Until next time

It took a couple minutes for them to reach a one storey building with a sign that said 'We Got That Flora'. According to Alice, this place had the best selection of mutated flora despite its humble appearance.

"Coin Storm sells herbs too but the selection is rather random," Alice added.

"I see. Let's enter."

Even before entering the shop, it was easy to smell the several plants that were inside. Walking into the establishment gave view to a wide array of plants with various colours, smells and forms. Each plant species had its own area like in a greenhouse and there were even labels for the plants.

Only now could Shui tell that inside the store was much larger than the exterior suggested. It wasn't as gigantic as the Primordial Library, but it was at least on the same level of space that his clan occupied. Matching the atmosphere of the store, there weren't many customers but all of them quietly exuded a high-class aura.

"Do you know what you're looking for or should I help?"

Unknown to Shui, Alice was feeling slightly insecure after having to rely on someone younger than her, and so she was planning on showing off her 'older sister' vibe to gain a higher position in Shui's mind. Unfortunately for her, Shui was never one to come unprepared.

"It's okay."

With the enormous database that was the Primordial Library, how could he come without having memorized the requisite information? His trip this time was to get a set of herbs to aid with his body cultivation and he was confident that he could find them based on their visual and olfactory characteristics.

Similar to soul cultivation, body cultivation also had three stages but with nine stars instead of six. First was the saint body, when one reached the peak of this stage it would be possible to shatter mountains and walk on the ocean floor, so naturally it would take special methods to achieve such strength. Merely jogging and push-ups wouldn't be enough to reach even one-star saint body.

Though he was restricted from learning any cultivation method until he reached Soul Realm, Shui had enough resources to further his path until then but only in energy cultivation. For all cultivation systems, there were resources that could be used as support due to their characteristics. The resources to improve his soul cultivation were on a different level in rarity and cost, but body cultivation resources weren't that hard to get, in the beginning anyways. While reading, he had found a prescription to dig out his body's potential, and by doing so he would have the opportunity to attain one-star saint body.

Much to Alice's disappointment and Yur's surprise, Shui was easily able to pick out the herbs he needed. From Alice's perspective, though she would have preferred if he was clueless, it was nothing abnormal for him to know such basic herbs and they were close to the entrance so it wasn't hard to find them. Yur on the other hand, knew the state of their clan as well as Shui's situation. Though there were a few alchemists and apothecaries in the clan, all of them were stuck-up and would never agree to teach someone publicly labelled as a 'bastard child'. Furthermore, though Shui was a frequent visitor of the library, only books about normal herbs would be in there.

Of course, since this wasn't the only odd thing about his junior, Yur was able to put the subject to the back of his mind.

Shui spent a few minutes searching for five plants, so there was only one left. The rarer the plant, the farther away it was from the entrance, but since all the herbs he needed were of common-grade he didn't have to walk far to find all of them. Mutated flora was ranked in grades starting from common and then going to rare, treasure, miracle and panacea. The grades were based on the age of the herb with common-grade being below 100 years and rare-grade being below 500 years.

Though Yur had noticed one odd point about Shui's ability, he had completely missed another. Mutated flora were different from normal plants, down to the way they were harvested. As someone from a major-level force, Alice thought it to be natural to know something like how to pick herbs, but such knowledge was not prevalent in the clan.

Generally, to harvest common-grade mutated flora one had to cover the hand with nature energy and gently pluck the plant from where the stem reached the ground. Additionally, the nature energy covering the hand had to be completely stable or else the plant would be damaged. However, even though Shui had never harvested mutated flora before, his level of control over nature energy was more than enough to complete the task. The thin film of nature energy on his hand was so perfectly controlled that Yur didn't even sense it.

The final herb on his list was Blue Spider Lily. The moment he found the area marked off for it, he instantly ranked it the best view he had seen since entering the store. The flowers were blue and white and when gathered together produced a breath-taking natural painting. The view was so good he almost considered buying enough to make his own garden but quickly changed his mind.

'I don't have a good enough place to put it.'

Mutated flora weren't like regular plants, they were much more high maintenance, so normal soil wouldn't be good enough to grow them.

While slightly disappointed, Shui reached for one of the spider lilies.

"You, peasant, give that flower to me."

Coming towards the three of them was a group of three women and one young man. The young man's attire screamed 'show-off' along with three loose looking women in clothes that were more suited to a bedroom than on the streets. Well, the public streets anyway. When the man spotted them, he looked pleased at Alice, thinking he might have picked up an unexpected prize.

In his eyes, the three were a girl from a merchant family and her two servants, and from appearance alone he wasn't far off. Though Shui and Yur weren't dressed poorly, their clothes were very plain and cheap. Though the fur coat Shui had on seemed nice, the young man only thought Alice was fond of her servant, again, not completely off. He also sensed that Yur was in the third level in the Soul Realm, but he was in the fifth level. And so, with his close yet very wrong assessment, he swaggered up to them.

Although he heard the voice, Shui ignored him, plucked two blue spider lilies and got ready to check out.

"Hey, I'm talking to you brat!"

Shui was planning on continuing to ignore the young man and Yur supported this decision as well, but he wouldn't allow them to do so. The young man shot a bolt of his nature energy right in front of Shui. Though nature energy normally didn't have any destructive power, that changed once it was under someone's control. This attack was actually supposed to gravely wound Shui, but he had already detected the young man charging his energy and so took a step back. Once he was exposed to killing intent, Shui finally turned his head towards the man.

The nature energy shot out might have caused cracks to appear on the ground, but he wasn't scared. Because of the young man's action, he could feel the ones protecting Alice release their auras and the staff of the store rushing to the spot.

By now, the man knew he had messed up. The staff, he could placate with money. The other auras pressuring him however, he had no idea.

"What, who are you?!"

He shouted but received no response. Still, he knew if he made one more wrong move, his life would end. Seeing the young man finally learn his place, Shui, Yur and Alice all showed mocking smiles before leaving him, completely ignoring the screams of pain that they heard afterward.

After an extra purchase, Shui had finished his shopping with fifty-six gold remaining. It would be troublesome to hold the herbs so they put it into a special-rank bag artifact he got from Alice, with the ability to preserve material, and gave it to Yur to hold. When he was finished, there wasn't a lot of time left before noon, so they went to the gate to meet Bartos.

As Alice and Shui said their farewells, she took out a shiny bronze bracelet cuff with a red crystal.

"Take this."

"What is it?"

"I won't force you to come visit during winter, but we should at least talk. This is a communication terminal that's linked up with mine. You can send nature energy into it and it'll create a connection for the two of us to talk. I only have this supreme special-rank one so we won't be able to see each other, but the range should be enough."

Shui knew about this artifact because he had wanted to experiment with one, though he obviously couldn't do that with the one he received. Buying one would be nice, but they weren't sold in Cyrus. The artifact worked in a set of two, when nature energy was entered into one, it would broadcast a unique energy signal to the other that allowed an audio connection to be formed. As soon as he read how it worked, Shui had wanted to test whether it would be possible for a cultivator to emit a similar signal independently.

With the communication terminal in hand, Shui looked into Alice's eyes with a slight blush.

"Okay. I'll try to talk to you as much as possible."

In response, Alice revealed a gentle smile and laid her hand on Shui's head, then slid her hand down to his cheek.

"I look forward to it."

When she took her hand back and waved him goodbye, Shui was so embarrassed and reserved that he couldn't even look at her face anymore. Only when their carriage had exited the city did he look back.

'Spring. I'll be back.'

While watching him stare at the city in the distance, Bartos grimaced.

'I wonder if they're gonna hate me for this.'