Araki Hachiro stepped into the spirit copper mine after using the talisman in the pavilion.

"It really is a transportation talisman! Who would have expected such a high-quality service for an old miner like me, ha! I get dropped off right near the mine and even picked back up and returned to the city. No prospectin' for those veins, no fightin' for territory. If this really works, I'm gonna make meself a fortune."

His steps echoed in the mine as he explored the many tunnels. It did not take him a long amount of time, before he shouted out in joy.

"Spirit copper! It really has spirit copper here. If I can mine a few catties of this, the whole journey was a worthwhile bargain."

His tools soon connected with the rock and extracted the spirit copper ore, while his bags were filling up much faster than he ever expected. He was in the middle of yet another strike when he suddenly felt spiritual forces take hold of him.

Before he could even do anything, he found himself back at the pavilion where he started, instantly catching a curious look from the little shopkeeper lass.

Rubbing his head and smiling in an awkward way he quickly stored his tools again in excitement.

"Got me so worked up in that mine, that I totally forgot about the time limit. Lass, you really did speak the truth there. This mine is truly wondrous. I nearly got a stone's worth of spirit copper in me bag here and it's all of excellent quality! That's more than a hundred catties I'm tellin' ye!"

With the middle-aged guy in front of her so excited, Yui couldn't help but laugh happily. While the man was rather rough with his behavior and speech, he seemed really good natured. An honest and direct fellow that did not bother much about social niceties and manners, but with a kind heart.

"I'm happy that we could meet your expectations. It's what we are selling here after all and it is good to hear that people are happy with our products."

"Expectations met and surpassed, that it has Tai lass. I'm keeping me praises short for now though, as I still have to bring back that ore and get me ass back to refinin' and smithin' those parts. I will come back for sure though and tellin' all me friends too. Wish ye a good day!"

He picked up his bag, which contained all his newly mined spirit copper and made his way out of the pavilion, leaving Yui once more alone in the shop.

"Well, it looks like this might actually work." she mumbled to herself. "I hope there are more nice people that are easy to get along with in the future."

-

The new shop selling access to a spirit copper mining location caused quite the stir in certain circles. No one seemed to know however where these rumors came from, or where this shop was supposed to be, as Araki Hachiro didn't provide any details yet, due to his busy schedule.

With the main culprit of these rumors busy in his forge and out of sight, many miners and craftsmen were on the lookout for this new shop, but by the time Yui closed the shop doors, none had found her.

After all, the Earthly Treasures Pavilion was rather far removed from any of the common marketplaces in town.

When Yui woke up the next morning after a good nights sleep, motivated by the small but nonetheless exceptional success in meeting her customers expectations, she was surprised to see Tora sitting in their small kitchen.

Her twin seemed to be munching on something with a happy smile, blissfully unaware that she was being watched.

After a while of standing there without a response, Yui decided to start the conversation herself. "Good morning Tora!"

Finally opening her eyes, she sighed once more before nodding happily. "Good morning, good morning. What a fine day, finally I am able to eat something delicious again." she picked up another piece from the kitchen table and stuffed it into her mouth munching on it as if it were a delicacy.

"Are you eating spirit shards?" Yui was rather surprised about her breakfast. She had no idea that spirit shards were edible. They looked like crystallized stones to her.

"Mmm..yes ... those are really good. We don't have a lot of them yet, but something is better than nothing right, I need to replenish those ore veins after all somehow."

"Can I have one as well? I wonder how they taste." Yui was curious about this type of stone. What would it taste like?

"You?" Tora looked up and for the first time focused her attention on Yui instead of her spirit shards. The curious and confused face of her twin sister made her break out in laughter.

"You can't eat those, you are no artifact spirit like I am, how would you eat them?! Silly girl, there are some pastries in the kitchen larder, don't be funny and try my spirit shards, you'd just get indigestion and break off some of your teeth."

"Oh." Now realizing that her expectations that Tora was a human, just one with strange powers, seemed to be drastically wrong and her request to eat a spirit shard made it quite awkward.

"What's an artifact spirit?" her next question seemed more on point at least, because the look Tora gave her turned from an amused smirk to a more serious expression again, like an older sister explaining something to her little sibling.

"The Earthly Treasures Pavilion is at its core a powerful artifact. Stronger artifacts have an artifact spirit to make it easier to control them. I'm obviously the artifact spirit of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion, so you better sell a lot of our products and feed your older sister well, because otherwise I'd be really sad if I have no tasty snacks to eat!"

Finally understanding Tora's relationship with the Pavilion, all of what has been going on lately seemed to make a lot more sense now to Yui. Unaware of the mischievous smirk on Tora's face, she immediately decided to do her best with selling their products in order to prevent Tora from ever going hungry.

"If you are the artifact spirit though, what exactly is my role in all of this?"

Another question that made Tora nearly roll her eyes and burst out into laughter.

"Silly girl, you're the master of this artifact now. You're way too naïve and kind hearted though, don't tell anyone of my real identity or what the pavilion is all about. I'm just your strong twin sister Tai Tora for now. We still have to make sure you get stronger yourself."

