm, yes I will do that." Yui nearly added a ''later'' to her words, which would cause Tora to roll her eyes at her again. It was one of her most often used excuse to avoid something she didn''t want to do.

    -

    Kita Ihito looked over the large auction hall and especially the auctioneer with a curious expression. Something seemed to tell him that this person was dangerous.

    He couldn''t really put a finger on what exactly made him think this way, but he always trusted his instincts.

    "Their Empress is great at acting and this auctioneer is just the same. I mean, just look at them, if anyone would tell me that the two young women are anything but an overly nervous and adorable girl and a lazy girl taking a nap, then I wouldn''t ever believe them."

    His captain just nodded in agreement.

    "They are rather strange. Their acting is really top notch as is their ability to hide their cultivation."

    "Yes, I don''t find any cultivation strength from the lazy giˇ­" Ihito shook his head deciding not to give important people any risky nicknames. "From the Empress'' sister. The Empress herself has some odd fluctuating cultivation but I cannot say how strong she really is."

    "Even the auctioneer seems to be a mortal, but I''m sure he has some cultivation, otherwise I wouldn''t feel as if there was some kind of danger coming from him. It''s not easy for anyone to give me a feeling of danger. How strong would he be? Peak Core Stage at the least."

    This whole place was not just odd and impressive, but also made him wonder what this Earthly Treasures Pavilion represented.

    On one hand, he felt welcome and relaxed, the staff and people were all extremely friendly and kind. There seemed to be no discrimination, people were all respectful and even the owner, the Empress, was really nice.

    On the other hand, there was this vague scary feeling of not stepping out of line, like a Damocles sword hanging over your head, or sitting right next to a giant bloodthirsty slumbering beast.

    It would not take much to wake up that beast or have the sword fall down and he really wanted to avoid this part. Ihito much preferred a happy ending for his own life rather than some drama story.

 Discontinued

    Hi all,

    Sorry to say but I will stop with this webnovel here and discontinue it. It got to a point where I realized that the story needs a lot more work with its basics.

    What I planned didn''t work out as intended, didn''t have the impact, or got changed in a way that didn''t make much sense anymore in the long run. I feel sorry that there were quite a few people reading this and hoping for more, but in a way, I feel like I''m at a dead end with the story and the way it can continue would no longer be interesting or lead anywhere.This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Most of all I am no longer having fun writing it and it feels more like a chore having to bring out chapters that feel empty.

    Instead of spending more time on this, I''d rather look into writing something else, either rolling up the story again in a new way, making major changes, or perhaps trying something different.

    I wish you all a great time with your own works and hope at some point I will be able to bring a more polished story out for the readers that did enjoy the few chapters I have written so far.

    All the Best

    Rion