Gu Yue noticed Yuan Ming’s actions and looked over, saying, “Brother Yuan, are you planning to buy a magical artifact? This artifact shop is quite famous in the eastern market.”

“Oh, how so?” Yuan Ming asked.

“The quality of the artifacts in this shop is quite good. Although they are all lower-grade artifacts, many low-level cultivators come here for their reputation. If you want to buy mid-grade or higher artifacts, this place won’t be able to satisfy you,” Gu Yue explained.

“This artifact shop has a resident artifact refiner. This person is quite peculiar. The artifacts he refines are all excellent, and he even accepts custom orders. However, he has a rule that he only refines lower-grade artifacts.” Seeing Yuan Ming’s puzzled expression, Gu Yue continued to explain.

“Oh, there’s such an artifact refiner?” Yuan Ming was still somewhat puzzled.

With his understanding of artifact refining, a Foundation Establishment cultivator’s soul power and mana are enough to infuse the runes of a mid-grade artifact. It’s strange that this person doesn’t attempt to refine mid-grade artifacts.

You should know that the price of lower-grade artifacts is mostly around forty to sixty spirit stones, while mid-grade artifacts can be as high as five to six hundred spirit stones, almost a tenfold increase. Even if the quality of the mid-grade artifacts is slightly lower, selling them for three to four hundred spirit stones wouldn’t be a problem. Doesn’t this person want to make money?

“Hehe, I heard that this artifact refiner is extremely obsessed with rune engraving. He spends all day studying it, neglecting the mastery of other steps in artifact refining, so he simply only refines lower-grade artifacts,” Gu Yue said.

Yuan Ming slowly nodded. Artifact refining is a meticulous task. Any slight mistake in any of the four steps could lead to failure. The difficulty of refining mid-grade artifacts is indeed not comparable to that of lower-grade ones.

“So, how are the runes traded?” he asked.

Yuan Ming had obtained the engraving methods for more than forty runes from Master Heimu’s notes. Unfortunately, due to his cultivation level, he couldn’t infuse them, so those runes were temporarily useless.

Since this artifact shop purchases runes, if the price is not low, he wouldn’t mind selling them. He could let the shop copy the runes and enrich his storage bag.

What he currently wanted was not just ice spirit materials. He still lacked several materials for the Thousand Mechanism Mask. If he wanted to participate in the White Deer Hill Alliance in half a year, he needed to prepare not only artifacts but also pills. Each of these required spirit stones. After coming here and broadening his horizons, he realized that the price of cultivation items was truly limitless.

“I’m not very familiar with this. I only know that runes are the lifeblood of artifact refiners and talisman masters. Rare runes are generally not willing to be sold. A few months ago, I heard that someone sold a rune for a hundred spirit stones,” Gu Yue thought for a moment and said.

“A hundred spirit stones!” Yuan Ming was secretly delighted.

He knew that the value of runes was not low, but he didn’t expect them to be worth so many spirit stones. He had been saving up day and night for so long, and he only had seventy spirit stones.

And there were forty-five runes recorded in Master Heimu’s notes!

Yuan Ming immediately asked Gu Yue to wait outside and entered the artifact shop alone.

There were no customers in the shop, only a bald man sitting behind the counter, engrossed in reading a thick book, occasionally letting out a chuckle or two.

This man was burly, with a face full of horizontal muscles. If you said he was a fierce bandit who robbed people on the road, no one would doubt it. It was strange to see such a fierce man engrossed in reading a book.

Yuan Ming had a strange expression on his face. Could this man be the artifact refiner? He was indeed a strange person.

“Esteemed guest, do you need an artifact? Our shop only sells lower-grade artifacts, please understand.” Seeing a customer, the bald man quickly put down his book and stood up to greet him.

Yuan Ming didn’t mention selling runes and walked over to a shelf on the side.

The shelf was filled with common types of artifacts like knives, swords, whips, and spears. They were all crudely made, looking as if they were crafted by a clumsy blacksmith.

However, these ugly artifacts all had a hint of cold light flowing on them, making people dare not underestimate them.

“Can I try using magic on it?” Yuan Ming picked up a fiery red long sword and asked.

“Of course you can,” the bald man generously said.

Yuan Ming channeled his mana into the red long sword, which emitted a clear sword sound and shot out a foot-long red sword light that fluctuated.

He used the Object Manipulation Technique, and the red long sword flew out of his palm, slowly circling around him, getting faster and faster.

“Go!”

He pointed, and the red long sword stabbed towards a large cyan stone in the corner of the shop. The stone was full of holes and slash marks, obviously for customers to test weapons.

With a soft sound, the red long sword easily pierced into the large stone, burying itself up to the hilt.

Yuan Ming pulled out the long sword, and the blade was as shiny as before, without a single scratch.

“Good sword!” he praised silently.

These weapons might be ugly, but both the material and the runes engraved inside were good. No wonder Gu Yue said that the lower-grade artifacts in this shop were all top-notch.

Ever since he saved Ha Gong’s wife and daughter, Yuan Ming had set a rule for himself in his cultivation: don’t stick your neck out without strength.

Now he had to add another rule to his cultivation: don’t judge an artifact by its appearance.

“Your eye for quality is excellent. This Fire Drill Sword is a proud creation of our master from last month. It contains a piece of Fire Copper Essence, and the rune engraved is ‘Armor Breaker’. It has a strong attack power and only costs sixty spirit stones,” the bald man introduced.

“I’ll give you a discount of five spirit stones,” the bald man added when he saw Yuan Ming not speaking, thinking that he found it expensive.

