The transaction with Handian ultimately concluded at a price of twenty million, which meant the initial quote of one million was entirely meant to mislead.
After all, no matter how cultivated, he was still just a merchant.
"This really isn't my forte."
Looking at the numbers on his phone, Takatsuki sighed. Although he felt the red Stone of Aja should have sold for more, Takatsuki didn't actually know how much it should sell for, and he really couldn't out-talk Handian.
Takatsuki thought to himself, if he couldn't even out-talk a merchant, what would he do when he had to deal with old foxes like Otto later?
"Takatsuki, did you lose a lot?"
Seele asked, seeing Takatsuki's worried expression.
"How should I put it? I didn't lose, but the other party made a huge profit."
At least, that's what Takatsuki thought.
"For me, that ruby had no cost."
Although the red Stone of Aja was very peculiar, it could only be described as a miracle of nature; it itself had no supernatural power. Takatsuki had once tested the limits of the Brush Brush Fruit.
When an item didn't involve supernatural power, manifesting it required little stamina, but once supernatural power was involved, the consumption would increase a hundredfold.
And while the red Stone of Aja had no supernatural power, it required dozens of times more stamina and magic than other ordinary items.
So, ultimately, Takatsuki could create a lot of things, as he had the original. Having seen the original, he could naturally draw replicated versions.
"Is that the ability Takatsuki used to create the bathtub before?"
"Mm."
Takatsuki would never sell the original red Stone of Aja, even though he had studied it and the replicated version was identical to the original.
"Next, let's first go to…"
Takatsuki's original plan was to first go listen to the story of the Cloud Knights that the foxian had mentioned, but then he saw a clothing store by the roadside.
"Guangyun Sleeve, Seele, how about we buy some clothes?"
The clothes Seele was wearing, the set from the Sea of Quanta, had long been discarded. The ones she had on now were bought in Belobog, but they had no advantages other than being durable.
"Eh? Seele is fine."
"It's fine, it's fine. Anyway, we have so many Credits now. If we don't spend them, it'll be a waste when we go back."
Takatsuki had no concept of saving money in a new world. After all, saving money was useless; it was better to exchange it for something useful to himself, just like he exchanged for potions and magic books in Orario. Unfortunately, the success rate of magic books became lower and lower later on, and without aptitude, awakening magic was just throwing money away.
Takatsuki still had a lot of Orario's currency, which hadn't been dealt with due to the sudden incident at the time, and now he couldn't spend it at all.
"Alright then."
Seele was actually quite excited internally. As a girl, who didn't like beautiful things?
Just because she could accept simplicity didn't mean she didn't like beautiful things.
The owner of Cloud Hymn was a highly silver-tongued salesperson. It had to be said that these Long-life species on the Xianzhou not only possessed far more time than ordinary mortals to learn and accumulate experience, but on this merchant-heavy alliance ship, if one didn't grow and adapt, they would quickly be crowded out by everyone else.
Originally, Takatsuki had only intended to purchase two sets of ordinary garments to change into some new clothes, preventing himself from looking too out of place among the Xianzhou locals. However, under the vendor's detailed introductions and persuasive pitching, he ended up buying two sets for himself and a whopping ten sets for Seele.
It really couldn't be helped; every single outfit the vendor recommended looked incredibly adorable on Seele, making it impossible to pass them up. The shopkeeper had clearly noticed that Takatsuki didn't care all that much about his own attire, so she merely recommended one set to wear and one to wash, while channeling the bulk of her efforts into styling Seele.
As he led Seele out of Cloud Hymn, Takatsuki was still left reeling a bit, wondering how on earth he had managed to buy so much in one go.
"Takatsuki, I've made you spend so much money."
By now, Seele had already changed into her new outfit. In truth, the shopkeeper had also recommended quite a few rather revealing outfits, but Seele had been too shy to accept any of them.
"It's nothing. How much did this even cost? Seele, you'll have to help me find a way to blow through these twenty million Credits, otherwise it's just going to go to waste."
The price of a single outfit hovered around 100,000 Credits, so all twelve sets combined didn't even exceed 1.5 million—meaning they had spent less than a tenth of their funds.
Although she initially wanted to help Takatsuki save money, Seele gave it some thought and realized it was true; the money in Takatsuki's hands was entirely pure profit from a zero-capital transaction. Furthermore, they would have to head back eventually, so leaving it unspent would indeed be a waste.
Still, Seele couldn't quite wrap her head around this somewhat bizarre consumer mindset just yet; after all, she had grown up in an orphanage from a very young age. Back in Belobog, when she and Takatsuki were out in the wild making their own meals, she actually found it much easier to accept. Spending money so lavishly like this was a first for her.
They eventually arrived at The Sleepless Earl, the place the Foxian had mentioned earlier. At this moment, a person dressed as a storyteller was standing behind a lecture desk spinning a yarn, when a diminutive Foxian girl walked over to them.
"Table for how many, guests? What would you like to drink?"
"Two. We'd like to listen to Mr. Xiyan's storytelling. What kind of drinks do you have here?"
"You two must be visiting The Sleepless Earl for the very first time," the young boss said as she produced a menu listing several types of tea beverages. "If you two want to sample the signature tea leaves of the Luofu, I highly recommend Peak of Westward Hunt. If you aren't accustomed to drinking traditional tea, you can try out Immortal's Delight, or our newly released Taro Taro boba."
Takatsuki stared at the purple beverage bubbling with purple froth and instantly passed on the item named "Taro Taro boba."
That said, combining tea with storytelling truly highlighted how heavily this Xianzhou culture resembled the traditions of ancient China. He had already caught glimpses of this back at Cloud Hymn, though it seemed that because outworlders brought in a great deal of foreign culture and fashion, what was currently considered "trendy" had begun evolving in different directions.
Under the young boss's arrangements, the two found a table and sat down.
"So this is storytelling? I've only ever read about it in books before."
In truth, let alone Seele, even Takatsuki himself was actually experiencing a live storytelling session for the very first time. In modern society, how many people had actually listened to traditional storytelling? Not to mention having heard it, even the places where one could go to listen to it were abysmally scarce.
Mr. Xiyan could easily be considered the premier storyteller of The Sleepless Earl—no, scratch that, the premier storyteller of the entire Central Starskiff Haven. After all, being able to perform in such a bustling district and draw such a massive crowd was proof enough of his sheer caliber.
However, as they listened to Mr. Xiyan's rendition of the tales of the High-Cloud Quintet, it wasn't hard to tell that many parts had been heavily fabricated and romanticized. Yet, his mastery over pacing and cadence was absolutely spot on, effortlessly drawing the audience in until the entire story had wrapped up before they knew it.