Chapter 497: Market Bargains and Hidden Desires

Over the next stretch of time, the Fourth-Tier Night Elf came and went several more times, until at last Song Chi and the Crescent Moon Matriarch reached a full agreement.

Time slipped by, hours passing in a blur. Song Chi thought nothing else important would happen in this trade session, but just a few hours before the market was about to close, a new guest strolled into the Oddities Exchange Shop.

Well, “new guest” might not be quite right. This visitor was a regular at both the Omniverse Market and the Divine Realm Player Trading Space—but rarely came to the Oddities Exchange Shop.

It was none other than the Fourth-Tier Half-Rat who’d always managed the source stone trades.

If that was all, Song Chi wouldn’t have given it much thought. After all, every market session saw plenty of foreign races visiting the Oddities Exchange Shop.

But the key thing was, from the moment the Fourth-Tier Half-Rat stepped in, its eyes barely left a few display counters right at the center.

Displayed on those counters were the most valuable oddities in the market.

For example, there was the Supreme Black Oddity “Origin Materia Stone” acquired from the Chasing Fate Immortal’s storage pouch, not to mention the Gold Oddities like the “Starlight Compass” and the “Heavenly Thunder Seal.”

But through his Dual Pupils, Song Chi easily saw that the rat man’s gaze lingered the longest on the Origin Materia Stone.

“Could this mean the power behind him can actually offer a same-tier Black Oddity?”

That thought made Song Chi focus even more intently on the Half-Rat.

Two minutes later, after standing there quietly for a while, the Fourth-Tier Half-Rat suddenly spoke with careful respect.

“Master of the Omniverse Market, is this Origin Materia Stone really only tradable for another item of the same tier?”

Hearing that, Song Chi paused in thought, then with a shift of his mind, new lines popped up on the display’s projection in the center of the shop.

[What else do you have in your possession?]

The Fourth-Tier Half-Rat didn’t hesitate. A shimmer glowed from within him and in seconds, several items appeared in his hand.

“So it’s like a Torch Ancestral Orifice—an internal spatial storage,” Song Chi murmured to himself, but he didn’t pay it much mind. There are countless kinds of supernatural systems in the Shattered Sea of Stars, and having an internal space is nothing rare.

He kept his focus firmly on the items the Half-Rat had produced.

There were four items in total, two of which glowed with a golden light.

Song Chi sharpened his attention and soon gleaned the attributes of both Golden Sanctum Oddities.

[Oddity: Imperial Extreme Sword]

[Quality: Gold]

[Convertible: {Imperial Extreme Sword}]

[Note: Crafted by a primeval emperor of the Divine Realm from various celestial metals, and refined by imperial might for tens of thousands of years until it became a Golden Sanctum Oddity.]

[Oddity: Blood Emperor Sacrificial Cauldron]

[Quality: Gold]

[Convertible: None]

[Note: An ancient ritual vessel passed down in the Divine Realm, transformed beyond recognition by the passage of ages.]

Both gold oddities featured the title “emperor.” That made Song Chi recall the information he’d pried from the Fourth-Tier Half-Rat about the Divine Realm.

“Emperors” in that world hold the absolute highest status; from what Song Chi understood, what they called “emperor” there was probably at least equal to a seventh-tier Sovereign or above.

These thoughts had barely crossed his mind when an attribute window for the [Imperial Extreme Sword] appeared in his view—specifically, its battleship component stats.

Imperial Extreme Sword lv0

Quality: Gold

Trait: True Armor-Piercing

Trait 2: Power increased by 240%

Trait 3: Twin Strikes

Trait 4: Charge and cooldown times reduced by 50% permanently

Trait 5: Primeval Extreme Destruction Strike

{Primeval Extreme Destruction Strike: Consumes 150,000 units of Eon Energy. Summons primeval extreme might to empower the Imperial Extreme Sword. The next attack will pack 2,000% of the cannon’s normal firepower—enough to obliterate anything within sight. Cooldown: One year.}

The Imperial Extreme Sword’s stats were impressive, but Song Chi wasn’t too interested, since it was essentially a Star-Annihilator Cannon. For the Heavenly Ruin right now, a Star-Annihilator-class ship was still a very distant goal.

By his own reckoning, even if everything went smoothly, Heavenly Ruin would still need at least another thousand years to reach Star-Annihilator status—if nothing unexpected happened. Otherwise, it could take even longer.

