Chapter 562 - 558 – THE MARKET OF BLACK LOTUS CITY AND THE SALE OF MANA CORES

Sylvia was in no hurry to head toward the Hunter Association. Although the gate commander had informed her that the Association was the best place to fill her financial credit, the Queen of Death chose to first enjoy the atmosphere of Black Lotus City.

The difference between a squalid border city like Black Steel City and a large city like Black Lotus City was extremely striking, like night and day. Here, the streets were built from neatly arranged stone blocks, cleaned periodically by underground workers. Concrete buildings towered high with old-era architecture reinforced by magical iron plates.

The people in this city appeared far more lively. Their faces were not filled with the gripping despair seen at the borders. Children ran along the sidewalks carrying wooden toys, grocery shops displayed their wares under stable magic-lamp lighting, and merchants shouted while peddling hunted meat and mana recovery potions. There was a pulse of civilization beating with a relatively regular rhythm in this place.

Yet Sylvia’s sharp observation could not be deceived by the façade of luxury in the main district.

As she walked farther east, following secondary alleys that curved downward, the social inequality of this continent was laid bare. Behind the magnificent commercial district lay a hidden slum area beneath the shadows of the gigantic city walls. There, hundreds of refugees crowded into tin shacks. The stench of filth, old engine oil, and suffering stung the air. The people in this district stared toward the upper district with eyes filled with envy and exhaustion.

"Wherever the place, mortal human civilization always builds its happiness upon the piled suffering of the weak," Sylvia whispered softly, her finely gloved fingers stroking Sol’s head as it rested on her shoulder. "Extremely predictable."

Noir, within the shadow of her gown, merely hissed briefly, completely indifferent to the suffering of the weak creatures around them.

After walking for nearly two hours and observing the social dynamics of Black Lotus City to her satisfaction, Sylvia decided that the street entertainment had been enough. She turned around and walked toward the city center, where a magnificent black-steel-domed building dominated the view.

That was the Hunter Association Building.

The building was surrounded by the coming and going of Zombie Hunters, Tamers, and combat mages. Most of them wore heavy armor made of monster hide, carried large weapons engraved with magic circuits, and radiated a thick bloodlust aura from battles outside the walls.

However, the moment Sylvia stepped into the main hall of the Association, the noisy sounds of conversation, bargaining, and the coarse laughter of the rough hunters suddenly quieted.

The crowd of large-bodied, fierce-faced hunters reflexively parted, creating an empty path through the middle of the spacious hall. Sylvia’s extremely elegant appearance, her evening gown clean without a single speck of dust, her skin gleaming like pearl, and the presence of two miraculous cats accompanying her radiated a grace far too contrasting with a place piled with blood and sweat.

Sylvia walked leisurely toward the main reception desk without paying attention to the whispers that began filling the hall.

When she arrived in front of the marble desk, Sylvia took out the black-gold VIP Access Card she had just received at the city gate and placed it on the desk with a soft clink.

The receptionist behind the desk, a neatly uniformed young woman, initially intended to greet her warmly. Yet when her eyes fell upon the color and lightning engravings of the black-gold card, her breath instantly caught in her throat.

The Highest-Level VIP Access Card!

Cards of that kind were only held by Association branch leaders, high-ranking royal officials, or the top figures of major noble clans. The receptionist immediately stood from her chair, her pen-holding fingers trembling violently. She bowed deeply, her eyes not daring to look directly into Sylvia’s captivating yet terrifying heterochromatic eyes.

"W-Welcome to the Hunter Association of Black Lotus City, Your Excellency!" the receptionist said with a stammering, trembling voice. "I-Is there anything this servant can assist you with today? Would you like to reserve a private resting room or meet with our Branch Leader?"

"No need to trouble yourselves," Sylvia answered flatly yet in a gentle tone. "I only wish to sell a few hunted items to fill my financial credit."

"S-Selling mana cores?" The receptionist nodded rapidly, wiping cold sweat from her forehead. "V-Very well, Your Excellency! Please place your hunted goods upon this appraisal tray. Our alchemy system will automatically calculate their value."

The girl quickly pushed a metal tray engraved with weighing runes toward Sylvia.

Sylvia waved her left hand above the tray. Her Spatial Ring blinked softly, and in that instant a row of crystals the size of a human fist appeared and arranged themselves neatly upon the metal tray.

CLACK! CLACK! CLACK!

The sound of the crystals striking one another triggered a sudden wave of mana energy that filled the entire Association hall.

The hunters who had been watching from afar immediately stopped their activities. Their eyes widened, radiating extraordinary astonishment. Even several senior mages standing on the second floor hurriedly rushed to the railing to see what was happening at the reception desk.

Upon the metal tray lay:

5 Rank 5 Zombie Cores (deep oily red, radiating a dense aura of chaotic foulness).2 Rank 6 Zombie Cores (deep black with purple-line patterns, radiating an aura pressure that made Rank 3 hunters around the hall feel short of breath).10 Rank 5 Mutated Beast Cores (crystal-clear with various elemental colors that were extremely pure and beautifully glittering).

