CH 13

Demon Artifact Pavilion, First Floor.

“Your Excellency, Your Holiness… Did you really accept the task of from the Demon Sect to become the head of the Demon Artifact Pavilion?” Hu Dingtian followed behind Luo Wusheng, trembling with fear, and asked cautiously.

“Sheesh, even if you think the token that I show you is a fake, can someone else be a fake too despite standing right infront of you?” Luo Wusheng responded expressionlessly.

He was currently surveying the environment inside the Demon Artifact Pavilion.

Compared to the miserable state that can be seen on the outside of the pavilion, the interior of the pavilion was cleaner, albeit barely.

The first floor was where the pavilion sold Mortal Weapons, but these weapons were covered in dust, indicating that they had been sitting in the pavilion for a long time without being touched or taken care of by anyone.

“Dingtian, how long has it been since the pavilion last sold a weapon?”

“Your Highness, you can just call me Little Hu,” Hu Dingtian replied in a submissive manner. “To be honest with you, since I arrived at this pavilion a year ago, I’ve never seen the pavilion sell a single weapon.”

“Really, not even a single one?” Hearing that answer, Luo Wusheng was taken aback, his face visibly surprised.

Hu Dingtian nodded bitterly.

“Have you tried lowering the prices to sell the weapons?”

“Your Highness may not know this, but the prices of mortal weapons in the royal capital are controlled by the Immortal Nation and cannot be adjusted at will.”

Was this to prevent vicious competition?

Luo Wusheng pondered over the situation.

However, in this case, the Demon Artifact Pavilion was indeed unable to compete with other forces.

Although the Demon Sect’s Refining Technique is also a magical art passed down from ancient times, many of the secret techniques that complement refining have been lost to this day.

The most fatal point is that the things it refines all come with side effects, and these side effects are completely random and cannot be removed.

For example, a dagger that has to stab its owner every day, a long sword that will make its owner develop a sexual interest in a beast after it’s been used for a certain period of time, and a long spear that only straightens when the holder is in an excited state, and so on.

Compared to this, even the weapons produced by the Taoist Tools Pavilion under the Taoist Sect, which can create weapons with self-enhancing effects such as regeneration and clearing the mind, and even the mass-produced mortal weapons produced by the Immortal Nation, do not have any side effects like the weapon made by the Demon Artifact Pavilion.

(As expected, if I want to change the situation of the Demon Artifact Pavilion, I must start by fixing the Demon Sect’s Refining Technique first…)

Luo Wusheng sighed.

“I will deal with this matter later, let’s move on, tell me, how many staff members are there in the Pavilion? And where are they?”

“Reporting to the Holy Saint, in total, there are four staff members working for the Pavilion, as for where are the other three…” Hu Dingtian hesitated.

“Well?”

Luo Wusheng raised an eyebrow.

“They… umm, they went to ‘Fireworks’…”

Fireworks? This name sounds familiar.

Luo Wusheng quickly remembered where the familiarity came from.

It was when he was chatting with those wandering cultivator brothers on the Sea Crossing Ship before. They occasionally mention this name when they talk about the list of Red Light districts in the Immortal Nation.

Fireworks is a relatively chaotic district in the royal city, with several sleeping flower and willow establishments inside (Chinese slang for brothel), unfortunately, the quality of the ‘artist’ in there are not that high, and their service is also subpar at best, the only advantage that they have over the other red light district is their low price.

So the remaining three officers went there to have fun? Leaving this poor little guy behind?

“Then, why didn’t you go together with them?”

Luo Wusheng looked at Hu Dingtian with some confusion. In theory, this kind of going out to have fun should be done together, and the Demon Artifact Pavilion doesn’t need anyone to stay here in its current state, considering not even a thief would want to steal anything inside due to being afraid of dying thanks to the weapon side effect.

And judging from Hu Dingtian’s weak and drained appearance, he must not be the kind of person who doesn’t go to that kind of place due to reason.

“Uh, because it’s not my turn to be on duty today…” Hu Dingtian’s face looked embarrassed.

Hearing his words, Luo Wusheng was stunned in shock.

Then he widened his eyes.

