I’m starting to feel bad for the rickshaw driver.

  With the manor located as it is at the top of a cliff, the path up to it is, naturally, steep and winding. Walking it unencumbered would be a challenge for most, but running it, while pulling two people and a rickshaw… I hadn’t even known that was a feasible feat for a non-cultivator.

  Feasible or not though, the rickshaw driver appears like he might be on his last legs, breath puffing and clothes drenched in sweat.

  I almost want to tell him to stop, for a break at the very least, or maybe so I can just carry Meng Yi the rest of the way; she’s pressed into my side asleep, the smooth(ish) ride and her exhaustion having lulled her into slumber.

  In the end, I decide to simply let the man do his work, mostly because, in the time I spent deliberating on whether or not to say something, he’s gotten so close to home that it would be silly to bring it up now.

  The rickshaw driver pulls up into the grounds of the manor, and Meng Yi’s eyes open as he comes to a stop before the front entrance.

  “I didn’t drool on you, did I?” she asks, touching the sides of her lips self-consciously as she pulls away from me.

  The question is so absurdly out of character for her that I can’t help but laugh.

  “No,” I say. “Why do you ask? Do you usually drool in your sleep?”

  “Sometimes,” she says, a little embarrassed.

  Huh. Interesting. One more thing I now know about her, I guess. Meng Yi, nigh unflappable, super compartmentalizer, and occasional drooler.

  Meng Yi disembarks from the rickshaw, and I follow, watching as she reaches into her sleeve to pull out a coin purse.

  She hands the rickshaw driver a few gold coins, and from the expression on his face, succeeded by his rapid and enthusiastic bowing, she must have tipped generously.

  Good.

  Personally, I would also invite the man inside for a cup of tea as a thank you for his efforts, but I suppose a big, fat tip is good enough on its own.

  One of the house’s maids awaits us at the door with a deep bow, and since this is a common occurrence every time I return from an outing, I don’t think much of it. Not until she says, “The Young Master has guests from the Greater Wealth Company.”

  I frown in surprise, then reach out my qi sense to confirm that, yes, three of the accountants from the tent are here already.

  How’d they get here so fast?

  “Have they been waiting long?” Meng Yi asks.

  Her little nap on the ride here seems to have rejuvenated her a bit, but it’s clear that she still needs rest. Real rest.

  “They’ve only just arrived, Manager Meng,” the maid says, and Meng Yi looks to me, letting me decide what to do with the information.

  “Let’s meet them quickly so we can get you in bed,” I say. “You look two breaths away from fainting.”

  Meng Yi looks unhappy with my assessment of her wellbeing, but she says nothing.

  Good, because we both know I’m right.

  “Can you make her some tea?” I ask the maid, a young woman whose name I don’t know. “Something to help her sleep.”

  “Of course, Young Master,” she says.

  “Good. Thank you,” I say. “Where are the accountants?”

  On the direction of the maid, Meng Yi and I go to them in the parlour they wait at.

  Much as it was the last time, the accountants seem only interested in performing their duties and being on their way, and I make no attempt to change that.

  In less than three minutes, they’ve delivered the four boxes to me and made their exits, and Meng Yi and I sit, her sipping some divine smelling tea, as I enjoy everyone’s favourite part of shopping, the unboxing.

  The first box I open contains the third item I bought, the Chill Ginger Root, a peasant rank plant that causes a bone deep chill when ingested. Useful for cooling potions and such things due to its cold natured qi.

  As one can imagine, I do not need this. Not only because it is too low ranked to matter to my cultivation, but also because its very nature is antithetical to the concept of my cultivation.

  Why then did I pay ninety thousand gold for it, you ask? Good question, and, you see, the answer has everything to do with the fact that I was spending someone else’s money at the time.

  Almost like she can hear my thoughts, I catch Meng Yi giving me a judgemental look.

  I wave her off. “Oh, don’t give me that look. Tang Shui looked rich I doubt he’ll even notice the money. Besides, he’s a jerk. He deserves it.”

  “Because he didn’t care that his son was threatening a child,” Meng Yi says, not quite asking, but leaving the door open for me to confirm or deny all the same.

  “Yeah.” I nod. “The only reason he came to make amends was because his son picked a fight with someone strong. That… asshole could probably have murdered that girl on the street, and he wouldn’t have cared.”

  “I’m starting to understand you better,” Meng Yi says, watching me intently, and her words make me blink in surprise.

  “Starting to?” I ask, dubious. That’s hard to believe, considering how she sometimes seems to know my thoughts before even I do.

  Meng Yi’s response though, is an honest nod. “You are a confusing person,” she says.

  Am I? I wonder.

  Well, maybe to her I would seem that way. After all, what is that saying I’d seen somewhere on the internet about how in xianxia land the greatest power is being a normal, regular person who doesn’t go out of their way to be a douche?

