Chương 19: Shopkeeper Ostra

Rowan Rowan held the spirit stones against the blood red gem that contained the unknown consciousness. Luckily, it only took six spirit stones for the flicker of light in the stone to grow, spreading like veins through the rock. Only six. Only three month's salary for a skilled artisan of qi artifacts. He huffed sarcastically. If he had access to his father's fortune, if it was still there, then maybe he wouldn't feel so aggrieved. Even if he still wouldn't be throwing around money like Blaise had.

He thought of the casual way she grabbed fistfuls of spirit stones and dropped them onto the floor, as if they had no value at all. But maybe he could have had a taste of Ash's lifestyle. Lavish meals at restaurants, and expensive accessories.

"Whining does not befit a young master," the bloodstone said, his voice low and echoing. There was the distant sound of splintering. Little cracks began to show up on the walls, on the windows. Light began to peek through openings in the ground that didn't exist. The colors around him dissolved, like paint dropped into water, and splashed everywhere. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, they shattered like pottery onto the ground. Rowan sat back on his bed, alarmed, but there wasn't a bed there anymore.

He landed on marshy, wet ground, with ferns that tickled his arms as he fell. The sky took on many shades of brown - all sickly - and held a small black moon. But there was light all the same. Veins of qi wound through the sky like currents of fool's gold. They cast the world in a pallid yellow glow. The marsh plants were old and decayed and dry, despite the wet ground. There was no birdsong, no buzz of insects. The horizon stretched as far as the eye could see and there was nothing.

Nothing, nothing, nothing, but a square wooden cabin in front of him.

"Ostra's Antiquities," read Rowan, from the sign planted out in front, whose post had trampled a marsh plant. The door was open.

"Come in, come in, come in," came a harried voice from beyond the door. The man had black and white hair which stuck up like he'd been electrified, and he wore a thick, leather apron that was buckled in front. Cracked goggles adorned his forehead. The man looked incredibly nervous, staring at the plants, and at the sky, before he ducked back into the store, closing the door to a crack. Rowan stared at the door, stupefied. This couldn't be the senior in the stone… could it?

He had been picturing an immortal, with sweeping white robes, the dignified beard of a scholar, and no patience for the younger generation. The man here was but a shopkeeper with a nervous disorder. Whether he is the senior or not, I better not offend him. They clearly have some connection. Rowan picked himself up and brushed at the patch of swampy dampness on his robes before entering the shop. It didn't go away. The shop was far larger inside than its appearance suggested. A desk sat in the middle of the room.

Bookshelves lined the walls on all sides, towering with thousands of manuscripts, tomes, and scrolls. Light brown moths fluttered here and there, constantly in motion, spiraling through beams of light that had no source.

"Please close the door behind you. The outside air is not good for these old pages." Rowan did. The door slammed shut with a surprising bang. The shopkeeper stood on a ladder, frantically dusting the books as though a single mote of dust might ruin them. Rowan inched up closer to the desk, mesmerized as he glanced around. Shelves and shelves stretched out past the eye could see, interspersed with displays of curious mechanical devices which thrummed with qi behind glass cases. Real glass - clear in color.

Beyond the glass displays and the sheepskin-bound tomes were scrolls of papyrus and slips of faded jade. Comparing this place to the Lower Library would be like comparing a phoenix to a chicken. He doubted there was such a magnificent collection in the entire state. Or even the continent. Rowan had to force himself to not get too excited. It could all be an illusion, or a painted background.

"It is my job to preserve knowledge for future eras," the shopkeeper muttered to himself.

"Ostra."

"Ostra?"

"Yes, but you may refer to me as Shopkeeper." He climbed down from the ladder to stand in front of the desk.

"I do not accept taels or spirits stones in exchange for manuals. Only the souls of demonic cultivators." The shopkeeper handed him a book.

"Here. I will accept the death of the evil-doers tallied here for store credit." Rowan cautiously opened the Tally Book, turning page after page. Tally Book (Qi Condensation): First State of Kyrr. Long lists of names met his eye. Little lines were marked next to each demonic cultivator. Tallies. Frozen Demon Scholar. Two tally marks. Coldfree Springs. Early-stage Qi Condensation. Store Credit: 10"What are these tallies for?"

"Every mark is a thousand mortals killed. This book doesn't contain all the demonic cultivators I'm aware of in this state, only the most prolific."

"How do you know how many people they've killed?" Rowan muttered, morbidly curious. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

"Souls have weight," said Ostra, fiddling with his hands. Rowan flipped through the book, looking for the name of a certain demonic cultivator.

"Any members of the Bellacanicus Clan?"

"Hundreds." Rowan continued to flip through, trying to find Blaise but unable to.

"Where are they?"

"How many of them do you believe are around here? And of the ones who are, who amongst them are within your ability to kill? I'm not trying to send you off to your death," said the man, sweat dripping from his eyes, his lip quivering. He flipped through the pages until he found a familiar location. The Red Groom. A single red tally mark. Righteous Mountain City. Peak of Qi Condensation. Store Credit: 70 A sinking feeling curdled low in the pit of his stomach.

"What does a red tally mean?"

"You know what it means."

"An order of magnitude higher?" guessed Rowan.

"As heavy as ten thousand lives," muttered Ostra. There were a few more demonic cultivators mentioned in Righteous Mountain, but they had only earned one black tally mark or a fraction of a tally mark. The Red Groom had ten thousand mortals to his name. Did Rowan's home really harbor such an evil man? Rowan didn't even recognize his title. Did the Alliance of Earthly Harmony know of him? The Dao Court? Even if he didn't personally kill him and get store credit, this demonic cultivator had to die.

