Chapter 8: Why is there such a price difference?

The middle-aged man wearing black-rimmed glasses set down his water cup and glanced at the personal registration form Lin Li had filled out.

Then, he looked up and smiled at Lin Li, who was currently ecstatic, fantasizing about becoming an incredibly powerful cultivator after eating hundreds of those magical little fruits.

"Mr. Lin, you are the first person I’ve encountered in all these years to register your cultivator status so late."

"Huh? I..."

Lin Li, who had been immersed in his fantasies, was jolted back to reality by the middle-aged man's words. He was stunned for a moment.

Just as he instinctively opened his mouth to explain that he hadn't intentionally delayed registering his status until now, he swallowed the words back down.

One must keep a low profile and stay cautious; this was the hard-won experience of countless predecessors. He couldn't let others know the secret of his rapid cultivation progress.

Lin Li smiled at the middle-aged man in response, offering no further explanation.

"So this guy intentionally waited until now to have his cultivation level tested!"

"If he became a cultivator years ago and only now came to test his level and register, wasn't he afraid of being discovered and fined all those years?"

"What a weirdo."

"To show off, he actually waited until he reached the high stage of the first rank to register. This guy is a real oddball."

The crowd, previously shocked that Lin Li had tested at the high stage of the first rank, now looked at him with strange expressions, whispering among themselves.

Although the people around him lowered their voices, the testing room was only about a hundred square meters; no matter how quietly they spoke, their words still reached Lin Li's ears.

Lin Li wasn't annoyed by their criticism; on the contrary, he was quite happy. The more they speculated in that direction, the more it suited his intentions.

The middle-aged man responsible for testing everyone's cultivation saw that Lin Li remained silent and only smiled at him. Like the others, he made the same assumption, taking the young man in his early twenties for someone who loved to show off.

Afterward, the middle-aged man wrote down Lin Li's cultivation level on the form and handed it back to him.

"Thank you," Lin Li said, taking the document and leaving the testing room.

…………

At 10:30 AM, Lin Li walked out of the government office with his cultivator status registered. From this day forward, he was an officially registered cultivator.

"Next, it's time to go to that place." Lin Li looked up at the sun, walked to the roadside, hailed a taxi, and headed toward his next destination.

Seven or eight minutes later, the taxi stopped in front of a bustling shopping plaza.

"That will be fifteen yuan."

"Driver, I'll pay by scanning the code."

"Alright."

After paying the fare, Lin Li got out of the taxi and walked quickly toward the shopping plaza ahead.

The plaza had a high volume of foot traffic, and the shops along the street were mostly packed with customers, with only one exception.

This shop was decorated quite high-end, but because the goods sold inside were primarily aimed at cultivators, there weren't many customers.

Looking inside from the door, there were only one or two people, the type who just looked without buying.

Spirit stones, produced from spiritual energy mines, contained vast amounts of spiritual energy and were the primary cultivation resource for modern cultivators.

Old Liu’s Spirit Stone Shop, located in the busiest part of the plaza, was a store specializing in the sale of spirit stones. Lin Li’s purpose for this trip was to buy some spirit stones to accelerate his cultivation progress.

After eating the red fruit from the magical little tree on the mysterious island, Lin Li had become a cultivator at the high stage of the first rank in one fell swoop.

Such great progress should have been enough to be satisfied with, but if Lin Li wanted that magical little tree to continue bearing fruit, he had to break through to the peak of the first rank as soon as possible and become a beast hunter.

Then, he would have to go into the wild to hunt exotic beasts himself and obtain beast meat that was less than an hour old.

Under normal circumstances, it would take most cultivators anywhere from a year to several years to break through from the high stage of the first rank to the peak.

However, the magical little fruit Lin Li had eaten was too potent; it had pushed him directly to the high stage of the first rank and to the threshold of the peak.

Lin Li now felt like he was on the verge of a breakthrough. If he cultivated normally, he should be able to reach the peak of the first rank in the next half month.

But he couldn't wait, so he came here, prepared to buy some spirit stones to assist his cultivation and strive to break through to the peak of the first rank in the shortest time possible.

A saleswoman in her early twenties, with long hair draped over her shoulders, a pretty face, and wearing a black work uniform and black stockings, saw Lin Li enter the store and immediately walked up to him, greeting him enthusiastically.

"Welcome."

"I want to buy spirit stones."

Lin Li’s purpose was very clear. Upon entering the store, he stated his intentions directly to the pretty saleswoman.

"Sir, please follow me." Seeing that the customer had such a strong intention to buy, the pretty saleswoman’s bright smile became even more radiant. She smiled and gestured for Lin Li to follow her toward her counter.

The other saleswomen in the store, seeing their colleague snatch up such a customer, secretly regretted being a step too slow and missing out on the sale.

"Sir, how many spirit stones would you like to buy?" The pretty saleswoman invited Lin Li to sit in a chair in front of the counter, then stepped behind it and asked with a smile.

"What is the price of the spirit stones in your shop?" Lin Li looked down at the crystal-clear spirit stones inside the glass counter and asked casually.

"Fifty thousand yuan each."

"Fifty thousand yuan each? The price I checked online seems to be forty-nine thousand yuan. Why is it a thousand yuan more expensive here?"

Hearing this, the pretty saleswoman immediately judged that the young man, who was about her age, must be buying spirit stones for the first time, which was why he had such a question. She immediately explained with a smile.

"Sir, we aren't overcharging. The state has explicitly stipulated that the unified market price for a single spirit stone is fifty thousand yuan. Just like the price of tobacco, it cannot be priced arbitrarily.

The spirit stones you saw online for forty-nine thousand yuan are likely smuggled in from abroad.

Although those spirit stones are cheaper, buying black-market goods is risky. There’s no guarantee that the spiritual energy contained within them hasn't already been partially depleted."

…………

(End of chapter)