Gathering Information

Qing Shan knew who the man in front of him was. At least, he had a vague idea. This was because of the muffled voices and whispers that he heard when he and Mao Xun entered the tavern.

"Oh look, Mao Xun got his hands on another ignorant."

"And it's the same poor bastard who didn't know what a Qi Shard was"

…

These quiet conversations definitely did not give Qing Shan a good impression of Mao Xun. He needed to be cautious.

"I'm Qing Shan."

"Oho, where do you come from Mister Qing?"

Qing Shan most likely wouldn't have noticed the sarcasm and arrogant tone of Mao Xun's voice if he had not heard the people around him, which made these aspects in Mao Xun's voice frighteningly clear. However, he figured that nothing would through the man for more of a loop than him being honest.

Thus, Qing Shan pointed in a general direction with his finger. Up and westward, to be exact.

Seeing this, Mao Xun seemed to be thrown for a loop. But he quickly burst with badly muffled laughter. Not being able to contain himself any longer, he yelled.

"PU-Puhahahah! Ya hear that everybody? We've got a Highlander among us!"

Everyone burst out laughing again. Qing Shan wanted to ask what a Highlander was, but he shut his mouth after remembering last time.

'It's probably just some local slang…"

Mao Xun looked at Qing Shan, an interesting expression plastered on his face. He had been waiting to see Qing Shan's reaction to the laughs filling the tavern, but Qing Shan looked as clam as water on a day without wind or rain. In fact, it looked as though his face was made of. Stone.

'That is… unique.'

Mao Xun had dealt with Highlanders before. Usually they would burst in anger or bow their heads, but the man in front of him was different. Except, earlier the man who called himself Qing Shan had acted exactly as he predicted when talking to the barkeep. Just by reading the young man's face, he had garnered a lot of information from him. At first glance he could tell that Qing Shan was impulsive and not good dealing with pent-up rage. He also had figured out that Qing Shan was either extremely poor, or he did not even come from this Empire.

However, the Qing Shan now was like an entirely different person.

'Why does he have his guard up?'

Mao Xun quickly realized that he may have caused too much of a commotion when he brought Qing Shan back into the bar. After all, he was famous around town. Most people called him a Fox, but he had other nicknames such as $%^, ^(^&*%, *&*^, and more. However, his favorite nickname was The Breaker. He felt that that name suited him the best.

Once he sat back down after failing to get a rise out of Qing Shan, he simply stared into the youth's eyes, silently telling him to go first. Unfortunately, after meeting Qing Shan's no-nonsense stare, he ended up yielding first.

"Eh lad, I promise I tell you what you want to know once you give me back what you took."

Qing Shan again held up the Qi Shard between his fingers. He heard a gasp behind him but ignored it, fully focused on the cunning man called Mao Xun in front of him.

"Sorry, but you won't be getting this back until after I her what I want to hear. If you'd like, you can ask me what ever you want and we can treat this as an information trade. I am sure you would not mind that, right?"

Seeing that he could not win, and giving up any thoughts of grabbing the Shard form Qing Shan's hand due to the boy's earlier dexterity, Mao Xun nodded his head.

"First things first. My master forgot to teach me anything about the world because we were somewhat hard-pressed for time. Thus, I am unaware of the most important information that you would consider to be commonly known down here. So let's start with the most essential thing. Money."

"Money?"

"Yes that's right. I want to know how your currency works, the average cost of daily essentials, and most importantly, way to make money fast."

Figuring that he could no longer take a head-on approach with his 'handling' of the boy in front of him, Mao Xun decided to yield. For now.

