The First Cultivator - Changing Existence

As Skymender entered the city square, everything slowly came to a halt. At first, the instrument of a person playing a string instrument made an unnatural sound, ringing throughout the square. 

Others looked over and saw him staring. They followed his gaze, and they soon saw Skymender, causing them to stop what they were doing as well.

The remaining people, noticing the lack of noise, looked around. Eventually, they all saw Skymender.

Skymender spoke. "Continue on."

After a moment of hesitation, everyone in the city square turned around and tried to focus on what they had been doing, though few were successful.

Skymender walked to the side and entered a store. It was clearly a nicely created store. After all, it was at the city center, one of the most populated places in the Imperial Capital.

As soon as Skymender entered, the owner of the shop personally came out and bowed to him. 

Skymender raised his hand. "No need for all of that. I am only here to look around."

The owner nodded and left, allowing an attendant to handle Skymender.

The attendant was clearly nervous, but was able to suppress it quite well.

"What can I do for you, Sir Skymender."

Skymender spoke again. "I'll just look around myself for a while."

The attendant bowed and stood off to the side.

Skymender began to walk around the shop.

This shop was essentially a junk store, but much more fancy. It collected ancient relics, or items that seemed old, and displayed them.

Looking on the walls, there were articles about legendary finds that had been found here.

The selling point was that this shop was essentially gambling. It was nearly impossible to tell if an item had value before you cleaned it and took it to a professional for examination.

Although items lined the store, many covered with rust or dirt, it surprisingly did not smell too bad.

In addition to this, all of the items were clearly seeable. The shop had three above ground floors and three underground floors, for a total of six.

The higher levels were like the first level, but the lower down you went, the more disorganized the shop was.

At the lowest floor, you would have to dig through countless old items.

Skymender walked around the above ground floor, but nothing managed to catch his eye.

He then began to explore the underground floors. The first underground floor, while clearly less organized, was still relatively easy to look through. The underground floors were much bigger as well.

Skymender took a while looking through all of the items before going down to the second to last floor.

This time, he had to dig.

There were plenty of items piled on top of each other, and some even inside one another.

Even as Skymender left and entered the bottom floor, he wasn't confident that he had looked through all of the items on the second to lowest floor.

The bottom floor was essentially a junkyard. Shovel's were hung up at the entrance. This floor was by far the largest.

Skymender began to walk over piles and piles of items on the ground.

Luckily, the ceiling in this room was quite high. It must have actually cost quite a lot for this building to be built.

There was plenty of dirt on the ground, essentially forming a little digging site for finding random treasures.

Skymender was here for two reasons. One, he wanted to see if he could find anything interesting. 

Two, he wanted to be known among the commoners. As long as he was not overbearing, they would have a good impression of him, and as a result, so would some of the nobles.

At the very least, there was a chance for them to have a good first impression. As Skymender had said, everything he was doing now was minor. 

It would be difficult to do anything that could majorly affect his reputation in a good way at this time. That would require luck or an opportunity.

Skymender took the shovel, found a random spot, and began to dig.

Although he was a noble, he did not disdain this kind of thing. After all, he had not been born in the Imperial Capital. It was a bit different for him.

As Skymender dug, he remembered the prices on the walls. 

The price of getting things from different floors varied.

However, no matter what one found, on the bottom floor, it would cost a silver to take out.

It seemed expensive, and it was, but it had to be remembered that everything here was old, some even ancient.

It was possible to find something invaluable here.

Skymender found many trinkets and random items, but none made him feel like taking them out.

He planned to go with his gut on this one.

After an hour, his shovel pierced the ground, and a clunking sound was heard. Skymender barely reacted to this. He had heard the same noise countless times over the last hour.

He bended over and picked up the metal on the ground. It was covered with a layer of dirt, so he wiped it off. Upon doing so, his eyes widened. 

He quickly wiped it off with his clothes, ignoring the dirt that got on him, and looked at what he had discovered.

There was no doubt. Even after inspecting it closely, he came to the same conclusion.

This was exactly like the pardon badge he had received from the emperor. Looking around, he put some dirt on it and called Li Youcai over.

Li Youcai came. Soon, they met up with the Fatty and left.

Skymender tossed the owner a silver coin on his way out. The owner tried to refuse it, but Skymender did not give him a chance.

His plans to explore the city square further were put to a halt.

He returned to the noble section of the Imperial Capital and looked through the rules.

However, even after a day and a night, even with the Fatty and Li Youcai's help, Skymender failed to find anything mentioning the pardon badge besides an explanation of its use and an illustration.

The pardon badge was known to few, so it was no wonder that the junk shop had one.