"Since you happen to be a new customer, I can give you a few pointers about what manuals you should target," said the Shopkeeper. He examined Rowan.

"What do you know of the Law of Averages?"

"Averages?"

"It is a trick of arithmantics, a way to evaluate the structure of scriptures and sutras," said Ostra.

"You can take certain portions of it and divide it amongst itself to receive certain numerical results. That is how a cultivator of high standing knows immediately if something is within the bounds of their cultivation. The Great Vehicle that Crosses the Sky? Eight. The Fourteen Whispers? Three. The Burning Sands? Four. With just the quickest opportunity to stare at these legendary scriptures, I knew that I could commit them to memory but to never allow them to enter my cultivation. Those are not numbers for me."

Rowan nodded along. He had never heard of anything like this before.

"With your physique, you have five numbers available to you."

"Five?"

"That is three more than most. They are the Orthodox Five, as well. Fire in Yang. Metal in Yin. Wood in Yang. Water in Yin. Neutral Earth. This is known in the modern day as a Five Element Physique. Some might even call it a Five Element Supreme Body. In a more civilized realm this might even be known as the Five-Spoke Wheel of Heaven. But the older Immortals know it as The Righteous Dao." Before Rowan could get too excited, Ostra said something that splashed cold water onto him.

"All precious things have steep prices," he said.

"Your peers will be able to ascend through the ranks of Qi Condensation with a few spirit stones here and there. But you? You'll need many treasures." Ostra sighed.

"But… if you manage it, there's no telling what your ceiling is." Money. It always came down to money, didn't it? Rowan felt a little nervous at the thought of his future cultivation, but more than that, a heady sense of excitement and anticipation.

"Your body's greatest strength is reinforcement. Your gains in body cultivation can increase your spellpower, and your Divine Sense will light unseen paths, but your cultivation will always carry the question of accumulation with it. It will always ask for you to search for places with more qi, to discover new experiences, fight stronger rivals, to find crueler enemies." Ostra stepped into the mire of shelves and all Rowan could hear was the echo of footsteps.

There was a pause and the scratch of paper on paper, followed by a litany of tired sounding clinks.

"The Righteous Dao comes with a boon that cannot be bought." That was one of the names for Rowan's Five Element Physique - clearly the one that Ostra preferred.

"It allows you to cultivate many paths. But this boon is also an obligation. You must choose."

"Choose an element to cultivate? Shouldn't I be cultivating something that won't limit my cultivation, like the Breath of the Five Elements?"

"That can only last until you decide to cultivate a scripture of a specific type."

"And what if I were to cultivate a scripture of each element?"

"You should cultivate scriptures of many elements, young man. But unless you can read them simultaneously, and cultivate them all at once, I'm afraid one will still come first." Rowan understood.

"I'm a Helsing," he said.

"I was told Wood scriptures were best for killing demons and fighting demonic cultivators. It will be Wood."

"Wood scriptures are quite rare, and difficult to understand."

"I'll have to try my best, then." The clinking continued in the shelves. Then, Ostra reemerged, holding a chipped yellowing jade slip.

"I suppose I can give you something to start out with. You received eight hundred store credits for killing Lieren Nostraga, a Core Formation demonic expert. This will cost all of your points."

"Lieren Nostraga?" Rowan thought of that terrifying cultivator who had slaughtered his sectmates. Who his mother had given her life to kill, somehow. He took the slip. A cursory extension of his qi revealed the manual's name. Ensouled in Wood. From a glance, he was sure it was higher than rank two. That was already a good sign.

"Where does the scripture rank?"

"Six," said Ostra. Rowan was sure he'd misheard. Did Ostra mean that this was the sixth best thing he had for Rowan to buy? Were there six more parts he'd have to purchase to complete it?

"Sorry, Shopkeeper, what did you mean by six?" Ostra nodded, shrugging uncomfortably.

"Rank six." Rowan's mind blanked. He had never even heard of a rank six scripture. This was greater than the endowment of the Heavenly Skies Sect. This was greater than the secrets of the Moving Schools of Platform City. This was greater than the scriptures cultivated by the princes in the Capital, where the rivers met. This was something that even a Nascent Soul cultivator would die for. His fingers shook, suddenly fearful. This was an extremely precious scripture. What if he dropped it?

What if anyone found out about this? They would murder him with no hesitation and steal it for themselves. His unique physique was one thing - he would have to be more wary of possession attempts - but this? Anyone with eyes could try and use this.

"You should remain calm," said the most nervous man Rowan had ever met.

"Believe in yourself." Rowan didn't believe him.

"You also have a Forgegod Spirit Root, the premiere Spirit Root for body cultivation. It would be a shame if you dismissed it entirely for flashy spells, so you should pick up a few basic things from your sect too," the man said.

"Remember, even dry and dead streambeds are just waiting for the waters of enlightenment to launch beached ships. Don't neglect any aspect of cultivation. Your spiritual arts, your body, your Divine Sense."

"I won't, senior," said Rowan. The man gave him a crooked smile. Suddenly, cracks ran through the shop, and the scene shattered. He was back in his dorm, clutching the bloodstone. In his other hand, sitting innocently, was the yellowing cracked jade slip, the most precious thing on the peninsula. His eyes flashed. The tournament was in a month. If he wanted any chance of winning, he needed to start practicing! And… he would need a sword.