"The currency in the Huo Dynasty is focused around crystalized Qi. There are three different categories of currency. There are: Qi Shards, Qi Orbs, and Qi Cubes. There are five different qualities of crystalized Qi. There is: Barren quality, Lesser quality, Sufficient quality, Greater quality, and Pinnacle quality. A Qi Cube is worth one hundred Qi Orbs. Likewise, Qi Orbs are worth one hundred Qi Shards. However, each quality of crystalized Qi is much better than the quality before it. Basically, one Lesser Qi Shard is worth ten Barren Qi Cubes, or one thousand Barren Qi Shards. Again, this is the same as the quality increases. A Sufficient Qi shard is worth ten Lesser Qi Cubes, etcetera etcetera…"

*Sigh*

Qing Shan noticed that Mao Xun seemed to have a very large interest in money. While he was subdued talking to Qing Shan earlier, the moment that he started talking about money he started to breath faster, a clear blush of excitement on his face. Qing Shan's suspicion that Mao Xun was obsessed with money was confirmed when the older man started to talk really fast, not taking a breath while he talked. Luckily, unlike the people in the tavern who were unable to understand Mao Xun due to his talking speed, Qing Shan understood perfectly due to his speed of thought.

'Master Liu was right again. This ability of mine really helps when talking to people. I have time to think, and I can even fully understand the rapid speech of crazies like this man.'

Once Mao Xun had calmed down, Qing Shan began to talk again.

"Alright, I understand. Now tell me about the wealth of the people in the city, and how I can earn money."

Seemingly surprised that Qing Shan had understood his crazed talking about money, Mao Xun took longer than expected to open his mouth. However, this time, there was only seriousness in his eyes. It seemed that he was not going to verbally rapid-fire Qing Shan full of information again.

"Ah, how to explain it… Well, I'll start with the richest person in the city. The richest man in the city is most likely not the Rising Sun Clan head. Actually, I am almost certain that the richest man in the city is the owner of the only Market in the entire city. If I had to guess, he should have about two and a half Lesser Qi Cubes stored away somewhere. Maybe more.

"The average wealth of the city is actually quite simple. It is rare for a family to have any more than two Barren Qi Orbs to their name unless they are affiliated with the Rising Sun Clan. If they are affiliated, then their wealth should range between ten Lesser Qi Shards to one Lesser Orb. That is pretty much the best explanation I can give."

"Hmm."

Qing Shan seemed to be thinking, so Mao Xun asked to answer his last money question.

"Ah, yes. You wanted to know how to make money fast. We–"

Qing Shan cut him off.

"You can tell me about that later. What is this Rising Sun Clan you keep talking about?"

A grave look appeared on Mao Xun's face, and he started too look much more serious.

"The Rising Sun Clan is the ruler of Rising sun city. They are a clan full of cultivators, and pretty good ones at that. There are even rumors that their clan master recently broke into the Divine Origin realm. Honestly, I have no clue why those arrogant pricks haven't shifted their who clan down yet."

Qing Shan picked something out based on Mao Xun's envious tone of voice.

"Down?"

Mao Xun shook, and his drunken tone started to instantly sober up. Mao Xun was already on his fifth mug of liqueur.

"…Don't ask. Actually, forget you heard what I just said. Never mind. I don't think that I said anything, right buddy?"

Mao Xun's words shifted to ones that would normally sound like playful words, but at that moment Qing Shan felt like he would definitely regret pushing the matter further.

"Now, can you give me back my Lesser Qi Shard?"

Not really listening to Mao Xun, Qing Shan flipped the shard toward the older man, who yelled one more thing at Qing Shan's receding back.

"If you are looking for work meet me at the city square tomorrow at noon!"

Actually acknowledging Mao Xun, Qing Shan raised a hand. Seeing this, Mao Xun sighed. He could not help but feel that there was something different about the boy. For instance, he felt that Qing Shan seemed much older than he really was, but he did not think this was due to any youth preservation methods that some of the more famous sects could find. In fact, he had noticed that Qing Shan was actually only a 1st level Formation Soul cultivator.

No matter how much he pondered, Mao Xun would never guess that Qing Shan's mental age was higher that his own physical age.

As Qing Shan left the tavern, he instantly lost himself in thought. He tried not to think about Mao Xun's apparent slip of tongue, as it was definitely not anything he should be worrying about at the moment. Instead, Qing Shan was trying to process all of the information that he got from Mao Xun. Most importantly, Qing Shan was setting up a plan based off of this information.

