淫欲的代价

The inside of the courtyard was even more run down from how it appeared on the outside. The old man led He Yuan to a small room and indicated for him to lay out his items on the table.

He Yuan took out the metal balls and the lotus artifact first.

After a brief discussion on the other kinds of hidden weapons he wanted, He Yuan left the room. The metal balls and lotus artifact were already high grade treasures so he just asked for a few enhancements to be made.

The extra things he ordered for were medium grade throwing knives and a medium grade hallucination artifact.

The old man had admitted that he could only craft up to medium grade items with a 50% success rate and that was why he hardly received jobs. There was no other available craftmaster so He Yuan decided to take the risk. If it didn\'t work then so be it.

Although he\'d grilled the man repeatedly on his high grade artifacts that he wanted to be enhanced and the man had repeatedly assured him that that was where his talent laid. He Yuan decided to trust him because the cultivators who had pointed him in the old man\'s direction had assured him that the man was an absolute genius at enhancing the masterpieces of others but couldn\'t make his own from scratch.

Lastly, he handed over his silver needles to be upgraded. He didn\'t set a particular grade and just told the old man to give it a shot, fingers crossed. Crafting was very expensive and everything had cost him 100 high grade spirit stones, 1,000 medium grade spirit stones and 5,000 low grade spirit stones.

He Yuan was pitifully broke once more.

Since his items were going to take sometime, He Yuan made himself comfortable in the room he\'d been offered. He also used a part of his remaining spirit stones to buy medicinal ingredients.

After refining a bunch of medicinal pills, he sold them off at a local medicine store. The remunerations he got were quite small as the medicinal pills were only useful to mortals.

Without the infusion of spiritual energy in the pill making process, it was impossible to create a spiritual pill of any grade at all for cultivators. He Yuan had no idea on how to do that so when the opportunity arose, he bought a low grade alchemy manual from a random items dealer.

That kind of manual wasn\'t necessarily special as no precious techniques were listed and it only talked about the most basic technique of alchemy. Which was how to infuse spiritual energy into the refining process.

For He Yuan, it was good enough. He did not plan on becoming an alchemy master. He just needed to know the method to refine medicine with spiritual energy so that he could make his own poison for his needles.

A week later, He Yuan felt a shift in the surrounding qi. The old man had placed a barrier around his crafting room. That way, no one would be aware of the fact that a high grade item was being crafted or, in this case, enhanced.

A huge amount of qi was constantly drawn into the barrier everyday to the extent that He Yuan had to spend the night at inns so he would have enough qi to cultivate with. All of a sudden, the pull was gone. He Yuan rushed over to check what was happening.

Moments later, the old man stepped out of the crafting room with He Yuan\'s items. "Hehe..." He smiled cheekily as he handed out the items. The medium grade throwing knives had crumbled to dust and the hallucination artifact barely made it to medium grade.

It was more of a pseudo medium grade.

It was no wonder that the old man was living in such a run down place even if he was a rogue craftmaster. Cultivators generally preferred weapons of medium grade and above and as for upgrading their weapons, they would rather take it to the craftmaster who had refined it in the first place.

Only mortals used low grade weapons and even then, only the rich ones could afford it so business would definitely not be going well for the old man.

He Yuan\'s high grade items were next. The metal balls and the lotus artifact had been absolute successes.

The effect of the metal ball could last for 15 seconds now and the range was also much, much larger. He Yuan had to take the old man\'s word for it since he had only three balls and could not afford to test it. The strong spiritual force he felt when he held the balls was very reassuring though.

Next, he observed the lotus artifact. The petals were now able to shoot out 15 medium grade daggers. He Yuan was a little dumbfounded. The old man couldn\'t make 5 medium grade throwing knives from scratch but had managed to incorporate 15 medium grade daggers into the lotus artifact. It was quite perplexing.

"As for the needles..." The old nan narrowed his eyes. "What kind of artifact are they? I spent a lot of time trying to upgrade them them but no matter what, I couldn\'t detect their class or grade."

He Yuan grabbed the needles and twirled them around his fingers. He absorbed qi from the surrounding and after infusing it in the needles, he smiled when their tip took on a black, glossy, sheen.

