Fringe City.
It had a desolate sounding name, but in reality, it wasn't the case.
Besides the mottled and weather-beaten walls, this place was unbelievably crowded. There were countless streams of beast carriages and flying beast carriages. The passing people all carried weapons on their backs, with an imposing aura encompassing their entire body. Compared to a mortal city, cultivator cities were really indescribable.
Mo Wuji carried his drug refining equipment on his back as he walked into the city. According to the information he gathered, there were other sects near Fringe City. Besides Formless Blade Sect, there were also the Nine Spirits School, Thundercloud Sect, Thousand Leaves Alliance and at least ten other sects.
The Formless Blade Sect was not the strongest sect among all these sects, and it was because of this, that Yan Qianyin nagged at Mo Wuji to try his best not to offend others.
While there were many people in Fringe City, there were also many inns and hotels. Mo Wuji was quickly able to find a place to stay: the North Water Inn. According to the waiter, the North Water Inn was the very close to the Immortal Training Tower.
Even though this was a cultivator city, Mo Wuji found that the facilities of the North Water Inn was far from Chang Luo's Tian Luo Hotel. The only good point was that this inn accepted gold coins, if not Mo Wuji wouldn't have wanted to stay there. He only had a hundred pieces of spirit stones, and he even heard that they were low grade ones.
Besides his salary as a guest pill refiner, he got most of his hundred spirit stones from the Formless Blade Mountain.
What made Mo Wuji a little happy was that the inn actually had its own pill room. For the guests, this pill room was not necessarily for concocting pills; it could be used to house their beast pets, smithing or any other function.
Mo Wuji wanted this pill room not for concocting drugs, but to concoct his channel opening solution. That was also the reason why he brought his drug refining equipment out. Mo Wuji intended to concoct his solution in the night, and go to the Immortal Training Tower in the day to open his meridians. This was the best way to make use of his time.
After placing his belongings in the inn, the first thing Mo Wuji did wasn't to take a look at the Immortal Training Tower. Since Yan Qianyin said that there were Lightning Tempering Rooms there, then they would definitely be there. Instead, the first thing he did was to purchase medicinal herbs and prepare to concoct his channel opening solution. He only had a few bottles of it on himself; these bottles were not enough for him to use.
As this was a city for cultivators, in addition to the fact that Mo Wuji was merely buying lowly medicinal ingredients, he did not need to spend much time and effort to get what he needed. In just two to three hours, he was all prepared to start his drug refining. This time, he purchased 30 batches of ingredients.
By now, concocting the channel opening solution was as easy as steaming rice. Furthermore, he was already at Channel Opening Stage Level 4, his concentration was far improved from before. In a single night, he brewed 15 bottles of channel opening solution. With the seven bottles he already had, he now had a total of 22 bottles of channel opening solution on him.
When first light broke, Mo Wuji stopped his concocting. He sat down and started cultivating. Despite not sleeping the entire night, Mo Wuji's spirit and vitality were brimming with just two hours of cultivation.
After eating a simple breakfast, Mo Wuji brought his 22 bottles of channel opening solution and headed towards the Immortal Training Tower.
If there were enough chances, Mo Wuji was determined to open as many meridians as he can before slowly cultivating.
To cultivators, opening spirit channels was a phase within the Channel Opening Stage. When they advanced into the Spirit Building Stage, the body's spirit channels were fixed, and could no longer be opened. Unless the cultivator chose to waste his cultivation and try once more from the Channel Opening Stage. However, even an idiot would not want to do such a thing.
From the way Mo Wuji looked at it, as a cultivator city, and with the the Immortal Training Tower being the most popular place in Fringe City, its square must be immensely big. It should at least be bigger than the one back at Chang Luo.
However, when Mo Wuji arrived outside the Immortal Training Tower, he could see that its area was nowhere comparable to the one at Chang Luo. The only astounding thing about it was the five huge golden words floating outside the square: Fringe City Immortal Training Tower.
As the square was relatively small, and there was a huge flow of people, the place looked extremely crowded. At the centre of the square, there was a tower over a 100 metres tall. As it's body was wide, the tower looked a little bloated.
Mo Wuji was used to skyscrapers back on Earth; a tower which was not more than 150 metres tall did not astound him.
