The dazzling array of razor sharp blades and colorful ores illuminated the eyes of Yan Xiao with desire.

While Ikasa and Xin Ruo maintained their composure, the teenager eagerly approached the counter to take a closer look at the variety of different ores.

Yan Xiao hovered his hands over the numerous ores on the counter, thinking which one to inspect first.

A rusty red ore with slight yellowish coloration caught his eye. He picked up the ore and scratched the surface with his thumb nail.

Yan Xiao then flicked his finger on the ore and brought it to his ears, listening to the sound from the ore. The faint sound of crackling fire sounded in his ears, surprising Yan Xiao.

“Aah?”

A surprised look appeared on his face, causing him to look at the ore in his hands with astonishment.

Hong Niu smiled, seeing that Yan Xiao had discovered the pecularity of the ore.

“This is a Pyroclastic Geode, an ore rich in energy of Earth and Fire. This ore is found only in the Huoshan Mountain range of our Furnace Fire Empire.”

Hong Niu proudly explained the origin of the Pyroclastic Geode. Ikasa threw an admiring glance at the stone in Yan Xiao’s hands, satisfying the vanity of the Merchant.

Enthused, the owner of the Red Bull Trading Company began to extol the piece of ore he had for sale.

“A Geode is formed at the core of the Volcano after 1001 cycles of the sun and moon. It can only be found when a Volcano erupts and spits the Geode out.”

Ikasa immediately realized the tactics of Hong Niu. Though the Geode was rare in the Holy Wood Empire, it was not as rare as Hong Niu made it out to be.

Everytime a Volcano erupted, thousands of such ores were spat out. The only thing that made these ores valuable was the elemental energy contained in them.

Ikasa smiled and nodded as he waited for Hong Niu to state his price.

“A team of Sense Trainers with a Chakra Sensing Realm expert at helm collected these Ores for me.”

Hong Niu spoke, boasting of his influence. Then the fawning smile returned to his face as he sugar coated his bitter price.

“Considering our friendship and the huge favor you have done me, I will not ask for too high a price from you. For just 100 Gold Coins, you can take this Pyroclastic Ore from my hands.”

“100 gold coins?”

‘That is 1 Spirit Coin for one ore?’

Ikasa looked at Hong Niu with surprise as he quickly converted the gold into Spirit Coin. After all, he would have to pay in Spiritual Coin when completing the transaction.

Then he scanned the ore with his Spiritual Sense.

The Geode swirled with dark red color. Tendrils of dull yellow sometimes extended from the core of the dark red, disturbing the harmony of fire energy in the red ball of light.

Ikasa was no expert on ores but even he could see that the overpowering Fire energy had suppressed the Earth Element energy in the Geode.

What’s more he had an actual knowledgeable person on his side. Ikasa threw a quick glance at Yan Xiao, who shook his head while raising one finger discreetly.

It could only mean one thing – the quality of this ore was low and it could barely be considered a dual element ore.

However, despite dissonance in attributes, this ore could still be considered a good quality weapon ore of Fire attribute.

But the question was would he pay 1 Spirit Coin just to buy a single ore?

Ikasa shook his head as he looked at Hong Niu.

‘As expected. This bastard is still trying to jack up prices after calling me brother and what not.’

The young business owner narrowed his eyes at the sickeningly sweet smile plastered on Hong Niu’s face.

A sugary sweet smile appeared on his own lips as he spoke.

“Brother Hong, this ore is good. I will take a ding of this ore…”

Ikasa paused to see the joy of fooling a customer appear in the excited Hong Niu’s eyes. Then it quickly disappeared and was replaced with horror as Ikasa completed his sentence.

“I will take a ding of this ore…  for a Spirit Coin.”

5 Pyroclastic Geodes would usually fit in one ding. By asking one ding for a Spirit Coin, Ikasa had basically slashed the price of a geode to its 1/5ths!

He was bargaining as ruthlessly as asian moms at a grocery market!

Hong Niu paled in his face after hearing the counteroffer. He came to understand that Ikasa was not the kind of person who could be fooled easily. Just because the man had money in his pockets, he was not the kind who would splurge it.

