"Excellent, I've been eagerly anticipating the appearance of otherworldly creatures."
A flying jellyfish that can survive on land and devour souls.
If someone tries to tell me this thing is human, I'm seriously going to file a complaint with the Land of Light.
Nether-Floating Jellyfish, huh? So what does this thing actually look like?
Curious, Samuel looked down and casually flipped open the Travel Guide.
He didn't really know why he was opening the book, but it was an instinctive, intuitive feeling that he could find the answer within its pages.
With a rustling sound of turning pages, Samuel quickly flipped through sheets of paper, some with content and some blank.
Sure enough, when he randomly landed on a certain page, a new section had appeared.
Following Travel Suggestions, Madman File, Mini-Map, and Item Backpack, the Travel Guide now had a new function.
[Appraisal and Cataloging of Items and Creatures]
"Ah, it's becoming more and more like a game," Celt's voice echoed in his mind.
"Isn't reality just a terribly balanced game anyway?" Samuel replied.
"True enough."
As the two conversed, a pattern materialized out of thin air in the cataloging section.
It wasn't a simple sketch; it was detailed enough and had sufficiently rich colors.
It depicted a translucent, deep blue jellyfish. Based on the scale provided by a reference object in the picture, it was slightly larger than a human head, with tentacles about twice as long as its bell.
There was no detailed information, because the "appraisal" function of this guide still seemed to rely on his own perception. Since Samuel hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he couldn't understand the essence of this creature through the passive effect of Visual Perception.
But just looking at the picture, Samuel's eyes widened instantly.
"Oh no, I genuinely want this one," he whispered to Celt.
"Wanting a pet?" Celt asked curiously. "Or wanting to study it?"
"Study what? I don't have the brains for that," Samuel answered matter-of-factly.
It wasn't about need, it wasn't about usefulness, it was simply a case of "wanting."
Like a child throwing a tantrum demanding to buy Ultraman cards in a store, not because they're useful or for their collectible value.
Wanting is just wanting, without any necessarily defined meaning.
On the stage, Pride had finished introducing the Nether-Floating Jellyfish and began announcing the next trade information. People around whispered to each other, seemingly not very interested in the jellyfish.
After all, an extraordinary creature that needs to feed on souls, carries strong inherent toxicity, and cannot be guaranteed to be controllable sounded like far more trouble than it was worth. One hundred and twenty yur was also not a small amount.
"This is where I really need to skip the cutscene," Samuel said. "Hurry up and skip the cutscene to get to the trading part."
Background? Plot? I don't want to know any of that. Item descriptions? I can just read the summary later.
Right now, he just wanted to quickly skip the lengthy dialogue and cutscenes and jump straight to the "acquisition" phase.
Samuel raised a finger, pointing and gesturing in the air in front of him.
"Why is this cutscene so long? Can I skip it? Is there a skip button? Skip key, come out, please."
"What kind of crappy game doesn't have a skip function? Even that other game with the buckets and rails that doesn't even have a jump button manages to cram a skip function in there. You have such high freedom but won't let me skip? What's the meaning of that?"
He tore off another piece of paper and wrote down his purchase intention using the pen provided here.
The handwriting wasn't exactly neat, but it was clear enough. He folded the note, raised his hand, and signaled to a nearby standing Attendant.
After doing this, Samuel leaned back slightly, continuing his casual chat with Celt in his consciousness.
"Speaking of which, why do you seem to have a particular fondness for extraordinary creatures?" Celt asked curiously.
While he was also curious about extraordinary creatures, he wasn't as keen as Samuel.
"Duh," Samuel replied as if it were obvious. "Do you remember the full name of my current body?"
"Samuel Gavris," Celt answered.
A bit of a mouthful, but not hard to remember.
"Exactly," Samuel declared with a sweeping gesture. "So, if you remove 'Gav' and 'ris' from my surname, what do you get?"
"It's 'Fre'!"
"Correct! It's 'Fre'! I am a 'Fre Burner'! Who dares to control me? Who can control me!"
"Allow me to introduce myself. I am a Fre Burner. My fursona is half-dragon, half-demon, and I like collecting the 12 Talismans."
Celt was silent for two seconds.
"Then I'm also a Fre Burner. My fursona is a nine-tailed orange fox that can fire Tailed Beast Bombs using chakra with a two-to-eight ratio of yin and yang."
