Chapter : 53 : Grey Earth Iron :
Location: Glory City Auction Hall :
After separating from the main group - the girls along with an extremely reluctant Xiao Ming went to the shopping area of a building .
Fortunately for our dear Main character the fear that he was having did not came through .
It seemed that sister Yutong had instructed the girl's not to unleash their wave of imagination on the helpless little Xiao Ming .
And while the girls did recommend many clothes to him they did not particularly force him to wear them immediately .
This greatly relieved the fearful young man .
And the place for big sister Yutong had reached the highest point in his heart .
She was indeed a loving and caring big sister to him .
Internally Xiao Ming made a solemn promise to himself that in future he would always come to help big sister Yutong in any situation she needed him .
Especially if that idiotic brute Lao Baixing does anything to make his big sister sad he will make sure that he regrets that day for the rest of his life .
But living that aside for now his shopping trip was actually going very well .
The girls from the group were much more experienced in this kind of shopping then he was .
And they carefully guided him through the various section of the shopping mall introducing him to various items that he needed .
If he had gone to find them alone it would have certainly taken him a lot longer so having such usefull and beautiful guides certainly did make things easier .
Although the looks from the rest of the boys around him were a little intense .
But hey ! you can't blame your bad luck on Xiao Ming .
After all he was just a cute little brother going on a shopping trip with a bunch of beautiful elder sisters .
And what's wrong with that ?
After visiting various shops and buying some essentials including some precious medicinal plants he needed for his Alchemy the group finally visited an art shop within the auction hall shopping venue.
Just as the name suggested the art shop deals in various kinds of artistic material from paintings to stone statues .
Actually Xiao Ming was quite surprised that something like this was actually there in an auction hall to begin with.
The venue was divided into two parts .
The first part contained various kinds of paintings and other precious artistic creations that were not for sale and only for viewing .
This items are either never going to be sold or they will be sold at particular auctions at a high price .
The second part of the hall was Store where smaller and less noticeable items were kept .
This items and painting were actually the one that can be brought with money .
While beautiful in their own rights this are not created by world famous artists of the cultivation world so they are not given that much value compared to the items that are present in the first part .
Hence the real attraction in the hall was the first type of items which were made by famous and strong people and were brought here from various parts of the kingdom and abroad .
Moreover some of the artistic creations here are made from precious materials like red fire crystals and pure gray earth iron which were known for there longevity and rarity .
These materials are some of the most required treasures of nature and normal cultivators would have to go through a huge amount of effort to have them .
For example the grey earth iron was a precious iron that came from grey earth iron ore that were mostly found in the Cloudy Mountains where the Mythical Dragon sect is established .
This is also a major trade for the mythical Dragon sect as they are the largest supplier of this iron .
Aside from them large amount reserve are also found in the Yu Shan Kingdom and it's enemy the Crimson Cloud Empire .
Well there are other areas of this kind of iron ore in the continent there were most commonly found in this specific region .
The application of the grey earth iron in making of high quality cultivation items especially medicinal cauldrons are well known throughout the continent .
In fact even the medicinal cauldron which Xiao Ming choose as his reward was also made from high quality gray earth iron .
This specific iron has various properties that can help it resist and control the extreme power of an alchemist flame something ordinary iron and other materials can't handle .
And this makes this iron very precious and expensive .
Normal cultivator's would have to save a lot of money to buy something made of most pure grey earth iron.
Hence most people only use the lower quality grey earth iron because they are cheaper was atleast within their budget .
So when they saw huge statues of art made of this kind of precious materials obviously many were attracted towards it .
Although they couldn't actually buy any of these at least nothing was stopping them from admarrying the beauty .
This included many girls from the silver arrow group who loved to see these arts and decided to come here with Xiao Ming .
In his previous life Xiao Ming remembered that he also had a good amount of interest in various kinds of art and craft .
And he used to be very excited whenever the school trips went to the nearby museums or art galleries .
It was something that also made him a target of constant teasing from his classmates .
But he did not mind what they thought because it was one of the hobbies that he liked to have .
And even after coming to this new world he did not lose his interest .
It's just that he became so busy trying to get stronger he did not simply have the time to give time to any of his old hobbies .
But he still tried time to time to reconnect with some of the very few good memories from his past life by drawing .
Although his drawing skills were ... huh ! let's just say they were okay .
