Mo Tiange thus settled down in the Bixuan Pavilion.
Although Wei Haolan was quite scheming, she was currently treating Mo Tiange quite well. Not only did she assign two female cultivators to handle her daily affairs, but she also sent many spirit fruits and other specialties from the East Sea for her enjoyment.
On the second day of Mo Tiange's stay at the Bixuan Pavilion's VIP Pavilion, guests began to arrive continuously. Xia Qing was a constant visitor, dragging her to the alchemy room early every morning to ask questions and discuss alchemy techniques. When Mo Tiange returned from the alchemy room, there were always other guests waiting. These guests were all Foundation Establishment female cultivators of the Bixuan Pavilion. When asked the reason, they all said they had heard she came from Kunwu and wanted to inquire about matters concerning Kunwu, and incidentally exchange some items with her.
Although Linhai was lacking in cultivation resources, it bordered the East Sea after all. The sea contained some special items not found on land. These items weren't the main ingredients for pills but possessed special effects.
These Bixuan Pavilion disciples reportedly had very few opportunities to be sent to Kunwu or the Central Plains to exchange goods. Most of them never got the chance to go to Kunwu in their entire lives. So even if they obtained some materials rare to inland cultivators, they could only keep them in hand. Now, hearing there was a fellow cultivator from Kunwu, they all brought out what they had to exchange with Mo Tiange for some pills, spirit herbs, or magical tools.
Mo Tiange was not lacking in pills and also had quite a few magical tools. Although she was not a bloodthirsty person, since the demon beast turmoil began, many cultivators had died around her—some were killed by her, others were just unlucky, dying beside her.
She had acquired many magical tools from these unfortunate cultivators, but as she usually wasn't short on spirit stones, she hadn't sold them for money. Now, she took them out to exchange for these strange materials with the female cultivators—of course, she wouldn't bring out the items obtained from Yan Ruoshu and the other two.
"Senior Ye."
Mo Tiange was cultivating when she suddenly heard a voice from outside. She pressed her brow, emerged from the Void Heaven Realm, and opened the defensive formation: "What is it?"
Outside were the two Qi Refining female cultivators assigned by Wei Haolan to serve her, named Yiliu and Yiqiu, who were sisters.
In the Bixuan Pavilion, low-ranking male cultivators did the more laborious odd jobs, while such personal tasks were handled by maidservants.
Yiliu and Yiqiu were said to have poor spiritual roots and were accepted as maidservants from the start. Of course, in a female cultivator sect like Bixuan Pavilion, their status was much better than that of low-ranking male cultivators. The sisters were diligent, and since they served the sect leader, Wei Haolan, seeing their diligence and capability, often looked after them. They were now at the eighth or ninth layer of Qi Refining. If they could obtain Foundation Establishment Pills, they might ascend to heaven in a single step.
Mo Tiange thought of the little girl A'Nian she had seen in the fishing village. If she worked as hard as these two, there might still be hope on the immortal path.
Hearing Mo Tiange's voice, it was Yiliu who entered. She bowed respectfully and said, "Senior Ye, the Secret Treasure Pavilion is holding an exchange meet. The Sect Leader heard that Senior Ye often exchanges items with the sect's aunts and uncles, and specifically sent someone to invite you."
"An exchange meet?" Mo Tiange was surprised. Of course she had heard of exchange meets. In the cultivation world, besides shops and stalls, there were also exchange and auction methods for transactions, but the latter were generally used by high-level cultivators.
When a cultivator's cultivation level was high, the requirements for spiritual materials also increased. Ordinary shops were opened by low-level cultivators, so how could they have such items? Therefore, some powerful shops would hold auctions to sell scarce materials at the best prices, and exchange meets were born from this need.
But the Bixuan Pavilion didn't have that many high-level cultivators. They could simply establish a sect shop like the Xuanqing Sect, letting disciples buy and sell items. They didn't need an exchange meet.