  So, yeah, I suppose to her I must seem rather strange. Or, as she said, confusing.

  Returning my focus back to the matter at hand, I pick the Chill Ginger Root from its place in the box.

  Useless to my cultivation or not, rolls are free, and I can always sell it later on.

  Rolling…

  163 (Beast Rank)

  Reward: NIL

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Well, that was a waste of time,” I say.

  “Failed roll?” Meng Yi asks, though from her expression, she already knows the answer to that.

  I nod, returning the Chill Ginger Root to its box and opening the next one to reveal the covered ceramic pot within.

  “Ah, I remember you,” I say, picking up the small green pot.

  It doesn’t look like much, a dull green body coloured wood brown at the rims, with a leaf design of mediocre detail in the centre.

  If not for the peasant rank qi easily sensed within it, it would be no different from any cheap, over-the-counter item of its kind.

  This is no cheap, over-the-counter item though, it’s a pot of preservation, an item that can supposedly keep even raw meat from going bad for over a decade through qi BS.

  Raising the lid, I look within the pot and my eyes widen when I find that the inside is several times bigger than the outside.

  On the outside, the pot looks like it might not even hold a litre, but from within, it has the volume of a large barrel at least.

  I stick a hand into the pot, laughing in amazement as the small object swallows my arm all the way up to my shoulder before I touch the bottom.

  “Three hundred and sixty-five thousand gold for a pot you will never use,” Meng Yi says.

  “Of course I’ll use it,” I disagree immediately.

  “To do what?” she counters.

  “…Stuff,” I say, after a moment floundering for a reply.

  Meng Yi just laughs and shakes her head with fond amusement.

  Cheeks a tad warm, I decide to move on from the pot to the remaining two items, the two which I’m actually most excited to check out.

  Before I can move on though, there is a little matter that must first be finalized.

  Rolling…

  427 (Beast Rank)

  Reward: NIL

  I tsk. “Another failed roll. You know, if both these items were beast rank, I would have doubled them at least.”

  “An unfortunate side effect of your power,” Meng Yi says.

  “You could say that again.”

  This is the problem with a chance based anything, on some days your luck is in, and on others well… tough titty, as they say.

  “It is fortunate that it won’t be a problem for the next two,” Meng Yi says, and to that I readily nod.

  “Thank Heaven for that.”

  Returning the pot to its box and moving it to the ‘checked’ pile (if you can call two a pile), I choose one of the remaining two boxes at random and open it to find, cushioned in soft red velvet, a jade ring.

  As with the pot of preservation, the ring looks much plainer than its worth would suggest. No fancy markings, no gold; in fact, the ring is only jade in colour, as the material it’s made of looks and feels more like glass than any jewellery I’ve ever encountered.

  It’s beast rank too, making it, along with the Ginde Pepper and the cultivation manual, the only beast rank items at the auction today, and I bought it for seven hundred thousand gold.

  A steal, in my opinion. Because, in my hand, I hold a real-life storage ring.

  I slip the ring onto the middle finger of my left hand, the only one with a knuckle that seems big enough to handle the large diameter of the object, and I’m about to comment on the ludicrous size, when it shrinks and snugly hugs my finger.

  I’m about to comment on that too, when I feel the ring suck on my qi and activate, and a large… other space the size of a big cupboard becomes known to my mind in the blink of a mental eye.

  “Whoa,” I say, focusing on this strange new pocket dimension. “This is cool.”

  Grabbing the first thing within reach, which turns out to be the box the accountants had delivered the ring in, I will it into the space, and slowly, over a few seconds, it fizzles into mist and appears in there, visible to my mind’s eye.

  I laugh in amazement. This is incredible. I can’t even sense the beast rank qi of the box anymore.

  With a flex of my will, I cause the box to reform out of mist back in my hands.

  “This is cool,” I say again, setting the box down after a moment of observing it for any changes.

  There aren’t any. Not that I can sense anyway. Whatever process the storage ring uses, it leaves no traces that are perceptible by me.

  “Well,” I say, grinning at Meng Yi, “time for the two for one deal.”

  Rolling…

  822 (Sage Rank)

  Reward: [1] Sage Rank Faa Circle Storage Ring

  I blink at the reward. “Well,” I say for lack of anything else to, “that’s a much better reward than I was expecting.”

  “Peasant rank?” Meng Yi asks.

  I shake my head. “Sage.”

  An expression of restrained awe settles on her face. “That is a remarkable reward,” she says.

  Don’t I know it.

  I mean, I’d hoped for something better, naturally, but at the same time, especially with how my luck has gone today, I’d just been glad that there was no chance of not getting anything since the ring is beast rank.

  Two ranks higher isn’t something I’d dared to let myself hope for.

  With a thought, I summon the ring from my reward space.

  But for the clear difference in qi quality, it’s virtually indistinguishable from its beast rank counterpart, and I spot the confused surprise on Meng Yi’s face that this is the case.

