“When we arrived at the Dal Star, don’t let other people see this kind of supreme treasure of yours. If you did, others would definitely try to snatch your treasures. This place is considered a trading transfer station open to the neighboring Star Area. There are actually many desperadoes there,” Li Mu reminded them.
Seeing Instructor Liu put away his Mace, Li Mu added, “Sixth-tier supreme treasures are invaluable. The entire Sea Dragon Star Area only has few sixth-tier treasures, which can be counted on one’s fingers. The rarer something is, the more valuable it is. A supreme spirit weapon like yours can only be bought in an auction. It’ll be auctioned off at a price of at least 100 million crystal stones. The moment it appears, many forces will kill to get it.”
“You’re not exaggerating, are you?” Zhao Feng and the others were stunned upon hearing his words.
“In this case, we’re all billionaires, aren’t we?”
“It’s just my estimation. Very few people can afford to pay a hundred million crystal stones. Most people are used for barter trade. If you put that weapon of yours in the market, you can absolutely exchange it for a main vessel worth a hundred million crystal stones. But in some ways, the price for a sixth-tier supreme treasure may not be as high as a hundred million crystal stones. No matter how many crystal stones there are, there is a certain upper limit of them. Even if a new large crystal vein were discovered, mining would also take time. Some of the crystal stones may get lost, and some may be consumed. All things considered, the total amount of crystal stones is always fluctuating by a small margin. The number stays at a relatively stable level. Thus, no one would really pay a hundred million crystal stones to buy a sixth-tier spirit weapon.”
Li Mu continued to explain, “The prices here don’t stay the same. They change from time to time. This is a very complicated subject. Well, of course, that’s just the case for sixth-tier supreme treasures. Prices for ordinary goods are still relatively stable. I’ll give you maps of the Sea Dragon Star Area later, as well as information about local market prices. Of course, I’ll also give you my Communication Card. If you want to visit any place in the Sea Dragon Star Area, feel free to contact me at any time. In the Sea Dragon Star Area, no matter which sub-area it is, I’m a respected figure after all.”
Speaking of this, Li Mu finally regained his confidence and showed a graceful smile.
“Thanks, but we won’t trouble you. We may already have the strongest fleet the next time we meet,” Instructor Liu replied casually.
Li Mu was immediately rendered speechless.
“Man, do you have to be so blunt?
“I just bust my chops to explain the situation to you. Can you at least show me some respect?
“I beg you to trouble me more often. Every time I provide you with help, the impression I make on Uncle Zhang will become better, won’t it?
“If the impression improves a bit with every help I offer you, I won’t be far from obtaining the completed Highest Clouds Sketch, right?”
As one of the three greatest secret skills of the Cloud Shadow Sky, Li Mu knew that the Highest Clouds Sketch would not be easy to acquire, so he had prepared himself for a long-drawn-out battle.
He could tell that Zhang Han was the kind of person who was very nice and generous to his own people.
Thus, Li Mu planned to move Zhang Han to teach him the secret skill with his sincerity.
Zhang Han had also heard these words.
The matter of prices was very complicated. In the Cultivation World, if one haggled over every penny, life would be rather tiring. Thus, Zhang Han never bargained when making purchases.
Although it certainly cost him more money, it made the purchasing process simpler.
More importantly, he was rich. He could afford to do so.
There were several different kinds of sixth-tier spirit treasures. Some supreme treasures could not be bought even with 100,000 top-grade crystal stones. Generally, transactions of that scale only involved top-grade crystal stones. How could one charge a hundred million low-grade crystal stones anyway?
In those cases, low-grade crystal stones weren’t of much use, while top-grade crystal stones were the mainstream currency.
Adding the frosty crystal stones he owned, Zhang Han now had more than 90,000 top-grade crystals in total. The number was very close to 100,000. The number of low-grade crystal stones, however, was not so large. But the medium-grade crystal stones he had slightly surpassed the top-grade ones in number.
He also had sixth-tier spiritual herbs. His sixth-tier gems were even more. In addition, he also had plenty of spirit weapons.
That was the best he could have on the Saint Warrior Planet. If the planet had not been sealed, there would be seventh-tier, eighth-tier treasures, and even the ninth-tier treasures, let alone the sixth-tier ones.
After getting on the aircraft, the group flew to the mainland of the Dal Star.
The entire spaceship base was built in the void of the universe, some distance away from the planet.
“Have we reached the atmosphere yet?
“Why are the clouds here kind of silvery?
“Whoa! How big the city is!”
Mu Xue, Jiang Yanlan, Zi Yan, Mengmeng, Zhang Guangyou, and others could not sit still anymore. They all stood by the window and looked at the scenes below.
When they saw the view below through the clouds, they were all stunned.
“Future city?” Mengmeng muttered in a daze.
She felt quite astonished.
There were many towering buildings. There was even an edifice floating in the air, which seemed to be a huge ring. From a distance, Mengmeng saw a huge playground. “Is that thing towering into the clouds a roller coaster?”
The various extremely exquisite buildings attracted everyone’s attention.
“This is a planet where trade is frequent and technology is developed. This is a place controlled by a dark organization called the Dal Alliance. That’s why this planet is named Dal Star.”
Beamingly, Li Mu gave everyone an introduction to the local structure of power. “The Dal Alliance is constituted by three forces. In the very beginning, two of them were groups of interstellar bandits who made a living by robbing. Later, the forces grew steadily stronger. The two groups of interstellar bandits with advanced science and technology joined hands with a sect to establish the Dal alliance. They set the base of the alliance here. Their comprehensive strength is already second-rate in the Sea Dragon Star Area. After a hundred years of development, they have cleared their name. Now, they mainly rely on all kinds of transactions to earn resources.”
“This is a very refined city.”
Zhang Guangyou shook his head repeatedly and said, “The difference in prices in different parts of the Sea Dragon Star Area is quite striking. This may offer a great business opportunity.”
“But the prerequisite is that you have the strength to protect your properties, otherwise your fortune will ultimately be devoured by other wealthy forces,” Li Mu cautioned. Then, he smiled and complimented, “I think you people do have that kind of strength. No matter what you want to do, whether it is to buy a spaceship or something else, I’m happy to help you with the purchases. I’m also capable of letting you buy things at the minimum price.”
“Thank you a million, Young Master Li,” Ah Hu smiled and cupped his hands to Li Mu.
His father-in-law, Liu Qingfeng, was a business tycoon who had got tired of doing business on Earth. Yet, doing business in the Sea Dragon Star Area could be a bigger challenge. Ah Hu had heard Liu Qingfeng talk about it several times and made special preparations in advance. He had taken great care in this matter and had discussed a lot of relevant issues with Li Mu.
Now that Li Mu was eager to help, Ah Hu would certainly let him have his heart’s desire. Otherwise, the noble and graceful Young Master Li would be dispirited.
“There are two suns in the sky!”
Suddenly, Zi Yan felt that light was coming from two directions. She looked left and right only to find that there were suns on both sides.
It felt quite strange.
“Yes, on the Dal Star, there are two suns and three moons.” Nina looked at Mengmeng and said with a smile, “The daytime here is very long, whereas, the nighttime is very short, only one-fifth of the daytime.”
“It’s so weird.” Wu Ming scratched his head and said, “There is dazzling sunlight on the left side. It’s still dazzling when we turn around to the other side.”
“We’ve lived here for a couple of days before,” Li Mu said with a smile. “Our place happens to be near Princess Nina’s, so let’s go there first. Then, Princess Nina and I will take everyone to tour around Dal City. Although it’s just an ordinary city, there are still many fun places to visit, especially for Princess Mengmeng.”
Once there was a chance to prove his value, Li Mu would never let it go.
Mo Wen and the other members of the Elf Clan were dismayed by Li Mu’s humble attitude.
“Come on, you are Young Master Li Mu!
“How could you be so obsequious? Oh, you’ve changed…”
Yet, only God knew how strong Li Mu’s desire for the Highest Clouds Sketch was.
All he had done so far was just making some normal flatteries when socializing. Even he didn’t expect that he could be like this one day. However, he believed all of that was worth it.
Li Mu had already hatched a long-term plan to reach his goal.
“At worst, I’ll stay with you for a couple of years. No matter what, I will get the Highest Clouds Sketch. I won’t leave until you teach me that.”
Looking at the resolute Li Mu, Zhang Han couldn’t help sniggering.
He still had friendly feelings for the members of the Cloud Shadow Sky. Otherwise, he would not have provided them with all those resources when he came back.
Li Mu was smart and meticulous. Zhang Han also took a fancy to his personality and everything.
As a senior member of the Cloud Shadow Sky, it was easy and befitting for him to guide and support his juniors.
Nevertheless, Zhang Han felt that Li Mu’s motivated flattery was quite interesting.
This meant that Li Mu was destined to be stuck with an endless “pursuit”.
“What a tall building! Why is it in the shape of a ring? Wouldn’t the people in that building simply slide off?” Mengmeng looked at the building shaped like a bracelet outside the window and asked. Through the glass, she saw that it was a place similar to an office block.
“This is the Record Center of the Dal Alliance. I heard you talk about starting a company before. I’ve now learned about what the word ‘company’ means. In the Sea Dragon Star Area, there is no such company. The whole Star Area is only run by forces,” Li Mu explained with a smile. “Take the Dal Star as an example. All the affairs on this planet are handled by the Dal Alliance. There are only workers, administrators, and trading places. No other forces would stay here for long. The alliance is very professional in providing services. If you have complaints, you can file your complaints against the relevant department. Battles are banned on most planets in the Sea Dragon Star Area. If you do get into a fight, you’ll have to pay a huge fine, unless your strength is several levels higher than the local authorities. If someone like me caused a little commotion here, it wouldn’t be a big deal as long as the issue didn’t impact the higher-ups of the Dal Alliance.”
“To be frank, this place looks quite similar to those prosperous metropolises on our planet,” Zhao Feng remarked, “only that it has many kinds of facilities that are much more developed. It is more prosperous, more sophisticated in science and technology. Er, even the people here seemed different from human beings. Is that a horse-faced man fighting on the roof?”
“Hahaha.” Li Mu laughed at those words. “There are many different human races here. The Cultivation World is mainly populated by human beings. But many intelligent creatures similar to us also live there. Their appearances are different. But they can communicate with us just like any other human being. There are also some special creatures that are very powerful. Even I don’t dare to mess with them.”
“Here we are. The place ahead is where we live,” Nina suddenly pointed at the front and remarked.
The group looked over and saw three sky-high column-like buildings with a diameter of 100 meters sitting in the center of a large lake.
The area of the lake was very large, and there were many facilities in the surroundings. Many visitors were roaming about riding ring-shaped aircraft. Some were even fishing on small boats.
Behind the building was the parking lot for aircraft. The layer after layer of aircraft looked like a magnificent building.
“Buzz, buzz, buzz.”
When their aircraft approached the parking lot, two small round aircraft stood in front of it.
“The inspection is done. Welcome, Aircraft No. ADSAD5425.”
“Please follow me to the parking spot.”
One of the small aircraft led the way, guiding Nina’s aircraft to park at the rear of the central area.
“Let’s go out.”
Hand in hand, Nina and Mengmeng stepped on a round flying plate. Zhang Han and Zi Yan shared one. The others also left the aircraft one after another and flew to the sky-high building.
“This is where we live. The rooms are graded. The best ones cost hundreds of crystal stones per day. The cheapest ones are 50 crystal stones per day.”
With Li Mu present, Nina was spared from the duty of giving introductions. Li Mu took the initiative to lead everyone to the building on the left.
After flying through the entrance of the passage, they could see that the environment inside was colorful. There were several streams, gliding platforms, and all kinds of entertainment facilities. At the bottom of the building was a round pool, which looked quite like a swimming pool. They turned right and soon arrived at the trading area.
There stood two slim women with pointed chins and more than a dozen men in black with machine guns in their hands.
“Young Master Li Mu, Princess Nina, welcome back.”
The two receptionists knew Li Mu. They had also heard that Nina was coming back. Thus, at the sight of the two, they warmly greeted them.
“We’d like to rent some rooms. We want, we want…”
Li Mu suddenly felt a little awkward.
He intended to rent a room for Zhang Han’s family of three.
The best room cost hundreds of crystal stones a day. Although he could afford to pay for the room for a few days, Zhang Han’s father and grandfather were also here. It would be inappropriate if he didn’t rent rooms for them. Besides, there were still several disciples and subordinates. He ought to make arrangements for their accommodation as well.
This time, Li Mu brought only tens of thousands of crystal stones with him.
After deducting those he had already spent, there were less than 10,000 crystal stones left. He surely could rent rooms for all of them for one day. But if they stayed for an extra day or two, he would go bankrupt.
“Can I pay with my Interstellar Card?” asked Li Mu.
He had never asked about this before. In a remote place like this planet, people rarely used Interstellar Cards. More importantly, there was no Interstellar Bank here.
If the hotel could take cards, the hotel fee wouldn’t be a problem for him, because he still had hundreds of thousands of crystal stones in his card.
“Eh? Li, how could we let you make such a big expense?” Zhang Guangyou hurriedly said, “Let me handle the bill. Your money is hard-earned. Don’t be like this. Put them away.”
“Huh?”
Li Mu was slightly stunned.
He had never seen anyone scramble to make the payment before. Under everyone’s gazes, Zhang Guangyou walked to the front desk and flung his hand.
“Thud!”
Ten crystal stones fell on the desk.
Those were top-grade crystal stones.
“Give us your best rooms. Are these enough?” Zhang Guangyou asked.
“Y-Yes, it’s enough.”
The faces of the two female receptionists turned a little green. They goggled at the crystal stones with sparkling eyes.
“He paid 10 top-grade crystal stones at a time.
“Those are worth 100,000 low-grade crystal stones.
“That is enough for them to live here for quite a long time!”
“The best suites we have are 500 crystal stones a day. Each suite can accommodate 10 people at most. There are three bedrooms and 10 sleeping cabins in every suite. In your case, three suites will suffice. The fee will be 1,500 crystal stones per day. For 10 days, the total fee is 15,000. How many days are you planning to stay? These crystal stones you offered are too many,” one of the female receptionists informed cordially.
“Han, Zi Yan, and Mengmeng will have one suite. Dad, wanna share one with me?” Zhang Guangyou looked at Zhang Mu and asked.
“The three of us can share one,” said Deep Flame.
“I’d like to live with you three,” Dong Chen suggested.
“I’ll have my own suite,” Yue Wuwei said casually.
Jiang Yanlan and Instructor Liu decided to take one suite, while Chen Changqing, Zhao Feng, Ah Hu, Xu Yong, Elder Meng, and the others planned to share one.
Mu Xue wanted a suite of her own, so did Leng Yue.
Just like that, the accommodation arrangement was soon completed.
Eventually, they decided to stay for five days. Hence, the receptionists accepted only three top-grade crystal stones and also gave them some medium-grade crystal stones as change.
After that, everyone stepped back on the flying plates and soared to the luxury suites on the top floor of the building.
After the aircraft flew to the top floor, they entered a small corridor, which was horizontally positioned. The double door was electronic, which had a facial recognition device. As soon as their aircraft came over, the double door automatically slid to both sides to let them in.
The layout inside was similar to that of some luxury hotels. The only difference was that it had a strong sense of technology.
“Mengmeng, you and your family can go take a look at your suite first. I’m going to switch my room,” Nina said, smiling.
Her room was originally on the middle floor. Yet, she wanted to chat and play with Mengmeng. Thus, after giving it a thought, she decided to move into a room on the top floor.
Hearing this, Li Mu also hurriedly said, “My room is in the neighboring building. I’ll go switch it, too.”
After all, it would be more convenient for him to carry out his plan if he lived close to Zhang Han’s group.
The two headed out. Mo Wen and the other elves then returned to their rooms to rest. They needed to inform the Elf Clan of the news of this trial.
“Does every suite have an intelligent robot? This robot looks like a fortune cat.
“Mummy, this pair of eyes is quite interesting. We can use it to watch three-dimensional movies and take photos. Look, it can take photos of me when I give it this gesture.
“There are even invisible parachutes? Floating umbrellas? Even the hangers here can clean clothes automatically. It’s amazingly intelligent. I wanna buy some of this, then, Mummy doesn’t have to do laundry anymore.
“Is this a sleeping cabin? It doesn’t look good.
“Daddy, there are many flying cars outside. Can we buy some flying cars? If we drove those in the air on Earth, it would scare many people stiff, wouldn’t it?
“I think that any random items we buy here can strike many Earth scientists dumb.”
Mengmeng curiously walked around in the suite and fiddled with everything she found interesting.
With the introduction of the intelligent robot, she soon learned all kinds of functions the suite offered.
Hearing Mengmeng’s words, Zhang Han, who was sitting on the sofa by the bed, smiled and said, “Anything you bring back from here will be of great help to the further breakthrough of science on Earth. The scientific achievements we’ve made on Earth are quite unsophisticated. Our world is still a developing world of science and technology. Maybe in a thousand years, by doing scientific study with our own intelligence, our place will become a world with science and technology as advanced as what we see on the Dal Star. ”
“Well then, I’ll take some random items back as small gifts. I want to give some to Muen and the others. Will the staff notice? Can we really buy things like a spaceship or a flying car?” Mengmeng was at a loss. She looked at Zhang Han and asked for his advice.
“Ha.”
Zhang Han patted the armrest of the sofa with a laugh. Mengmeng jumped over and sat down by his side.
Then, he scratched the tip of her nose and said, “You are now the Heavenly Lord. The entire Saint Warrior Planet is yours. You can do whatever you want.”
“Uh-huh,” Mengmeng said proudly, “from now on, I’m the one who got your back.”
“But Elder Yue also said that you could only take charge when you reached the Elixir Realm,” Zi Yan impishly reminded her.
Mengmeng’s little face darkened. “That’s far away in the future. Mummy, I find that you are getting more and more skilled in throwing cold water on others when they enjoy themselves the most.”
“Hahaha.” Zi Yan chuckled.
“Humph! How can you laugh? You made fun of your own daughter.” Mengmeng snorted.
“Mengmeng, to be honest,” Zhang Han said with amusement, “it will take some time before you reach the Elixir Realm. But you happen to have to attend middle school and college soon. Time flies. It won’t feel that long. You used to be this little, but in what felt like the blink of an eye, you’ve grown so tall. Suddenly, my daughter is 13 years old.”
“So what if I’m 13? I’ll still be your baby girl even when I’m 30,” Mengmeng said with a grin. “Then, when we go shopping later, I’ll pick some gifts to take back for Muen and the others. I also want to buy something for Grandpa Zi and Grandma Rong. They’re not with us on this trip. They give me gifts every year. This time, I’ll give them gifts for a change. Hee-hee, they’ll definitely be stunned to see so many high-tech products.”
“We’ll go back in a few days. There won’t be any rules on our next trip here, so we can bring more people to see the outside world,” Zi Yan said with a smile.
“Daddy, I want juice.”
The family of three sat by the French windows, looking at the scenery outside while drinking juice. They all enjoyed the leisurely time.
No one went in to disturb them, not even Li Mu.
At this time, he was sitting on the sofa in the adjacent suite. As he pressed the armrest on the right side of the sofa, an electronic screen appeared in front of him. Then, he took out a Communication Card.
“Your call is being put through.”
“The call has been put through.”
“Frizzle, frizzle!”
In front of him, a three-dimensional image emerged. At a closer look, it was a man with a long face and superior aura. That man was sitting in a chair, staring at him.
The man asked, “How is the trial there?”
“Very good. I’ve obtained a lot of treasures. I’ve also attained an epiphany. I’ll be able to break through to the Yuan Ying Realm within half a year once I’m back,” Li Mu replied.
