Chapter 295: A Small Fortune

After all, cats were very clean animals. Unless they were sick, or they were strays that had neither the mood nor the time to clean themselves, they generally would not get too dirty. It was even rarer for simply touching one to leave an entire hand covered in dust.

This kind of situation was truly a little off putting. Yet, Hwi kept trying to rub himself against him.

Fortunately, Hwi’s mental state had recovered somewhat by this point, and he could finally listen to what Byeol was saying. He squatted pitifully beside Joo Joowon’s feet and licked his fur, while Byeol watched him with a threatening gaze from the side. It was obvious that Byeol had no intention of letting him off until he had licked his fur completely clean.

Joo Joowon was afraid that Hwi would lick all the saliva out of his own mouth, so he even filled a cat bowl with water and placed it in front of him. What was especially funny was that after Hwi finished licking his fur and went to drink the water, the water in the bowl actually turned black.

If Hwi’s current physical condition had not made him resistant to illness, he really would have had to put an Elizabethan collar on him to prevent him from licking his fur.

Seeing that there was nothing wrong with either cat and that they had already gone back to doing their own things without intending to cling to her anymore, Joo Joowon stopped paying attention to them and opened the system shop to recharge.

[ System Notification: Click here to drag items in and exchange them for Apocalypse Coins ]

Joo Joowon tried it and discovered that the Apocalypse Shop also accepted zombie core that had been contaminated, and the prices were not much different from those of uncontaminated ones. He immediately stopped hesitating and submitted both the contaminated zombie core and the contaminated necklace dropped by the Big Belly Zombie.

After all this, he had practically left nothing for himself, exchanging everything for Apocalypse Coins.

The result of doing this was also quite substantial. More than a hundred cores were directly exchanged for a little over one thousand coins, which was truly enough to make Joo Joowon, who had never seen much of the world, look at the amount several times.

He really had not expected there to be this much. He had thought that getting a little over one hundred coins would already be pretty good. He had not expected the exchange price of zombie core to actually be quite generous. The lowest price was at least five hundred copper coins, and not a single one was worth less than that amount.

Because Joo Joowon had placed them into the exchange one by one, he knew the exact price of every single zombie core.

After all, this could almost be considered the majority of his entire fortune, so naturally, it was impossible to be too careful.

Joo Joowon did not know what the system’s evaluation mechanism was, which resulted in zombie core of the same quality having different prices. Some were worth the minimum price of five hundred copper coins, while others could directly reach one silver coin. The higher the quality of the zombie core, the greater the difference became. There could even be a direct gap of one silver coin between them.

Could this have something to do with the original nature of the zombie core?

Joo Joowon thought about it, but it was difficult to deduce anything based on the information he currently had, so he did not dwell on it.

At least he had figured out one thing. The Age of Apocalypse deliberately controlled the prices. Regardless of whether something was actually worth its price or not, as long as it was of the same quality, the game would always choose to purchase it at the lowest price.

This was actually not difficult to understand. If Gaia were the only game world, then it would not matter how the prices were adjusted. However, one could tell from the numerous factions in the Age of Apocalypse that it had descended upon more than one world, yet it seemed to use the same currency.

However, the levels of each world were different. There could be worlds without magic, as well as extraordinary worlds, so naturally, it was difficult to unify the value of items.

Something that was worth a fortune in a low-martial world might not even be as valuable as common pills in a high-martial world. Naturally, the game would not recognize the price offered by the low-martial world.

Therefore, it was perfectly normal for the Age of Apocalypse to distinguish between different qualities. As long as something was within the same quality tier, regardless of whether it was actually worth that amount, it would be purchased at a fixed minimum price to prevent the overall prices from collapsing too badly.

For Joo Joowon, this was naturally a good thing.

He did not believe that these zombie core were truly worth this much.

After reaching Level 10 himself, Joo Joowon finally realized that Level 10 and below Level 10 were basically two completely different worlds. Therefore, the zombie cores dropped by zombies below Level 10, even if they were blue quality, might not actually be that valuable.

Regardless, the wealth they brought him was considerable. Although this amount of money could not buy anything particularly good, it was enough to exchange the thatched hut and stone house in the shop for a normal farmhouse courtyard with a stable building structure that would not easily collapse.

However, this was already a huge improvement.

Even just this kind of house have cost him five or six hundred silver coins in the shop.

Therefore, his current balance was already enough for him to avoid dealing with those unscrupulous merchants in the danger zone and instead buy a Lord’s Manor from the Apocalypse Shop that he could feel more at ease with.

He glanced at his inventory and thought for a moment before putting [Unknown Coordinates] into the exchange interface as well, wanting to see whether he could exchange it for something.