  Curious to know what the difference is between a beast rank and a sage rank storage ring, I slip the new one onto the middle finger of my right hand.

  It shrinks to my size, sucks on dozens of times more qi than the beast rank one did, and activates.

  “Whoa,” I say.

  The pocket dimension of the sage rank ring isn’t ten times bigger than the beast rank’s. Hell, it isn’t even twenty-five times bigger, which is what I’d expected putting it on.

  It’s incomparable.

  The beast rank ring has a hammerspace the size of a large cupboard, but the sage rank boasts a space the size of a warehouse. I could relocate all of the manor’s furniture in there, and not even fill it up to a quarter.

  To test it out, I rise from the sofa I’m sitting on and touch it… wait, no. I don’t need to touch it. Physical contact is a limitation for the beast rank ring. The sage rank one seems almost insulted that I expected it to be that restricted in ability.

  A take an experimental step from the sofa, checking to see if I can still feel that connection that tells me that I can store it. I do.

  I take another small step, still there, and right as I shift to take a third, the connection breaks.

  “How far away am I from the chair, do you think?” I ask Meng Yi, trying to eyeball the distance myself.

  “Maybe six handspans,” she says, reminding me that I’m largely unfamiliar with the common units of measurement of this world.

  I know a handspan here is about nine inches, so six should be… fifty-four inches. Divide that by twelve and that’s… five feet? Give or take.

  “Not bad,” I say.

  Shifting closer to the sofa, I feel connection bloom back to life, and, with a thought, the chair disappears into the ring.

  Another thought, and it returns to the same position.

  Unlike with the beast rank ring, the process is instantaneous, and there’s no accompanying mist.

  “Not bad at all,” I say, beyond pleased. “This one ring alone is worth the two failed rolls. At this point, the Ginde Pepper is just a bonus.”

  Reaching for the final unopened box, I open it, releasing a harsh, burning scent from within.

  Meng Yi sneezes.

  “Sorry,” I say, pressing the lid back down. “Are you okay?”

  She sniffs. “I’m fine, Young Master Xi—ah! Ah! Achoo!”

  She sniffs again.

  Right. Fine.

  Looking sheepish, Meng Yi says, “I’ll hold my breath.”

  “You sure?” I ask, sounding, and no doubt looking, as dubious as I feel.

  “I’ll be fine,” she says. “Just… please hurry.”

  Well, if she’s sure.

  Opening the lid a crack, I dip a finger in, making the tiniest contact with the yellow fruit… wait, are peppers fruits?

  Well, whatever they are, I make contact.

  Rolling…

  724 (Peasant Rank)

  Reward: 243-Year-Old Ginde Pepper

  With the roll done, I slam the lid shut so fast, I almost catch my finger.

  Picking up a pillow to fan the pepper’s essence from the air, I ask, “Are you good? Can you breathe?”

  Meng Yi takes a moment to test out the air gingerly, then she nods.

  “A good roll?” she asks.

  “Peasant rank,” I say.

  “A good roll,” she decides.

  I suppose it is. For something that will give me a permanent boost, and that I have this much synergy with? Yeah, it really is.

  Meng Yi stifles a yawn.

  “Alright, I think it’s off to bed with you,” I say. “You need your rest.”

  Meng Yi gives me a knowing look. “You’re really enjoying this, aren’t you?”

  “Incredibly so,” I admit easily.

  “Well, don’t get used to it,” she says rising, a little slowly, but steadily enough I need not intervene.

  I rush to her side all the same, a pleasant smile my only reply to the look my actions get from her.

  “We shouldn’t leave those there,” she says after a moment, gesturing at the boxes of expensive treasures just sitting around.

  “True,” I say, then hold out my right hand, effectively putting all of them within the sage ring’s range.

  They disappear with a thought.

  Oh, yes, I could get used to that.

  I walk Meng Yi to her room, stopping at the door.

  “I know you can’t use it yet,” I say, showing her the beast rank storage ring, “so, I’ll hold on to it for you. Something to look forward to for when you enter Weaving phase.”

  “I would think Weaving phase by itself would be the thing to look forward to,” Meng Yi says, an amused tilt to her lips.

  “Consider it a bonus then,” I say.

  Meng Yi stares at me for a long time, still with that little smile.

  “What?” I ask.

  She hugs me. Arms gently reaching around to hold me tight.

  Oh. Uh… okay.

  Having only one reaction to something like this, I hug her back.

  After many seconds and no time at all, we separate.

  “Sleep tight,” I say. “And seriously, sleep. I’ll be fine on my own for a few hours. I think I’ll do some reading.”

  “Okay, Young Master. See you.”

  She steps into the room and closes the door gently.

  I don’t know why, but I stand at her door for several seconds, until finally, with a breath that sounds an awful lot like a sigh, I turn and head for the library.

  Ooh, I wonder how many books I can fit in the storage rings.