Given the current scale of the Omniverse Market and the Divine Realm Player Trading Space, Song Chi figured there was no way he wouldn’t get his hands on a Golden Star-Annihilator Cannon in a thousand years.

With that, his focus shifted to the other two items.

For the Half-Rat to bring those out along with Golden Oddities, they clearly weren’t ordinary. Maybe not Starsea Oddities, but definitely valuable.

“Hm… is this a Dominion Soul?”

With the x-ray ability of his Dual Pupils, Song Chi easily spotted the item in one of the tiny stone boxes.

[28 units of Dominion Soul]

This was something Song Chi lacked right now, but it fell far short of being equal to a Supreme Black Oddity. Compared to something like the Origin Materia Stone, 28 Dominion Souls couldn’t compete in value.

His gaze swept to the last item. Another stone box, but inside wasn’t a Dominion Soul—it was a drop of golden blood, radiating fearsome energy.

[One drop of Eighth-Tier Dominating Blood Essence]

“Too bad, it’s just Blood Essence…”

Song Chi shook his head at the realization.

If it had been Origin Blood, he might have actually been tempted to trade.

A single drop of Eighth-Tier Sovereign Origin Blood could massively boost the chances of the Calm-Sea Dragon-Xiang succeeding in its leap to Star-Annihilator-class.

Once a Dreadnought tries to evolve into a Star-Annihilator-class ship, normal foreign blood doesn’t really help boost its chances. What matters is the grade of Origin Blood, degree of Law comprehension, special ingredient recipes, and extra advancement materials.

A single drop of Eighth-Tier Origin Blood could raise success odds by more than 15%. Factoring in special resource recipes and Song Wujian’s Law of Space resonance, their chances would soar higher. Throw in a guaranteed Sixth-Tier “Timeworld Fruit” and the Song Family of Dragon-Spine might just step up to join the Immortal Houses.

But Blood Essence? It was way less valuable. A Sovereign’s corpse yielded only one drop of Origin Blood, but over twenty drops of Blood Essence. If the being was a Starry Sky Beast, Giant, or Dragon with especially potent flesh, you could double or even triple that.

So compared to Origin Blood, Blood Essence just didn’t measure up.

Song Chi answered shortly:

[These four are not enough to exchange for the Origin Materia Stone!]

The Fourth-Tier Half-Rat showed no sign of surprise at the reply; it clearly expected this outcome.

Its gaze lingered a little longer on the Origin Materia Stone, then it bowed and left.

Watching the Half-Rat leave, a contemplative look flickered in Song Chi’s eyes.

If he wasn’t mistaken, there was still a burning desire for the Origin Materia Stone in that rat’s gaze. Even if he didn’t say a word, Song Chi felt sure this wasn’t the end of the story.

“Hope he brings me a surprise next time…”

After this exchange, Song Chi raised the importance he placed on that Fourth-Tier Half-Rat to the level of the Witcher Civilization and the Night Elves.

It’s been over two centuries since he awakened the Torch Seed and became a Torch Captain. Even counting all his bizarre encounters and the help from the Omniverse Market and the Divine Realm Player Trading Space, Song Chi only had one and a half Black Oddities to his name.

One was the Black Hole Evolution Layer. The “half” was the Immortal Spear, since for a Torch Captain running the Torch Battleship System, oddities that can’t be converted into battleship components might as well be counted as half an item.

It goes to show just how rare Supreme Black Oddities are. If he could get one more from the Half-Rat, it would mean so much for the whole Heavenly Ruin.

Once Song Chi collected his thoughts, the market session soon came to an end.

When all the Sea of Stars foreigners had been sent out, Song Chi slipped into the Oddities Exchange Shop, letting his gaze sweep over every display case.

In no time flat, he’d taken stock of all the oddities in the shop.

“One Black Oddity, three Golden Sanctum Oddities, twenty-nine Silver Legendary Oddities, three hundred eighty Red Epic Oddities, one thousand six hundred thirty-six Orange Glory Oddities, and more than six figures of purple and lower grade oddities.”

Taking in the results from two hundred years of effort, Song Chi left the shop with a brisk stride.

He made his way across the far corner of the market, to a sealed room long set aside as a storage chamber.

At the door’s edge, dozens of storage capsules were stacked neatly.