The young receptionist froze in place. Her hand crept toward her appraisal glasses, examining the color indicators and energy density of the crystals with disbelieving eyes.

Rank 6 Zombie Cores!

In this border region, a single Rank 6 Variant Zombie was a walking disaster that required an entire battalion of heavily armed soldiers and at least two Rank 5 mages to subdue. Yet here, this evening-gowned girl was placing two of their cores as though she had merely picked up pebbles by the roadside!

"Th-This..." the receptionist swallowed hard with difficulty. "All of these cores... are in extremely perfect condition! There is not a single crack in their physical structure!"

Sylvia observed the reaction with a bored expression. These zombie cores were the result of the "casual cleaning" performed by Noir and Sol in the swamp forest the previous night. When the mutated animals and zombies attempted to attack them, the two dragons had leisurely destroyed the monsters’ bodies and left the cores behind on Sylvia’s order.

The receptionist hurriedly typed the calculations into her crystal calculation machine. Her hands trembled as she read the final number displayed on the magic screen.

"Your Excellency... based on the official price standards of the Tianhua Kingdom," the receptionist explained with a breathless voice, "the price of 1 Rank 5 Zombie Core is 10,000 Credits. For a Rank 6 Zombie Core, the price reaches 150,000 Credits each. Therefore the total for all your zombie cores is 350,000 Credits."

The girl then paused briefly, pointing toward the ten crystal-clear cores belonging to the mutated beasts.

"However, for these 10 Rank 5 Mutated Beast Cores... their value is far higher," the receptionist continued with sparkling eyes. "One Rank 5 Mutated Beast Core is priced at 40,000 Credits! Thus these ten are worth 400,000 Credits. The total value of your sale today is 750,000 Credits!"

Hearing the figure of seven hundred fifty thousand credits, heavy sighs and envious murmurs rose from all the hunters in the hall. A credit amount of that size was enough to purchase a luxurious house in the uppermost district of Black Lotus City or support the life of one hunter family for decades!

The vast price difference between Zombie Cores and Mutated Beast Cores was not surprising to anyone in the room.

Zombie Cores contained extremely high traces of "impurity" corpse toxins, mutation viruses, and negative emotions from the unrestful souls of the living dead. For the human mages of the Tianhua Kingdom, absorbing a Zombie Core required a highly complicated, expensive, and weeks-long alchemical purification process. If absorbed directly, the toxins within the zombie core would damage a human’s magic circuits and cause madness. Therefore, the price of Zombie Cores was far cheaper.

Conversely, Mutated Beast Cores were produced by wild animals that absorbed pure mana from nature. Although those animals had mutated, their energy cores were far cleaner. More importantly, Beast Cores contained traces of pure elements and the original biological structure of the monster, making them highly sought-after primary materials for mages to enhance their elemental power or for Tamers to feed their pets. Most mages could even absorb Beast Cores directly without needing a complicated purification process.

Yet for Sylvia, the difference between "clean" and "dirty" that these mortal humans made such a fuss over was something ridiculous.

In the eyes of the Queen of Death, both Zombie Cores and Mutated Beast Cores were equally low-level, disgusting energy. Inserting such coarse energy mixed with biological filth into her body was the same as drinking toxic waste. For Sylvia, who was accustomed to absorbing pure mana from the cosmic order of Nocture, the idea of absorbing monster cores to increase power was barbaric foolishness.

For Sylvia, these crystals held no magical value whatsoever. Aboard her gigantic magical warship the Dreadnought crystals like these were merely low-class fuel. After being compressed millions of times using Nocture’s magic reactors, these monster crystals were only useful as supplementary fuel to drive secondary steam engines or light the ship’s thruster lamps.

How pitiful, Sylvia thought while observing the receptionist carefully placing the crystals into a gold-framed security box. Something regarded here as a precious treasure and fought over until blood is spilled, in Nocture we simply throw into the ship’s furnace as ordinary fuel.

"Your Excellency, please provide your VIP Access Card," the receptionist said with the most respectful attitude she could display.

Sylvia handed over her black-gold card. The receptionist swiped the card across the alchemical transfer plate. In a matter of seconds, the number on the black-gold card changed, showing a balance of 750,000 Credits.

"The transfer process has been completed, Your Excellency," the receptionist said while returning the card with both hands. "All 750,000 Credits have entered your account. Is there any other service from the Association that you require? We have a list of special high-level missions or exclusive auction items that might interest you."

Sylvia took her card and stored it back into her Spatial Ring with an elegant motion.

"No need for the time being," Sylvia answered calmly. She glanced briefly toward the hunters in the hall who were still staring at her with looks full of admiration and fear. "I only need pocket money to buy a few interesting items in this city’s market."

Without heeding the silence that enveloped the entire Hunter Association hall, the Queen of Death turned around. With her evening gown fluttering softly, Sylvia walked out of the black-steel-domed building, leaving behind new rumors about a great mage who had just sold her collection of high-rank monster cores as though she were selling fruit in a market.