As he walked closer to the tower, Mo Wuji saw a huge sign hung outside the door. The sign indicated the prices of the various tempering rooms. Not only did Mo Wuji see the Five Elemental Tempering Rooms which Yan Qianyin mentioned, he also saw Swordplay Room, Gravity Room, Floating Room…
Whether it was imaginable or unimaginable, this place had it all. However, after Mo Wuji took a look at the price tags, his initial excitement dropped by half. The cheapest tempering rooms all had a daily fee of 10 spirit stones or more. The more expensive ones even needed more than a hundred spirit stones; this was especially so for the Swordplay Room, it required a hefty 300 low grade spirit stones just for a single day.
Mo Wuji hurried to scan through the eclectic range of tempering rooms and soon found the Lightning Tempering Room.
When he saw the price of the Lightning Tempering Room, his breath turned cold. It's price wasn't calculated by the days but by the hour; every hour required 10 low grade spirit stones. With the amount of spirit stones he had on him, he could only afford 10 hours.
After a few moments of hesitation, Mo Wuji still chose to enter the Immortal Training Tower. If he was alone, he would definitely have taken the risk to find the Six-footed Lightning Crocodile. However, he now had Yan'Er along with him, so he did not have the time to hunt for lightning crocodiles. Moreover, if he had the choice, he would not want to risk his life. After all, spirit stones could be earned but a lost life could not be recovered. He was even a Tier 2 pill refiner with a good supply of pills on him. All these could be used to exchange for spirit stones..
"I want to use the Lightning Tempering Room for two hours..." Mo Wuji carefully took out 20 spirit stones and placed it in front of the payment window.
He was reminded of this sentence from an essay he once read: " 'Two bowls of warm wine, and a dish of fennel beans' and he passed over nine copper coins." [1]
Mo Wuji suddenly immersed into the mood which Kong Yiji had been in. Much like Old Kong, he also passed over these valuable 20 spirit stones with deep sentiments.
"The Lightning Tempering Room requires a deposit of 100 spirit stones. We will charge you based on the hour, and the remaining spirit stones will be returned to you." The voice behind the window answered mechanically.
You even need a deposit?
Looking at Mo Wuji's startled face, a man by the side said, "Brother, this must be your first time here, right? Everything here requires a deposit. You can choose to apply for a jade slip, and deposit some spirit stones within the jade slip. In the future, you can simply pay using your jade slip."
Mo Wuji hurried to thank him, before taking all hundred spirit stones from his bag. Fortunately, he had exactly a hundred spirit stones, or this would have been a wasted trip.
After passing over the hundred spirit stones, the person at the window quickly passed Mo Wuji a jade slip. At the same time, he said with an icy cold, mechanical voice, "Insert the jade slip into the door groove. When you come out, return the jade slip to exchange for spirit stones, or hand over extra spirit stones if you exceeded your time."
"Can this friend here lend me three spirit stones? I only have 97 spirit stones on me, which is not enough for a deposit. Don't worry, I will only be cultivating for two hours, so after I retrieve my deposit, I will wait here to return you your spirit stones." A slightly tender voice sounded by Mo Wuji's ear. Mo Wuji turned to see a roughly 13 to 14 year old youth looking at him expectantly.
Ostensibly, this youth had seen him hand over the spirit stones, and felt that he had more spirit stones on him.
From Mo Wuji's experience, this youth was really lacking three spirit stones. He could clearly see the desire in this youth's eyes. If he had more spirit stones on him, he would not have minded lending the youth the three spirit stones. Unfortunately, Mo Wuji really did not have any spirit stones left on him, and he apologetically said to the youth, "I'm really sorry. I only had 100 spirit stones on me."
As he finished this sentence, Mo Wuji saw a few looks of disdain from the surroundings.
The youth's eyes revealed an expression of disappointment. Ostensibly, he thought that Mo Wuji was simply finding excuses. He directed this gaze to the surroundings, but no one spoke up.
"I will help you out with the three spirit stones," A slightly magnetic voice sounded, and three spirit stones were sent into the youth's hands.
It was a young man, and even Mo Wuji had to secretly praise this guy's looks. Not only was he handsome, his voice brought with him some magnetism and charm. You don't even need to look at his face; his long slender arms were already enough to earn the envy of countless women.
If this was on Earth, this person could easily earn money with his face alone.
There was a pretty lady by this man's side. Her eyes swept across Mo Wuji with a look of contempt.
Mo Wuji merely shook his head; he did not mind about this matter. He looked at the jade slip in his hand. It wrote: Lightning Room 1.
[1] This is from a poem by Lu Xun, a figure of modern Chinese Literature. If you're interested in the full poem, it's being translated here: http://chinesetoenglishtraslation.blogspot.sg/2009/02/blog-post.html