That evening, Gao Shang ate the most lavish feast of his life.
Shangguan Yun really had not been boasting.
She could control the cooking of every inch of every ingredient to perfection. It would have been hard for her dishes not to taste good.
After eating and drinking his fill, Gao Shang returned to the courtyard and settled into his reclining chair, his mood lifting.
"Sure enough, in this world, good food is the one thing you must never let down."
He stretched comfortably, then opened the system panel.
After his spending over the past few days, he had two hundred and fifty thousand Gold Soul Coins left in his account.
It looked like a lot, yet it was not enough to buy even the cheapest Immortal Herb with a maturation period of ten thousand years.
Looking at his balance, Gao Shang began planning the direction of his next improvements.
"Right now, soul beast meat is nourishing my body, so I can improve steadily. As for combat, I have the Uchiha's complete combat system backing me up."
"What I lack now is a way to improve my spiritual power."
He first searched through the relevant cultivation methods.
But after seeing the prices, most of his newly kindled enthusiasm faded.
The development of spiritual power on the Douluo Continent really was not very advanced.
Although some methods for improving spiritual power had survived from ancient times, their prices were outrageously high, easily running into tens of millions of Gold Soul Coins.
With that kind of money, he would be better off buying a Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew and saving himself the time spent cultivating.
What made it even worse was that these methods did not have lower-tier versions.
According to the system, they were already incomplete. Simplifying them any further would make it impossible to preserve even their original effects.
"All right, looks like I'll still have to count on Little Scumbag for cultivation methods."
Shrugging helplessly, Gao Shang turned to searching for other things that could improve spiritual power.
This time, he did not set a price cap.
Looking cost nothing anyway, and this would keep him from overlooking good things that had no lower-tier versions.
"Holy crap, what's this?"
He had assumed that among things that could improve spiritual power, Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew should rank first.
To his surprise, once the panel refreshed, something else took the top spot.
[Leafless Spider Lily (one million years), price: ten billion Gold Soul Coins.] [Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew (one million years), price: five billion Gold Soul Coins.] [Gold of Life (one gram), price: three billion Gold Soul Coins.]
"Abba, abba..."
Gao Shang looked at the merchandise, then at his own balance.
Two hundred and fifty thousand.
He had thought it was quite a lot just a moment ago. Why did it look so pitiful now?
Especially the gold of life. Three billion for a single gram? Why not just rob people!
He had actually had his eye on this stuff for a long time.
Not to improve his spiritual power, though, but because its essence was extremely pure life force.
Gao Shang had previously thought that if he still failed to awaken the Sharingan after collecting all nine Soul Rings, he would get a piece of gold of life and give it a try.
He simply had no use for it at present, so he had never specifically checked its price.
Only after stumbling across it today did he realize he had been taking things far too lightly.
"System, you're not joking, are you? Even if gold of life is expensive, surely it shouldn't cost three billion a gram?"
[Dear, the system's pricing is accurate and reasonable. Analysis indicates that the life origin contained in one gram of gold of life is approximately four times the origin of the sole remaining million-year soul beast currently on the continent.]
Gao Shang: "..."
Why don't you just give me Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's ID number?
Still, calculating it that way, Gao Shang felt that there really did not seem to be anything wrong with the price.
It was even a little cheap.
After all, even the cheapest Million-Year Soul Bone in the shop started at one billion Gold Soul Coins.
"Looks like if I really want gold of life in the future, I'll have to seize it by force or make a deal with Di Tian."
Gao Shang shook his head, set aside the thought of something he could not currently afford, and looked back at the item ranked first.
He knew about Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew.
But what was the story behind this Leafless Spider Lily?
With a light tap of his finger, its detailed information expanded.
[Leafless Spider Lily (one million years): a flower that grows beside the Yellow Springs, one of the two highest-grade Immortal Herbs in this plane.] [Introduction: the Red Spider Lily grows nine leaves, which store the soul power within the Yellow Springs. Each time a leaf falls, one petal blooms. When all nine leaves have fallen, the Red Spider Lily blossoms.] [Tip 1: the leaves cannot be used directly. Special methods must first be used to refine away the negative soul power within them. The flower contains no negative energy.] [Tip 2: when a Soul Master with attributes such as netherworld, death, or soul consumes this Immortal Herb for the first time, there is an extremely high probability of triggering Martial Soul Evolution. Repeated consumption can only improve spiritual power.]
"Hiss... one of the two highest-grade Immortal Herbs?"
"Wouldn't that put it on the same level as Lovesick Heartbreak Red?"
Gao Shang grew interested and read the introduction again.
He had actually never heard of an Immortal Herb of this quality.
Soon, however, he noticed a familiar term in the introduction.
The Yellow Springs?
"Could it be..."
Gao Shang put aside his earlier casual attitude and asked:
"System, does this world have an Underworld too?"
[Dear, that question falls outside the scope of what the system can answer. Please ask another question.]
"..."
"Tch, fine, don't tell me."
Gao Shang curled his lips and did not press further.
Yet as he looked at the words "grows beside the Yellow Springs," another thought did take root in his mind.
Since the Red Spider Lily was real, surely the Yellow Springs it depended on to grow could not have been invented out of thin air?
His guess was most likely right.
"I'll verify the matter of the Underworld when I get the chance. First, let's see how much a younger Red Spider Lily costs."
Gao Shang gathered his thoughts and adjusted the price cap to one hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins.
The merchandise on the panel soon changed.
Full Moon Wearing Autumn Dew and gold of life were gone, replaced by other items.
For the former, once its age dropped to match this price range, it no longer had the effect of improving spiritual power. For the latter, the quantity sold could not be reduced any further.
But the Red Spider Lily still ranked first.
[Leafless Spider Lily (one hundred years), price: one hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins.]
"There really is one I can afford?"
Gao Shang had just begun to feel pleased when he suddenly froze.
"Wait, that's not right. This thing's quality rivals the king of Immortal Herbs, but it can mature in just a hundred years?"
An Immortal Herb of this level should not mature so quickly.
He simply stopped looking at the other merchandise, searched directly for Red Spider Lilies, and sorted the prices from lowest to highest.
He wanted to see just what was going on with this thing.
[Red Spider Lily seed (one year), price: one thousand Gold Soul Coins.] [Tip: cannot germinate away from the Yellow Springs.]
The seeds were cheap, but he had no interest in searching for the Yellow Springs right now.
Gao Shang continued reading.
[Nine-Leaf Spider Lily (eleven years), price: ten thousand one hundred Gold Soul Coins.] [Tip: a growing Red Spider Lily. Its nine leaves contain soul energy equal in total to that of a hundred-year Red Spider Lily, but lack the effect of triggering Martial Soul Evolution.]
"Ten thousand one hundred!"
"And the total energy in its nine leaves is actually equal to that of the mature hundred-year flower that costs one hundred thousand Gold Soul Coins!"
A difference of nearly ninety thousand Gold Soul Coins. He had to admit, that was far too tempting for the cash-strapped Gao Shang.
But cheap as it was, the leaves still contained negative soul power and could not be eaten directly.
Unless he could find a way to remove the negative soul power.