'My first goal is money. Mao Xun said that if I meet him tomorrow I can earn some, but I have no clue what that sly bastard's thinking. Worse comes to worse, I can look for a job at the Market that Mao Xun mentioned. I have a few skills from the village that most likely haven't dulled, so I may get hired.'

Qing Shan had a few more goals in mind, but he was determined not to multitask. Doing multiple things at once would only make each thing last longer.

This in mind, Qing Shan wondered the streets, an innocent boy based on outside appearance was laughing in his mind as he thought of a few things that he wanted to do in the future. No, things that he needed to do in the future.

Qing Shan fell asleep quite easily, even though he was lying on hard ground inside of a dumpy alleyway. He was used to sleeping on the ground now, and had no problem falling asleep as long as he was on a flat surface.

When Qing Shan woke up he noticed that he had slept well into the morning. HE had slept to such a point that the sun was already high in the sky. This was abnormal because Qing Shan would normally rise with the sun every morning.

'Man, A bed would be amazing right now.'

Qing Shan had this small though while he started walking in the general direction of the city square. From the position of the sun, it should be about an hour before midday already.

Once he arrived at the central square, Qing Shan was surprised. Even in the tavern last night he had never seen so many people gathered in one place. People were bustling around every corner, and there was no clear space more than a meter wide.

Qing Shan soon found out the reason for this. Just off the left side of the central area of the city there was a large open building. It was shaped like a box and had an open roof. Moreover, Qing Shan noticed that the crowd was literally flooding toward the building.

Once the crowd had pushed him closer to the large structure he finally saw a familiar face.

Mao Xun was sitting at the entryway to the building and people were handing him something as they walked passed. After he got even closer, he finally realized what the objects being handed to Mao Xun were.

Half Qi Shards!

This was the lowest form of currency that could be used. As Barren Qi Shards possessed little to no Qi energy in them, they were quite easy to cut. Actually, even a dull spreading knife could be used to cut a Barren Qi shard. According to Mao Xun, paying someone a Half Qi Shard was basically paying them nothing. Actually, even though they had the word 'half' in their name, Half Shards could barely even equal a third of a normal Barren Qi Shard.

However, Qing Shan was somewhat jealous of Mao Xun's position at the moment. People where unhesitatingly handing money to him!

When Qing Shan finally arrived right in front of Mao Xun, he was not even noticed. Mao Xun just brushed him off.

"Just put in the money and you can go on through. If you don't have any you can leave."

People in line behind Qing Shan started to get angry too. It was quite clear that they were very anxious to get into the structure ahead.

"I can't believe this. Did you already forget the kind young man who you got drunk with las night?"

Hearing Qing Shan's voice, Mao Xun abruptly looked up. He had not expected Qing Shan to arrive so early. They were not supposed to meet until another three quarter hours had passed.

"Haha! How could I forget."

Qing Shan noticed that Mao Xun's voice seemed strained when he spoke that last part.

Meanwhile, Mao Xun noticed the people behind Qing Shan growing restless. It did not even take someone as skilled as he was at reading the room to know that these people were annoyed. Thus, he grabbed Qing Shan and pulled him to the side, resuming the bustle of the line.

Mao Xun then turned his head to the side, looking for someone. When he spotted who he was looking for he shouted.

"Song Chang! Come over here."

A short, plump looking man ran over as fast as his legs would take him.

"This is the newbie I was talking about. Take him over to get ready."

As Qing Shan had no clue what the two men were talking about, he threw out a question.

"Get ready for what? You said I would be making money."

"Yes, yes. I did indeed say that. But you see, whether or not you earn money depend on you. After all, I have never seen you fight, so I have no guarantees."

"You are making me fight for money?"

"I never said you had to do it, but I'll have you know that those who do well definitely make money fast, just like you said you wanted."

Qing Shan was sold.

"Of course I want to! I just had to ask because I thought that I'd need to do something harder than fighting to earn money."

Qing Shan walked away with Song Chang, who was scurrying to get ahead of Qing Shan, who had no clue that he had actually left Mao Xun flustered.

"P-Pardon?"