Those at the top considered many tasks beneath them. Some Saints, rulers of Planets inhabited by intelligent life, shipped living beings off their worlds to satisfy market demand. Quite a few of those beings resembled humans. Luo Qian said, "So it's slave smuggling..."
In some respects, the Saint Realm's administration was exceedingly strict: anyone who came to a Saint Market had to pay a tax of two Standard Saint Stones per person, whether they made a trade or not. Those without Saint Stones could pay with goods of equivalent value. Of course, that "equivalent value" was set by the Saint Court and was often less than half the market price.
Old Mr. Tie E had only just arrived in the Saint Realm. He had barely begun exploring his own Planet and had nothing to his name. With no Saint Stones, he had to use a seed to pay the tax. Seeds really were in high demand here: one seed covered the tax for both of them, and they even received six Standard Saint Stones in change.
Saint Stones were the Saint Realm's currency, much as Immortal Jade was in the Immortal Realm. Nearly every Planet had some reserves. Saints only had to mine them and polish them a little before using them as money. They also contained Saint Origin Force, which made them a consumable resource.
With those six Standard Saint Stones, old Mr. Tie E had gone from having absolutely nothing to being so poor his pockets rattled.
"Where are we going now?" The moment Luo Qian asked, he knew he was playing a lute to a cow again. He gave old Mr. Tie E an apologetic smile, looked around, and caught hold of a passerby. "Brother, where's the biggest market?" The fellow looked about eighty percent human, though