Outside Haoyue City, Huo Yuhao looked at the city walls, which were considerably shorter than those of Imperial Dragon Pass, with a somewhat helpless expression.
"Yuhao, was Long Xingyu afraid you'd meet his 'son,' Long Haochen? Is that why he was so eager to send you away?"
Inside Huo Yuhao's Sea of Consciousness, the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm was ranting up a storm.
"When we left this morning, he personally took Long Haochen up a mountain to cultivate. He wouldn't even let you stay another half a day."
"Could Long Xingyu have even more secrets?"
"Brother Sky Dream, there's no need to be so angry. Living here in Haoyue City is pretty good too."
Huo Yuhao smiled as he spoke. He quite liked living alone.
Besides, when he left Odin Town, Long Xingyu had given him ten thousand gold coins, enough to serve as his starting capital.
With that money, he could make some things that interested him, such as magic equipment and potions.
At the peak of the Fourth Tier, there was virtually no one in Haoyue City who could defeat him.
He had learned that three temples had branches in Haoyue City: the Knight Temple, the Magic Temple, and the Warrior Temple.
The heads of those three branches were all at the Fifth Tier, and he could hold his own against them in a head-on fight.
After entering Haoyue City, Huo Yuhao searched all over and spent ten gold coins to rent a small courtyard house.
The house was close to the city center and had two floors. The first could be used for business and as a living room, while the second served as a bedroom.
There were also several small sheds in the backyard behind the first floor. Huo Yuhao decided to renovate them for smithing, pill refining, and cultivation.
He spent some more money on the necessary renovations.
He took the remaining money with him to the merchant association.
Haoyue City's merchant association was much larger than the market at Imperial Dragon Pass. The first floor sold miscellaneous goods, the second sold materials and finished products, and the third housed an auction house.
Huo Yuhao browsed the merchant association, then drew on the properties of various materials and the books he had read in Imperial Dragon Pass's library to purchase a batch of materials suitable for crafting equipment.
He also bought some basic potion formulas, including "Basic Spiritual Energy Potion," "Low-Level Stamina Recovery Potion," and "Sensory Enhancement Potion." They were all the most common entry-level formulas, inexpensive but practical.
These purchases cost him nearly half his savings.
Back at the courtyard house, he first got the smithy in order, then began considering the task at hand.
He wanted to craft a basic magical device called a Spiritual Energy Lamp.
The principle behind the Spiritual Energy Lamp was simple: an energy-storage array was engraved inside a container and powered by a magic crystal, releasing light when the array operated.
There were actually quite a few similar items on the Holy Demon Continent, but they were generally bulky, consumed a great deal of energy, and required a professional alchemist to engrave their arrays. Their prices were outrageously high.
In his previous life on the Douluo Continent, Huo Yuhao had crafted quite a few Soul Tools, and the Spiritual Energy Lamp was modeled after the Douluo Continent's Soul Guidance Lamp.
Although Soul Guidance Arrays and the Holy Demon Continent's alchemy arrays worked on different fundamental principles, both relied on the circulation and conversion of energy.
Using the same method, he carefully studied the differences between the two worlds' materials, Spiritual Energy, and Soul Power. After several days of work, he finally succeeded in making his first Spiritual Energy Lamp.
Classified as magic equipment, the Spiritual Energy Lamp would be roughly a second-level piece.
It was a palm-sized copper lamp, with a fingernail-sized fragment of magic crystal embedded in its base. Inside were a simplified energy-storage array and light-element conversion markings.
Turning the switch on the bottom connected the array to the magic crystal. Spiritual Energy circulated through it once, then shone out through the crystal pane on top.
The light was soft, and it had no trouble illuminating a room.
Once the Spiritual Energy in the magic crystal fragment was exhausted, it could be replenished directly with Spiritual Energy. A single charge kept it lit for one or two double hours, and the cost was very low. As long as a household had a professional, there was virtually no expense.
Huo Yuhao engraved a small inscription on the bottom of the lamp: a vertical pupil, an abstract, simplified version of his Spirit Eyes. Its lines were so simple that it looked like a cloud unless examined closely.
He engraved this mark on everything he made, making it his personal brand.
He made twenty lamps in the first batch, kept two for himself, and took the remaining eighteen to the merchant association to sell on consignment, pricing them at ten gold coins apiece.
Three days later, the merchant association sent someone to find him.
"Little Brother Huo, do you have any more of those Spiritual Energy Lamps? All eighteen sold out!"
It was the merchant association's manager. His head covered in sweat, he spoke excitedly. "Do you have any more Spiritual Energy Lamps? We'll take as many as you have. Several temple branches have come asking about them."
Huo Yuhao asked the manager for more details and learned that most of the prospective buyers were professionals from Haoyue City's three major temple branches.
There were also some mercenaries and adventurers, though they accounted for only a small portion of the purchases.
The professionals from the three major branches received regular monthly stipends, so demand for the Spiritual Energy Lamps was enormous. Huo Yuhao immediately felt he had set the price too low.
In response, Huo Yuhao made another thirty lamps. The second batch sold even faster.
They sold out the day after they went on the shelves, and the three major branches had even placed quite a few advance orders.
Making Spiritual Energy Lamps was very simple for Huo Yuhao. Apart from handling the Core Array, assembly, and a few key components himself, he left the metal parts needed for the exterior to a smithy.
That allowed him to make Spiritual Energy Lamps quickly. As long as the smithy could keep up, his current Internal Spiritual Power and Spiritual Power made engraving dozens of Core Arrays a day effortless.
With demand so high, he also improved the design by adding a switch to adjust the brightness and raised the price to fifteen gold coins per lamp. Even so, supply still fell short of demand.
He also began familiarizing himself with potion-making. Since he had made potions in his previous life, he had no trouble making the potions in question.
Over the course of a month, he sold more than a hundred Spiritual Energy Lamps, along with a smattering of Stamina Recovery Potions. His gold coins increased from ten thousand to nearly twenty thousand.
After learning the basics of both potion-making and alchemy, Huo Yuhao began researching higher-level magic equipment and potions.
There were many alchemists crafting offensive magic equipment, so Huo Yuhao continued to focus first on equipment ordinary people could use.
One evening, he was melting copper in the backyard, preparing to make the drive core for a Spiritual Power Vehicle.
The Spiritual Power Vehicle was the second product he had thought of after the Spiritual Energy Lamp. Its principle was similar, except it converted Spiritual Energy into kinetic energy to drive a mechanism mounted on an axle, which turned the wheels.
It was still in the experimental stage, however. Since the various materials of the two worlds differed somewhat, he needed more time to make it.
Just then, the merchant association's manager arrived again. This time he was not alone; two women followed behind him.
The one on the left looked sixteen or seventeen. She wore a sharply tailored knight's outfit, her hair tied in a high ponytail and a longsword hanging at her waist. Her features were heroic, and she walked like the wind.
The one on the right was about the same age, but dressed entirely differently. She wore a pale cyan dress, her hair in a simple bun, and held a thick ledger in her arms. She looked like an accountant.