True Solution of the Sword Dao

The Pacific Exchange was just like a normal city, with streets, pedestrians, streetlights, and trash cans. Food stands and shops. City management. But occasionally, a bloody incident would occur here.

After a scream, a bald man beside Lin Fei was stuck by a white aura that rushed out from behind him and turned into a pile of ashes within seconds. A figure draped in a white robe, completely shrouded by the garment, walked out from behind. Some city management staff had already issued a fine, and after specialized personnel cleaned up the ashes, everything returned to normal as if nothing had ever happened.

"This really is the real world," Lin Fei frowned slightly. Compared with the outer world, one was heaven and the other hell, completely different. It seemed that here, only money dictated the order. As long as one had enough money, anything was possible.

Walking slowly with the flow of people, Lin Fei looked sideways at the various shops along the street.

In a store with a sign advertising special items, luminous cabinets displayed odd-shaped objects. Some looked like tree roots, some like herbs, fruits, and even some ancient metal weapons. Customers were loudly haggling with the proprietor.

Beside the special item shop was a pharmacy, the walls lined with densely packed test tubes of all sizes and thicknesses, each marked with a price. They were filled with liquids of various colors. Even outside the store, Lin Fei could smell a pungent strange scent. As he passed by, he saw a test tube in the pharmacy within which the liquid was constantly twisting, trying to climb up the sides of the glass, as if alive. A warning label on the tube instructed: Please drink in one go.

Continuing forward silently, Lin Fei saw more similar stores, but he didn’t enter any of them. According to the Mage’s Eye, every exchange would have a street with cheap goods. He wanted to go there to take a look. He scanned the shops casually; prices of the goods were in the tens or hundreds of millions, while Lin Fei’s current savings were just a bit over three million, which Lu Jun routinely wired to Ping City each year. He could technically draw on Rainbow Group’s funds, but that would be too obvious and difficult to explain where the money went. Large fund transfers required applications.

In blunt terms: Lin Fei was out of money.

With just over three million Renminbi, one could buy almost anything anywhere, but not here, where any random item might be out of reach. After all, any strong individual from Hua Nation or other Asian countries could enter the Pacific Exchange through secret channels. With a vast base of powerful individuals, naturally, many were wealthy.

But not everyone was rich. The shops along these streets weren’t targeting ordinary strong individuals but those who had entered a higher level. Such people, once they had strength, naturally made money very quickly.

With a savings of three million Renminbi, which converted to just over three hundred and sixty thousand Euros, Lin Fei likely couldn’t even afford the cheapest potion.

Among the higher-level strong ones, he was considered very poor.

Lin Fei, who had originally planned to browse, after glimpsing the price tags inside, decisively opted to head straight to the street of cheap goods.

In the low-level equipment store, basic energy-protective elbow gear cost four hundred thousand Euros. Not to mention the shops labeled with intermediate and high-level equipment.

This place seemed to be completely disconnected from the outer world. Bizarre in every conceivable way.

At a passing food stand, most of what was sold were grilled skewers of various meats that Lin Fei had never heard of before, extravagantly priced at a thousand Euros per skewer...

Following the map, about twenty minutes later, Lin Fei finally reached his destination.

A huge white canopy with a metal roof hung overhead with a sign: "Raw Materials and Cheap Goods Market."

A considerable number of people flowed in and out of here. Lin Fei stood by the entrance for a moment and saw at least several hundred people pass by. Some were Hua Nation people, but many were foreigners, speaking in an array of languages, entering and exiting the market, some with joy, others with disappointment, all wearing different expressions.

Lin Fei followed the flow of people inside.

A strange smell hit his nose immediately. Inside was a large market made up of rows of small stands, reminiscent of an agricultural goods market. Each stand had a small sign with the product prices and descriptions.

Most of the vendors sat quietly behind their stands, not actively attracting customers, exuding an indifferent "take it or leave it" attitude. Only a few vendors were more enthusiastic in calling out to passerby.

Lin Fei looked up slightly and saw signs hanging from the beams of the canopy, each marking different sectors.

This area was marked as the raw materials sector. The signs were written in Mandarin, Korean, Japanese, Indian, and many other languages, just a few words crowded on each sign.

Lin Fei walked slowly down the aisle of the stalls, looking around.

Most of the items on the stands were unfamiliar to him. He randomly squatted at one and pointed at a round object with a black shell dotted with tiny red specks.

"How much for this?"

The vendor, an Indian woman with a red dot on her forehead, glanced at what Lin Fei was pointing to and said in fluent English,

"Snake insect egg package, about a thirty percent chance of successful hatching. There’s little demand for this, so I’ll give you a discount, twenty thousand."

"Never mind, I’ll keep looking," Lin Fei stood up. The vendor did not attempt to keep him there and just sat behind the stand.

After walking a little further, Lin Fei suddenly noticed an item on a stand that caught his eye. His gaze sharpened as he slowly approached.

