Soon, the group of four made it to a culdesac of sorts, surrounded by seven identical towers, each with three floors. These towers were reserved for each one of the professions. Formation masters, alchemy master, beast masters, weapons masters, poison master, magic masters and runic vein masters.
The limit of Dyon's knowledge on the Sapientia Quadrant was what Clara had told him, so he was still quite surprised the poison masters had such high position in the martial world. Usually, even in the human world, those who specialized in poison would be seen as the scourge of society, but here they were, heads held as high as any of the other arrogant geniuses of second professions.
It wasn't that Dyon looked down on poison masters, after all, if it wasn't for the existence of their dao, he would have likely died in his second trial. He was just surprised. Maybe poison masters had a use he was ignorant of.
"Alright." Violet suddenly stopped the four of them before they entered the alchemy tower, making sure not to get in anyone's way. She was currently a farcry from the overbearing daughter of the sect Master. Every action she took was deliberate and filled with caution, clearly she didn't want to offend anybody. "Before we go in, you all should know that this is no longer our 98th quadrant," She continued in a small voice. "Follow me and only speak when you absolutely have to. Cool your heads and think about the bigger picture."
Wess and Luka nodded seriously, but Dyon only smiled a knowing smile before nodding lightly. There was no need for him to cause unnecessary trouble for Violet, after all, she had yet to truly act against him.
"Good. The tower is split into three floors, however, only Dukes and above can enter the second floor." Violet looked at Dyon with an expectant gaze. "We'll have to rely on you to buy a few pills on that floor, unfortunately, I'm still a Marquis."
"No problem." Dyon nodded.
This quick and easy response surprised Luka. He, much like everyone else he disliked Dyon for various reasons, assumed that he had made up his status as a Duke. In fact, even Violet was currently testing Dyon, which was why she hadn't said this any earlier despite them having had a meeting just a couple hours before. Clearly, she didn't want Dyon to find an excuse to disappear.
Violet smiled sweetly, confirming many things in her heart. "Alright. We'll start on the first floor and buy a batch of pills there first, then we'll buy a few on the second floor." She couldn't hide the faint excitement in her voice, she had never had the opportunity to step into Duke exclusive floors, this would be her first time.
...
The moment the four of them walked in, they were greeted by a beautiful host who gave them a quick tour of the first floor before allowing them to go off on their own.
Dyon wasn't too surprised by this good treatment. After all, those who came from truly powerful backgrounds would have next to no need to come to a place like this, they would either rely on their own family alchemists, or go directly to Sapientia Quadrant. Why would the rich and powerful rely on apprentices for their things? As a result, the hosts of these towers were used to dealing with those of lower status, so they didn't have any disdain that one might normally see when members of a mere 98th quadrant walked in.
Even if they were members of the 100th quadrant, they would be treated with respect because they were the main clientele of this tower. If they stopped coming because of poor treatment, the Sapientia Quadrant would lose out on a good source of income. Of course, Sapientia Corner was also aware that they were pretty much the only option for this demographic of individuals, so while they were polite, they weren't servile either.
"Hello, I'd like 1000 essence condensing pills." Violet brought them to the counter specializing in energy recovering and directly asked to buy a thousand.
The young man behind the counter wore azure robes with three bronze bands on each one of his sleeves. By the system set by the Sapientia family and the Head Alchemy Guild, this made him a 6th stage Practitioner of Alchemy.
After nodding lightly, the young man began to arrange the pills into various boxes before handing them over for Violet to store. The process was smooth and without issue.
With that completed, they then went to the healing pill counters and bought 1000 bone mending pills.
The reason why alchemists were so lauded was because of their ability to aid those even beyond their cultivation level. For example, a Practitioner, despite only needed the soul level of a meridian formation warrior, is capable of creating pills useful to essence gatherers. Both the essence condensing pills and bone mending pills were examples of this. In fact, depending on purity, they could have minor effects on saints as well.
This trend continued with master level experts as well, with them being capable of creating pills effective for saints, and so on and so forth. Therefore, no one dared to lightly disregard an alchemist just because of cultivation level.
"Alright, we can head to the second floor now," Violet said with a faint excitement.
Just as the group of four was about to head to the second floor, a large commotion erupted outside that caused them to frown. There weren't many people who dared to cause trouble here, so what could possibly be going on?
When Dyon looked around, he found it odd that the alchemists and hosts here were actually pretending as though they hadn't heard anything.
At first, the four of them had planned to ignore it as well, but that was when Violet heard a familiar voice.
"That's Virvor!" Violet frowned deeply.
She had gone to Virvor, much like Dyon, in order to ask him to join. However, he had rejected, stating that he preferred to be alone. Violet hadn't felt the same pull toward forcing him to join as she had with Dyon, so she simply let it go. After all, there was no guarantee that Virvor would pass the Inner disciple trials anyway. But, now that he was here, and clearly in trouble, it might be an opportunity to get him to join.
The problem was that Violet didn't want to start a commotion here, lest she offend someone she wasn't supposed to. Weighing the pros and cons, getting Virvor on her side might not be worth the trouble, especially if she couldn't fully control him in the future.
However, the next words that they all heard made this something Violet couldn't ignore, even if she wanted to.
"98th quadrant trash, I made it very clear to you that that piece you bought was something I had been eyeing! Hand it over and kneel here for three days and three nights, or else I'll cripple you where you stand!"
Dyon raised an eyebrow, looking over at Violet. "Do you recognize that voice?"
Violet nodded slowly. "He's a Duke from the 74th quadrant. I have no doubt that he purposefully made problems for Virvor…"
"I see…" Dyon turned and walked out of the tower before Violet could stop him. Even Luka's normally fiery personality was doused in water as Wess stood rooted in place.
As core disciples, they understood the fear for the 74th quadrant more than the younger disciples did. They had quite literally suffered bullying for centuries at their hands, completely unable to retaliate. The legacies and core teachings of a quadrant 24 ranks above their own was simply too much to overcome.
Even worse, among the weaker quadrants that made use of Sapientia Corner, the 74th quadrant was among the strongest. Quadrants ranked higher than 70 rarely came here, and when they did, it wasn't usually to the alchemy tower, it was usually for other more niche things as they weren't in need of pills from apprentices.
For all intents and purposes, this made the 74th quadrant one of the rulers of the Sapientia Corner because very few weak enough to need this space could oppose them…
When Dyon walked out of the shop, there was already an accumulating crowd. Virvor stood at the center of the culdesac, facing this 74th quadrant Marquis with all of his escape routes cut off by who Dyon assumed were either more of the 74th quadrant lackies, or those of weaker quadrants looking to curry a favor.
