Stellar Stone
Fang Yuan studies a black, face sized rock glowing with points of blue light, shaped unlike its neighbors into a cube like a brick. He recognizes it from a story out of his previous life: an angry, down and out Gu Master once tripped over the counter it propped up, dissected it in retaliation, and found a legendary Gu worm inside, a tale that spread widely afterward. In this timeline it has not happened yet, and the stone still sits wedged under the counter leg, coated in dust, only two inches from Fang Yuan’s own feet. ch. 276
Gambling rocks are sold in five grades: scrap for over ten primeval stones, low for around a hundred, medium for a thousand, high for ten thousand, and super grade for a few hundred thousand a piece. This stellar stone is scrap grade, the least respected tier, since most such rocks are solid through and any Gu inside is usually already a dead husk. The counterfeiter Wei Shen Jing, hated across the southern border and wanted by almost every large clan for selling fake scrap rocks, has driven the grade’s reputation down further, though bored shoppers and practicing gamblers still buy them cheaply for fun. ch. 276
Third Inner City gambling is mostly the business of rank three Gu Masters, clan elder level and wealthy enough to prefer low grade rocks with better odds, which leaves the scrap tier an insult to most of them. A clerk, taking Fang Yuan’s distracted look for a newcomer’s and an easy mark, leads him deeper inside and explains how gambling rocks form: an injured or starving Gu worm hibernates, and rock slowly layers around its body over a long span until a fossil results, shaped and marked by the buried Gu’s own nature. Fang Yuan says he already knows the story. ch. 276
The clerk explains that stellar stones most often hold starlight type Gu, so a dart shaped fossil suggests a Star Dart Gu, a long fossil with a spreading tip a Star Arrow Gu, and a round fossil trailing a tail a Shooting Star Gu, shapes he says carry a very high chance of holding a Gu; more visible star markings raise that chance further and point to a higher rank besides. The shop’s rock dissecting masters, he says, have at least twenty years of experience apiece, and one, Master Duan, has worked with acid for over fifty years; the shop dissects for free on high and super grade purchases, charges for low and medium, and advises against paying for scrap grade at all, since a hired master would cost more than the rock. Fang Yuan recalls dissecting a Purple Gold Rock himself back on Qing Mao Mountain by brute force, a method that worked because the rock was soft, its Mudskin Toad tough, and his own experience by then considerable, since brute force usually kills the Gu inside. ch. 276
After looking over the stock, Fang Yuan buys several low grade rocks, old man stones, pushing cart stones, and stellar stones among them, rather than anything from the scrap grade tier. The disappointed clerk, having failed to upsell him, asks whether he holds a Yellow Pear Token or better for a discount. Fang Yuan shows the Purple Thorn Token, and the clerk’s eyes go wide. ch. 276
