To Timothy's surprise, Master Sei now looked as if he was a ghostly figure floating next to him. "Do not be so surprised, the only reason I chose to not appear in this way until now, is because it would have been too inconvenient for you while in your little township where it would be highly unlikely for an expert's soul to appear in this way. But now that we are in a city, I feel that there are several dozen experts at the very least who have similar setups with their organizations." Master Sei told Timothy as he chuckled to himself.
The reason Master Sei was chuckling, is because Timothy looked as if he was in a daze. Master Sei looked like a true heavenly monarch level figure with a golden crown on his head and long silver hair. It was to the point where Timothy felt extremely awkward, as if he should have been praising and worshiping this new master of his.
"So anyways Timothy, start cloning everything in here and make a nice black robe for yourself. In two days we will be heading to the Hollow City Marketplace so that you could sell your items and buy many new ones to clone. You will be repeating that process for this entire month while spending the rest of the time cultivating with my direction. If you are able to do this, it is very likely that you could approach different schools in the city to test your luck in being accepted." Master Sei told Timothy after an awkward minute of silence between the two.
And so just like that, Timothy cloned everything within the room and made a fine looking black robe using an extra pair of clothing his mother packed for him and the extra bed sheets. Instead of cultivating, Timothy actually felt very mentally tired from needing to escape the clutches of the Patriarch of the Flamed Roots clan so he decided to sleep right away to minimize his stress.
As quickly as his stay had begun, the two days passed by extremely quickly as all there was for Timothy to do was to work on cultivating. However, the male attendant who checked him in two nights prior, was very helpful to Timothy. During these two days whenever Timothy would take a short break from cultivating, he would actually go down to talk to the male attendant and request different types of information concerning Hollow City.
Acting similar to how a library would, the male attendant would loan Timothy several books and maps concerning Hollow City and everything one would need to know while staying without charging Timothy for them. Out of good faith and appreciation, Timothy would still hand over several gold pieces. What Timothy was able to learn is that there were many merchants situated within Hollow City but very few were large enough to cover the entire kingdom.
Even if he had to pay a little more, Timothy felt that he should mainly do business with those who were only local. If he were to do business with any major powers that could cause him trouble, it would be much harder for Timothy to survive the ordeal or even just potentially being killed outright without care for the city's rules.
In royal family-run cities, even an extremely powerful force outside of the kingdom while visiting wouldn't dare not follow any rules within fear of losing such a big amount of business. However, Hollow City's governor was only married into the royal family and not a direct descendant. Therefore, it may cause some headaches, but Timothy was not guaranteed his safety within the city walls.
"It would be wise to hire a small group of mercenaries when you are ready to go out and adventure outside of this region. Your family should for the most part be safe since the Flamed Roots clan had a profitable enough business not to cause any trouble. But if you were to surround your family with their own decent guards, it would put even more pressure on them to remain behaving properly." Master Sei told Timothy the morning before it was time to finally head into the marketplace in the downtown area of Hollow City.
There were small shops and restaurants in every corner of Hollow City, except what was different compared to the downtown area was that there were no schools situated in the area and only street merchants who were either buying items and artifacts, or were selling items and artifacts. Therefore, Timothy would be able to remain somewhat to himself and not attract too much attention.
He was very close to reaching the Elementary level two cultivation rank as a Body Refinement cultivator which would make him an above average cultivator for his age. This was of course due to Master Sei guiding him properly as his master. Unfortunately, Timothy would only be considered above average in the region he was in, if he was in more competitive and stronger regions, he would only be considered average.
As expected, the downtown area of Hollow City was not only massive, but incredibly lively to the point where just the noise radiating from within caused Timothy's body to shake. It was as if an earthquake had just hit and he had to force his balance in response. "You had better get used to such scenes, because as you continue on your path towards immortality, there will be much bigger and livelier places you will come across. I did not want to say anything, but Hollow City is equivalent to a small town back in my world." Master Sei told Timothy in a comforting way.
Finally finding his composure, Timothy began to walk through the many crowds of people until he came across a merchant group's building that he recognized in one of the books he read in which the male attendant back in the hotel loaned to him. They were called the Golden Hand Merchant Group and they were a merchant group which existed within Hollow City since its founding.
Compared to the other merchants within the city, they were still considered only average at best, but it was due to how the average visitor saw them. In actuality, due to them being within Hollow City since the very beginning of its founding, meant that they had undeniable relationships with the many schools and even the governor's family within the city.
