Chapter 7: Purple Veil Consortium

---Me---

It was good to change of scenery for me, finally exiting the clan territory. I wanted to tour around the Silverfall city, see the different food...ehm useful cultivation resources, but I was quite afraid of the other young masters of the other four clans. It was a sour taste to have your bodyguard protect you from challenges, "gambles" and "sparing for reach enlightenment." Yes, I was tier 1 in power level, which was overall good for my generation, but I still don't have much experience with fighting, and my main attributes were in MIND, which was maybe good to have a better perception of how bad I will be beaten...

Also, I carried quite a big haul of duped spirit stones for trading in the bag. Really, I need a spatial holding bag or ring! Let's not risk it and head straight to the Purple Veil Consortium!

I had two primary goals to complete:

1) Trade duped resources for other cultivation resources, mainly earth spirit stone and some T2 attack charm...Maybe armor too? Just light one. I don't want to carry an additional heavyweight on my heavy body...

2) Get an Appraiser job there. Well, let's see how it goes...

To get an Appraiser job in Purple Veil Consortium was a dream come true. Just imagine all items I can dupe! Well, it will maybe bother to take them out of the building. Dammit, I need a spatial ring really bad! Chmm, I will think about something...

Finally, we arrived. It had a majestic and tasteful entrance to Purple Veil Consortium's main building. I head to one free reception counter, where I was greeted by a respectful smile by a nice young lady.

"Whats is your wishes, young master?" She greeted me.

Oh, I have a lot of wishes, even some with you...dammit hormones, calm down! I sometimes hate to be young again! And I bet I m quite unattractive too now anyway...

"I have two requests. First, I want to make some discreet business transactions in the T1-T2 range," I said with a polite smile, which made her face flush with a little bit of surprise. I guess my reputation of the lazy fat bun even spread to the Velvet Consortium intelligence...

I wished I would be able to trade even for some T3 resources, but it would be too suspicious, paying exactly homogenous spirit stones and tons of homogenous fire spirit stones. Usually, spirit stones being long together in some spirit stone vein, they resonated with each other, and after a long time, they have ALMOST the same intensity and size. The "almost" was important. Well, nobody knows about duping, so they won't notice it, small risk...If I get a job here, maybe after some time, I will start trading in the T3 range...ok, back to reality.

"The second request is I want to be an appraiser in your glorious Purple Veil Consortium!" I said with a broad smile and as much enthusiasm I was able to produce. That really made a surprised smile appear longer on that beautiful lady.

"Are you sure, young master?" She asked with a polite tone. Then when seeing no denial from me, she continued, "Uh, I will notify our elder appraiser, you can do business until then" She smiled, and we have been led me to the T2 merchant room. 

I asked Horác to wait in the entrance hall of Consortium and slowly entered through the door.

"Hello, what business brings you here, young master?" merchant smiled at me, 

"Greetings, I want to buy several cultivation resources, hopefully, T1/T2 earth spirit stone, body cultivation resources, maybe even something that will make me leaner, to impress ladies" I blinked at the merchant. "Also some offensive T2 charms, I can pay in gold, T1 spirit stones or T1 spirit firestone," I said with a smile.

During this morning exercise, I reached the T1 threshold in body, but I will definitely consult Radek and maybe buy some quenching substances, nutrition, and ointment to have more "quality" T1 Body ... and PLEASE, leaner! Being fat is not nice!

After browsing some time, the merchant offered me various goods. I consulted with him that I had earth/fire roots and was advised on advised various goods good for myself. Luckily there was even low T2 earth stone. YES! Even some T2 earth and fire attack charms. Even everyone can use charms of all elements it was still better to use the ones you have at least some connection to. I didn't bother to haggle, Purple Veil consortium applied a fixed 20% price profit on their transaction, but they won't scam their customers. Well, they offered a discount to it if you offered them something really special, but that was not my case.

There were some small opportunities to touch something he offered, but It was too risky to dupe something there. I buy it later anyway.

