Chapter 14 - Understanding the world (1/2)
Krune started with the questions like how demon beasts with the human forms are treated in the country? Turns out that as long as you don't cause trouble in the cities, you are pretty much free to walk, live and do business however you like, when a demon beast reaches the city they are obligated to sign a term of non aggression, apply for an ID, provide the necessary information and etc.
The reason why the country accepts demon beasts is basically to do with with spirit stones, most of the incoming stones come from danger zones where beasts are majority, but it would be way to hard to place the danger zones on watch, so those places are simply regarded as 'whatever happens in there is your problem, the government has nothing to do with it' type.
The spirit stone brought by demon beast who have achieved the human form help to make the economy flows, weird thing is, Krune has never seen a spirit stone before so he couldn't help but ask how it looked like.
Both Casfer and Gony felt like they were being played with, they basically made the same question after hearing that.
”Doesn't this mountain range have a spiritual vein? With the amount of spiritual energy here it has to have one.”
Krune simply agreed and waited for them to continue
”If it does then it's easy for you to identify them, beside of the spiritual vein is bound to have several stone rich in spiritual energy, they are definitely different in color too, most likely the same color as the spiritual vein itself.”
Krune had only to think for a second to remember that indeed, there is quit a few of those stones there, but because of the spiritual energy in the cave he never payed attention to those stones before.
”How do you know how much they are worth?”
Casfer and Gony replied back
”It depends on the concentration of energy in them, it mostly has to do with the spiritual vein itself, if I'm not wrong the spiritual vein in this mountain range is probably a low quality spiritual vein, so the spirit stones produced by it are bound to be low quality spiritual stones too.”
Krune understood this principle, he knows about the different qualities of spiritual veins thanks to what he heard from the other wisps, but because no wisp would ever dare to approach the spiritual veins due to the demon beasts that protected them, he had never known that they produced spirit stones.
Suddenly Krune got curious, he knows that wisp hunters capture his race to sell them on the cities, but exactly how much are they worth?
”It depends on the cultivation level of the wisps, as you probably know, wisps are used as cultivation resources mainly because of their easy to absorb and clean energy, although the energy provided by the wisps isn't as pure as the energy of spirit stones, the energy of wisps can be absorbed several times faster, also, the higher the cultivation of the wisp, the higher and cleaner the spiritual energy is.”
”I will make a comparative with spirit stones.”
”A wisp with a cultivation of 1st stage of Qi Condensation has enough spiritual energy equivalent to 500 Rank One low quality spirit stones, remember that wisps energy can be absorbed much faster than spirit stones.”
”2nd stage, 750 Rank One middle quality spirit stones, same rule applied, the time necessary to absorb their energy is less than one tenth.”
”3rd stage is 1000 Rank One high quality spirit stones.”
”From 4th stage to 6th stage Qi Condensation wisps, the amount of spiritual energy and its cleanness also improves, so they are considered the same as Rank two spirit stones, which are a grade higher than the lowest quality.”
”So, in this case, 4th stage wisps have the same spiritual energy as 500 Rank Two low quality spirit stones.”
”5th stage have the same as 750 Rank Two middle quality spirit stones.”
”And finally 6th stage has the same as 1000 Rank Two high quality spirit stones.”
”Of course, wisps of this level are rarely seen, wisps live way too little, any average cultivator would take at least 15 to 20 years to reach the 6th stage of the Qi Condensation, so wisps who can live only 10 years in general are most likely to be dead already before that happens.”
”Now, for 7th stage or higher wisps, those are basically legends, unless someone is willing to pay the price to help a wisp to breakthrough the 7th stage barrier, it is almost impossible for you to find such a rare wisp in the wild, and no one is willing to pay the price since the amount necessary for that is way higher than the return.”
Krune looked back at them
”So, what quality of spirit stones am I worth, would it be Rank Three high quality?”
They looked back at Krune with weird faces
”We don't know, like I said, 7th stage wisps are as rare as phoenix feathers, I would say that a 7th stage wisp is definitely no less than 500 Rank Three low quality spirit stones, but we all know that once the 7th stage is achieved, Divine Sense follows, so changes are that they might already have surpassed the middle quality or maybe even high quality of Rank Three spirit stones.”
Krune pondered a little, his Myriad Energies technique allowed him to cultivate at breakneck speed, and he also knows that the quality of the converted spiritual energy provided by his energy meridians is definitely at the top, chances are that his energy might be equivalent to Rank Four spirit stone or maybe even Rank Five, but he's not certain about that nor did he wish to find out.
”No wonder there is so much wisp hunters, if I'm not wrong even a 1st stage Qi Condensation wisp price is already enticing enough.”
It was then that Krune thought about another thing.
”You guys said that a wisp has a certain amount of energy depending on their cultivation, for example, that a 1st Stage Qi Condensation wisp has more or less the same amount of spiritual energy as 500 Rank One low quality spirit stones, but their spiritual energy can be even 10 times easier to absorb. If I'm not wrong, this 1st stage wisp is bound to be worth much more than just 500 spirit stone of the same level, right?”
Casfer and Gony couldn't help but admire the wisp intelligence
”Exactly, wisps nowadays are becoming rare to find, so they are usually worth three to four times more their amount of spiritual energy in spirit stones.”
Krune was happy enough with their answer, he them went into the next topic
He also asked how do the country check on the demon beasts, after all who can guarantee that demon beast with follow the laws of the country? Turns out that other than the things mentioned before, there are special blood contracts which are bind to the soul, once a demon beasts sign the contract it will burn and place a restriction on it's soul, if a demon beast go overboard, the contract activates and restrict the beast until the authorities come to check what is happening.
Of course, the country doesn't want people to use the contracts to hunt down the demon beasts, so it is set that a demon beast can't break the law, but if someone tries to harm it, it has the authority defend itself as long as the opponent doesn't die, that is to guarantee the demon beasts safety and the continuous flow of spirit stone in the market.
Of course, it's not every demon beast who can enter, doesn't matter what, a demon beast will only be treated as a citizen if it has at the very least achieved the human form, any beast that hasn't got an human form will not be able to sign the agreement or the blood contract or do any of the other procedures, this is not only applied for the country but for the entire world, the reason for that is because any beast without an human form, hasn't developed it's mind to the point that it can control it's instincts entirely, because of that, any beast, wisps included, that haven't achieved the human form are not protected in any way.
That's also why you can find things like Demon Beasts meat in restaurants, demon cores for sale and of course, wisps for absorption or for use in alchemy, simply put, if you don't look like human, you are not treated as a human to start with.