The stand had only a few scattered items, the largest resembling a root carving, the smallest a small pile of seeds, all casually displayed on a white cloth. The vendor was a blond Caucasian man sitting cross-legged, with messy golden hair atop his head, a robust body, and a black repeater rifle beside his leg. He resembled a fierce lion ready to pounce and kill at any moment.

There were already two people at the stall. One man and one woman, the man looked refined, wearing gold-rimmed glasses, a man of Asian descent. However, I couldn’t tell if he was from Japan, Korea, or Hua Nation.

The woman had a beautiful face, dressed in a black tight leather jacket, her most prominent feature being her figure, which was slim to the extreme.

As soon as Lin Fei walked over, the two people immediately scanned him with alertness and then turned their faces back to continue haggling with the blond Caucasian.

"Come on, that Black Illuminator has been sitting here for many days now, you might as well just sell it to me. Fifty thousand is already a high price," the Asian man with gold-rimmed glasses slowly said in English.

"Fifty thousand? Adding ten in front of it would be about right," the blond big man said disdainfully.

"Then what price do you want? Show some sincerity. A hundred and fifty thousand is way too high."

"A hundred thousand, at least," said the blond big man with his arms crossed.

The woman in the black leather jacket directly picked up a white branch that still had leaves on it.

"Can’t the price for this Sanxi branch be any lower?" the woman’s voice was very youthful, reminiscent of a teenage girl.

"Eight thousand is eight thousand, take it or leave!" the blond Caucasian said impatiently. "And it’s not called Sanxi branch, it’s Mucus Tree."

"Really can’t be a bit less?" the woman asked again.

"No," was the reply.

Lin Fei approached the stall, his gaze landing on the small pile of green seeds.

"That’s right, these are indeed the same kind of seeds that I fused with the core back in Ping City, those that fell from the great tree. However, the color seems a bit paler, and the shape much smaller," he confirmed to himself that these were indeed the seeds he had obtained before.

Lin Fei squatted down and gently picked up a seed. It indeed had a strong pseudo-truelight aura, but there seemed to be another faint energy as well. It was not as pure as the green seed he had before. However, the ample amount of pseudo-True Force that was significant to him back then was now just a tiny strand.

"How much for this?" he asked.

"That whole bunch is ten thousand," the blond Caucasian said indifferently. "Absolutely natural enhanced seeds. A specialty of the Inner World from Asia. Not like those fakes from the Outer World. You can try one if you like. But if it has an effect, you’ll have to buy it."

Lin Fei was taken aback. These seeds could be eaten?

At this point, the stall owner started haggling again with the man in gold-rimmed glasses and the leather-clad woman.

Lin Fei picked out a seed and placed it directly in his mouth. A burst of pseudo-True Force suddenly melted, accompanied by another stream of energy. This unknown force had just entered his mouth when it swiftly turned into fine streams and penetrated his muscles and skin.

A faint wave of energy emanated directly from Lin Fei’s mouth.

At the same time, the other seeds on the stall flashed a momentary green light.

The blond Caucasian turned his face and said, "See the effect? The instant a seed is dissolved, the other seeds’ green glow is a characteristic only natural enhanced seeds have."

Lin Fei could feel the pseudo-True Force blending into his True Force Core as the seed dissolved, and immediately, his True Force Core, which was full of cracks, seemed to be showing signs of recovery. At the same time, after the other energy entered his body, a vigorous energy and strength seemed to surge within him.

"Natural enhanced seeds are immediately effective and have a specific glowing characteristic. These are the purest enhanced seeds, with no other impurities besides Enhancement Energy," the blond big man took another small bag from his waist. It was a brown leather pouch. He opened it and took out a seed that was the same green color but only the size of a jelly bean.

"This is a man-made imitation enhanced seed, and you can compare it. There are lots of impurities inside it, unlike the natural ones that are so pure they contain only the Enhancement Energy, and they melt as soon as they’re taken," he explained.

Lin Fei took it over to examine and found that this seed of similar color was filled with that same energy, apart from the pseudo-True Force, but also mixed with many other black spots, very impure. However, it had no pseudo-True Force. He nodded and agreed, "It is indeed so."

He promptly took out his bank card. The blond Caucasian also took out a card reader, swiped it lightly, then entered some numbers. The transaction was complete.

"Can you tell me where the natural seeds come from?" Lin Fei asked ambiguously. He did not want others to know it was his first time here.

"These seeds of mine were found in a relic within the Inner World of Asia. Natural seeds are generally quite rare. If you’re interested, you can come find me again. We often roam around the Inner World of Asia," the blond Caucasian grinned. "People call me Lion Eli. This is my regular spot, and I come here once a week."

"All right," Lin Fei nodded, promptly collecting the small pile of seeds from the stall, roughly counting over fifty. They were quite effective for healing his injuries. Coming here this time, this was already a big haul. (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote for recommendation tickets and monthly tickets at Qidian (qidian.com). Your support is my greatest motivation.)