THE MARTIAL KING - Season 7 Episode 22

It wasn’t really because the old man looked down upon Zen. Only that judging from his eyes and expressions, his behavior seemed too weird.

The old man had been selling raw materials his entire life. He was considered one of the most famous figures in the World Commercial Alliance, Cloudy City Branch. He was familiar with the magic array experts and runic experts of Cloudy City. The most famous weapon refiners and alchemists were his acquaintances.

He was even friends with some magic array experts of Cloud Hall, as a result of which he also had a knowledge of runes.

Magic arrays were composed of runes and it wasn’t an easy thing to learn to draw the runes.

Usually, young apprentices who wanted to learn to draw runes were required to have a mentor, who taught them the art in person. In a way, the mentors prepared them with all kinds of tools right in the beginning. It was strange for new apprentices to buy the tools by themselves. After the purchase and some practices, as soon as they accumulated certain experience and knowledge, they required better rune pens.

It wasn’t difficult to guess Zen was a brand-new freshman. Learning runes seemed just like a passing fancy for this young man. With his little knowledge of runes, he might have thought drawing runes was simply just to draw some brushes with a pen.

Some young men thought impulsively and wanted to learn new skills immediately in the spur of the moment. In reality, only a few could manage to acquire the skills successfully. The old man had seen many such agog freshmen. As far as he knew, if they didn’t bear with the training, the materials they bought from him would simply go to waste. This was precisely the reason why he didn’t want to entertain Zen’s requirements.

But Zen ignored his attitude and spoke seriously, nodding his head, “Yes, I want to learn runes. I want to try some simple ones first. Here is the list of materials, and could you please help me prepare them?”

He handed out the list to the old man. Everything on the list was based on the cyan dragon’s request.

According to the cyan dragon, these materials were only to draw the basic divine textures.

However, even the lowest level of divine texture seemed to require abnormally expensive materials. Even though he wasn’t particularly aware of the price of the materials, he knew that these materials must cost a lot.

Casually skimming through Zen’s list, the old man’s expression changed drastically.

Angrily, he said, “These are the materials you want to use to practice drawing runes? Are you kidding me? Get out! Leave, right away! And don’t waste my time!”

He got up from his chair, almost pushing Zen out of the room.

Zen was shocked. What kind of behavior was this? The old man’s sudden outburst pissed him off and he continued to stand firmly. “It is not reasonable for you to reject a customer’s request. You sell the materials and I pay you, that’s how it works. Why are you chasing me out?”

The old man scowled with eyes glaring at Zen. Impatiently, he responded, “The materials you are asking for are used to make four-star runes. They aren’t used by ordinary runic experts! Didn’t you say you needed them for simple ones? How do you plan to use such high-level materials to draw simple runes? Just because you are a customer you think you can cheat me!”

Zen was dumbfounded! Right at that moment, he heard the cyan dragon’s voice in his mind, “Oh, really? Well, my divine texture is comparatively higher than your world’s runes. It seems like the requirement of four-star runes here is the same as that of our one-star, basic level texture.”

In a nutshell, in Zen’s world, if the runes came from the experiences summarized by the generations of runic experts for thousands of years, the divine texture was the accumulation of the upper world’s billion years of practice. The two things were totally different in terms of conception, the way of inheriting and the effects.

It was like a kid who just learned to speak trying to understand the profound knowledge of a scholar.

Despite the lag between the runes here and the divine texture, Zen felt speechless at the old man’s refusal. How were the higher-level materials different? What would happen if he used these materials for basic practice?

He was ready to take the risk and made up his mind at last.

“I would like to buy these materials,” he said, “And this is no trickery. I will pay you the full amount.

I don’t understand why you would refuse the trade in front of your eyes. You sell, and I pay. That is all that should matter to you.”

“Shut up, boy! I don’t want to sell you these materials! Even if you pay double the amount, I won’t sell them. I don’t want my materials to be wasted by irresponsible, young men like you.” This old man truly had dignity. Any other man in his place would only care about the benefits, apart from trying to maintain a good personal relationship with his customers. It was rare for a seller to push his customers away due to his own self-righteousness. He sat back in his chair, determining not to sell anything to Zen. Ignoring his presence, he resumed investigating the ancient jade as he was before Zen had appeared with his illogical demands.

Zen was in a dilemma. He did not know how to deal with him. His shop was the biggest in the market. Disappointed, he decided to step out and take his chances somewhere else. Right then, the cyan dragon’s voice spoke in his head again, “Don’t leave, Zen! I have a solution to convince him to sell you the materials.”

“Really? What do you propose?” Zen asked with eyes wide open.

“Do you see the ancient jade in his hand? It is a piece of phoenix ancient jade. The texts recorded above are in ancient phoenix words. This old man has no way of understanding and decoding the words written on it. If you tell him the meaning of these words, maybe he will sell the materials to you,” the cyan dragon explained.

“Hmmm… that is a fair point, but I do not know the meaning of those words either.” Zen rolled his eyes despondently.
“Hmmmm…” the cyan dragon replied, sensing Zen’s impatience. He explained further, “I know you can’t read the ancient phoenix language, Zen, but I can!”

The longevity of the dragon was beyond Zen’s imagination! Not only did he know the ancient phoenix language, which itself was rare, there were only a few languages he didn’t know.