As he thought it over, Li Mu dispensed with the pleasantries. He stepped forward and carefully surveyed the entire Soul Tool workbench.
After determining how many Soul Tools he needed, he turned his head slightly toward the young man.
"These are far too badly damaged, aren't they? And most of them are practically broken beyond repair. Things like these shouldn't fetch much."
Li Mu spoke very directly to the young man, who froze for a moment.
His eyes flickered before he shook his head gently. "We have regulations about this."
"Each one is priced at ten thousand Gold Soul Coins. We aren't allowed to sell them cheaply or dismantle them to sell for parts."
The young man sounded somewhat embarrassed, but despite how directly he had spoken,
Li Mu's expression showed no particular change.
He looked calmly at the young man. Their eyes met, and just as the young man began to hesitate,
Li Mu raised his hand. A box appeared in his palm, and as he opened it,
a card lay inside-a card worth roughly five thousand Gold Soul Coins.
It was a Shrek Trading House card, also valid at the auction house. Taking this card to the Shrek Trading House
would allow its bearer to exchange it for five thousand Gold Soul Coins. That was by no means a small sum. After all, Gold Soul Coins had considerable purchasing power.
Even in Shrek City, the purchasing power of Gold Soul Coins was astonishing.
Suddenly seeing the staggering sum of five thousand appear before him,
the young man's eyes instantly lit up as he stared at Li Mu.
Seeing Li Mu wink at him, the young man silently raised his hand and slipped the item into his possession without a sound.
Then he looked at Li Mu, his expression softening somewhat. "Hahaha, I was only joking earlier."
"Actually, a lot of these things are nearly scrap, and some are already on the verge of being scrapped."
"How about this? Just give me a hundred Gold Soul Coins per unit." As he spoke, the young man glanced over the items, which had been imported from the Sun Moon Empire.
Their original price had been far more than ten thousand apiece. A single unit could cost forty or even fifty thousand Gold Soul Coins.
The problem was that after they were bought, no one used them, nor did anyone know how.
Throughout Shrek City, aside from Shrek Academy having a Soul Tool Department, everywhere else was completely indifferent to the field of Soul Tools.
The entirety of the three great empires was more like a fully fledged wuxia world. As for high-tech weapons like these,
they had heard of them and knew how terrifying they were, but they would not study them or even learn about them.
Compared to being completely unable to learn, being unwilling to learn-or unwilling to understand-was what proved most fatal.
Because once you yourself became unwilling to learn or understand,
there were many things other people often could not help you with, or even take part in resolving.
Looking at the young man's expression, Li Mu smiled and calmly raised his hand.
Another card appeared in his hand, and he pointed at all the Soul Tools here.
"All right. Sorry for the trouble, brother. I'll take everything here. I'll pay now."
With that, Li Mu raised his hand, but this time, what appeared in it was a blue gemstone.
It was a very low-grade gemstone, with little use in forging or Soul Tools.
For ordinary people, however, this gemstone could be exchanged for several hundred Gold Soul Coins.
Seeing Li Mu produce such an intact gemstone, the young man's expression abruptly brightened.
As the young man took it to settle the bill, Li Mu's gaze showed little change.
His eyes swept over the items, scanning them like electromagnetic waves.
Component after component lay revealed before him. Although the vast majority were already useless, the technology they embodied was far from low-level.
Some of the formations could no longer be used, but piecing them together to make low-level Soul Tools would not be difficult.
He indeed had little ability to assemble or modify them. After all, he was not even a true Soul Engineer yet.
But as long as he was given a chance,
and allowed to put them to proper use and organize them, turning waste into treasure would not be particularly difficult for him.
As he thought, Li Mu raised his hand. The Silver Dragon Space opened, and everything was sucked inside.
Within the Silver Dragon Space, Wang Dong frowned and backed away.
She cleared a space, and as a large number of Soul Tools crashed into it, they did not stir even the slightest ripple.
Once these Soul Tools had been put away, Li Mu walked out.
The attendant respectfully produced an itinerary sheet, which listed the quantities of those Soul Tools.
There were a full forty Soul Tool crafting workbenches-discarded Soul Tool crafting workbenches.
Some low-end, damaged Soul Tools were also included further down the list.
The total price was absurdly low.
Buying things worth roughly a million for a few tens of thousands was quite a bargain.
So Li Mu did not linger. After exchanging a few more pleasantries with the young man,
he turned and left. His gains this time were immense; one could even say the haul was considerable.
After all, he had acquired forty basic Soul Tools alone, and beyond those, his overall haul this time was quite good as well.
After finishing his purchases here, Li Mu visited a second and third establishment, two small-to-medium-sized auction houses.
Both auction houses were of a fairly respectable size. After making some straightforward purchases to meet his needs, Li Mu arrived at the largest auction house.
The Shrek Auction House-or perhaps it should be called the Shrek Treasure Pavilion-normally opened to the public for only very limited hours.
Yet it was the largest and most legitimate auction house in all of Shrek City. After all, it had Shrek Academy backing it.
With the world's foremost power behind it, its scale was easy to imagine. No matter how prominent the merchants or how wealthy the businessmen,
they were all more than willing to supply this place with the various treasures and rare marvels they collected.
Even a lower price did not matter. After all, its sales channels were almost one hundred percent secure.
No one dared steal anything here, nor did anyone dare engage in anything untoward.
It was precisely this absolute security that allowed the Shrek Auction House to operate on such a vast scale here, and Li Mu naturally had to visit.
After all, among the many mineral deposits, quite a few metal ores were prohibited in the three great empires.
Although they did not know how much military strength these could be converted into,
nor how terrifying their effects could be when made into Soul Tools,
they knew one thing: these things were extraordinarily precious and could be exchanged for a great deal of money.
Thus, the nobles here had monopolized almost all of them, forbidding ordinary people from holding or privately possessing them.
Li Mu was actually rather speechless about this.
After all, these things were inherently weapons of mass destruction. It was only because the Sun Moon Empire at this stage was equally brain-dead that it did not establish any secret connections with the three great empires.
Otherwise, if the Sun Moon Empire had any brains and secretly sent people to establish merchant groups and forge trade connections with the three great empires,
fully establishing a trade network with them and funneling enough benefits their way,
all manner of rare ores could be shipped to the Sun Moon Empire, then converted into overwhelmingly powerful Soul Tools to swiftly wipe out the three great empires.