I paid a hefty sum. I even needed to dupe some spirit stones when I was "taking them out of the bag" the most expensive item was the peak T1 light armor, which was able to cover the whole big mass of my body. Safety first.

We said goodbye to each other, and I left for the waiting room. Well, obviously I m happier. The shopping for "free" is the best! When I will have a spatial ring and some means to concealment, I will go WILD.

I was a little bit worried about my approaching job interview. Should I try breakthrough Mind or Lore? First of all, breakthrough need time, which I don't have. If I breakthrough in Lore, it would be two tiers higher than the MInd attribute, which could be dangerous or cause mutation making extra attributes appear in MindMind and pushing my mental resistance out of the picture. That would result in my mind attribute probably be more scholarly/crafting oriented. Do I want that? I m not sure if I want to commit to craft path so soon...

On the other side, breaking through in Mind would be time-consuming probably and It would push me to way over the T1 limit...I mean power is good, but walking around as a young Mind cultivator would be maybe weird. What if someone can sense it. Anyway, let's see it: STATUS:

Noel Human Body

Ravenous constitution [slighly weak]

[94/100] Cultivation Earth root - 2 branches [82/87] Fire root Mind [430/500] Power Priority Tier 1 29.81 Mind Tier 1+ (T2)

50(105)

Lore* Tier 2+ (T3) 200(220) Space/Matter Tier 1 13 Mental resistance 10 Body (Tier 1) 10 Toughness Tier 1 11 Mass* 10(11) Strength 10 Cutlivation[Earth, Fire] 8.75 Capacity (Tier 1) 10(13) Quality 9 Purity 6

Well, interesting I think I need some direction in cultivation too, I just hope they won't let me absorb something in front of them...that speed of mine would make it weird...

My line of though was disturbed by a young man in Purple servant uniform offering me to escort to the senior appraiser.

----

We arrived at the plain room with several tables in the line. There was an old man with simple clothes. But he was anything than simple. He radiated energy, and his eyes were piercing me. I started sweating, which was not difficult with that big fat body of mine.

"I hear you want to be an appraiser here. Very well, I will give you a chance," he said with a smile. He waved his hand, and a big pile of items appeared on the corner of the room. SPATIAL RING!!! My precious!

 "Let's not waste time, order the items from the cheapest to right to the most expensive to the left." He smiled at me. "You have an hour and a half," he continued, sitting on the chair and started to read a book.

Well, this could be a problem...I started regretting not a breakthrough in my Mind and Lore attribute. I had quite a lot of lore points accumulated, but there is no way it will be enough for all items. Of course, I can use it passively to supplement my world knowledge about various items. The problem was that I almost don't have any other knowledge from Noreall's life about it. Damm

The pile was big, about 40 items containing various ores, potions, charms, talismans, weapons, and armors. I tried using lore ability so hard that I even got a notification.

The user is trying to breakthrough through Lore to two-tier higher than Mind, it can result in unexpected results.

Dammit no!

I spent 5 minutes contemplating what to do. Too bad that powerful man is here, I bet he is watching me even when reading the book, I would at least Dupe some good items there...wait a moment...dupe?

A grabbed sword tried to attempt dupe and expanding details:

Energy 3.1 Essence 2.4 Total 5.5

 Ok, that's a pretty good T2 sword I guess? Chmm I know two information about items lets sort them out. 

The process was not difficult, and only a little bit mentally stretching and I manage to sort item by Energy and Essence requirement to dupe them like this:

Strong Energy, Weak essence Strong Energy, Strong essence Weak Energy, Weak essence Weak Energy, Strong essence

From the observation I would think that Energy stands for quality/quantity of material and Essence is because something influenced the item by creating them or injecting some spirituality into it. 

There were 4 items that were interesting.

