While the two girls on the inside of the pavilion were laughing, people in the city on the outside were rather worried and confused. Many of the cultivators were watching as the storm clouds gathered just minutes earlier and while untrained people might be clueless as to their real meaning, the more powerful people recognized the potency and hidden power in this storm.

What started as a simple rumor of a shop that sold some excellent services, quickly caught the powerful cultivator's interest who were living in or around the city.

"Don't provoke the people from the Earthly Treasures Pavilion!"

The Greenfire Sect was the first to directly tell their disciples to avoid confrontation. This commandment caused even further curiosity among the other population.

What was this Earthly Treasures Pavilion and what powerful people were behind it that even the Greenfire Sect wanted to avoid trouble with them?

With the storm clouds still hovering over the pavilion and the sky only turning back to normal after quite some time. No one else dared to approach on the same day. People just watched from afar, did their best to gather more information and informed other people who might not have heard of the news.

-

Yura Isei, a captain of the City Guard, arrived in front of the Earthly Treasures Pavilion early in the morning.

The shop itself did not seem to have opened already, but several people were already waiting in front of the stairs that would lead up to the gate entrance.

Most of them seemed to be tough looking people, all gathering around a brawny person who seemed to be leading them.

Yura Isei quickly figured out that they must all be members of the Araki Family, while the remaining people that were standing a short way off were from other factions.

'Miners, craftsmen, alchemists? That guy looks like a city official if I remember correctly. It looks like the rumors about something strange going on at this place were true.'

He nodded to the gathered people before he could not do much else rather than wait himself. Isei did not intend to start any serious conversation with these people, he'd rather let them do the talking and listen to their conversations to find out more about this place.

His wishes were soon fulfilled as the miners were holding a conversation among their own.

"Boss when do ye think that tower will open up? If this goes on half the day will be over before we get some minin' done."

"How am I supposed to know. I was only here once and that was a little later, as I was tailin' that dumb Sato monkey. He was jumpin' around all over the place, took us a while to get here."

It seemed like their leader considered their options for a while, as the gate really didn't open even though the sun had already started to shine over the mountaintops for quite some time.

"Maybe we just come later next time, only get two hours for each of 'em talismans anyways, might as well not get here early and wear down our shoes standin' around."

The small talk continued for another half hour, but he couldn't really glean any more information from their conversation than he already had.

Finally, the gate opened up and a young woman looked outside, a little bit surprised to see so many people waiting in front of the pavilion.

Yura Isei expected someone more … impressive perhaps you could say, not such a little lass that you might find on every other street.

Quickly all the people entered the shop, with the Araki Family taking the lead to buy access to the Spirit Copper Mine for all of the people they brought today.

"I hope you have a rewarding trip! Please make sure to remember the time limit. The talisman will start to blink when only fifteen minutes are left."

The girl's voice was very enthusiastic about every single one of them, not like all the other shopkeepers he was used to, who would mostly be bored and disinterested unless they made a big sale.

While one of the girls was busy dealing with the customers, the other seemed to be assembling a large brick structure on the side of the room.

"Sis are you making the new forge already?" Yui was excited to see that Tora already started working on her idea of a place to refine and work on the gathered materials right in the pavilion.

"Mhmm, it's too noisy here anyways to get some sleep."

Tora placed brick after brick directly on the wooden floor and not only did the bricks come seemingly out of nowhere, but they also melded themselves right into the structure of the building, changing the floor and melding into each other once they were arranged.

More and more of the forge area started to take shape and a good part of the up to now nearly empty shop room was quickly covered with a shining black stone floor.

Isei was impressed by Tora's work, but as storage magic was not completely unheard of and most larger families or clans had a few storage items, he was not shocked either.

He waited until all the miners and alchemists had received their talismans, which didn't take very long, not because he thought himself of lower status, but because he know how troublesome those people could be. It was better to wait till they were gone. Stepping closer to the counter himself, only the lone city official was still standing behind him.

"Excuse me miss, are you the owner of this place?"

Yui looked at the person that did not look like a miner or alchemist and tried to make sense of why he was here. He seemed to be some sort of soldier or guardsman as he was wearing armor and all kinds of emblems and badges that she had no idea about.

"Yes. I am Tai Yui and own the Earthly Treasures Pavilion. How can I help you?"

"You see miss, there was an unusual phenomenon near this place yesterday. My name is Yura Isei and I am here on behalf of the city, representing the City Guard in order to investigate and make sure there are no dangers for the capital to be found."

"Phenomenon? What phenomenon?" Yui was rather confused as she had never noticed anything strange happening here.

"I didn't notice any phenomenon, but what would you like to know? I have no problem helping with your investigation as long as it doesn't disrupt our shop."

She smiled at the captain with her best smile, totally clueless what he really wanted.

Yura Isei on the other hand had a hard time believing her words. Who had not seen the huge storm right above their shop? How could the owner not know about any of it? He was sure that she must be hiding something.

"Why did you suddenly decide to open a shop here? I heard this place was abandoned for a long time. Where are you from?"

Shrugging as if she had expected such questions sooner or later, she tried to keep her answers simple.

"Obviously a shop is for selling something. We sell our products here because we have property that we can use for the building, and the location is near the capital, which gives us a high quantity of possible customers who might need our services."

"I'm from a country quite far away and was invited here by my family who offered me this place along with the shop."

The captain was obviously not very happy with the answers and was frowning at her now.

"What assurance can you give me, that you are not a spy, or will bring an army inside our city with this place?" he placed both of his hands on the counter and leaned over to Yui in an intimidating manner, making her nervously taking a step back herself.

His thoughts were quite straightforward. Even if their backing was powerful, they still had to follow the laws. They could not just do here whatever they wanted and had to submit to the other powers in the city.

