Base No. 10's trading Dungeon Space was a grade A Dungeon Space that could admit beings up to Silver Rank.
This Dungeon Space was nominally under the Elf Race's control.
In reality, however, the Elf Race controlled only three-quarters of this Dungeon Space, which was nearly the size of a county, while the Human Race controlled the remaining quarter.
The Human Race had built an enormous defensive fortress here.
Clearly, the Human Race did not trust the Elf Race all that much.
The Elf Race was the same. In the quarter of the area by their own exit, they had built a special plant fortress using special plant-type contracted beasts such as Ancient Trees of Elves, Ancient Trees of War, and thorn forests.
Only the area in the middle was the actual trading street.
Although the Human Race had made certain concessions to the Elf Race on the details, they had not lost their heads when it came to broader strategy, remaining on guard against the Elf Clan at all times.
Likewise, the Elf Race remained wary of the Human Race because of their abduction of elven beauties in other Dungeon Spaces.
But both sides needed certain special resources produced by the other to nurture their own beast tamers, and so a trading Dungeon Space like this had come into being!
This area was jointly controlled by the Human Race and the Elf Race.
Human Race and elven shops and trading houses were interspersed, but their architectural style respected the Elf Race, built entirely according to the elves' concept of pristine nature.
Rather than a trading venue, this place was more like a forest park.
The Elf Race had grown vast numbers of enormous trees here, then set up one small trading area after another beneath them to facilitate one-on-one transactions. They had also built many treehouses in the giant trees, where finer-quality goods were traded.
This was entirely a beautiful natural marketplace, and it covered an enormous area.
After entering, Jiang Ziliu also saw the elves of this world.
They truly were beautiful, even more beautiful than the fantasy elves he had seen in movies in his previous life.
The elves all had emerald-green hair, fair skin, and long, pointed ears.
Their appearance was indeed filled with a natural, beautiful, and sacred charm, while their bearing gave the impression of a forest brimming with life.
It was a beauty difficult to describe precisely in words.
They were even more beautiful than Jiang Ziliu had imagined elves to be. The male elves were handsome, and the female elves were even more beautiful, but theirs was a valiant beauty rather than the soft beauty humans pursued.
Male elves liked wearing green clothing and armor made from special leaf fibers that retained their green color.
Most female elves wore a kind of emerald-green dress.
But their dresses had a special design that was beautiful without hindering their agility or leaving them too exposed.
These dresses actually also served as battle attire.
Every elf carried a longbow, a quiver, and an exquisite elven saber on their back!
Every one of them carried weapons. Clearly, they were more wary of humans than humans were of them.
The elves were very tall, ranging from 1.8 to 2.2 meters.
But they had slender builds, and Jiang Ziliu judged that their bodies weighed far less than those of humans.
Even here, the elves could easily use vines to leap lightly through the trees, their ability to travel through the treetops in no way inferior to that of gibbons that specialized in moving through trees.
It was only after seeing so many elves moving lightly through the trees that Jiang Ziliu became certain their bodies were very light.
Their physical constitutions were also weaker than those of humans at the same level.
But the Elf Race possessed powerful spiritual strength. In terms of their souls, elves, whose lifespans far exceeded those of humans, surpassed humans.
Elves lived for over a thousand years. A female elf you saw might look just like a young elven girl, but her actual age might already qualify her to be an ordinary human's ancient ancestor.
They only reached adulthood after two hundred years of age.
Jiang Ziliu also noticed that the surrounding elves would sometimes release their contracted beasts.
Unlike humans' versatility, the Elf Race could only contract exotic beasts with the life attribute. Although their range of choices was limited, with the same level of talent, they could contract beasts of higher life levels and greater potential.
Here, Jiang Ziliu also saw a unicorn for the first time!
These sacred creatures likewise came in many varieties. The unicorns the Elf Race could contract were those with the life attribute and emerald-green eyes.
This kind of unicorn was an exotic beast with a powerful bloodline that could grow to the SS-grade Diamond level.
It was immensely powerful. Jiang Ziliu only glanced at it from afar, yet felt as though he had seen a green canopy of sky, as though it would shroud his mind.
He immediately withdrew his gaze.
Jiang Ziliu understood that this unicorn's life level was definitely at peak Silver Rank!
The invisible suppression of its powerful bloodline made him feel as though he were seeing a green canopy of sky.
A powerful bloodline really did offer an advantage sometimes.
The one who had contracted this unicorn was an elven girl who was not even as tall as he was.
Upon seeing her contracted beast, Jiang Ziliu understood that this girl should hold a fairly high status among the Elf Race and possess a noble bloodline. Otherwise, she would not have formed a beast-taming contract with a unicorn, which the elves regarded as a sacred beast.
He had only looked at the girl twice before he noticed the wary gazes of the other elves scattered around her.
Jiang Ziliu immediately withdrew his gaze.
He had not come to uncover the secrets of her identity, and did not want to invite trouble by observing the elves.
In fact, the most common contracted beast among the Elf Clan was the Tree Shepherd, an exotic beast that could animate giant trees into treants.
Tree Shepherds were humanoid, semi-intelligent creatures that looked like large trees.
Jiang Ziliu also saw Tree Shepherds. They did not look very different from treants, the only difference being their luxuriant green leaves and immensely vigorous signs of life.
Clearly, this immense vitality was the key to their ability to animate giant trees into treants.
The Elf Race could also contract some relatively low-level wood-type animal beasts.
Their powerful souls also meant that the number of beasts they contracted was slightly higher than that of humans.
But the Elf Clan's low fertility left their overall strength inferior to that of humans.
Jiang Ziliu toured the entire elven marketplace, observing and collecting every piece of information.
He would also record this information later while resting. He intended to carry on his mother's habit, preserving what he saw and heard as knowledge.
These records would include many of his own analyses and insights.
The best-selling goods here among the Elf Race were the various fruits produced in forests unique to the elves. Even the lowest-grade fruits were grade D precious medicinal ingredients.
They could serve as food and also provide some assistance to the growth of contracted beasts.
These everyday provisions of the elves became precious commodities in the human world.
Wearing natural, elegant, and clean clothing really did make trading with the Elf Race easier.
Jiang Ziliu sensed their friendly attitude after they glanced at his attire. He used Elemental Crystals to buy many relatively high-grade life-attribute fruits of grades C and B.
But the Elf Race was indeed a relatively honest race. The male elf selling the goods recognized that he was a novice, yet did not inflate the prices.
Jiang Ziliu intended to use these special fruits to prepare medicines and see whether he could help his parents' contracted beasts recover further.
A large portion of the fruits he had selected possessed special restorative effects.
However, these fruits could only be preserved for long periods in spatial treasures. In the outside environment, their shelf life would not exceed a month and a half.
Even if Jiang Ziliu's parents knew that the Elf Race had good things here, they had no money to buy them, much less spatial items in which to preserve them.
He also bought some other elven materials that might prove useful later, such as the special dust that had settled on the Tree of Life.
This dust had absorbed the Tree of Life's presence and could act like a catalyst in medicines.
Jiang Ziliu spent three days touring the entire trading Dungeon Space, thoroughly broadening his horizons.
He also bought a great deal of knowledge the Elf Race had made available concerning contracted beasts, other worlds, other races, and exotic beasts.
He had studied the elven language, so understanding these books was no problem at all.
These books could add to his accumulated knowledge.
Apart from these things, Jiang Ziliu also took a look at the Elf Race's plant fortress from afar.
The special defensive wall formed from a thorn forest a hundred meters tall was truly a breathtaking sight.
But with the giant thorn wall between them, he could not see the special creatures such as Ancient Trees of War farther inside.
Only after completing this trip, which had been much like a sightseeing tour, did Jiang Ziliu spend nearly a third of his savings in Elemental Crystals to buy his true objective: the final medicinal ingredient needed to evolve the Green-Skinned Shapeshifting Spirit.
Moonwell Water!