Hong Niu straightened his act and began to treat Ikasa with sincerity.

“Brother Ikasa, 300 gold per ding only if you are buying two dings of the Pyroclastic Geode. That’s the best I can offer.”

After having his ploy exposed, Hong Niu was not in a position to continue the dance where both of them would test each other to find the bottom line of the other party. He straightforwardly put the best price he could offer.

From 100 gold per ore, Hong Niu had dropped his price to 60 gold per ore. A whopping drop of 40%!

Ikasa considered the price for a moment and also deliberated whether it was wise to buy so many of an attributed Ore.

‘Gu Dan has only worked with attributed ore once or twice in his life. If I give him two dings of Attributed ore, he would most probably waste most of them. But if he does not work with them, how will he learn? I’ll just write these 6 Spirit Coins off as R&D cost.’

Ikasa decided to invest 6 Spirit coins off the meager 100 he had into the future of Gu Dan and Yan Xiao.

He looked at Hong Niu and said, “Deal. But if you send me a quality lower than this sample, forget about receiving your payment.”

Hong Niu nodded and noted Ikasa’s order in his diary.

Ikasa motioned Yan Xiao to choose an ore again.

This time he had picked an obsidian colored rock with thin navy blue lines passing through it. As the sunlight shone on one side of the triangular rock, it came out from the other end in different shades of blue.

Astonishingly, the warmth of the sunlight was replaced by a slightly cool sensation when the light turned blue.

“An excellent choice!” Hong Niu exclaimed as he let Yan Xiao go through his ritual of flicking the rock and listening to its sound.

He introduced the name and origin of the Ore for Ikasa’s benefit.

“This is Obsidian Trickled Iron ore. Found deep in the Mines, these rocks are formed only when a 100,000 drops of water trickle down the surface of an iron ore surrounded by dense dark energy. Due to this, this mineral is infused with the dark and water energy.”

Hong Niu waited for Ikasa to verify his claims. Indeed, as the merchant claimed, Ikasa could see a swirling whirlpool formed from dark energy and millions of specks of blue light shining in it.

This proved the authenticity of this dual element ore. It was also in perfect harmony, meaning its price would not be low.

“I obtained this particular mineral with great difficulty. I would accept nothing short of a 4-star Spirit Coin for this ore.”

Ikasa could see the seriousness on his face when Hong Niu mentioned the price. He knew he meant business and was not simply talking out of his ass.

‘A 4-star Spirit Coin? That would be worth 5000 gold coins! That means 10 1-star Spirit Coins!’

Ikasa slackened in his chair upon thinking of the high sum Hong Niu was asking for a single ore. Yet, Ikasa did not think this price was unjustified.

He once again observed the ore in question. The purity and the level of energy in this single Obsidian Trickled Iron ore was more than 50 times that of a single low quality Pyroclastic Geode!

This alone put it in a different league than the other ores available for sale.

If this ore landed in the hands of an experienced Master Blacksmith or even a Grandmaster Blacksmith, this ore would surely become at the least a Seven-Veined Weapon or even an Energetic weapon with attributes!

Ikasa was tempted to buy the ore but then he had a thought.

‘It would be difficult to buy with just 10 1-star Spirit Coins if Hong Niu is asking for a 4-Star Spirit Coin.’

1-star coins could be obtained much more easily. However, obtaining 4-Star Coins was not so easy.

Even though the absolute value of the 4-star coins was Ten 1-star coins, in the real market, to exchange one 4-star coin one would need anywhere between twelve to fifteen 1-star Spirit Coins.

‘I am willing to write off 10 null-star spirit coins as R&D expenses but not Fifteen 1-Star Spirit Coins!’

Ikasa gave up on the idea of purchasing the Obsidian Trickled Iron ore.

Yan Xiao went through the other ores as well. However, most of them were ores with attributes and were very expensive.

Ikasa wrapped up his shopping trip with a large order of low grade Weapon-grade ores for Gu Dan and Yan Xiao to hone their skills.

“30 dings of Low grade Weapon Grade ores and two dings of Pyroclastic Geode. That means your total is 30 x 100 + 2 x 300 = 3600 Gold i.e. 36 Null-star Spirit Coins.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep