[Item: Hundred-Year Ganoderma] [Effect: A hundred-year-old medicinal herb. Consuming it can slightly improve Qi and blood, invigorate the meridians, and increase cultivation.] [Upgrade result: Thousand-Year Ganoderma] [Effect: A thousand-year-old spiritual herb. Consuming it can greatly improve Qi and blood, broaden the meridians, increase cultivation, and prolong life.] [Upgrade condition: 10 corpses of hundred-year wood-type Soul Beasts]
Just as the upgrade panel showed, he could upgrade this Hundred-Year Ganoderma again, raising it to the level of a thousand-year spiritual herb. The upgrade condition wasn't difficult either: just ten corpses of hundred-year wood-type Soul Beasts.
For Gu Chen, that was no trouble at all. Blue Silver Grass possessed both the wood and life attributes, and the upgrade panel didn't care whether a Soul Beast had two or three attributes, as long as it had the one required for the upgrade.
Was it hard to come up with ten corpses of hundred-year Blue Silver Grass?
Of course not.
For Gu Chen, who had a cheat up his sleeve, it was a piece of cake.
But he hadn't done it.
Producing a hundred-year-old medicinal herb in a small place like Nuoding City was already astonishing enough, though he could still chalk that up to good luck. But if he brought out a Thousand-Year Ganoderma, wouldn't he, the man selling it, become the target of everyone's arrows?
Even this Hundred-Year Ganoderma had been upgraded bit by bit.
How could there possibly be a Hundred-Year Ganoderma near a tiny place like Holy Soul Village? Even if there were, he wouldn't have gotten a chance to dig it up. This Hundred-Year Ganoderma had originally been nothing more than a freshly sprouted ganoderma that he'd happened to spot. The upgrade condition hadn't been difficult, so he'd decided to give it a try.
At first, upgrading the freshly sprouted ganoderma into a ten-year medicinal herb had required only one corpse of a hundred-year wood-type Soul Beast. He'd easily met the condition and completed the upgrade.
The condition for upgrading the ten-year medicinal herb into a hundred-year spiritual herb had risen from one corpse of a hundred-year wood-type Soul Beast to ten, but that hadn't been difficult either. They were only ten corpses of ten-year Blue Silver Grass-how hard could that be?
And so, the Hundred-Year Ganoderma had come into being.
Therefore...
To him, trading a Hundred-Year Ganoderma for a large sum of Gold Soul Coins was more than worth it.
He could upgrade a Hundred-Year Ganoderma whenever he wanted, but without some Gold Soul Coins in his pocket, he really couldn't feel secure!
Besides, only with enough money on hand could he buy what he needed.
For example: crabapple flowers!
To upgrade his Martial Soul, Blue Silver General, into Blue Silver King, he needed one corpse of a thousand-year life-type Soul Beast and one thousand-year life-type Soul Ring. Neither condition was difficult; a single thousand-year Blue Silver Grass could easily take care of both.
But the thousand-year spiritual herb, the Crabapple Spirit Flower, had him stumped.
Holy Soul Village didn't have any, and neither did the villages nearby.
Besides, there were many kinds of crabapple flowers. He wasn't a botanist and didn't know much about them, so he decided to put the power of money to work.
He didn't know which kind of crabapple flower he needed. In that case, he would buy every kind and upgrade them one by one. Once they were upgraded, he would naturally know which one he needed.
Before long,
the shopkeeper brought over two red cards and handed them to him.
"These are red cards. Each has a balance of 100,000 Gold Soul Coins. They can be used at any bank on the continent, or exchanged for the corresponding amount."
Gu Chen reached out and accepted them.
He'd heard a little about these things. For example, Tang San had received a gold card with a balance of five million from Ning Fengzhi by selling Hidden Weapons. Thinking about it that way, he seemed rather poor after all.
With the money in hand, the transaction was complete. Payment and goods had both changed hands.
The shopkeeper of the Seven Treasure Pavilion took out a jade box, carefully placed the Hundred-Year Ganoderma inside, and closed it. He did this because the jade box was excellent for storing medicinal herbs, ensuring as much as possible that their medicinal effects wouldn't easily fade.
