861 Lack of Ingredients

Alex entered the book store that glowed with warm orange light and looked around.

While they called it a bookstore, it seemed the people here sold information on talismans more than anything. Nearly 70% of everything they sold here was on talismans.

Whisker turned around and helped him locate a staff member who was free. Alex approached the young woman.

"Hello, may I trouble you in helping me find some books of a few information I want?" he asked.

"Ah, yes. What are you looking for?" she asked respectfully, but her eyes moved rapidly trying to understand how he was possibly looking at her.

"Well, I'm just trying to learn about the continent. Do you have anything for that?" Alex asked.

"Hmm, let me see," the woman turned around and looked for a few things. She picked up a book or two and a few talismans. She looked around for a bit and returned when she didn't find anything else.

"I got a few here," she said and pointed to the books in front of her.

Alex looked at the book and read their titles. History of the Northern Continent, and Many sects of the Northern Continent.

"Oh, that's good," Alex said softly under his breath. Learning about the history of the continent and sects was rather important in his eyes.

"What are the talismans about?" He asked.

"Oh, this one had some general overview on the political structure of the continent. Nothing big mind you, or very accurate. This one lists a bunch of places around the continent that are considered the 9 wonders of the Northern continent, and this one is a thorough map of the continent," she said.

"Ooh, a map. That's helpful," Alex said and nodded to himself. "I will take them all. Also, do you have information about umm… the runes that came out about a dozen years ago?"

"Ah, the scripts? Yeah, we have that information. Do you want a design or…?" the girl asked.

"A few designs yes, but mostly how scripting works in general. I want information on that itself," he asked.

"Okay," the girl went and returned quite quickly this time around. "This one is about making a lantern, this one is for strengthening a house. This one is for releasing heat."

"And this is the one that explains how you can do it all," she said.

"Thank you," Alex said and looked at the talismans and books in front of him. 'Hmm, what do I need next?'

SQUEAK~! SQUEAK~!

Whisker cried out from his chest, reminding him that he needs something too.

"Ah right," Alex looked at the woman. "You sell techniques, right? Do you have ones for beasts?"

The woman began showing him what she had, and Alex bought a few that matched both Pearl's and Whisker's spiritual roots.

He was made to pay about 53 True Spirit stones for everything, which he paid more than gladly.

Alex left the bookstore and moved toward the other parts of town. He next entered a formation store and bought a few materials for True rank formations, and even some Saint rank formations which he should start practicing once he entered the Saint realm.

After that was a Talisman store where he bought high-grade papers and some high-grade ink for both True and Saint rank talismans.

In just two of those stores, he ended up spending over 9 thousand True Spirit stones.

After that, Alex entered the Alchemy store where they sold not only pills and ingredients, but recipes as well. He wanted to find some new recipes that were available on this continent only.

Alex looked through the common pills and found that none of the pills had a harmony of over 75%.

As for the True rank pills, none of them had a harmony of over 70% as well.

As for the Saint Rank pill, finding one in the Heaven rank alone was a hard task.

Alex had to consciously let himself know that this city was not something he should judge the rest of the continent by. As far as he knew, this could very well be just an average city when considering everything else.

Alex looked around at the recipes and asked the clerk to tell him what they had. He listened carefully and bought a few of those that he hadn't heard of before.

Surprisingly, most of it was something he already knew. In fact, there were only about 20 or so Saint rank pill recipes, and every single one of those was something Alex already knew about.

He shook his head and decided to buy some ingredients instead. He asked for a few True rank ingredients, which the store provided without any problem.

Then he asked for some saint rank ingredients, but the store couldn't give him any this time.

"Sorry, the customer. We have no Saint rank ingredients," they said.

"Oh, really? But you have Saint rank pills. Are you out of it?" Alex asked. He wondered if he perhaps came by at a rather wrong time.

"No, we just don't sell Saint rank ingredients," the clerk said.

*

"Don't sell? But you sell the pills," Alex said.

The clerk shook his head. "We are only allowed to sell pills and True rank ingredients. We aren't allowed to sell Saint rank ingredients."

"Not allowed? Who dictates this if I may ask?"

"The Heaven's Frost sect," the young man said. "It's a rule made by them. Any ingredients that come by us that are Saint ranked has to go to them directly."

Alex frowned a bit. "So if I want to find some Saint rank ingredients then…"

"You will have to find it in the wild, or enter the sect," the young man said.

Alex got a little angry. The sect was trying to have a monopoly of ingredients and was forcing the normal alchemists to not even have a chance at all.

"Is there some sort of alchemy guild around here at all?" he asked.

"Yes, there is one on the other end of this road," the young man pointed. "But you won't find Saint alchemists there. Even if you do, they won't make Saint pills for sure."

"Fuck!" Alex said under his breath. It seemed being a Saint alchemist in these lands was going to be rather tough. He tried to hide his anger and thanked the clerk before walking away.

He then went onto a few more stores that sold various things like clothes and artifacts and bought a few that he thought he might need or might come in handy for the other guys in the village.

Once he was done, he went around a tour of the city.

For nearly 3 hours, he roamed around the city aimlessly, seeing the many cultivators go about their night. The city grew silent by the time he was back towards the store and saw Fan Yanshi and the rest walk out of it.

"Are you guys done?" Alex asked.

"Yes, we are finished," Fan Yanshi said and looked around the city. "It looks like the snow storm has ended too. Let's leave."

Alex nodded and they left. The group walked out of the gate and Alex took out the ship and they got on it.

As they left, something white flashed from Alex's left side, but no one saw what it was as they started flying back towards the village.