Ah, playing tricks, are we?
Sid smiled. Look at this stall owner in front of him: the mysterious goods, the incomprehensible Rainbow Fruit, and the heavyweight rhetorical question, a simple "It's very expensive, you still want to buy it?". Although the tone was flat, it carried an air of condescension (he was purely overthinking it), making people's teeth itch with annoyance.
This was simply the most common market routine!
First, stir up strong emotions, play hard to get, and then take the opportunity to peddle one's own goods, selling worthless things for a price far exceeding their actual value.
Sid had seen this kind of thing too many times, so his heart remained completely calm. Coupled with his ferocious appearance, it made people feel like he might flip the stall at any moment.
"Tell me what you're selling first," he said with a hint of a smile. "Let me see what kind of treasure this is that it can fetch a sky-high price."
Gong Qiying looked around, picked up the box, and said, "I've been sitting here all morning, and you're the first person to come ask for the price. Here, open it and see for yourself."
The box was shoved right into Sid's hands, and he even froze for a second.
Wait. The routine seemed a bit different from what he had imagined.
Generally speaking, this kind of routine was like the classic Construction Turtle: first, the seller would fabricate a bizarre experience, then casually explain that they only intended to make a little pocket money, and if the buyer truly wanted it, they would sell it cheap, and so on. In reality, the price sold was much higher than normal.
He glanced at Gong Qiying and tentatively said, "I'm opening it, then?"
"Open it."
"I'm really opening it, huh?"
"Open it, open it."
"Aren't you going to stop me?"
"Are you sick in the head?"
Gong Qiying raised his eyes to look at the old man before him. He clearly looked quite shrewd and capable, so why was he acting like a fool?
In the netherworld, Sid felt as though he had misunderstood Gong Qiying, but things had already reached this point, so he could only stubbornly continue opening the box.
Let me see just what kind of remarkable thing is inside this box!
The box had just cracked open a sliver when colorful light immediately spilled out—it was a rainbow.
Immediately after, an indescribably aromatic fragrance flowed out. It was an extremely sweet scent; just a single sniff made people feel as though they were soaked in honey, and the desire of wanting to eat it, wanting to eat it, wanting to eat it surged crazily in their hearts!
Before he knew it, a crowd of people had gathered around Sid, drooling while urging him to open the box.
What on earth is inside this thing. Sid swallowed hard and swung the box wide open.
Yet the thing inside was different from what he had imagined.
The contents looked like a mashed piece of fruit pulp, only half a fist in size, as if it had been hurriedly torn off from the main body of the fruit. Its surface shimmered with glossy light, and the seven colors of the rainbow seemed to be the very color of the fruit pulp.
"Th-this is?" Sid asked. He could no longer hold back his saliva, and if not for his strong self-control, he would have taken a bite right then and there.
"I already said, a small piece of Rainbow Fruit," Gong Qiying stood up, raising his voice to the onlookers around him. "This is the fruit borne by that giant plant in the deepest part of Food Paradise!"
"What, it's actually that plant?! The area around there is full of monsters, how could anyone break through them?!"
"The veteran adventurers I know all died on the road. The closer you get to that plant, the stronger the monsters are!"
"How come I remember that fruit looks round? You aren't tricking us, are you?"
Gong Qiying shrugged. "Believe it or not. I had a really hard time sneaking around those fierce monsters, and as a result, I was almost discovered just as I picked the fruit, barely managing to grab such a small piece from it before I died."
"I believe it." Sid snapped the box shut, and the fragrance vanished instantly, as he was afraid he couldn't control himself. "May I ask what effects this fruit has?"
He automatically switched to honorifics.
"You're not buying it, so why should I tell you?"
"I'm buying it!"
Sid dropped a rather decisive sentence and said, "Let's step aside and talk, it's not convenient here."
"Fine," Gong Qiying nodded, but at this moment, the onlookers were displeased.
"Want to hog it all to yourself, huh? Too selfish! What happened to the virtues of an adventurer?!"
"That's right, what's wrong with talking right here?"
Sid calmly looked at the clamoring crowd and snapped his fingers with a "clack".
In an instant, the sound within a radius of five hundred meters vanished.
High-Level Mass Silence? Gong Qiying looked at him with interest. It seemed this old man had quite a background.
"This way, please." Only Sid and Gong Qiying could still make sounds; this feeling was rather peculiar.
The crowd automatically yielded a path for them. This was not voluntary, but rather Sid controlling them.
The three of them walked all the way inside the Adventurer's Guild. The guild staff members showed frightened expressions upon seeing Sid, and hurriedly called over the person in charge.
The person in charge was also startled, yet just as he was about to say something, Sid silenced him as well.
It wasn't until Sid and Gong Qiying walked into the third-floor reception room that the downstairs regained its sound.
The receptionist asked in bewilderment, "What is this bigwig doing, and who is the person with him?"
The person in charge gave a wry smile.
"How could we possibly understand Branch Master Sid's thoughts."
Inside the luxuriously decorated reception room, Gina served hot tea to the two of them and quietly retreated behind Sid.
"Allow me to make a belated self-introduction," Sid crossed his hands, striking Ikari Commander's signature pose. "I am Sid, one of the Adventurer's Guild branch masters, soon to take over the guild's branch in Bed City."
He smiled and said, "You may also call me 'Moyan' Sid. Before retiring from my adventurer career, I barely managed to scrape my way into the Gold rank. It can be considered one of the few prides this old bones of mine has left."
Gong Qiying opposite him predictably revealed a "shocked" expression, hurriedly reaching out to say, "Pleased to meet you, pleased to meet you. My name is Mareda, just an ordinary adventurer. I never expected to encounter such a big shot like you."
The shock was entirely fake.
Today was the third day since Gong Qiying came out of the dungeon, and he had only just managed to figure out some common sense about this world, having no idea what kind of status a so-called "Adventurer's Guild branch master" actually held.
It was just that seeing Sid look so proud, he went along with it to butter the other guy up, and the effect wasn't bad.
Three days ago, Sithran gathered the magic materials according to his commission and delivered them into the dungeon. As payment, Gong Qiying once again taught her hand-in-hand how to use shield pokes.
As soon as Sithran left, he immediately set about casting the Corpse Rebirth Technique.
As for where the corpse came from?
It was Jack's.
Not long ago, Jack's corpse was suddenly sent into the dungeon by a group of people wearing church attire, who performed a brief ritual Gong Qiying couldn't understand and then left.
Operating on the principle of not letting things go to waste, he used Jack's corpse to be reborn.
The Corpse Rebirth Technique was indeed miraculous. Jack's corpse melted into a mass of flesh and blood, and once Gong Qiying's soul entered, it immediately transformed into the appearance he had in his previous life.
Yet influenced by something, his appearance still resembled a plumped-up Godwyn, ultimately leaning closer to the appearance of the people of this world, with only his black hair and black eyes looking somewhat rare.
Having obtained a body, he immediately tested whether he could leave the dungeon, and the result was delightfully surprising—he really could go out!
Moreover, his absolute control over the Sain Underground City was still there!
Over the next few days, he wandered around the outside world as if running wild, frantically cramming a wave of otherworldly knowledge.
As for why he was setting up a stall in the market, that was another story entirely.
"I'm already retired, just an ordinary old man now." Sid was very satisfied with Gong Qiying's reaction.
He asked with a smile that lacked none of its solemnity:
"How much do you intend to sell this Rainbow Fruit for?"
(We're returning to the dungeon plot soon~)
We're returning to the dungeon plot soon~
Before you continue