Molting the Mortal Coil

The last mysterious item for appraisal was the armored hand made of water. At this point, Sage was suddenly surprised. The Appraiser simply shook his head, “I’m sorry to say this, but I have no idea what this object is! I can summon a higher level appraiser, but the fee would be a dozen spirit stones just to call him down. There’s no guarantee he would know what it is either, and the third rank appraiser would charge a hundred spirit stones. The other option is to sell it to us, then I will guarantee a true appraisal and a fair price with no appraisal fee being assessed. The choice is yours, Sir.”

Sage was very curious, but he’d counted his Spirit Stones once earlier and even though they were stored a hundred per bag he only had a hundred bags. The Great Ancestor had obviously planned out a flat 10,000 gold and 10,000 spirit stones. More than enough to be wealthy among the common people and pay for normal expenses, but it was nothing among the wealth and treasure of cultivators. Surely he could sell off the small mountain of resources and materials he had and easily double if not triple his number of spirit stones, but he wasn’t going to. Sage had no idea if any of the professions would be good for him to start learning so it would be silly to sell everything only to have to go and buy it all back again later. Just like every business, Thousand Treasures purchased objects at lower than they sold them for. They even offered the best prices, buying at 2/3rds the sale price instead of the usual half price that most places offered.

With all this in mind, Sage still decided to spend more. Collecting all his appraisal items save for the mysterious hand and placing down ten more spirit stones, “I would like to call down a higher level appraiser, Sir.”

The second level appraiser hadn’t cut it either and it wasn’t until Sage had increased his spending from one spirit stone up to a full hundred that the third level appraiser finally had an idea of what the mysterious hand was. Sage was not willing to spend the full thousand spirit stones for a fourth level appraiser so he was left with only basic information. The third level appraiser recognized the hand and told Sage where it came from, but he did not know the full details.

The hand was actually only a piece of a very rare creation. There is a type of spirit known as the Water Ghost, formed when someone drowns tragically under certain conditions. From then on, the body of water houses the Water Ghost who then attempts to drown swimmers and possess their bodies. The unfortunate victim, or victims, are then turned into Water Ghosts causing the cycle to continue. The Armored Water Ghost is a special puppet created by harnessing a Water Ghost into a prepared vessel, trapping it within and turning it into an obedient servant.

“The Armored Water Ghost is a high level type of golem guard, I’ve heard they’re each as powerful as a full Core Formation cultivator. I saw an illustration of one once, and this hand looks just like the one in the illustration.”

The third level appraiser didn’t know much else, the book hadn’t gone into any further detail than this. He had no idea how it was actually made, or any of the specifics. As such, he could not offer an accurate value for the hand. Of course, he then added “If this esteemed customer truly wishes to sell the Armored Water Ghost’s hand, then I will call a higher level appraiser to ensure you are paid the correct amount in exchange.”

Sage shook his head, he had no idea what this severed hand was doing among the other seemingly simple starter materials. So far everything in the storage ring was basic materials for learning different professions or survival, yet here was a severed piece from a puppet that can battle with rank fives. That would usually mean the owner would be more powerful than the puppet or someone from a rich and powerful family using it to guard their assets. Perhaps there was more to the storage ring than he’d thought. Oh, wait. I wonder if they can fix my Beast Bag here… maybe there’s something unusual in there too.

Leaving the appraisal room, Sage went to the sales counter, “I’d like to see if my Beast Bag can be repaired as well as know what options you have available for this.”

Holding up the bandaged stump of his right hand, Sage smiled and placed his damaged Beast Bag upon the counter. Waiting patiently for the clerk to summon the proper salesman to assist him in this transaction. A few minutes later he was presented with a list and frowned. Regrowing a hand would require a pill worth a hundred thousand spirit stones, or a precious herb worth half a million. How could I afford something like that?

Searching lower down the list, he found something within his price range. It was a magic treasure priced at a thousand spirit stones that was essentially a prosthetic hand named the ‘Tiger Glove’. It was less dexterous than a normal hand and couldn’t be used to release qi skills. On the other hand, the gripping strength was dependent on the amount of qi it contained, and the material strength was quite high, able to stand up to the strike of a Core Cultivator without taking damage. Seems I’m not the only one who’s had this sort of problem before.

Placing the order for a Tiger Glove, Sage then looked at the price for repairing the Beast Bag versus buying a brand new one of the same size. Frowning he voiced his concerns to the salesman, “It shows here that I can buy a brand new Beast Bag of this size for a thousand spirit stones, yet the repair price is also one thousand spirit stones. Isn’t that far too much?”

The salesman nodded, understanding his plight as he explained, “Unfortunately, restoring a damage beast bag, or other storage item, is far more difficult than creating one from scratch. As such, the costs of materials offsets the extra effort. We can also simply purchase the remains of the damaged beast bag and you may purchase any new bag you like.”

Sage reluctantly agreed to the repair price. If he traded in the damage bag he’d only save a few hundred spirit stones, so he decided to gamble on there being something significant about the items he’d got from the Great Ancestor. Along with the Tiger Glove and repairing his Beast Bag, Sage also purchased a set of soft armor for another thousand spirit stones, and more insect cages, spending a total of thirty-five hundred spirit stones. He thought about buying pills, but the ones that were in his price range could be mostly covered by mixing some of the basic herbs he already had.

For weapons, Sage only picked up a couple. The Golden Mantis Body and Wave Breaking Paddle only covered polearm style weapons, so there was nothing else he even knew how to use. As such, Sage simply purchased another of the black spirit hardwood staves like he lost atop the cliff. It was so simple it was just listed as ‘Dark Oak Staff’, the description just stating the length and that it was a ‘mortal ranked treasure’. It could be purchased for a few hundred gold, not even valuable enough to take even a single spirit stone. It was usually purchased to be used as a haft for mass produced soldier spears or polearms and quite common. The only other weapon Sage purchased was some sling bullets. He picked from the list of sling bullets and chose ones made of a metal that was heavy yet inexpensive, perfect for a disposable projectile. Sage wanted a ranged weapon and he’d gotten some practice with a sling in the Back Mines so he chose to go with what he knew rather than buying a bow or throwing weapons that he’d never used before.

Slipping on the Tiger Glove, Sage was quite pleased. It was made of a sort of black snakeskin glove and bracer that covered the whole hand and forearm. On top of that was dark red armor plating that made it look like an armored gauntlet. Upon close inspection, Sage noticed that the armored plates were inscribed with arrays and linked with small chains. Adding a drop of blood and sending in qi, Sage noticed that the small chains tightened and loosened like little muscles and pulleys to operate the armored hand. With a bit of practice he figured out how to use it like a normal hand opening and closing the fingers, yet quite a bit clumsier. Testing out the strength he squeezed a rock between the fingers and watched it shatter to bits… seems the strength was boosted up to a rank higher than he was. Much better than a stump. Clumsy but at least it’s tough and strong.