Zhou Xuan fought down his inner elation and quickly pricked his fingertip, squeezing out a drop of blood onto the dusty Universe Bag.
Hum!
The instant the drop seeped into the cloth bag, a faint glimmer of spiritual light flashed.
Zhou Xuan immediately sensed a tenuous, almost imperceptible mental connection forming between him and the Universe Bag.
With a thought, he sent his spiritual sense inside.
An independent space dozens of square meters in size—about as big as a room—appeared clearly in his awareness.
Its four walls were smooth, and the space was stable. The violent aura that had once threatened to grind everything inside to pieces was gone.
It worked!
Zhou Xuan's mouth stretched into a grin, and he nearly burst out laughing.
He licked his dry lips, then tossed in the Blazing Fire Bead he'd been saving for emergencies, the three Qi Gathering Pills he'd just acquired, and the damaged Black Iron Shield—all at once.
Looking at his empty hands and the bulging pouch at his waist, Zhou Xuan felt safer than he ever had before.
With this thing, he wouldn't have to rack his brains hiding any treasures he acquired under his bed boards and spend all day worrying someone would find them.
A hundred Gold Touch Value—well worth it!
He sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the two hundred and thirty-five Gold Touch Value he had left on his system panel, lost in thought.
Raising his Spirit Root required a thousand points. He was still a long way off.
Relying solely on that Explosion Fairy, Zhang Ling, was steady enough, but it was ultimately like sitting around waiting to be fed. The pace was too slow.
He had to find a way to take the initiative!
An idea flashed through his mind like lightning.
Gold Touch Value!
Its conversion seemed to depend only on the total Spiritual Energy contained in an item. It had nothing to do with the item's market value!
He suddenly remembered the twenty Low-grade Spirit Stones Liu Ruyan had given him.
Twenty Low-grade Spirit Stones had converted into sixty Gold Touch Value.
In other words, one Low-grade Spirit Stone was worth three Gold Touch Value.
And what could one Low-grade Spirit Stone buy at the Marketplace at the foot of the sect mountain?
Zhou Xuan had spent a long time scraping by in the Chore Servant Courtyard. He might have been poor, but he knew his way around.
He knew that one Low-grade Spirit Stone could buy about one or two of the cheapest First-rank Demon Cores!
So how much Gold Touch Value could a First-rank Demon Core convert into?
Zhou Xuan's breathing suddenly quickened. He remembered clearly that he'd once found a Demon Core so badly damaged it was barely recognizable in a trash heap. The system had said it could convert into four Gold Touch Value!
A complete one had to be worth at least four!
If he got lucky and traded one Low-grade Spirit Stone for two First-rank Demon Cores, he'd be spending three Gold Touch Value to get eight back!
Five points of pure profit!
Wasn't this basically making something out of nothing?!
Zhou Xuan's eyes shone brighter and brighter as his thoughts raced faster than ever.
And that wasn't all. There were Spirit Stones themselves!
In the sect, it took a hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones to exchange for one Mid-grade Spirit Stone.
But Zhou Xuan knew that this was nowhere near an Equivalent Exchange!
The total Spiritual Energy in one Mid-grade Spirit Stone was at most equal to that in eighty Low-grade Spirit Stones.
The reason it was more expensive was entirely because the Spiritual Energy inside a Mid-grade Spirit Stone was purer, making it easier for cultivators to absorb and refine—and saving them a great deal of time.
But did that matter to Zhou Xuan?
No!
The system didn't care whether the Spiritual Energy it absorbed was pure or impure. It only looked at the total amount!
If he could get his hands on a Mid-grade Spirit Stone, exchange it directly for a hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones, and then have the system absorb them—
Wouldn't that be like getting the value of twenty extra Spirit Stones out of material worth only eighty?
This was practically a system-level exploit!
"I'm really going to hit it big this time!"
Zhou Xuan trembled with excitement. It was as if he could see a golden road paved with Spirit Stones slowly unfurling beneath his feet.
He forced down his elation and looked again at the battered shield he'd tossed into the Universe Bag.
The most pressing thing was to get his first stake!
With a thought, he took the cracked Black Iron Shield back out.
"System, repair it!"
