Chapter 102 - The Expedition Begins (1)

There was an initial rush from the locals of the Bronze district to buy up as many pills as they could, but very few within this area had the means to buy more than one or two pills. Only when news of the store spread to the Silver and Gold districts did business pick up.

Various representatives of the large families came by the store, offering everything from partnerships to exclusive contracts. With the best offer being in the hundreds of thousands of gold.

Kai instantly declined all of these offers. Instead of tying himself to just one family, Kai planned on selling to every family. This way he would remain as the neutral party and could profit off all of them.

To this end, Kai imposed a monthly limit of 500 high-grade healing pills that each major family could purchase. He also limited individuals to 5 pills a month for the time being. This way, Kai would be able to keep up with demand but also make sure that no one person or family could monopolize his store's goods.

Later that evening, Old Lao tallied the profits at over 8000 gold coins. They had sold over 80% of their stock within a single day. The only reason they stopped was that Kai wanted them to keep some stock for emergencies.

"The Lee family has also sent over the monthly proceeds from their clothing store. The total is about 400 gold coins.", said old Lao with astonishment in his voice.

He had never seen anyone make money as easily as Kai could. Not only was Kai able to make insane profits from his alchemy, but he was able to sign a contract with a once-powerful family where they would send him a significant portion of their monthly profits without him having to lift a finger.

"These must be the perks of those who are both gifted and powerful...", Old Lao thought to himself.

Kai could have made more pills but wanted to first get a bigger and better furnace. Currently, Kai could only make about 20 to 30 pills per hour which just wasn't enough. The group shared a few more hours celebrating the store's successful first day of business.

The next day, Kai wore his new armor over his white robes and made sure that he was well prepared with backup clothes as well. He then proceeded to cover his entire body with a simple cloak. The new armor was quite thin, despite its durability so even with the cloak on, Kai looked inconspicuous. Kai then proceeded to cover his face with strips of black cloth to hide his features then topped off the look with an old fisherman's straw hat, thus recreating the look that he had when he first arrived in the city.

"This should be good...", Kai said as he placed his mask into his spatial bag then left the building. The sun had not even come out yet so there was nobody on the streets. He brought his hat down to hide his already hidden face and then quickly moved towards a certain direction.

At the outskirts of the city, a young woman was quietly standing on a small boulder with her arms crossed. She was dressed in a set of beautiful and intricately made green and gold robes that hugged her waist. This along with her stunning beauty made her look like a living work of art. On her back was an almost realistic emblem of two lions roaring in opposite directions. This emblem was both feared and respected in this region as it was the badge of the enigmatic rulers of Huang City; The Twin Lions Sect.

"I hate this place...", said the woman under her breath while giving out an annoyed sigh. "Next time, I'm going to refuse such demeaning assignments, even if the contribution points are good!", she whispered while lightly tapping on the boulder with her foot. As she did, a web of cracks started to appear on the boulder, making it shake, indicating that its structural integrity was being compromised.

At that moment, a young man arrived, quickly followed by an older-looking man. If Kai were here, he would have recognized them as Hou Zhou and the old man who used the strange Ice technique during the fight for the Lee family's properties. Both bowed to the woman when they arrived and quickly announced their presence.

"Hou Zhou and Hou XianYi, send greetings to the Twin-Lions Sect!".

The woman simply stared into the distance, not acknowledging their presence in the slightest.

Hou Zhou was annoyed by this but did not dare let it show on his face. "Uncle, it seems we are the first to arrive...", he whispered to the old man standing beside him. The old man nodded his head while pulling the hood back over his face.

A few minutes later, a carriage came barrelling from the city. It quickly arrived but stopped a large distance away from the boulder. A woman dressed in fancy-looking purple clothing stepped out and confidently walked over to the boulder.

When she noticed the other woman standing on top of it. She instantly greeted her. "Song Wei from Huang City's Song family greets the Twin Lions Sect!".

However, the woman simply ignored her as well.

Song Wei didn't seem to mind and turned to Hou Zhou and the old man. When she noticed Hou Zhou's handsome face, she gave him a sultry wink, but he coldly ignored her, making Song Wei pout her lips.

At that moment, another figure arrived quietly, dressed in a simple cloak with a large straw hat obscuring most of his features. Those present had barely noticed his presence as he stood a few meters behind everyone else. Hou Zhou faced the man with the straw hat and could instantly tell that it was Kai.

He simply nodded his head but made no other movements. He knew that Kai would likely show up here since he now possessed the entry token that was meant to go to his uncle. Hou Zhou and his uncle had followed Chen Dou to get their hands on his entry tokens. His father was a member of the Twin Lions Sect so getting the tokens were not too much trouble for Chen Dou. But as luck would have it, Chen Dou had bet one of the tokens during his challenge on Lee's family and subsequently lost it to Kai.

Kai also noticed Hou Zhou but didn't say anything. He had no personal quarrel with the man. If it were not for their involvement with the Lee Family, they would have never had to have fought each other. If anything, Kai wanted to thank him for giving Chen Dou the confidence to challenge the Lee family which eventually scored Kai a token into the pocket dimension.

The woman on top of the boulder glanced at Kai and seemed interested for a while, but quickly turned her head away again after not finding anything special about him.

"Bah, just more trash it seems. He had me fooled there for a second..." she said as she looked up into the sky in boredom.

Like this, the minutes passed as more and more people arrived. After about an hour, a large bustling crowd of well over one hundred people had formed.

Kai had never seen so many internal cultivators in one place and looked around curiously, intrigued by the different types of people. Some seemed to have come in groups while others were here alone, but what they all had in common was that they were all internal cultivators at the Qi-Condensation stage!. There was a big, burly man, standing over two meters tall with a massive two-handed hammer on his back. As well as a petite woman who couldn't be taller than half a meter, sitting on top of a strange-looking magical beast.

As Kai looked around, the woman on top of the boulder finally looked at the crowd. When they noticed this, everyone quieted down and looked on in anticipation.

"Looks like all of the tokens are here. Good, none of you were late. Be sure to have your tokens in your hands within the next ten minutes. Don't keep it in any spatial rings or bags or else you won't be teleported..." She said while glancing over the crowd.

"Teleported?...", Kai thought while he took the letter out of his spatial bag. When he did, it suddenly started to glow in a faint golden light. Kai was surprised by this and looked around and found that everyone was experiencing the same thing.

"The entrance to the pocket dimension is hidden so the only way you can get there is with a token", The woman said in a bored tone while pulling out a similar token.

The tokens all gave off a flash of light in unison as a large golden ring of light appeared around the entire area. The ring had intricate patterns that swirled around to create a beautiful work of art.

"What a massive Qi-array!", yelled one of the people present.

Kai looked down and noticed the insane amount of Qi that the array was emitting. He wanted to study it some more but it flashed with a bright light and instantly disappeared, leaving nothing but dust drifting in the air.

To the nearby spectators, exactly one hundred people had vanished, seemingly off the face of the earth, leaving everyone present shocked and in disbelief.

Hou XianYi looked up into the sky with a sigh. "Good luck nephew....", he said in a low voice as he slowly started to walk back to the city.