Compared to Xie Ruolan, the woman before him lacked a bit of Ruolan's wild confidence, possessing instead the refined aura of a daughter from a prestigious clan. Her background was clearly anything but ordinary.
Lin Haoming didn't dare entertain any stray thoughts, however. He quickly sensed the depth of her cultivation—while he couldn't see her exact level, he estimated she was at least in the late stage of Foundation Establishment. They weren't even in the same league.
"Activate the restrictions. Wait at the door!" the woman suddenly spoke. Her voice was like a secluded orchid in a valley—beautiful, but strikingly devoid of human warmth.
"Yes!" the petite girl replied instantly, closing the door and activating the room's defensive formations.
Lin glanced at the shimmering array before the woman spoke again in her flat, melodic tone. "Come, Fellow Daoist. State what you need."
Feeling the pressure of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, Lin took a deep breath and sat at the table. The woman habitually poured him a cup of spiritual tea, her face expressionless. "My surname is Qin. Speak quickly."
Lin realized her coldness wasn't because of his low cultivation; she simply radiated a natural, icy detachment. Drinking the fragrant tea to steady his nerves, he finally spoke: "I need talismans. Ideally, ones with great power."
"You are only a Qi Refining cultivator; high-grade talismans are unusable for you," she replied tonelessly. "I have a few Talisman Treasures. Do you want them?"
---
The Price of Power
Lin had visited the Treasure Pavilion with Ancestor Lin many times, but even the Golden Core elders there were more conversational than this woman. This didn't feel like a business transaction; if they weren't in the Pavilion, he'd think she wasn't a merchant at all.
However, a Talisman Treasure was a true prize. They were created by deconstructing a Golden Core cultivator's magic treasure. The power was immense, but so was the price.
"How many spirit stones for a Talisman Treasure?" Lin asked tentatively.
Qin Aorou remained indifferent. "The price depends on the original treasure's power and how many fragments it was divided into. If you want an offensive type, I have a Heaven-Shaking Hammer fragment—one of four—for only twenty-five thousand spirit stones."
Lin was stunned. Only twenty-five thousand? He looked at her eyes to see if she was mocking him, but she seemed perfectly serious. Did she really not understand that a Qi Refining disciple couldn't possibly have that much money?
"Senior Qin, that is a bit... expensive," Lin coughed. "What is your cheapest offensive Talisman Treasure?"
"The cheapest?" Qin Aorou seemed unable to remember. She tapped her storage bag, pulled out a jade slip, and immersed her divine sense into it to check her own inventory. Lin was speechless—she didn't even know what she was selling.
After a long pause, she found it. "An Axe of Mountain Splitting. Divided into ten fragments. Only seven thousand spirit stones."
Lin knew that a magic treasure could be divided into at least three and at most ten fragments to create Talisman Treasures. Looking at his savings, he had five thousand six hundred stones—still fourteen hundred short. But he desperately needed an offensive trump card; his Five Elements Swords were too distinctive and might mark him as a target.
He glanced at the loot Xie Ruolan had left him to sell and smiled wryly. "Senior Qin, I'm a bit short on stones. I wonder if..."
"The Treasure Pavilion does not do credit. If you lack the stones, please leave," Qin Aorou interrupted, making a gesture toward the door.
Lin was flabbergasted. If everyone in the Treasure Pavilion did business like this, they'd go bankrupt in a week. "That's not what I meant! Do you accept magic tools as trade-ins?"
"We do. But we only buy back at seventy percent of the market price," she said tonelessly.
What a rip-off, Lin thought. No wonder Xie Ruolan sold her loot outside. But with no other choice, he laid out seven or eight magic tools. What followed was even more agonizing: Qin Aorou didn't know the prices and had to check her jade slip for every single item, taking fifteen minutes just to finalize the math.
---
The Mysterious Heiress
Once the trade was settled, Qin Aorou wrote a slip and placed it on the table. The table glowed, and the slip vanished. Moments later, a flash of light brought a purple talisman etched with a small axe.
"Fellow Daoist, your Axe of Mountain Splitting. Do you need anything else?"
"No, thank you, Senior," Lin sighed, taking the talisman. "I'll return if I have further needs."
"Fine. I won't see you out." With a wave of her hand, the door and restrictions opened simultaneously. Lin left the room feeling entirely dazed.
As he descended the stairs, a white-haired old man flickered into Qin Aorou's room. "Eldest Miss! You've been here nearly a month and finally made a sale! The Master will be so pleased."
Qin Aorou looked at the old man—a Peak Golden Core cultivator—and remained icy. "Thank you for the concern, Elder Lu. Since I've made a sale, I wish to cultivate for a while. Come back next month."
The old man sighed. As the Eldest Miss of the Treasure Pavilion, her lack of business sense and chilling personality were a worry. It was likely due to her cultivation technique, but how could she lead the Pavilion like this? Perhaps we just need to find her a husband who understands management, he thought.
He didn't think much of the sloppy Lin Haoming who had just left. He had specifically sent a Qi Refining junior to her today just to let her practice selling. Lin's simple disguise of looking disheveled was actually quite effective in the cultivation world, where over-elaborate illusions were often easier to spot.