Chapter 16

"In the stone cave of the first-floor market, a middle-aged cultivator who looked quite refined, with a bitter face, was haggling with Lin Haoming: 'Senior Brother Lin, if I buy three low-grade Qi Harmonizing Pills at once, can’t you give me a discount? I am also one of your regular customers, just eight spirit stones will do!'

Lin Haoming looked at him and sighed, "Lin Feiyang, Junior Brother Lin, every time you come, you haggle with me. You should know that I am just a proxy. Whatever the senior disciples of the inner sect say, I can only set the price accordingly. I don’t have much room to adjust. The items you are buying don’t even total ten spirit stones, and you want to reduce it by one. What am I supposed to do?"

"Then how about I give you some more waste spirit stones?" Lin Feiyang asked with a smile.

Lin Haoming sighed helplessly, "Junior Brother Lin, every time you come, you always try to add some waste spirit stones as a bonus. Those waste spirit stones combined probably aren’t even worth one Qi Harmonizing Pill. This makes it hard for me!"

"Senior Brother Lin, Shopkeeper Lin, this time it’s different. I’m offering you waste spirit stones of medium grade!" Lin Feiyang said.

"Oh! You have that? I haven’t seen much of it. Fine, since we share the same surname, I’ll take a loss. You give me the waste spirit stones of medium grade, and I’ll charge you eight spirit stones!" Lin Haoming said, seemingly taking a big loss.

"Thank you, Senior Brother Lin!" Hearing Lin Haoming agree, Lin Feiyang was overjoyed. He immediately took out a bag of about thirty to forty waste spirit stones, followed by eight low-grade spirit stones, and received three Qi Harmonizing Pills from Lin Haoming.

"With these three Qi Harmonizing Pills, I have an 80% chance of advancing to the ninth level of the Qi Condensation stage!" Lin Feiyang felt a surge of excitement as he held the pills.

At this moment, Lin Haoming felt a reaction from the Virtue Bead. He carefully examined the golden lines that had become more solid, and a satisfied smile flashed across his lips.

Lin Haoming never expected that being a shopkeeper would have such benefits. Every time someone came to buy something, they tried to haggle. Once, after selling a bottle of pills at a lower price, Lin Haoming discovered that the Virtue Bead reacted, indicating that selling things could also earn virtue, as long as the other person was grateful.

Thus, Lin Haoming began to screen for people who might give him virtue. Whenever these people came, regardless of the size of the transaction, he would haggle with them and then sell the items at a clearly lower price. This way, at least seven or eight out of ten times, he could earn virtue, and the quality of the virtue was not bad. Although it wasn’t as much as when Bao Wenliang was grateful to him, it was still equivalent to killing dozens of mountain armadillos.

The current Lin Feiyang was exactly the kind of person who could provide Lin Haoming with virtue. This guy almost always contributed virtue whenever he came, and what made Lin Haoming even happier was that Lin Feiyang’s job was to collect and manage the waste spirit stone warehouse. Although the warehouse was registered, being inside always had its perks.

After working in the market for more than half a year, Lin Haoming had obtained over a thousand waste spirit stones from him, saving him the trouble of going out to buy them.

This was the first time Lin Haoming had received waste spirit stones of medium grade.

After receiving the items, Lin Haoming immediately ran into his living quarters inside the stone cave.

Apart from the outer hall for selling and the soundproof room, there was also a secret room for meditation and cultivation.

After entering, Lin Haoming eagerly took out the medium-grade spirit stones and placed the Spirit Gathering Bead on them.

As expected, the Spirit Gathering Bead could indeed replenish the spirit energy of medium-grade spirit stones, but since the capacity of medium-grade spirit stones was a hundred times that of low-grade spirit stones, it would take a hundred times longer. However, Lin Haoming still let the Spirit Gathering Bead slowly replenish the spirit energy of these dozens of medium-grade spirit stones. Medium-grade spirit stones had many uses, far more than ordinary low-grade spirit stones. Most importantly, if used to set up a Five Elements Spirit Gathering Array, the effect would be twice as good as using low-grade spirit stones.

Now, with the daily consumption of Qi Harmonizing Pills and the Five Elements Spirit Gathering Array, one day of cultivation was equivalent to a month of ordinary meditation. If he used medium-grade spirit stones for the array, the speed would be even faster. Over the past half year, although he spent a lot of time dealing with people, it was equivalent to ten years of hard cultivation through meditation.

If it were someone else, even with average talent, they could probably advance from the eighth level to the ninth level of the Qi Condensation stage in this amount of time. But Lin Haoming estimated that he would need to spend this much time again to reach the peak of the eighth level.

Sometimes, Lin Haoming felt frustrated about why his body had such poor talent, but thinking that he was the only one with the Virtue Bead, he felt a bit more balanced.

"Where is Lin Haoming! Make him come out!"

Just as Lin Haoming was thinking about how the medium-grade spirit stones would save him two months of cultivation time to reach the ninth level of the Qi Condensation stage, he suddenly heard someone shouting outside.

Lin Haoming immediately put away the Spirit Gathering Bead and the waste spirit stones and walked out. He saw Ling Shengjie angrily pounding on the counter, with Zhou Zhiye standing beside him.

Seeing Zhou Zhiye, Lin Haoming immediately understood that the situation was not good. In fact, just looking at Ling Shengjie’s face was enough to tell.

Ling Shengjie looked at Lin Haoming and sneered, "You are the ninth-generation great-grandson of Senior Ancestor Lin?"

Lin Haoming, feeling the coldness in the eyes of this rich young man, mustered up the courage and said, "Yes, Senior Brother Ling, do you need something from me?"

"Leave here immediately. I’m giving you a chance to live. Otherwise, you die!" Ling Shengjie threatened directly.

Lin Haoming knew that this was not just a casual threat. Given his status, if Ling Shengjie really killed him, no one would care, not even Xie Ruolan.

After he said this, Lin Haoming noticed the smug smile on Zhou Zhiye’s face.

As Lin Haoming had guessed, Zhou Zhiye had always considered Lin Haoming a great humiliation and was determined to tear him to pieces. For the past half year, he had been inquiring about Lin Haoming’s whereabouts everywhere.

Finally, not long ago, he learned that Xie Ruolan, who was now coveted by many wealthy young men in the inner sect, had once been specially chosen by Senior Ancestor Lin to be Lin Haoming’s future dual cultivation partner.

Hearing this news, Zhou Zhiye was overjoyed. He quietly approached Ling Shengjie, the most fanatical pursuer of Xie Ruolan among the inner sect disciples, and revealed this information to him, telling Ling Shengjie that Lin Haoming was now working for Xie Ruolan in the first-floor market.

Ling Shengjie, who could not tolerate any sand in his eyes, let alone Lin Haoming’s former status as Xie Ruolan’s future partner, immediately went to the first floor to confront Lin Haoming after hearing this.

The only good thing for Lin Haoming was that Ling Shengjie was still somewhat worried that if he directly killed this guy, Xie Ruolan might be unhappy, and if someone else took advantage of the situation, it would be bad. So he just wanted Lin Haoming to leave, without directly killing him.

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