"Sorry to make you wait, senior!" The clerk announced as he came with another female clerk.
"This is the clerk who manages the information department currently." The male clerk introduced.
The female clerk seemed a bit flushed upon seeing Lin Mu and a blush had appeared on her face.
"Mm? Is there something wrong?" Lin Mu asked.
"No-no nothing senior." The clerk replied in a meek voice.
"Alright. So what will it cost to get all the information?" Lin Mu asked.
"Since we are shutting down senior, we will give you a discount." The female clerk said before pulling out an abacus from her satchel.
She quickly calculated an amount on it before showing Lin Mu. But Lin Mu looked on awkwardly at the abacus.
"Umm… senior Xukong, how do I read an abacus?" Lin Mu secretly asked.
Lin Mu had seen abacuses before but had never used one himself, thus he didn't know how to read it. And even in these past two years he never did that while he was in the Sleepscape, thus he was now confused.
"You count it from the center row. The four beads on the bottom part are all one unit and the one on top is worth five units. If you go to the left, you increase the amount by ten and if you go to the right, you instead enter fractions." Xukong explained.
With Lin Mu's mind, it didn't take him more than a second to calculate the amount.
"Ah, so it's, ten thousand six hundred and twenty nine? But in what coins?." Lin Mu replied.
"Gold coins of course." The female clerk replied.
"Ah, that will be no problem." Lin Mu said before causally pulling out a large pouch from his ring and placing it on the desk.
~THUD~
The loud sound shocked the clerks as if they had not expected something like this. Each of gold coin was of one gram and thus that bag weighed over ten kilograms.
"Umm… just hundred and sixty spirit stones would have been enough too, but since senior has so much gold then we can accept it too." The clerk replied feeling a bit awed.
Usually, large transactions in gold rarely happened and the cultivators specially used spirit stones in their stead as they were convenient to carry. A single low grade spirit stone was worth a hundred coins.
It was now that Lin Mu realized he had never asked for the price of spirit stones compared to gold coins.
'Damn… I've been carrying around a fortune since the start.' Lin Mu thought.
"Haha! You will be even more shocked if you find out the worth of the other cultivator currencies. But I can tell you that the value of gold compared to the spirit stone is probably less due to it being of low quality.
Cultivators can further refine ordinary metals such as iron, copper, silver, and gold into higher quality forms that are then minted into coins to be used by them." Xukong said.
"Oh? Is that what the green gold that old man Jing refined was?" Lin Mu asked.
"Yes, that's correct. The higher refined forms of these metals can be used for various things such as forging of spirit tools and weapons." Xukong replied.
"I see…" Lin Mu replied.
The female clerk was rummaging through a set of registers that she had brought along with her. It took her about ten minutes before she was finally done.
"So in what form do you want the information to be in senior?" The female clerk questioned.
"Umm… the best would be if it's in a jade slip." Lin Mu said.
"That… may be difficult." The male clerk said.
"Oh? Why so?" Lin Mu questioned.
"With the amount of information there is, there is no way a normal jade slip will be able to hold it. You will need a mid grade jade slip for it." The clerk said.
"Hmm, will this one work?" Lin Mu asked, showing the jade slip that he had been using.
"Oh, it's a mid grade jade slip!" The clerk exclaimed.
She took the jade slip and held it for a second before her expression fell.
"This one is already filled with a lot of information I can tell, so you will need to get another one." The female clerk replied.
"Hmm.., alright. Do you guys sell that? I think there should be a department that sells spirit tools too right?" Lin Mu asked.
"That department was the first to shut down, so you will have to go and buy it from elsewhere senior. Jade slips are widely used so you should be able to buy them from any shop selling spirit tools in the city." The male clerk replied.
"Oaky, which is the closest shop?" Lin Mu questioned.
"The Gengbai emporium is the closest one, senior. If you go to the street that's on the right three cross roads from here, you will reach it." The male clerk answered.
"Alright, I'll get it. Oh, and I also wanted to ask if you have a library here?" Lin Mu said.
"Yes, we do. Do you want to visit it senior?" The female clerk asked.
"Yes, how much will be the charge for it?" Lin Mu questioned.
"Since you've already paid so much, you do not need to pay senior. You can stay in the library as long as you want, it's free for you to use." The clerk answered.
"Ah, that is perfect." Lin Mu said feeling pleased.
He nodded his head and left the mercenary union's building, heading towards the shop that the male clerk had told him about.
It took Lin Mu about ten minutes to reach the shop, which was decent looking. There was a large board on which its name was written in elaborate calligraphy.
"Welcome to Gengbai Emporium, what would you like, customer?" the shopkeeper immediately greeted Lin Mu upon seeing him stand in the door.
While Lin Mu's clothes were that of a commoner, the shopkeeper could easily identify a cultivator.