"A spy? Bringing an army here?" Yui was surprised how quick his questions changed to strange accusations. What confused her even more, however, was that this guardsman was obviously not well informed of their situation.

"Why would it be a problem if I bring an army here? It's not like that's any of your business, right?" she replied after a while, a little nervous, but still looking at him with an innocent smile.

"None of my business? You're in Sume city, the capital of our Yura kingdom. Even his majesty has his palace here. It is obviously my business what is going on within this city and our kingdom's territory."

"If you don't want to cooperate, I will make sure, that this shop is being closed and the rented land, reissued by the crown to someone else and …"

Before he could finish he was interrupted by the city official behind him, who had been quiet all this time.

"Ah, excuse me captain, there is something you should know before …"

"Don't interrupt me, we can talk about your issues later!"

The official, rudely shut down with the captain's words took a few steps back, crossed his arms and then just watched the show.

"Dig your own grave fool." he mumbled to himself and no longer interfered.

Yui meanwhile gave Tora a nervous look. "Should I really bring this up?" she mumbled to her. Tora only shrugged and made a 'go ahead' motion to her before turning her attention back to the new forging area.

Yui sighed and gathered a box from behind the counter.

"As the respected representative of the city guard wants to talk about the circumstances of this shop, I have no choice but to comply to his wishes." she started to explain.

Expecting her to bring out their secrets and submit after being confronted with losing their shop, Yura Isei smiled and had a self-assured look on his face. This would surely get him a promotion when he brings secret knowledge or resources back to the guard.

He might have the Yura name, but he was only a small branch family member and far removed from the royals, who held the kingdom's reigns since its foundation after all.

"First of all, concerning the land our Earthly Treasures Pavilion is built on."

She put a deed, as well as several old looking documents on the counter and started to explain some more.

"This land has always been owned by my predecessors and has never been part of the Yura Kingdom. The Yura kingdom's capital Sume was built right next to our borders. It has been with our goodwill and permission, that travel and various movement of your troops across our borders was granted without requiring our prior consent."

"As travel to and from our lands without taxes or other requirements was always beneficial to both sides, this has never been an issue so far. If you want us to remove this agreement, due to us being possible spies or moving our own troops with bad intentions into your kingdom, this is indeed possible."

Now Isei felt like this innocent looking girl had become quite creepy for some reason. He still didn't fully process what she had just said, but the confident tone and attitude made her seem as if she was a completely different person.

"Furthermore, Yura Kingdom's capital Sume, has long since expanded beyond your borders and is occupying our lands."

"As I have said at the beginning, what we are doing in our own country is none of your business, but as you seem to want to make it yours, this is excellent, please give your king our best regards."

"We will request an audience with him soon to discuss his occupation of our lands and either have him remove the buildings already here or have him pay rent for the 700-something years that it has been used thus far."

Initially Yura Isei was just confused, but after the young woman in front of him talked longer and longer and unearthed more of the intricacies of their situation, his face turned from disbelief into a look of utter despair.

Not part of the Yura Kingdom? Wouldn't this mean he was currently standing in another country? What did this mean for the people living here? If the owner of this place was this girl in front of him, did this mean he did just try to blackmail the sovereign of another territory within their own lands?

His face quickly looked at the documents, not believing that her words could be true, but the more he looked at the old scrolls in front of him, the paler his face became.

"But ... the buildings in this territory … that's nearly half of Sume." he stammered after a while, still not daring to believe this was more than a bad joke.

The official standing behind the captain had turned pale as well. He had been aware that the land this shop was standing on was private property and not owned by the crown, but never would he have believed that the territory was not even part of Yura to begin with.

At worst he would have expected that they would need to use the crowns name to forcefully return the land with some excuse, or perhaps pay a sum of money to the owners to avoid any larger conflict of interests.

Never did he expect the outcome to be drastically different than their worst predictions.

He was a smart man however and quickly noticed, that while the girl seemed to have some education and a way with words, her confidence and personality was far from what other rulers would be like. In fact, he could even see her slightly trembling. Her courage was nothing more but decent acting on her part.

She did not seem ruthless enough or perhaps not experienced enough to go through with what she just said if there were other options. Otherwise she would never act as a simple shopkeeper and treat these people so well. Usually with rulers who would easily cower, it was easy enough to pressure them with force.

Unlike a certain captain though, the official had investigated this shop before coming here. He had already heard about the powers that even a grandmaster of the Greenfire Sect did not dare to offend, as such he was not foolish enough to threaten this girl.

"Captain, if I may be so blunt, but I don't think you have the authority to make decisions here. Why don't you bring this information to your superiors and don't bother her Majesty any further."

Normally, as the city official was not in his chain of command and his status was not above him either, he would have just ignored the words. Now though, he felt like the official's words were a gift and quickly excused himself before leaving the shop.

"Please .. please excuse me, I have to report to my superiors … I wish you well, good day."

As the captain made a tactical retreat, some might say he just ran away headlessly, the official meanwhile thought things through once more. His attitude had also turned from slightly haughty to respectful.

While he had the experience to trade blows with a young girl in words, he had neither the guts, nor the authority to start a war. He also wasn't silly enough to even try, with these immensely powerful cultivators having their home base right inside of the capital.

Honeyed words however would often work just as well as threats. If you could not defeat your enemy, why not make them your friend. This girl acting as ruler did not look like she would want expansion or power. As long as they kept things this way, they might even be able to make use of her powerful backers.

"Your Majesty, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding and confusion. While I was aware that this land did not belong to the crown, even I was rather surprised to the extent of this situation. I will bring word to our king and hope that this little issue can be settled peacefully and without the need to use overly drastic measures."

"I can only hope for your understanding and will also report this matter in order to avoid any future conflict that might hinder our good relationship."