Chapter 26

The market in Tongshan County is divided into the East Market and the West Market.

The East Market mainly deals in furs and medicinal herbs from Tongshan County, occasionally trading in fierce beasts and spirit beasts as well. There are also many shops selling medicinal herbs, equipment, and weapons, making it the most chaotic place in Tongshan County. Most of the visitors are adventurers from outside.

The West Market is primarily set up by mining operations and caters to passing mineral merchants. It also includes ordinary clothing and general merchandise shops, frequented by people of some status.

Adventurers who visit the East Market can directly obtain various supplies and sell items they bring back from the Ten Thousand Demon Ridge at the various shops there.

These items are not necessarily all medicinal herbs or animal skins; some are spoils obtained from robbing other adventurers.

However, the shop owners in the East Market are all backed by powerful supporters, so even the most ruthless adventurers dare not easily provoke them and will only conduct business according to the rules.

After the East Market shops process the fresh animal skins and herbs they purchase, they transport them to other places for sale through their own merchant caravans, naturally making a significant profit from the transactions.

The adventurers are only interested in making money. Unless they encounter extremely valuable treasures, they prefer to sell ordinary items as quickly as possible. Transporting and selling them themselves would be dangerous, and the prices they could get might not be much higher.

The biggest backers of the shops in the East Market are naturally the scholar-gentry families. The Zhu family, to which Zhu Lingwu belongs, is the largest local power in Tongshan County. Zhu Junyan, who serves as the county magistrate, originally came here to represent the family and oversee the area.

The Zhu family, also known as the Chilong Zhu family, is the largest scholar-gentry family in several southwestern prefectures of the Chong'an Kingdom. The ancestral home of the Zhu family, Chilong Prefecture, is adjacent to Yongling Prefecture.

Therefore, the Zhu family has a geographical advantage in Tongshan County and has become the largest behind-the-scenes power. However, to maintain balance, many other scholar-gentry families also have interests in Tongshan County.

Since it is their own territory, when Zhu Lingwu wanted to buy a spirit beast, he naturally went through the shops set up by his family in the East Market.

These shops also serve to issue bounties and place orders for adventurers, hanging signs outside that list what items they are currently purchasing. If an adventurer is willing to take on the order, they can come to the shop to accept it. Some well-known adventurer teams can even receive advance supplies from the shop.

Previously, when Liu Ping bought a tiger for Zhu Lingwu, he placed the order through one of these shops. For ordinary tigers, capturing them is not difficult for adventurers who have at least reached the fourth or fifth level of martial cultivation, so it usually takes only one or two days to catch one.

Unfortunately, capturing spirit beasts is not that easy. It took three months for the bounty to yield any results.

The Zhu family's shop in the East Market of Tongshan County is located at the entrance of the market, with the best location. Just like when we go shopping, the shops at the entrance naturally attract the most customers.

The shop has a large storefront, with a space of about a hundred square meters. The signboard above the shop reads "Chilongzhai" (Chilong Studio).

Zhu Lingwu, after hearing the news from Liangcai in the Tian Tang Pavilion, left the pavilion and rode in a beautifully decorated carriage directly to Chilongzhai.

This shop, in addition to the storefront, has a large courtyard at the back, divided into storage rooms for different furs and herbs. There is also a designated area for keeping live animals, mostly fierce beasts.

As the young master of the shop, Zhu Lingwu did not need to take the normal route. The shop manager was already waiting outside and opened the back gate to welcome Zhu Lingwu's carriage inside.

"Master, I have not failed you. Although they encountered some trouble on their way back, they still brought three spirit beasts. I have already placed them in the secret room at the back. Master, would you like to take a look first?"

The manager, who is about thirty-six or thirty-seven years old, is from a humble background and appears to be a capable person. He is a trusted confidant of the Zhu family branch to which Zhu Lingwu belongs.

"Sure, let's take a look first. What kind of spirit beasts are they, and what are their ranks?" Zhu Lingwu asked directly without much formality.

"They have been evaluated, Master. The best one is a white fox, which has a high-grade water and wood dual spirit vein, but it's a bit of a pity. The other two are black bears: one has a mid-high grade earth and wood dual spirit vein, and the other has a low-high grade earth spirit vein."

The manager led the way while explaining.

The manager knew that Zhu Lingwu was buying the spirit beasts to extract blood for his cultivation, but the white fox would not provide much blood, so its high rank was not very useful. If the high rank were on the black bears, it would be much more beneficial for Zhu Lingwu.

"Oh, the adventurers were originally supposed to catch the two black bears. What about the white fox?" Zhu Lingwu asked casually after a moment's thought.

Spirit beasts come in many varieties. Among them, monkeys and apes are much smarter than other spirit beasts, making them easier to cultivate into demons.

It is said that the demon king in the Ten Thousand Demon Ridge is a monkey demon nearing the transformation stage, with thousands of monkey demons under his command, occupying several mountains and forcing other demons to respect him as king.

Foxes, being similarly intelligent, are also easy to cultivate into fox demons. Experienced adventurers going to the Ten Thousand Demon Ridge usually know to only go to the territories of bears, wild boars, and other demons, rarely provoking monkey or fox demons.

The demons in the Ten Thousand Demon Ridge have their own territories, and while they nominally respect the monkey demon as king, they mostly live their own lives.

This time, the adventurers' target should have been the territory of a low-rank bear demon, where they would catch some young bears with spirit energy.

However, they brought back a white fox, and Zhu Lingwu had a good idea that the trouble they encountered on their way back might be related to this white fox.

"It was a coincidence. On their way back, they encountered a fox demon leading her cubs on a visit. They met on a route that was originally safe. The fox demon attacked them, killing five or six of them. But on their way back, they found this white fox and captured it."

The manager explained simply, but behind his words, there was the blood and tears of the adventurers, which he felt was not necessary to mention to the young master.

Although this white fox could not meet Zhu Lingwu's needs for blood extraction, it was found to have a high-grade innate water spirit vein after evaluation, so the manager still paid for it.

Even if Zhu Lingwu did not need it, it could be sold elsewhere for a good price.

As mentioned earlier, some scholar-gentry families would buy such spirit beasts to cultivate them as family guardian demons, and foxes are easier to raise.

Therefore, a spirit beast like the white fox, with such a high bloodline rank, could fetch a good price anywhere.