Tora sighed and wondered why such a kind girl would become her new master. Not that she didn't like Yui, but it would be extremely hard to keep her from harm in the near future with such a personality.

"Maybe I should stay around in the shop for a while, otherwise people are going to bully you. You have to learn to take care of yourself."

"Uhm, thanks?"

Yui still did not understand why she was picked to be the new master of this artifact, but she was too shy to ask any more questions, after Tora was having such a good time because of her earlier questions. She was quite sure she would figure it out later.

"No need to thank me, I'm your older sister remember? Don't worry too much about it, we will get your confidence up in no time."

After rubbing her 'younger sister's' head in a reassuring way, Tora was going down to the main shop hall and sat there in one of the corners taking a nap. She would not interfere in the daily business unless someone caused trouble, but as Yui seemed to be such a naïve and shy girl, she wanted to make sure to throw a remark out here and there.

She wouldn't let anyone take advantage of her new cute master after all.

-

The shop had just opened for the day when a young man walked inside.

Yui's sudden enthusiastic welcome, nearly scared him enough to make him jump slightly, ready to run away as if being attacked.

"Ah, yes, thank you. Is this the shop that has an Old Vine Forest?"

Yui just nodded confirming his question. "Would you like to buy a ticket granting access to it for two hours?" she asked, lowering her voice slightly.

"My master asked me to gather some Black Shaderoot and Salamander Thousandleaf in the beast forest, but as it's nearly a week away and there are some dangerous magic beasts, I wanted to see if your forest is less dangerous. I only heard a rumor that people can get access with a transportation talisman."

"Oh, yes it shouldn't be very dangerous in our forest. The only beasts there are peaceful, unless you attack them or provoke them in some way. As long as you do not threaten them, there shouldn't be any issues."

Yui might be shy and a little naïve sometimes, but she was very dedicated to her job and always tried her best to offer good customer service.

"Are you experienced with gathering herbs? Would you like some reminders about Black Shaderoot and Salamander Thousandleaf?" she asked carefully, vaguely remembering them from her herb book that she read not too long ago.

She was confident, that those were part of the forest and there were also various additional documents that she would be able to provide for each of their gathering spots.

"Thank you, some helpful advice would be very appreciated miss. I'm just an alchemy apprentice and didn't get many chances to see those plants for myself. I'm only relying on the little bit of information that was available in the beginner books that I got."

With most of his time spent learning about all the various things an alchemist had to know, where would he find the time to know the best ways how to find each single one of them.

While he would obviously read up about the basics of where to find them and how to harvest them, there was no time for him to find more detailed information, not to mention this information was not always available or sometimes rather expensive.

"I'm sure you don't have it easy, learning how to become an alchemist. You've come to the right place though. We are doing our best to provide people with an easy and rewarding time in their resource collection tasks. That's what we specialize in after all."

She gathered a few copies of tips and information about various plants, all specifically designed for their very own old vine forest. As each of their available locations had such an assortment of leaflets, it was easy enough for Tai Yui to provide assistance with such gathering tasks. The pavilion would even copy the information for her.

"Here you go. Our Old Forest is known for having an abundance of first tier spirit herbs, overall you will be able to find a large amount of at least 17 herbs of this tier. There are also 4 tier 2 herbs to be found in this forest, although they are less common than their tier 1 counterparts."

She handed him a small stack of such leaflets, all with very detailed information about each plant, several pictures about their appearance, tips about where to find them and important information about how to gather them as well as plants that might look the same but are of a different species.

The alchemy apprentice, who happily introduced himself as Terada Sen of the Greenfire Sect, paid for the access ticket and immediately started to look through all the information Yui provided him.

"Obviously you will also find countless peak grade mortal herbs that do not fall under the category of spirit herbs, but I collected the information of the most important spirit herbs for you. Oh and since you mentioned the Black Shaderoot and Salamander Thousandleaf, I put them at the very front for you."

"Thank you miss Tai, even the information about these herbs alone would be more than justified for this price, I hope the forest is as amazing as the mine I have heard about."

"I'm sure you will have a rewarding trip. Our Earthly Treasures Pavilion only provides the best service after all."

Confident after yesterdays success, Yui once more praised their own services, this time with a lot less guilt and worries than the day before.

Once the apprentice alchemist disappeared from the pavilion into the forest after having studied the leaflets for a while, Yui happily ran over to Tora and gave her a hug.

"Toooora we already had two customers, isn't this great!?"

Surprised by the unexpected hug, Tora nearly fell off her spot from the bench in the corner, but at the end still managed to catch herself and hug Yui as well.

"Ah, yes ... yes that is excellent. Oh and call me sis while we are here." her encouragement might not be the most enthusiastic, but Yui did not even seem to notice the lack of emotion.

"Now go and sell some more and let your older sis sleep, taking care of a pavilion's maintenance is hard work."

"Sure, sis, I let you nap some more and don't bother you. I'm sure we will have lots of customers soon!"

"How great." Tora mumbled to herself. Living like this seemed like it would be a good time for an artifact spirit. Her other masters would have her do the work of the shopkeeper as well after all, not that she would ever let her sister know about this. With a happy smirk on her face, she drifted off to sleep some more.