“Hold on,… don’t tell me, rather than going there to have fun, you guys went there to…”

Knowing that his Holy Saint had already understood his meaning, Hu Dingtian’s face turned red like blood vessels and nodded in shame.

“Just, we are going there just to get some funds for the Pavillion, um, since the fund is a little. . . uh, a little tight“

Hu Dingtian’s voice was very small, but it sounded like a thunderbolt in Luo Wusheng’s ears.

He really didn’t expect that the Demon Artifact Pavilion had fallen to this point, and the dignified staff had to go to Fireworks to make a living by doing ‘escort’ service!

No wonder he looked like he was drained dry! He literally got drained!

When he looked at Hu Dingtian again, his eyes were already filled with complexity.

But then he felt that something was wrong.

“Is the situation in the Demon Artifact Pavilion really so difficult? Hasn’t the Demon sect distributed any rewards for guarding the Pavilion this year?”

The Demon Artifact Pavilion is located far away in the royal city, and salaries are paid on an annual basis. However, the corresponding rewards that each officer gets are very high, enough to cover the living expenses of the members of the Artifact Pavilion for the entire year, and it should be enough to cover the cost of anything cultivation related to.

Hearing Luo Wusheng’s words, Hu Dingtian’s face showed a hint of anger.

“It’s all that damn Lu Bin’s fault!”

He glared at the ground with hatred. “If it weren’t for that guy, even though we were ostracized and sent here, we wouldn’t have fallen this low and gotten into this predicament!”

“There is more to this? Tell me more,” said Luo Wusheng, his face slightly darkened. It seemed that there was a story behind this.

“Your Highness, the truth is that our Demon Artifact Pavilion only has one crafter this year, named Lu Bin. Some of the weapons we have placed in this tower were also made by him.”

“At first, even if our pavilion only had one crafter, it didn’t matter much, Since we couldn’t sell any of the weapons he made, and although he was still the only crafter in our Demon Artifact Pavilion, we still respected him.”

“Unexpectedly, this bastard Lu Bin secretly contacted the sect after meeting a certain quota and gave all the rewards from the sect for this year to an elder within the sect. With the help of that elder, he snuck onto a Return Sea-Crossing Demon Sect ship and returned to the sect incognito, leaving only a few of us who couldn’t make artifacts to guard the Pavillion!”

Hu Dingtian gritted his teeth.

“Can’t you contact the sect to report this?” Luo Wusheng frowned.

“We have tried, but It’s not that easy. Since he dared to go back, he’s naturally not afraid of us reporting him. At that time, all the communications from the Demon Artifact Pavilion were intercepted by that elder. Moreover, we were all disciples who had been ostracized by the Demonic Sect, and we couldn’t find anyone to send a message for us…”

“By then, after several failed attempts to send messages, we had to give up and find another way out.”

“We tried to practice the weapon refining skills in the Demon Artifact Pavilion, hoping to send a message back to the Demon Sect when we met the crafting quota. But we were just low-level disciples from the Hehuan Realm, and we couldn’t possibly have any weapon-refining talent…”

“As you know, our cultivation method in the Hehuan Realm requires both the Yin and Yang energy to practice, but by then, we couldn’t even afford to go to the brothel to cultivate. We had to go to the fireworks place instead, and later on, we couldn’t even afford that…”

So they borrowed money everywhere and ended up working there.

Luo Wusheng understood everything.

He fell silent for a moment, then lightly brushed his storage bag.

A pile of spirit stones fell to the ground with a clatter.

As the Holy Saint of the Demon Sect, he didn’t lack any of these things.

“Little Hu, go and take these spirit stones and exchange them for some currency that can be used in the royal city. When the other three come back from their duty, we’ll go together to get you all some clean clothes, then have a good meal and finally come back to clean up the attic of the pavilion.”

“Remember this, from now on, you guys will be following me.”

Hu Dingtian’s gaze was a little dull, as if he didn’t believe nor realize what was happening.

“Ah, then, what do you want to do?” he instinctively asked.

Luo Wusheng smiled.

“I’m going to practice using the Demon Sect’s refining technique.”