Chapter 53: Hoarding

"I’m serious," Eren replied.

"So are you also trying to go into the soup business?"

"No. It’s for a personal matter."

Pang Cai tried to shake the disbelief out of his head. "Take no offense at this, but are you sure? I get what makes the Skyward Herb good, but it’s definitely not good enough to exchange a hundred sunspores for.

Their effects don’t stack. You’ll get the same amount of Psion recovery rate no matter if you eat one or ten of them. You’ll only need thirty at most for the entire day."

Eren gave Pang Cai an inquisitive look. "I’ll answer your question with another question.

You’ve been gathering Skyward Herbs from the very beginning. And from what I can see, it’s very lucrative. You probably have..."

He paused for a second, calculating. "...a thousand and five hundred and thirty-five spores in your pockets."

The look of apprehension and shock in Pang Cai’s eyes told Eren his guess was accurate. "Even if you use a sunspore for every minute of the day, you won’t run out of them. So, why are you still selling Skyward Herbs?"

Pang Cai crossed his arms on his chest and smirked. "Don’t flabs on my stomach give you the answer to that? I’m just a greedy pumpkin, is all."

A rotund bastard. A nepo baby. That’s everyone’s perception of Pang Cai.

As Geister once said, this License Exam was basically just a formality for the heirs and scions of the Prominent Families.

So why would someone like him, whose future did not live or die with this License Exam, hoard sunspores like it was the apocalypse? Many would think that it’s because of greed. Just another way for him to become ’obese’.

Pang Cai hoarded sunspores because he could. Depriving resources from other people, while enriching himself. A true mentality for a ruthless businessman.

At least, that’s what he’s trying to make it look like. Pang Cai was playing the part people thought of him, while simultaneously keeping his plans close to his chest.

But Eren could see right through him. It was a tactic that he’d faced and used countless times before.

He could see that look in Pang Cai’s eyes. That look of hunger. That need to prove oneself.

"You think the sunspores are going to be more important than people think," Eren guessed.

Pang Cai wagged his finger at Eren knowingly. "You’re a lot more perceptive than I thought. I hate and love dealing with people like you.

On one hand, I really admire how different your mind works compared to mine. But on the other hand, I get read like a mothafricking book."

He then gestured for Eren to come closer. "What do you think we’ll do after we pass this First Test? Do you think they’ll bring us out of this dark hell that we’re in and finally give us a fair shot at using our Martial Manuals and Ascension Arts?

If you do, you think too well of the United Governments. They’re ruthless. The type of momma bird to drop their eggs from atop trees to see which one of them would remain unbroken. I think we’re in here for the long haul.

Which means that sunspores will be a resource everyone will need for the remainder of the License Exam. And who’ll be there to provide them with it? This guy."

Eren stared at Pang Cai and realized that he was truly a good businessman. People think that in order to be ahead of negotiations, one must always be deceitful. But that couldn’t be farther away from the truth.

People may be ignorant if they are being lied to. But they could tell whenever someone was being genuine. And that goes a long way whenever you want to build relationships with them.

And businessmen lived and died by their connections.

Pang Cai, despite not even knowing Eren, chose to be truthful about his reasons for keeping the sunspores. He could have retained that knowledge for himself, keeping that advantage. But instead, he told Eren and earned Eren’s respect.

"So you’re predicating all this on that guess?"

"It worked for my family," Pang Cai replied. "People used to make fun of us and our superstitions. Told us that our old-school ways won’t work in the modern world. Well, look at what happened. An apocalypse swallowed the world and everyone was caught with their pants down.

But not us. We knew it was coming. So, we were able to take advantage of the situation even before the others got their bearings. It’s why we’re called a Prominent Family now, when before, we were just immigrants struggling to find a job."

The Cai family’s seemingly prescient preparation for the Cataclysm interested Eren.

Did they really know that Ræzoň would enter this world, or was it simply a coincidence, like all superstitions on Earth?

"Well, now that you know about my super secret plan, it’s high time we get down to business."

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Eren walked back to the campfire with a hundred Skyward Herbs in his pockets. A one for one trade, which was a fair deal considering Pang Cai was selling them for almost twice that for normal customers.

The yellow, star-shaped leaves stayed folded in his pockets, filling his inventory. He was starting to get encumbered.

But he’d still need a few hundred more if he wanted to concoct that paste.

As he walked back towards the group, he thought back to Pang Cai’s speculation.

He, too, had the same thought. The Subterranean Burrows were far too big for it to be only used for the First Test.

Kaiser emphasized it from the very beginning. They were going to get tested on their foundations. Making sure that they had a solid grasp on the basics, even when the environment was not in their favor.

Thankfully, Eren didn’t have to hoard sunspores. He just had to be a garbageman, picking up the sunspore ’trash’ that everyone left behind.

As he arrived at the campfire, he noticed that there was an unfamiliar man amongst them.

Well, unfamiliar to him, but not to Sierra and the others.