But upon second thought, Mo Tiange realized that in Linhai, where spiritual materials were scarce and high-level cultivators few, it wasn't strange for Foundation Establishment cultivators to need to exchange some rare items.
"Senior Ye?" Seeing Mo Tiange hadn't answered for a while, Yiliu called out again.
"Oh," Mo Tiange came back to her senses. "Then lead the way, and tell me about this exchange meet on the way."
"Yes." Leading Mo Tiange out of the VIP Pavilion, Yiliu guided the way while explaining, "This exchange meet is held every few months. As Senior Ye knows, our Linhai doesn't have many cultivation resources, especially pills. Good alchemists are few to begin with, and we lack many spirit herbs. Fortunately, we're close to the East Sea. The sea has many demon beasts, and the Demon Cores of these demon beasts can be consumed directly, so..."
"Demon Cores can be consumed directly?" Mo Tiange interrupted Yiliu's words to ask.
Yiliu nodded. "Senior Ye didn't know? But consuming Demon Cores requires special methods to refine the spiritual energy within. Also, different Demon Cores contain different types of spiritual energy, hence the need for the exchange meet—to trade for the Demon Cores one needs."
"...I see." Mo Tiange became thoughtful. In Kunwu, Demon Cores were always used for alchemy. During the demon beast turmoil every few decades, the demon beast corpses obtained could be used for artifact refinement, while Demon Cores were used for alchemy. Demon Cores contained strange energies; if consumed directly, it could lead to Qi deviation. Even without deviation, it could cause one's own spiritual energy to become mixed with too many impurities.
But unexpectedly, Linhai actually had methods to directly refine Demon Cores. This was quite valuable. Perhaps she could comprehend some new methods for using Demon Cores to better utilize their power.
"Senior Ye, we're here." Yiliu brought her to a building and pointed to a pavilion within. "It's up there. Senior can go up. This junior's cultivation is insufficient and cannot accompany you further."
Mo Tiange nodded. "Alright, thank you."
"You're too kind." Yiliu bowed again and went to stand with the disciples guarding the door.
Mo Tiange went upstairs alone.
The pavilion was as large as a side hall, with a long table in the middle. Around the table sat over twenty cultivators, all at Foundation Establishment, surprisingly both male and female.
Mo Tiange was somewhat surprised. Since coming to the Bixuan Pavilion, she hadn't seen a single male cultivator at Foundation Establishment; most were low-level cultivators at the second or third layer of Qi Refining. Among the over twenty Foundation Establishment cultivators before her, five or six were male, which was quite a lot.
She thought about it. The Bixuan Pavilion wasn't without male cultivators. She had inquired before: if a male cultivator had exceptional aptitude, he could be accepted as an outer sect disciple. After dual cultivating with a female disciple of the sect, he could become a formal disciple. Seeing these male cultivators each had a relatively intimate female cultivator beside them, they were probably the dual cultivation partners of these female cultivators?
As soon as she went upstairs, Wei Haolan, sitting in the host seat, immediately revealed a smile and personally came forward to greet her: "Fellow Daoist Ye, you've finally arrived."
Mo Tiange returned the smile, saluted her in return, then turned and performed a Daoist salute to everyone.
Seeing her salute, the cultivators sitting around the long table all stood up to return the courtesy.
Wei Haolan took Mo Tiange's hand and returned to the host seat, directly having Mo Tiange sit beside her. She smiled and said, "Fellow Daoist Ye, no need to be reserved. Today, everyone here is a disciple of my Bixuan Pavilion. This is just an internal exchange meet." She then turned to everyone and said, "Fellow sect members, this is Fellow Daoist Ye from Kunwu. Fellow Daoist Ye is skilled in alchemy. If you have anything you want to exchange, you should seize the opportunity."
Hearing this, everyone's gazes fell on Mo Tiange. A female cultivator even laughed and said, "Fellow Daoist Ye, you can't be stingy today. We're all counting on your pills."
