"Qiong Alloy..."
Tisney toyed with the Qiong Alloy. He had taken a liking to this material long ago. It was exceptionally stable, with a hard surface, astonishing toughness within, and incredible resistance to pressure and wear.
He had tried to deconstruct it and had already determined all its components and their arrangement.
But he discovered that one of its elements was too perfect. Knowing the arrangement offered no shortcut.
In other words, refining it required extremely harsh conditions, along with an enormous amount of resources and energy. Tisney estimated that he might fail hundreds of times before succeeding once.
For a legendary Grand Alchemist of his level to have such a low success rate meant that refining it was simply beyond his capabilities.
Nevertheless, he said, "I already know its components and arrangement. To a legendary alchemist, it only has the most basic value left, because I can synthesize it myself."
He was just bragging. As long as he did not actually try it, he truly had a complete understanding of its structure. Whether it was easy to synthesize was another matter entirely.
One of them claimed that Qiong Alloy was extremely precious, while the other claimed that he could synthesize it. Both were trying to drive down the price.
Mo Qiong said, "Then, what goods do you have?"
Tisney said, "For interuniversal trade, knowledge is naturally the best commodity."
Since the cost of transmitting an object across universes was proportional to its mass-energy, something with simpler components but greater added value would make a better commodity—for example, a book.
The isolation between the two universes and the monopoly held by both sides of the trade could make the value of the same object vastly different to each side.
If a book recorded words that no one liked, it had