I guess ?
Cough ! Cough ! moving on Xiao Ming found the art style of this world was quite different from his previous life .
For example the elite of the society including the royal families , nobles strong sect leaders and elders all practice drawing and calligraphy as their hobby .
Apparently this are seen as a form of refined culture for the people with power, something that was also common to see in various ancient and medieval societies of his previous life .
What was really different about the art style in this world was that they heavily focused on the cultivation theme .
According to the book he read in the library many strong cultivators apparently uses paintings , status and other artistic style as a mode to cultivate and pass down secret cultivation knowledge from genaration to genaration .
There has been times when old paintings and statues were found in various dungeons belonging to old civilization and kingdoms.
These were not merely items from artistic point of you they were actually artifact's of great values .
Some work actually hidden treasure maps .
Some paintings on the other hand contained manifestation of intent and old techniques passed down inform of an art .
And what is most intriguing is that you would need to have a very keen eyes of understanding or luck to distinguish these great artifacts from normal paintings and get one of these in your hand .
And Xiao Ming was sure that certainly one of the painting or statues here belonged to that category .
Unfortunately however the chances of any such thing existing will most likely be in the famous works that were not for sale .
Even Xiao Ming knew that .
But since he was already there why not look around - perhaps his luck will be good this time .
And who knows he might just find a valuable artifact hidden among the ordinary paintings or perhaps get some clues later on in his next life simulation he was planning on doing the next day .
And even if he does not get anything particularly valuable from this trip at least he could enjoy a relaxing moment without thinking about training or cultivation .
So this was a win win situation anyways .
" Wow ! This painting is really good . " - Xiao Ming said as he looked at a painting in front of him .
The painting was of a beautiful waterfall and apparently this painting was actually made by a royal printer working for the royal family .
The colour of the painting especially around the waterfall was actually made from mixing high grade colours with fine dust made of various cultivation crystals .
This type of colouring method is very difficult and requires a very experienced person to do so .
But all that hard work paid off as the painting looked far more vibrant and beautiful as if the waterfall in the painting was real .
With that time passed by as he looked through the hall finding all kinds of arts truly fascinating
At this time he is really shopping to find some souvenirs to take back home .
Right now his house was really a little too dull and a little makeover would look better .
After all in the future even the imperial princess Long Yanran would come to visit his house , and it would be embarrassing to welcome such a guest like that .
Moreover he also wanted to gift something to the second elder Xiao Fu for all his help .
It was at that time while he was looking for what to buy he suddenly stopped in his track .
" What in the hell is this ? "
At this moment he was standing still and his eyes were wide open looking at a painting in a distance .
" What's going on Xiao Ming ? Is everything alright ? " A senior sister from the group who was standing beside him quickly caught on to his expression and asked with a little worry evident in her voice .
" Oh ! This... Haha ! It's nothing ! it's nothing ! " - Xiao Ming quickly shook his head and said with an awkward smile .
Seeing this senior sister did not ask for anything else for which Xiao Ming was greatful .
After that Xiao Ming quickly left the group with an excuse and headed towards the corner of the room where there were many portrait paintings .
On his way he ignored everything else and quickly made his way towards a particular painting at the corner that no one in perticular paid any attention to .
But right now Xiao Ming's attention was undivided as he looked at the painting infront of him in shock .
And at this time only one line came out of his mouth .
" How is this possible ? "
( Author's Note : Hello guys I hope you all are doing well and before ending this chapter I would like to make an important announcement .
I wanted to announce to everyone that I am going to release my second novel , whose name is :
" As An Extra I Change The Plots To Get Rewards : "
It will be a fantasy genre novel that will feature action , romance , adventure , mystery and many other interesting features that I am sure you will love to read .
Regarding the time when I will release this novel I am thinking either by the end of this month or the first week of the next month .
But before releasing the novel I just wanted to give you a head start on the matter and I hope that when I will release my new novel you will support it just like you are continuing to show support in my current works .
And if you have any ideas on the matter please do tell me in the comment sections .
But while I am open to constructive criticism please refrain from using too much negative comments which are not good for us as a community .
And if you like the story so far , then think about adding it in your library so that you don't miss any updates in the future .
So that's all I had to say today .
And I hope you have enjoyed reading today's chapter .
Thank you for reading . )
To Be Continued .