"Esteemed guest," the shopkeeper said. "These gu worms seem to belong to one family. Could it be that they're from an inheritance or a fortuitous encounter?"
"Actually, these gu worms are raised by my clan," Fang Yuan answered. "They are my clan's specialty. I can see that you might be interested in buying the recipe. However, regarding that, I must decline."
The shopkeeper frowned a little.
As for Fang Yuan, he was purposely saying this in order to inflate the value of this recipe. The Gu Yue Clan still had its own trump card, of course, the Moonlight Gu and its variants. This was simply a secondary path that some of them would follow. Of course. In the future, more Gu Yue clansmen would drift towards this secondary path created by the Flesh Bone Lord.
However, by then, they would also have different advancements as the clan members would research and refine, improving the recipes along the way. The knowledge that he would be trading would be outdated by then.
"I can understand that," the shopkeeper said. "I cannot obviously force you to sell them. However, I am willing to offer you four hundred fifty thousand primeval stones for this." It was a large amount.
"I will have to consider your proposal for a while," Fang Yuan said.
"Five hundred thousand," the shopkeeper offered immediately afterwards.
Fang Yuan waved his hand. "I'm sorry, I need to think about it. This is a matter of my clan's safety; and only after careful consideration can I answer you."
The man understood that there was little point in trying to coax Fang Yuan any further.
Bai Ning Bing had her turn. There were several excess gu worms in the Bai Clan, which they could not feed and were basically starving at this point, and which they had not been able to entirely offload. The Bai Clan had not wanted to sell them to the Bei Clan at the base of the mountain simply because they might be arming their enemies in the future or telling them about their battle strategies if it ever came to a fight with them. They were neighbors now, after all.
However, selling them here to the Shang Clan was a different matter.
"Oh, interesting," the elder said. Although the number of Gu worms that Bai Ning Bing was selling were lower, they were also rare and seemed to belong to a certain path.
"These are also Gu worms from my clan," Bai Ning Bing said. "Regarding the recipe, once again, I really cannot give them to you."
Fang Yuan had a large number of primeval stones. However, a Rank 5 Gu Master's cultivation was like a bottomless pit when it came to the demand for resources.
They were strong, but that also came with a caveat, of course.
Regarding healing, his Rank 3 Doctor Gu was actually good enough for him. The Human Path's excellence in healing, combined with his Human Path Dao marks, meant that he did not need to worry about it.
For offense, he had the Rank 5 Ink Dragon, as well as the Blood Guillotine. He needed a movement-type gu worm. Could the White Form Immortal Snake fill in this gap? No - the White Form Immortal Snake was half his and half belonged to Bai Ning Bing, and also could not be used to move easily when it came to the battlefield itself.
That left defense, stealth, and investigation as the main problems that he had to solve, other than movement.
For defense, he intended to buy the refinement materials for the Rank 5 Moon Raiment, that the Gu Yue Clan already had the recipe for, thereby saving himself some trouble.
When it came to stealth, there were no good Rank 5 gu worms that caught his eye.
Regarding investigation, however, there was one that met his criteria. It was a gu worm called Scouting Hive Gu. It was a Gu worm that resembled a beehive and actually consisted of several millions upon millions of tiny bees within that could be powered via a Gu Master's primeval essence.
These bees would spread across an area, and one could use them much like one would use electronic bugs for surveillance back on Earth. After these bugs would collect information, they would come back into the beehive, and this information, including sight, could be inputted directly into the Gu Master's mind.
There were several benefits of this. One could leave a single one behind in a certain location, and it would record something for later on. One could also send it over a very large distance to scout a wide area and then have it return to them. The main issue regarding it was the fact that it required a special kind of honey to feed, Glazed Fire Honey, which would not be easy to find if he were to ever leave Shang Clan City.
"I would like to buy Scouting Hive Gu," Fang Yuan said.
The Gu Master in question nodded. "Excellent choice, excellent choice, customer." The two of them haggled on the price for a bit before coming to a decision.
"This is all fine, esteemed guest. However, it will take me some time to retrieve this gu worm." Rank 5 gu worms were extraordinarily precious and had difficult feeding requirements. They were not kept in the shop, rather in a storage place in the inner city. "If you wish, I can have them delivered to whichever address you are staying at."
"We haven't found a room yet," Fang Yuan said. "We can drop by here tomorrow to collect it."
"I see, I see," the man said.
Bai Ning Bing had several gu worms that she wanted to buy. It was much easier for someone like her to get a complete set of Gu worms since she was an Ice Path specialist and was only at Rank 4, unlike Fang Yuan.
This meant that there were fewer gu worms that required tokens to purchase.
They wandered around the other shops after this. However, they did not find anything which really caught their attention.
The shopkeeper in question reported the fact that they had an important recipe to one of the Gu Masters of the Shang Clan - Shang Ya Zi. However, because Bai Ning Bing and Fang Yuan far outclassed most people in terms of cultivation, with Fang Yuan being rank five, it was not easy to bully them, and he could only gnash his teeth for now.
It would be for the best that he find some indirect way to pressurize them. The only real thing that he could think of was the fact that Bai Ning Bing had asked for a token for herself. Tokens were not easy to purchase without influence within the clan, and he thought that perhaps he could find somewhere to strike a deal with this person for the same.
After all, either of these inheritances, either the one belonging to the Bai Clan or belonging to the Flesh Bone Lord, could ensure that he kept his position as a young master.
"In another shop, there's one gu worm in particular that we absolutely must get," Bai Ning Bing said.
"I see, I see," Fang Yuan said, realizing what Bai Ning Bing's intentions were. "Certainly we can get it."