As for why Gu Chen hadn't used one...
Did that even need asking? Obviously, he had no money!!!
He was an orphan who had grown up eating at the tables of every family in the village. Where would he get the money to buy a jade box for storing medicinal herbs?
Having collected the money,
he was just about to leave.
"Young master, wait!"
The shopkeeper of the Seven Treasure Pavilion called out to him.
"Is there anything else, shopkeeper?"
Hearing him, Gu Chen paused and looked back, a little puzzled.
"Young master, you don't seem to have anything for storage. I have a Space Soul Tool that just came in. Would you happen to need one?"
The shopkeeper spoke with a beaming smile.
"Let me see it."
The corner of Gu Chen's mouth twitched. Good grief, he'd just made a sum of money from the man, and the man already wanted to earn it back from him!
But he really did need a Space Soul Tool to store things.
Without one, it was rather inconvenient.
"Please take a look, young master. This is it. See the exquisite craftsmanship on this Space Soul Tool ring? One glance tells you it was made by a master. And look at the sapphire on it-one glance and you can tell it suits your bearing perfectly..."
"All right, stop puffing it up. Just tell me how many Gold Soul Coins you want for it."
Gu Chen cut off his honeyed words and asked the price directly.
"50,000 Gold Soul Coins!"
The shopkeeper's answer surprised Gu Chen. Anyone who bought a Space Soul Tool for 50,000 Gold Soul Coins in the Douluo II era would be a damn fool, but in the Douluo I era, the price seemed fairly reasonable.
"Then how big is the space inside this Space Soul Tool?"
He asked.
The shopkeeper hemmed and hawed, struggling to get the words out.
"0.1 cubic meters!"
Only after a long while under Gu Chen's gaze did he finally say it.
"Wait... It only has 0.1 cubic meters of space, and you want to sell it to me for 50,000 Gold Soul Coins? Are you taking me for a pig to be slaughtered? And after I sold you the Hundred-Year Ganoderma I had such a hard time digging up! Looks like the next time I find something, I'd better consider the Spirit Hall first!"
Gu Chen stared at him reproachfully, making the shopkeeper's skin crawl.
"Don't! Please don't. I'll give you a discount-twenty percent off. I'll sell it to you for 40,000. How about that?"
The shopkeeper hurriedly replied.
"Ten thousand. I'll buy it for 10,000 Gold Soul Coins! Shopkeeper, you know as well as I do that this is a small place like Nuoding City. Your item might be rare, but the space is too small. Anyone who can afford it definitely won't be interested, and those who can't afford it go without saying."
"Rather than leave it unsold forever, you might as well sell it to me for 10,000 Gold Soul Coins. At least I can come up with that much!"
With his Pinduoduo haggling technique, Gu Chen slashed so hard that he left the shopkeeper dumbfounded.
"No, no! If I sell it at that price, I'll bleed money! I'd be better off keeping it in the shop as a decoration!"
The shopkeeper shook his head repeatedly and refused.
"Then I offer 15,000. Surely that's enough!"
"No! Absolutely not!"
"Shopkeeper, don't be so greedy! For a Space Soul Tool of this quality, you won't take a loss at 15,000!"
"What do you mean, no loss? I'd practically lose my underpants!"
"Then 16,000. I offer 16,000. The extra thousand Gold Soul Coins can buy you ten pairs of underpants to change into!"
"..."
After a battle of tongues and lips,
he finally secured the Space Soul Tool for two and a half years-oh, no, 25,000 Gold Soul Coins. Both sides felt they'd made a profit.
For the shopkeeper, a Soul Tool that had sat unsold for months had finally moved, and he'd made a small profit besides.
As for Gu Chen,
the Space Soul Tool's 0.1 cubic meters of space did look rather like a chicken rib, but he had a cheat!
In his field of vision,
the upgrade panel floated silently above the Space Soul Tool.
[Item: Space Soul Tool...