Fire Copper Essence is a mid-grade spirit material. A piece the size of an egg costs fifty spirit stones. Adding the other materials, wouldn’t they be losing money?Yuan Ming did not expose the big man’s lie, and put the long sword back on the shelf, saying, “Let’s talk about buying the sword later. I saw outside that your shop buys runes?”

“Indeed, do you have any?” The bald man asked after a moment of surprise.

“Of course, I wonder what type of runes you need? And what’s the price?” Yuan Ming asked calmly.

“As long as it’s a rune that our shop doesn’t have, we’ll buy it. As for the price, we won’t disappoint you.” The bald man replied with a smile.

Upon hearing this, Yuan Ming gave a slight smile.

There were forty-five runes in the Blackwood hand notes. He knew that most of them should be quite common, but since Blackwood was known as a genius artifact refiner, there must be some rare runes in his lifetime collection that this shop wouldn’t have.

“It seems that you are quite confident, please show me.” The bald man chuckled, not taking it seriously.

He had been in the business of collecting runes for many years, and he already had most of the common ones, even some rare ones. Most people who wanted to make a profit from this ended up leaving in disappointment.

Yuan Ming took out a pen and paper and wrote down four rune names.

Runes have been passed down from ancient times, each with a corresponding name. These are basic knowledge for artifact refiners, but the key lies in the strokes of the runes, especially the start, turn, and end.

The bald man glanced at it and shook his head, “We have all of these.”

Yuan Ming wrote down another four, but the bald man still shook his head.

Yuan Ming’s eager heart cooled down a bit. Instead of revealing them one by one, he simply wrote down all the remaining runes.

The bald man looked surprised. Previously, people who came to sell runes would bring at most seven or eight. Yuan Ming actually brought dozens of runes. This man must be a disgraceful member of an artifact refining family who stole the family’s rune secrets to sell for money.

“So, you have all these runes too?” Seeing the bald man’s strange expression, Yuan Ming asked with a sinking heart.

“Not exactly, please wait a moment.” The bald man said, carefully checking the rune names on the paper.

His eyes lit up quickly, “We don’t have the Wind Listening and Phantom runes, we can buy those.”

Yuan Ming breathed a sigh of relief. Although selling only two runes was quite disappointing, these forty-five runes were all obtained by chance, so even selling one would be a profit.

“The price of the runes is decided by my master. Please wait a moment, I will go and invite him.” The bald man said, and quickly walked into the artifact shop.

A moment later, the curtain inside was lifted, and a short, thin old man walked in quickly. He had the appearance of a Central Plains man.

“Do you have the Wind Listening and Phantom runes?” The thin old man asked eagerly.

“Yes.” Yuan Ming answered calmly.

“Good, very good! When I was young, I once saw an artifact with the Wind Listening rune, the effect was incredibly magical. The Phantom rune is also something I’ve been looking for for many years, I didn’t expect to find both today!”

The thin old man’s pale cheeks flushed with excitement.

“I’ll take these two runes, two hundred spirit stones each, what do you think, young friend?” The thin old man quickly regained his composure and asked.

Yuan Ming was stunned at his words.

Not long ago, Gu Yue mentioned that a rune sold for a hundred spirit stones, and he was daydreaming about it. Now, two runes can sell for a total of four hundred spirit stones?

But the old man seemed to really like these two runes, it didn’t seem like he was faking it.

“Do you think it’s too little? These two runes are indeed rare. You must have made a big decision to sell them. How about this, five hundred spirit stones for the two runes.” Seeing Yuan Ming silent, the thin old man added.

Yuan Ming came back to his senses, just about to say something, but heard the old man grit his teeth and say impatiently:

“Six hundred spirit stones, I can’t give any more!”

“Not enough!” Yuan Ming blurted out.

When the runes were rejected one by one by the bald man, let alone three hundred each, even if he could get a hundred spirit stones each, he might be willing to sell.

But seeing the thin old man’s eager look, it was almost written on his face “I must have it!”

If he didn’t raise the price now, when would he?

“Add one more condition, help me forge an artifact for free in the future!” Yuan Ming suggested.

“Deal! What are you waiting for, hurry up!” The thin old man glared at the bald man.

The bald man, who had been stunned by the price, finally reacted after being scolded. He hurriedly took out six spirit stones the size of walnuts from his storage bag, three yellow and three green, emitting a much stronger spiritual power fluctuation than ordinary spirit stones. He also took out two black jade plates slightly larger than a palm.

“Mid-grade spirit stones!” Yuan Ming was overjoyed in his heart, but his face remained calm, not revealing any surprise.

Like spiritual materials, spirit stones also have grades. The spirit stones circulating in the market are all low-grade, and these six are mid-grade.

Mid-grade spirit stones contain ten times the spiritual power of low-grade spirit stones, and are more pure, with a wider range of uses. Just for restoring mana, mid-grade spirit stones are much faster than low-grade ones. If used for cultivation, the progress of mana would also be faster.

The spiritual power contained in mid-grade spirit stones is pure and thick, which has exceeded the scope of the Qi Refining Stage. If Qi Refining Stage cultivators absorb the spiritual power within them when breaking through bottlenecks, it can even increase the chance of breakthrough.

With all these benefits, the value of mid-grade spirit stones far exceeds that of low-grade ones. A hundred low-grade spirit stones can only be exchanged for one mid-grade spirit stone, and they are often priceless.Yuan Ming had long wanted to get his hands on one or two mid-grade wood attribute spirit stones for life-saving purposes at critical moments. Unfortunately, due to his financial constraints, he never thought he would obtain six of them today.

Above the mid-grade, there are high-grade spirit stones, with an exchange ratio of one hundred to one.

Above the high-grade spirit stones, it is said that there is a supreme grade. However, almost no one has seen it with their own eyes, and many people believe that the supreme spirit stone is just a legend.