"What?! Could it be that you are one of the Ten Great Fre Burners obtained by the Sage of Six Paths sacrificing his own old friend Feng?"
"I am in awe."
The Travel Guide opened automatically, words appearing on its pages.
"So it seems, it appears only my fursona is relatively normal. I am also a Fre Burner. My fursona is just a blue rabbit that can send things it clamps to parallel worlds."
"That's called D4C, damn it!"
"Whoa! Why didn't you say so earlier!"
"Talking nonsense online is one thing, but in reality, who wouldn't want to be a Fre Burner who can control the cyber dragon veins and has demonic support behind them?"
The two people and the book were essentially one person, and even the Travel Guide was just a part of Samuel's psyche. None of them were more normal than the others.
The two and the book completed a meaningless yet enjoyable session of nonsense banter in their internal voice chat, then simultaneously chuckled softly before quickly returning to the main topic.
After a pause, Celt's tone became slightly more serious as he inquired, "How much money do we have on hand right now? One hundred and twenty yur is no small amount. I remember you didn't carry that much cash when you left home."
"I put it all in the book. You can take a look," Samuel replied. "Most of the money is in there. There might be some change left at home, but basically, it's all here."
A faint sound of pages turning echoed in his mind. After a few seconds, Celt's voice sounded slightly understanding.
"Over nineteen hundred yur... Our starting funds are quite ample. But with our current spending habits, I doubt it'll last long."
"To be precise, I found a total of two thousand yur. Well, that only counts the large bills. I didn't count the loose change carefully; I just tossed it all in."
Before Samuel left home, he did find quite a bit of cash in that "gifted" villa. In the drawer of the bedside table in the master bedroom, four neat stacks of brand-new bills were arranged, all in fifty-yur denominations, totaling two thousand exactly.
Besides that, there were some scattered sien coins and small bills in the shoe cabinet and desk drawers, which he casually stuffed into the Travel Guide without counting them carefully.
Celt did a simple conversion, switching to the currency system he was most familiar with.
Roughly estimating based on this world's prices and purchasing power, two thousand yur was probably a decent amount of startup capital, but definitely not a huge fortune, especially when it came to expenses in the extraordinary field.
"1 million... Well, that's not a small amount either," Celt said. "But with our current spending frequency, it doesn't feel like it'll last long."
"You're not thinking about finding a job, are you?" Samuel asked with a look of disdain. "I'm not going to do those repetitive, monotonous 'daily quests.'"
"No, I was just thinking about where I could find a rich lady to be my sugar mommy," Celt replied with a laugh.
"Oh really? Well, good luck with that," Samuel nodded. "Do you need me to buy you a few steel wool pads on the way back so you can train?"
"Haha, no need," Celt laughed twice, then yawned.
"Why not? The flower language of steel wool is wealth and endurance. Such a great meaning."
"Flower language..." Celt's tone suddenly became a bit strange. "Speaking of which, I did discover something interesting. But let's talk about it when you get back."
He sounded overly tired.
Come to think of it, he went back to sleep, but he ended up chatting with Samuel for so long and didn't get any real rest.
"Alright then, you rest first," Samuel said.
"K. Finish up and come back quickly too. I've got some big treasures to look at here." Then, the connection on the other end of consciousness fell silent, leaving only the crackling of the fireplace logs in his ears and the subdued conversations in the hall.
"Feeding on souls..." Samuel smacked his lips, thinking of Priest Ethen. "If this were the world of Lord of Mysteries, I'd suspect this is the main ingredient for a 'Soul Shepherd.'"
He glanced at Pride, who was continuing his introductions on the stage.
"Hurry back..."
"How can I hurry here?"
Bored, he began to wait quickly.
…………
Over ten minutes later, the product promotion phase ended.
The long wait was finally over.
Pride stood at the front of the stage, his hands lightly clasped in front of him, his gaze calmly sweeping across the room. His voice wasn't loud, but it clearly reached every corner:
"Alright, then let the free trading commence. Attendants will escort you to the rooms over there based on your requests."
He turned slightly, raising a hand to indicate the several dark wooden doors on the side of the hall. The doors were closed, their surfaces devoid of any decoration, with only a small copper plate embedded near the doorknob bearing engraved numbers.
People gradually rose from their seats, speaking in low voices with approaching Attendants.