But these weren’t ordinary capsules—they were special grade, secretly bought from the Xingyuan Empire through Ailong. Each held up to twenty cubic meters. Not huge, but in a battleship, a set of ten or more meant serious storage space.

Still, Song Chi’s attention wasn’t on these special capsules, but on one ordinary capsule on top, marked with a clear label.

He picked it up and opened it without hesitation.

Light in every color burst from the capsule, shining on Song Chi’s face and making him squint on instinct.

Sure enough, this capsule held hundreds of oddities that could be converted into battleship components. In those fifty years, the market hadn’t just added oddities that couldn’t be processed—there were plenty that could.

Some were bought from market guests, some came from Divine Realm players trading or submitting mission rewards within the Player Trading Space.

But most had been gathered by Wang Zhen, Pan Yuan, Shen Youran, and the others through their own channels, ultimately handled by the Sovereign Avatar.

Song Chi did a speedy count and got the totals.

Three Silver Components.

Twenty-four Red Epic Components.

Ninety-nine Orange Components.

Three hundred twenty Purple Components.

Before his last seclusion, Song Chi only had the Sovereign Avatar actively collect purple and above grade convertible oddities, which is why there were just over four hundred here. If you added blue and white components, that’d be another thousand or so.

But blue and white components weren’t worth much and didn’t translate into many points at the Star Tower Mall, so Song Chi asked the Sovereign Avatar to store those separately for the family.

The Song Family was in a rapid growth phase and badly needed blue and white components. Perfect timing.

He took a quick trip back to Dragon-Spine Continent and handed over more than a thousand blue and white components to his third uncle holding the fort, to be distributed as needed for the clan. Then he headed straight back to the market.

No—more precisely, back to the Silverplate Floating-land.

Taibai Trading Co., at the heart of the Silverplate Bazaar.

On the top floor, Song Chi quietly materialized. But after leaving the market, he didn’t rush downstairs. Instead, he drew out the Yaoguang Star Order No.32 from the Torch Ancestral Orifice.

Instead of appearing physically, he sent part of his consciousness as a projection into the Yaoguang Star Tower.

All this time, Song Chi had been collecting these ship components for a reason.

Wasn’t it just to trade them for points at the Star Tower Mall? The Star Tower has stood for two hundred thousand years in the Torch Human Civilization. Even with Song Chi’s experience, there are still countless treasures in the Star Tower Mall he craves.

Take for example the item called “Eye Essence of the Multi-Eyed Race”. According to the Star Tower AI, it assists in comprehending and training eye-related secret arts.

The Dual Pupils granted directly by the Vermilion Blood Pact need no such aid, but the Martial Heaven’s Eye—which Song Chi’s never managed to master—absolutely requires it.

There were also Sixth-Tier Void Crystals, as well as Sovereign Blood and Dominion Souls.

Song Chi strode to the Star Tower Mall’s window while slowly taking out the hundreds of components stored in the Torch Ancestral Orifice.

One surprise though—there was someone ahead of him in the queue, already at the Star Tower.

Spotting another member, also logged in as a projection, Song Chi greeted politely.

“Long time no see, Whitebrow!”

This figure was none other than the owner of Star Order No.30—a member named Whitebrow who almost never spoke on the Star Order Group Chat.

“Yeah,” she replied.

As always, Whitebrow answered with a slight nod and nothing more when greeted by another Star Tower member.

Song Chi was used to it and didn’t take offense. He glanced around and noticed Whitebrow was trading for a high-tier ice-attribute Law Crystal.

Once her deal wrapped up, she quickly made way.

Song Chi dumped all his components in front of the Star Tower AI for evaluation, then dove into searching through the mall’s goods.

First up was the Eye Essence of the Multi-Eyed Race. Since it could help with Martial Heaven’s Eye, he didn’t hesitate to spend his points.

He ended up buying three portions of the stuff, costing 1500 points total. Then he redeemed five Sixth-Tier Void Crystals for 3500 points.

He wasn’t sure which member had traded those Void Crystals to the mall recently—they hadn’t been available before—and there were only five, all snapped up by Song Chi.

But when he tried searching for Seventh-Tier Angel’s Blood, he found nothing.

As he frowned in puzzlement, a soft voice sounded behind him.

“Looking for Seventh-Tier Angel’s Blood?”