[ Ding! A damaged low-grade Dharma Artifact—Black Iron Shield (broken)—has been detected. Would you like to spend 50 Gold Touch Value to restore it through Enlightenment? ]
"Yes!"
Fifty points!
What a fucking rip-off!
Zhou Xuan winced, but gritted his teeth and confirmed.
A gentle golden light enveloped the Black Iron Shield.
Before his eyes, the cracks on its surface swiftly vanished, as if wounds were healing.
The shield, once dull and lusterless, regained its deep metallic sheen.
[ Ding! Enlightenment successful! Congratulations, host. You have obtained a low-grade Dharma Artifact—Black Iron Shield (intact). ]
Zhou Xuan weighed it in his hand with satisfaction. Though it was only the lowest-grade defensive Dharma Artifact, he could still sell it for at least seven or eight Low-grade Spirit Stones at the Marketplace!
Fifty Gold Touch Value came to roughly the equivalent of seventeen Low-grade Spirit Stones.
A huge loss!
Yet Zhou Xuan's eyes gleamed.
That wasn't the right way to calculate it!
Where had the shield come from? He'd picked it up in a trash heap! The cost was zero!
He'd created value out of thin air!
His spirits immediately lifted. He pulled all the junk he'd scavenged that day out of the Universe Bag and dumped it in a heap.
"System, repair this broken Talisman!"
[ Ding! Repairing the damaged Sharp Metal Talisman will cost 5 Gold Touch Value. ]
"Repair it!"
"What about this Broken Sword?"
[ Ding! Repairing the broken Green Edge Sword will cost 12 Gold Touch Value. ]
"Repair it! Repair every damn thing!"
Zhou Xuan cheerfully worked like a tireless repairman, using Enlightenment to restore the trash that others wouldn't give a second glance.
Metal light flashed again and again inside the shabby Wood hut.
Soon, he'd repaired everything he'd collected that day.
A brand-new Talisman, a gleaming long sword, and several odds and ends of Dharma Artifacts lay quietly on the floor.
They were all worthless little first-rank scraps, but in Zhou Xuan's eyes, they were piles of glittering Spirit Stones!
He happily packed them all into his Universe Bag and started making plans.
Tomorrow seemed to be the day the Miscellaneous Affairs Department's servants had off.
They only got one day a month to go down the mountain to the Marketplace, buy some daily necessities, or try their luck.
Perfect!
Tomorrow he'd set up a stall at the market at the foot of the mountain!
Zhou Xuan chuckled, as if he could already see a whole heap of Gold Touch Value waving at him.
He lay in bed, feeling the power of Body Forging third stage slowly coursing through him. A satisfaction unlike anything he'd known before, along with his anticipation for the future, left him so excited he could barely sleep.
The night outside grew darker and darker.
The stench and Poison Mist that lingered year-round around the Miscellaneous Affairs Department seemed to grow a little more potent, too.
Just as Zhou Xuan's thoughts began to blur and he was on the verge of drifting off to sleep—
A faint sound of footsteps suddenly came from outside the hut!
The steps fell on dead leaves and dirt, muffled deliberately, but in the dead of night, they were unusually clear!
Zhou Xuan's body tensed in an instant!
He snapped his eyes open. There was no trace of sleepiness in them, only icy vigilance!
Someone was there!
Almost acting on instinct, he rolled off the bed and blew out the dim oil lamp on the table in the same breath.
The Wood hut plunged into darkness so complete he couldn't see his hand in front of his face.
Holding his breath, Zhou Xuan moved silently beneath the window like a keen-eyed leopard and listened intently to what was happening outside.
The footsteps stopped in front of his Wood hut.
Then a man's voice, thick with tension and greed, drifted into his ears in broken, dreamlike whispers.
"Don't blame me."
"If I kill you, I can get a Mid-grade Spirit Stone."
"One Mid-grade Spirit Stone! With that, I might have a chance to become an Outer Sect Disciple in the sect's upcoming examination!"
"You're just unlucky. You shouldn't have offended someone you had no business offending."
The voice outside kept muttering, as if trying to work up the nerve—or make excuses for the crime he was about to commit.
Hidden in the darkness, Zhou Xuan felt all the blood in his body freeze.
A Mid-grade Spirit Stone!
They were paying for the life of a mere servant like me!
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