First was a Talisman with almost no Energy, but ALOT of essence, next was a glowing shield, the witch looked to be made of an unknown substance and he had lines of glowing runes, but he had 0,1 requirement to dupe...strange. There was a black uninteresting spear with a lot of energy requirements but almost no essence. So maybe burned spear from really good quality material? I used my lore attribute on it

Lore: Its burned spear [130 gold]

Lore**: It's sturdier than it should be [180 gold] [lore points -9]

Well, thanks a lot Loreskill, good to know I can't rely on you too much. 

And finally, there was a strange cheap looking 2 handed sword with a dull-looking blade.

Energy 1322.9 Essence 4392.2 Total 5715.1 >>[VERY DANGEROUS TO TRY DUPE]<<

So, counting that T1 Fire Spirit stone needs 2.8 Dupe points to dupe...Is this a freaking T6 maybe a T7 sword?

Let's try Lore one more time, but I don't have high hopes for that

Lore: Its rusty old two-handed sword of bad quality [24 gold] [Lore points -1]

Yeah, yeah sure, and I m lord of this world...this sword is maybe mean to Richard to have an ultimate weapon from higher realms? Maybe teaching him also some superb fire technique, or eating some rare minerals to upgrade itself to previous glorious state? The sky is the limit...

I finished sorting items due to 2 axis, I registered that the old man gave me sometimes side glances. I decided to prioritize Energy. So let's say it's like 1 Energy = 1,3 Essence because a badly crafted item you can always recast with some looses of material but weak based material, its only good for collection or study.

On that principle I quickly sorted items. The unknown the ?Tier6? sword was on the most left of course, the second was the spear. The shield was placed on the most right. Done, Yay!.

I bowed to the old man. "Its finished senior". The old man stopped reading a book and quickly scanned the lined items, then he furrowed his brows. "Well, well, tell me, junior" he pointed at the 4 problematic items. "Explain your placement of these four."

Let's start with the easiest and advance to the more difficult one to add some dramatic flair.

"The Talisman is really well made and the intent is really strong despite the bad material used in creating it. Maybe it can be used to study its process to learn something new, or maybe add some good resources to upgrade its grade easily." I said with a half-confident tone. I don't have any idea what I m talking about...

"OK, the next one" Old main waved his hand.

"The shield looks fake, I would definitely not buy it, maybe I will even punish someone trying to sell me this" I continued my argumentation. 

"The spear is damaged beyond any use, but its material is very good, and it can be recast into a very good Tier3 weapon"

The old man looks surprised "Good, good, and the final one?" 

I cant say, this is a freaking tier6/7 weapon, right? Let's be modest.

"Although this sword looks plain, something about it stirs my Dao, but no response from my identity attempt. When I hold it with my hand, it feels heavy, maybe heavier than the whole world... I don't even need to try looks embarrassment, I m already from saying so much bullshit.

"Oh-oh, interesting, how much you would offer for that sword?" said the old man amused.

I can't say that probably your whole Purple Veil Consortium is not worth the price of the sword right?

"Um, probably tier4 resource, If we could afford it, it would be a risky investment since it probably needs someone who has a destiny with it," I said. Oh my, I hope I didn't say too much.

"Interesting, interesting...hmm..." Said the old man and started thinking.

"We usually don't accept members of the sects and clans, especially not the direct line..." The old man was thinking aloud. "Good thing that your clan is so small. Are you going to rule the clan in the near future or be an elder there?" asked me the Old man.

"Oh no, I don't! Although I like my clan, I don't have any power there, and nobody takes me seriously," I said with a worried tone. Ok, every good thing is bad for something I see now...

"Good, I m Lukáš Bluewind, nice to meet you. From now on, I will be your boss and mentor." Said old man. 

"Just don't forget when working here or wearing our purple veil robe, you must always put interests of Purple veil Consortium in the first place, or you will be punished. Are you interested in joining in? asked me Lukáš 

"Yes, gladly!" said happily.

"Then welcome to the Purple Veil Consortium young appraiser," said Lukáš Bluewind and handed me a purple robe.