The order of trades was also scrambled, and soon it was Samuel's turn.
After about five or six minutes, an Attendant in formal wear and a bow tie silently stopped beside his seat.
The Attendant gave a slight bow, his voice lowered to a level only the two of them could hear:
"Sir, the buyer interested in purchasing the Law Mark is ready. Please proceed to the room over there."
"Alrighty then."
Samuel closed the Travel Guide, stood up, and followed the Attendant to a separate room for the transaction. Two people were already waiting inside.
One of them, Samuel actually had a bit of an impression of—it was the strange man he had seen earlier, the one initially mistaken for a non-human species. The other party was still wrapped in that dusty, hooded robe, the brim pulled low, revealing only the lower half of his face and chin.
The other person was a dedicated Attendant, standing by the table. He had his hands clasped in front of him, posture upright, gaze lowered, appearing to be in charge of appraisal.
Passing through the small wooden door, Samuel saw a modestly sized room containing only a table, two chairs, a small oil lamp, and no windows.
"Hello, hello," Samuel entered the room, pulled out a chair and sat down, casually placing the Travel Guide on the table. The door behind him was closed by another Attendant not far away.
"Two thousand yur," Samuel opened the book, tore off the page with the simplified Law Mark drawing from the Guide, and smilingly handed it to the Attendant in charge of appraisal beside him. "I'm still a newbie, you know. Is this price normal? You're not scamming me, are you?"
Seeing Samuel produce the Law Mark on the spot, both the Attendant and the strange man were momentarily stunned.
But the Attendant, with professional composure, immediately reacted, took the paper, and answered Samuel's question.
"This price is generally fair," the Attendant took the paper and patiently explained. "Normally, the price for a Law Mark blueprint like this ranges from two thousand to two thousand three hundred, occasionally reaching a premium of two thousand five hundred."
"So that means I'm getting the base price," he said, striking up a conversation quite familiarly with the person across the table.
But the person across the table merely nodded and didn't speak.
The Attendant unfolded the paper, spread it flat on the table, gently pressed down on the top-left corner with his left index finger, then took out a pair of thin-framed glasses from his pocket and put them on.
Then, he extended his right index finger, lightly touched the blank space at the very top of the paper, and slowly traced it downward.
"Appraisal... valid," the Attendant said softly. "Estimated usable period is within three days. Cannot be guaranteed beyond three days."
Samuel tilted his head.
What's this about 'within three days'? Did the Travel Guide put a real time-lock on it?
He placed the blueprint back in front of Samuel and simultaneously gestured towards the strange man sitting opposite him. "Your blueprint is valid. This gentleman wishes to purchase it for two thousand yur."
Then he turned to the strange man and gestured towards Samuel. "I recall you also expressed interest in the 'Trashcan Brand Treasure Chest.' This gentleman is also the owner of a Trashcan Brand Treasure Chest. Conveniently, you can discuss the transaction for both items here."
He looked back at Samuel. "According to the records, your current total bid is two thousand six yur and forty-eight sien."
"Eh? What a coincidence!" Samuel extended his hand. "Come on, let's get acquainted, make a friend."
After a moment's hesitation, the strange man reached out and shook Samuel's hand.
Through the glove, he could feel a slightly uneven palm, as if covered in layers of scales.
"Well then, we're friends now. So let's just round down that six yur and forty-eight sien," Samuel said with a smile.
The strange man nodded silently, opened his mouth as if to say something, then paused. After half a second of hesitation, he said, "Thank you."
His voice was somewhat hoarse and very low, as if something was stuck in his throat.
Withdrawing his hand, Samuel asked with curiosity, "Bro, what did this Attendant brother mean by 'within three days' earlier? This drawing won't change. It'll still be the same drawing after three days."
Perhaps because Samuel had rounded down the six yur and forty-eight sien for him, the man explained in his hoarse voice, "Precisely because it won't change that there's an expiration date."
"Law Marks change. This change is rare enough, altering only a tiny bit each time, but it's constantly changing. And roughly every three days, the extent of the change becomes large enough that the original pattern becomes invalid, no longer usable for meditation."
"Therefore, there's no way to permanently preserve a specific Law Mark for mass-producing Law Seekers. The only method is for a Law Seeker to look inward, perceive the changes in their Law Mark, and draw the pattern reflecting its latest state."