Next he skillfully threw the needles at a large tree in the courtyard. Fine and evenly spread out holes appeared on the tree and then a bunch of needles pierced into the ground after bursting out through the other side of the tree.

Wow, He Yuan thought as he absorbed qi into his meridians once more and used it to call back the needles. "Thank you senior," He said finally with his fists cupped in front of him.

Even though the throwing knives was a fail and the hallucination artifact barely succeeded, He Yuan had to admit that the other things he\'d gained were worth more than the amount he\'d paid.

The old man raised his chin. "It\'s no problem. Just remember to bring more enhancing jobs to this old man."

He Yuan nodded and thanked him once more for the room before leaving. He decided to take a stroll around the town one more time before returning to the sect. The permission slip he\'d received was for two weeks anyways.

When He Yuan was done entertaining himself with street food, he headed back to the sect. As soon as he reached the foot of the mountain, he immediately wished he\'d spent more time touring the town.

Because it looked like Mo Jiu and Shen Mianmian were just returning from one of their sexcapades in town. They weren\'t alone though. A couple of disciples from the Tianmo sect stood behind them and Gu Long stood farther away from the group, switching from watching Mo Jiu with eyes full of love to glaring holes into Shen Mianmian\'s head.

Shen Mianmian also noticed He Yuan and her face contorted immediately. "Have you been following us?"

He Yuan raised a brow at her words. Wasn\'t this Shen Mian-whatever thinking too much of herself? "For what reason would I follow you all?"

"Stupid Sheng! You better stop the pretense!" A girl shouted from behind Shen Mianmian. The shortie, Mu Qingqing, was Shen Mianmian\'s younger disciple sister and also a future member of Mo Jiu\'s harem. The tsundere persona.

"You\'ve been harassing my jiejie and Jiu-gege for so long and now that the engagement has been called off, you still refuse to give up. You\'ve resorted to stalking in order to get attention from my jiejie, how disgusting!"

He Yuan eyed the loud mouth with a neutral expression. "So you expect me to lock myself up and never step a foot out of my own sect just so I wouldn\'t look suspicious? Are you stupid?

-Look clearly, you\'re all in front of Duoluo sect and not Tianmo sect, if anything, your jiejie should be the suspicious one for always showing up in my sect!" He looked to Shen Mianmian in disgust. "Shen girl, you better give up. I would never accept you back no matter what!"

Gu Long lowered his head with an amused smile on his lips and Shen Mianmian\'s face turned red from anger. This Mo Sheng! When did she come to the Duoluo sect seeking Mo Sheng\'s attention? She quickly looked to Mo Jiu and when she noticed his lack of change in expression, she sighed in relief.

"MO SHENG!" Mu Qingqing raged. "Don\'t slander my jiejie. Everyone knows that the reason she always comes to your sect is to see Jiu-gege. It\'s quite a shame that Jiu-gege is stuck with a daxiong like you!"

He Yuan smiled with mirth. "Look at you defending your Jiejie and standing up for Mo Jiu, does your jiejie know that you\'re in love with her man?"

Mu Qingqing\'s eyes widened as Shen Mianmian and Gu Long turned to glare at her at the same time. "Y- You.. What non..sense are you spouting?" She quickly looked to Shen Mianmian. "Jiejie, I- I would never harbor impure thoughts for Jiu-gege, everyone knows that the both of you belong to each other. You\'re also perfect together."

Shen Mianmian huffed. "I know. I could share Jiu-ge with everyone but not you. Never you. You\'re my shimei, you can\'t disrespect me like that!"

Mo Jiu who had been looking on with amusement hardened his face at Shen Mianmian\'s words. She dared to lay sole claim over him? Ha! His eyes trailed over to Mu Qingqing. She wasn\'t bad looking. In fact, he quite liked her headstrong character. It was refreshing.

Mu Qingqing\'s face, on the other hand, looked like she\'d swallowed a really sour lemon and she cursed Mo Sheng repeatedly in her heart. That bastard Sheng! She smiled dryly at Shen Mianmian as she answered "Hm."

Mo Jiu turned to glare at He Yuan when he heard Mu Qingqing\'s answer. "Where are you coming from?"

He Yuan eyed him. "And you\'re asking as what? My keeper or my master?" He hissed and directly walked away, leaving the little group to glare at his retreating figure whilst Gu Long\'s head lowered once more.