During this period, Mo Tiange had met many female cultivators of the Bixuan Pavilion, and most of them were here. Thus, she recognized over ten of the female cultivators present. She also smiled and said, "I've never been stingy. If Fellow Daoists wish to exchange, as long as I have it, I won't hold back."
Hearing this, everyone present showed smiles. If there was anything special about today's exchange meet, it was this Fellow Daoist Ye from Kunwu. The others were all Bixuan Pavilion cultivators, and what they had in hand was more or less similar. This Fellow Daoist Ye was an alchemist. No matter how good Demon Cores were, they couldn't compare to pills of the same rank. At this moment, everyone began calculating in their hearts what they had that could be exchanged for some pills, and how much they could get.
Wei Haolan glanced at those present and said, "Alright, almost everyone is here. Let's begin."
Hearing her voice, those still chatting quieted down.
Wei Haolan smiled slightly. "Originally, according to the rules, we take turns from left to right. But today we have a distinguished guest, so we'll start with the guest. Does anyone have any objections?"
For this exchange meet, most people came specifically for Mo Tiange. Who would object? Dozens of pairs of eyes were now all fixed on Mo Tiange.
Seeing this situation, Wei Haolan smiled again. "It seems no one objects. Then it's settled. We'll start with Fellow Daoist Ye." She turned to Mo Tiange. "Fellow Daoist Ye, you know we all want to exchange pills with you. How many pills can you take out for exchange?"
Mo Tiange thought for a moment and began taking pills from her Qiankun Bag. As jade bottles were placed on the table one by one, the cultivators' eyes grew brighter.
After taking out about a dozen bottles, Mo Tiange stopped. "That's about it. Many were exchanged by Fellow Daoists in recent days. These were just refined temporarily."
Over a dozen bottles of pills—even Wei Haolan's eyes lit up. Even in Kunwu, pills weren't cheap. Every year when they sent disciples out to purchase pills, the amount for Foundation Establishment cultivators to consume wasn't much.
"Fellow Daoist Ye," someone couldn't hold back, "what kind of pills are these?"
Mo Tiange opened the bottle stoppers one by one. "These are Purifying Spirit Pills, these are Spirit Replenishing Pills, these are Heart-Clearing Pills, these are Beauty-Preserving Pills, and the rest are all Foundation-Nurturing Pills. All are pills that Foundation Establishment cultivators can consume."
These pills were all refined by her using ordinary spirit herbs bought from the Xuanqing Sect's shop. Her earlier words about temporary refinement were said for these cultivators' ears. She was only a Foundation Establishment cultivator. Even though she came from a famous sect and had alchemy skills, taking out too many pills wasn't appropriate, especially those made from materials taken from the Void Heaven Realm—she absolutely couldn't take those out for exchange.
However, this many pills were already plenty for the Bixuan Pavilion disciples trapped in Linhai.
"Fellow Daoist Ye, what do you want to exchange for?" As soon as she finished speaking, someone impatiently called out, taking out a pile of items. "Look, I have various Demon Cores here, and some special spiritual items produced in the East Sea. Is there anything you want?"
Mo Tiange smiled. "Anything is fine. But I only have these pills. I'm afraid they won't be enough for everyone to exchange."
"That's no problem," Wei Haolan interjected. "Fellow Daoist Ye, approximately how many pills do you have here?"
"Hmm..." Mo Tiange roughly estimated. Each bottle contained ten to fifty pills. "About three hundred pills."
"Then let's agree: each fellow sect sister can exchange for a maximum of ten pills. How about that?"
There were over twenty people present. Ten pills each would just about use up all the pills.
Everyone had their own calculations. Most agreed, but some had objections: "What if there are extras?"
Wei Haolan smiled. "If there are extras, I'll represent the sect to exchange for them and then distribute them to the fellow sect sisters. How about that?"