As the sky grew dark, the crowd at the trading market gradually dispersed.
Her one hundred catties of rice had sold out, yielding three Orange Crystal Stones (for thirty catties), twenty Red Crystal Stones (for twenty catties), three hundred prey carcasses (for thirty catties), and three hundred animal skins (for twenty catties).
Ophelia took out a handkerchief made of animal skin to wipe the sweat off Tyler's face. This intimate gesture made the male, who stood over 1.9 meters tall, blush.
"Princess, I can do it myself," he said.
His rough fingertips inadvertently brushed against the little female's slender, jade-like fingers. Frightened, he hastily let go, hid his hands behind his back, and quietly peeked from the corner of his eye to observe the "offended" little female.
Ophelia's eyes curved into crescents. She hadn't expected a formidable Dragon Beast to be so innocent, much like a pure college boy from the modern world.
"Ahem." Two figures slowly walked over.
"Ophelia, we'd like to pre-order some rice. Is that possible?" Sail scratched the back of his head, looking a bit embarrassed.
Fearing she might misunderstand, Lam hastily added, "Don't worry, we won't sell at this trading market. We'll go to one farther away, and we'll offer a slightly higher price. We promise it won't affect your business."
Ophelia had originally intended to take her time getting to know them and gradually guide them down the path of becoming wholesalers. To her surprise, they brought it up themselves, saving her a lot of breath.
"Sure, how much do you want?"
Sail was quite honest. "Twenty bags."
Lam, on the other hand, asked for fifty bags in one breath. Based on his observations over the past two encounters, he estimated this to be the maximum quantity Ophelia could handle. A total of seventy bags equated to seventy catties.
"That works. How do you plan to pay?" Ophelia asked.
Exchanging seventy catties for prey and animal skins would result in a massive volume. It would be impossible for just three people to carry it all back to the tribe. Moreover, bringing back so much prey would likely attract the attention of Soro and Loki, leading to endless trouble.
"We'll trade with Crystal Stones." Lam took out five Orange Crystal Stones. It was his entire life savings, accumulated over years of traveling far and wide. Crystal Stones were a universal currency across the entire Starfall Continent.
Sail, meanwhile, shyly produced one Orange Crystal Stone and ten Red Crystal Stones.
"Alright. Wait for me at the entrance of the Snow Wolf Clan's tribe in three days," Ophelia said. After accepting an Orange Crystal Stone as a deposit from the two males, she asked them to help transport her goods to the Snow Wolf Clan.
By now, the sky had turned completely dark. Tyler fashioned a torch out of branches and weeds, and the two walked forward hand in hand. Initially, the male was still a little shy, but he gradually grew accustomed to holding the little female's hand. Later on, he even took the initiative to grip her soft, little hand tightly.
"Tyler, accompany me back to the Golden Dragon Clan tomorrow. Help me deliver the prey over there."
"Mm, okay."
"You must be hungry, Princess. I'll go make some roasted meat for you right now." After saying that, Tyler ran out of the stone house, his ears burning red.
Ophelia turned her head. Smelling the faint scent of blood lingering in the air and looking at the prey and animal skins piled high in the room, she felt troubled. It seemed she needed to find a dedicated place to store the prey and animal skins. Otherwise, if this continued, the stone house would become uninhabitable.
Having made up her mind, Ophelia stored the three hundred animal skins into her farm space. Out of the fifty prey carcasses left over from her first batch of rice sales, forty-five remained after their meals over the past few days. Combined with the three hundred from this trip, she had a total of 345 carcasses. Exchanging whole prey with their skins intact wouldn't yield many points. Therefore, she decided to skin them manually and only exchange the animal skins for points.
The only downside was the hassle. Not only did she have to skin them, but tanning the skins would also waste a significant amount of time. She certainly couldn't finish the meat of three hundred prey animals all by herself. Not wanting the benefits to fall into outsiders' hands, she decided to bring the prey back to the Golden Dragon Clan and let her tribesmen handle the skinning. The meat would serve as their labor fee.
Now that she had a solution, she began the exciting process of exchanging for points.
The three hundred animal skins were exchanged for 30,000 points, which was enough to upgrade her farm space to Level 4. Upgrading to Level 4 would expand the area to 250 square meters. After that, Level 5 and Level 6 would only add 50 square meters per level—in other words, the novice protection period was over.
Faced with the choice between using her points to buy seeds or to upgrade, she chose to upgrade.
Reward for upgrading the farm space to Level 4: [Automatic Forge Workshop]
(Automatic Forge Workshop): Can purify or process Crystal Stones. Successfully forged Crystal Stones can be embedded in the soil to increase yield or reduce maturation time.
Ophelia opened the forge workshop to inspect it and found that out of the Orange Crystal Stones she currently possessed, only one was perfect. The other two contained impurities. As for her thirty Red Crystal Stones, not a single one was perfect, so none of them could be embedded in the soil.
(Perfect Red Crystal Stone: Increases the crop yield of the land by 10)
(Perfect Orange Crystal Stone: Reduces maturation time by 5 hours)
Five broken crystal stones could be forged into one perfect Crystal Stone.
To be honest, it was a bit expensive. She wasn't planning on churning out too much grain to sell right now anyway, so it didn't matter if she didn't embed any gems. After upgrading the farm space, she checked the crops' maturation time again. The third batch consisted of wheat and rice, which still needed twelve hours to mature.
Meanwhile, Amy had waited an eternity before she finally spotted the exhausted figure of her father, Loki.
"Father, Father! Did you bring me any red fruits?" Amy looked expectantly at her father's hands, only to find them completely empty.
Meeting his daughter's disappointed gaze, Loki blushed with shame.
Miche crouched down and stroked Amy's smooth, short golden hair. "We went too late today. There were no fresh fruits left."
"Aw, but I haven't had any fruit in ten days!" Amy muttered softly. "Mother used to prepare some fruits for me every ten days. Father, why don't you go coax Mother? I really, really want to eat fruit." Children had short memories; for the sake of a tasty treat, they could toss everything else to the back of their minds.
Hearing her say this, Miche gritted her back teeth in hatred. She had put so much effort into making Amy accept her and favor her. Yet now, just for a few fruits, the girl was willing to bow to Ophelia. She was truly an ungrateful wretch who could never be won over!
A flash of venom crossed Miche's eyes, but she adjusted her voice to be even gentler. "Ophelia traded her rice for a lot of prey and Crystal Stones at the market again today. You can go ask her for an Orange Crystal Stone. That way, you'll be able to trade for as much fruit as you want."
An Orange Crystal Stone was incredibly precious. It could be exchanged for ten bags of rice, or even the opportunity to become companions with a little female. If Miche could get her hands on an Orange Crystal Stone, she would have even more male suitors pursuing her. She would have more options to choose from and could shine even more brilliantly among the little females.
Amy poked her two index fingers together and shyly lowered her head. "But after the things I said before, Mother must be angry with me. She won't give me any Crystal Stones."
"She won't be," Miche coaxed gently. "No matter what you said, she is still your mother. A mother's love for her child is selfless. She won't hold a grudge over such trivial matters. As long as you ask, she will forgive you. Just think about the past. Hasn't it always been like that?"
Listening to Miche's "patient guidance," Loki couldn't help but furrow his brows slightly. He vaguely felt that something was wrong with what Miche was saying, yet he couldn't put his finger on exactly what.