Huh. She needs to pay attention to her senses more passively. She didn't even notice there was something other than gold in there, since she hadn't gone digging through it. She needs to go back to the guest house and try duping them later.

Shame about the economic underdevelopment. Shopping will have to wait for the big city, then. She will decline any bulk food resources and inquire specifically after food good for the road, and insist on paying them if they come up with something (unless they try very, very hard, in which case she will ruefully accept).

Someone scrounges up some jerky, someone else some sugared dried fruit (and does politely demand pay for it, sugar is expensive), and there's nuts and hard crackers. She's still a clear outsider, if a respected one.

She will take some of everything and pay whatever they say is a fair price, unless they're obviously underasking (based on their demeanor and the merchant references), in which case she'll look vaguely contemplative, shrug and pay double what they're asking.

Whatever they sell her, she'll hold or put away in her coat pockets.

Once the candied fruit person doesn't get smacked, everyone else asks for what seem to be fair prices. It's a good three days' worth and comes to about one gold tael in total, the bulk of the price being the fruit.

She thanks everyone and wanders back towards the administrative building. Where does the sun look like it's at, and can she tell what season it is based on the angle of the sun over the day?

She asks the boy from before if he's still here, or whoever switched in otherwise, if there's a location or landmark visible from here where she's unlikely to be disturbed for a few hours?

It seems to be summer if one goes by sun angles. Twilight is about to strike as the sun dips below the edge of the ridgeline of what can be described more as tall hills than small mountains surrounding the valley the town is in.

The same boy is there. He seems to be an apprentice clerk. So is a family on business who vanish temporarily when she approaches. 

...Any of the hilltops should do, he thinks?? She probably won't be disturbed, the young master kept the immediate surroundings well culled of low-level spirit beasts.

More information! One of the functions of practitioners, or at least the domesticated ones, is keeping the local spirit wildlife under control. And by how blasé the kid is about it, spirit beasts must be not very much the same thing as ascended beasts.

She thanks the kid and heads back to her lodging.

Once she's back, she vanishes her food into Dressing Room storage and tries to duplicate the spirit stones.

It requires integrating them into some sort of jewelry, but once she figures that out she can duplicate them just fine. The duplicated ones feel the same as the originals.

For some reason she didn't expect that to work. But the notebook did say she could create magic items as long as she'd worn them before, so...

She duplicates a couple dozen of the stones in the format of crowns studded with them, carefully pries them out of the setting, and pockets them.

And then she waits until it's fully dark, informs a servant she's going out and might not be back until morning, and takes off.

She picks one of the farther and taller hilltops and flies towards it, paying attention to her qi(?) sense to check if anything weird pings her, and and also if there's any change in the... background radiation as she flies away from town and into the wilderness. When she originally went towards town it was notably ickier than the surrounding nature; has that fully evened out or there now a different differential she can sense?

The active ick seems to have been from the chief blood guy, mostly. It's still around but seems like a slightly different flavor, and is steadily waning.

The forest deeper in the valley has the highest level of ick now. The surroundings have different and much weaker flavors.

Obvious guess: either some of the guys from earlier managed to escape into the forest and/or their home base is in the forest and it's their lingering imprint or reserve members she's sensing.

She's not going to touch that for now. Maybe she'll offer to Gao Gao to clean the place out later, maybe with Wen along; she needs more practice.

But for now, she will just beeline for the hilltop she decided on.

Does anything stand out to her or accost her as she does a quick low-flying circuit to scout out the immediate environs? Is there a cave she can borrow?

(On Earth Bet, one does not usually find random caves this easily, but this is wuxia land, so maybe she'll get lucky. There's a possibility a cave will already be occupied, by the same wuxia land logic, but she does want somewhere with good visual cover.)

No handy caves, but there's a nice tall rock formation at least.

She will find a spot under the rock formation, putting it between her and the village, and also between her and the evil forest, if she can. She could try flying further, but then she might just get in range of something or someone else.

This place seems pretty undisturbed. Scraggly brown hills with nothing visibly moving except wildflowers in the wind.

Alright. She will sit down, center herself, and—

Attempt to use Dragon Fairy Elf Witch on Scion.

...

It did something, she's just not sure what.

She floats up. Whips her hand through the air and darts forward a few feet. She doesn't seem faster or stronger. Signature golden lasers? Not as far as she can tell. No new senses. If she can do something like give people powers, there are no new mental levers. Maybe she'd need to find a person to try and target first.

She gets a mirror from Dressing Room and inspects her appearance. It's not her old face—Hundred Ships, must be, and she didn't check before so she can't tell if it's changed again—but it's not golden or differently textured or anything.

She'll rise into the air again and survey the landscape to see if a wider angle gives her anything more.

No.

This is a bit disappointing.

She guesses it's time to go back, then.

She flies back in the direction of town. Anything catch her attention on the way?

There's some kind of giant (for a possum. 5 feet.) possum watching her fly by in the blood forest. Otherwise, nothing.

She is not going to bother the blood forest if it does not bother her. She memorizes the location of the possom anyway, though it might move later.

When she's back it town she looks at people, and she's still not detecting any Scion powers.

Maybe it's something to do with parahumans and there aren't any around.

She returns to her lodging.

When she said she'd check back the morning after tomorrow on Wen, she was expecting there to be more to occupy her time with. Most things she wants to do would benefit enough from a native guide that she's unwilling to rush them. She might have to ask after Gao's collection after all.

For now, she may as well rest. She needs to get used to having nonzero sleeping needs, now she's away from home.

She's not going to be paranoid about assassins; nobody has a sufficient combination of information, power and motivation to pull off a successful hit.

No alarm clock. She spent ten minutes trying to procure her own phone earlier and failed. It should be possible to Dressing Room a generic mobile phone, but honestly she's just going to leave the blinds open and wake at sunrise. It'll be more than enough sleep.

If she sees a servant she will inform them she's going to bed. If she doesn't she's not going to look for one.

And she turns in for the night.