GREED: ALL FOR WHAT?

So only divine flesh, energy water, or mind fragments can be traded in the trading platform.

Legion-10 came to the conclusion that only items composed mainly of spirituality can enter and leave the virtual world. So only such items can be traded.

After getting the information they wanted, Legion-10 returned to the selling trading platform with his mind and approached the stall with the rank 4 divine flesh that they needed.

There was also the divine flesh of the pathway of slavery. There was more than one seller of the divine flesh of slavery.

Legion-10 was surprised at first to see this, but then he remembered that telepaths are the least afraid of slavers. Telepaths can protect their minds and can even destroy the minds of slavers, so they have nothing to be afraid of about strengthening slavers.

Besides this logical reason, there was also the fact that this place was the best place to sell the divine flesh of slavers that they killed or happened to stumble upon.

If they want to make money with what they have, they will sell what they have. This is usually the reason why anyone sells anything.

Legion-10 was glad to see this. But he didn’t try to acquire the divine flesh of slavery yet. He wanted to see how good the trading platform was first before being confident enough to risk the divine flesh of slavery.

The seller of the rank 4 divine flesh of the pathway of the telepath was asking for 800 liters of energy water for it. Legion-10 thought that was overkill, so they offered to pay 100 liters of energy water.

It is common knowledge that the price of the life of godclads and the amount that assassins are paid to kill is 100, 200, 400, and 800 for rank 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively.

This is the maximum market price. Oftentimes, godclads are killed for less. Only someone rich and desperate like Bushwick would pay more than this.

So a rank 4 godclad is worth at most 800 liters of energy water or 8,000 gold coins if converted at a rate of 1 liter to 10 gold coins. But oddly enough, a rank 4 divine flesh is usually 1,600 gold coins or 160 liters of energy water.

Clearly, divine flesh is worth less than a godclad. This is reasonable. But the seller refused to be reasonable.

The seller asked for the price of a living godclad for the divine flesh, so Legion-10 decided to be unreasonable too. Instead of offering 160 liters of energy water, he offered just 100 liters.

He even refused to go higher than that regardless of what the seller said. He had the confidence to be obstinate because there was more than one seller with rank 4 divine flesh of the pathway of the telepath.

After some back and forth, they finally settled on 120 liters. Legion-10 settled on that because he contacted another seller, but that person didn’t want to go lower than 150 liters.

After coming to a deal, Legion-10 waited for their body to reach their base in the real world. When they got to their base in the territory of the Golden Hammer Gang, they grabbed a keg of energy water and poured it on their head.

It looked like they were pouring energy water on their head, but they were really pouring it on the virtual flesh. This is also why the energy water didn’t fall on their head. The energy water disappeared into the fluffy ring.

The grey fluffy ring could absorb spiritual energy, so they didn’t think it was farfetched for it to absorb energy from water. What they were concerned about was where the energy water went to after being absorbed.

Fortunately, the energy water followed their mental probe and appeared within Legion-10’s ghostlike body. Once he had 120 liters of energy water, he would be able to complete the trade.

The energy water turned him into a keg as it took up space within his ghostly form, but he didn’t become bigger. In fact, he didn’t change externally in any way.

Unless someone had a special way to tell, no one would be able to find any obvious way to determine that he was in possession of a lot of energy water. Legion-10 found this strange.

He thought to himself as he returned to his seat, “The rules that govern this place are weird and interesting. But what I am concerned about is whether these rules evolved naturally or someone established them.”

This line of inquisition is another branch of their suspicion about the origin of the virtual flesh. In this case, though, the origin of the rules doesn’t determine if the virtual flesh is natural or created by someone. But its repercussions are far more serious.

The rules of this Mindscape evolved naturally; the virtual flesh could be natural or created by someone. But if the rules were established by someone, then they are willing to bet that this world already has an owner.

If someone can create rules that govern the rules of operations of a world, real or virtual, odds are that that person is the creator of this world. Even if they are not the creator of the world, it is highly likely that they have gained enough authority and are in control of the world.

If someone is already in control of this world, then every telepath who creates more portions of the virtual corpse is helping that person.

Everyone will be working in vain, and who will be the god of telepathy has already been set. Legion didn’t like this possibility at all. They might not want the authority now, but they certainly don’t want someone else to have it.

Legion-10 sighed and said to him, “It is a pity that this virtual flesh isn’t real. If it were real, we might be able to charm it with our innate ability and make it tell us everything about itself.”