Chapter 689: The Value of Money (2/2)
“I want to look at some spare weaponry as well today,” Zac said to Nala as they passed through the haze hiding the plateau, and she immediately set out toward another plateau.
“By the way, can you explain the prices of things?” Zac asked his guide as she steered the vessel through the void, which prompted her to look over with confusion.
“Young master seldom leaves the Clan and rarely purchases things himself. The prices of items are a bit unclear, especially in a foreign sector such as this,” Vilari added.
“Oh, I see!” Nala quickly nodded.
”Prices have essentially standardized over the long eons, and they only really move if there is some unexpected shortage. Items are generally graded between Low and Peak quality. A low-quality material generally costs between 1 to 5 Nexus Coins of matching grade per unit. So a low E-grade metal might cost 5 E-grade Nexus Coins per kilogram,” Nala said. “Whereas herbs might cost the same per stalk. The unit depends on what kind of item it is.”
“A processed item of a similar grade generally costs twice their raw components with some sort of minimum fee,” Nala added. “The difference is a remuneration for the craftsman and to allow for some chance of failure.”
Zac nodded, but he was inwardly shocked. It really was a huge difference between The Twilight Harbor and back home. He remembered how he felt like a tycoon after slaughtering beasts for a few days back on Earth, making over a hundred million Nexus Coins from kill rewards alone. Here, that only amounted to a handful of low-quality pills.
No wonder most cultivators were broke.
“From there it’s very straightforward. Middle-grade items are ten times as expensive as low-grade, and the same goes for high and Peak-quality items. This means that a peak E-grade pill costs a thousand times as much as low E-grade pills, generally somewhere around 5,000 to 10,000 E-grade Nexus Coins.
“Above that are Pseudo D-grade pills, the grade that I guess young master generally uses. Those are pills partly made from D-grade materials, but are still consumable by E-grade cultivators. These are around ten times more expensive than peak E-grade items, but the span is a lot higher there,” Nala said.
“Why?” Vilari asked after seeing Zac’s blank look.
“Some Pseudo D-grade pills might contain 2% D-grade materials, and others 20%,” Nala explained. “Higher-grade materials are generally dangerous to imbibe, so it requires a far more skilled alchemist to put 20% D-grade materials into a pill while keeping it absorbable for E-grade warriors. Those alchemists would naturally charge a higher fee.”
“So, a Pseudo D-grade pill can cost anywhere between 50,000 to 500,000 E-grade Nexus Coins. The risk of getting tricked when buying these kinds of items is the highest, where a common item is marketed as something full of expensive materials. Of course, the Karabas Pill House wouldn't stoop this low,” Nala explained. “The lower grades are mostly standardized, and there are no pseudo-D-grade raw materials. They are either E-grade or D-grade.”
“Anything else?” Vilari asked.
“Um...” Naha hesitated, seemingly unsure what would be pertinent information. ”The efficacy increase per quality stage is roughly a factor of two. So a Middle-quality pill is twice as good as a Low-quality at ten times the price. The span is naturally a lot greater among the Pseudo D-grade pills.”
Zac nodded as though that was a matter of course, but he inwardly swore at the usurious pricing practices. He just paid a thousand times extra for items that were less than ten times as good as low-quality goods? Then again, eating a healing pill with eight times the efficacy was priceless when it was the difference between life and death.
”Furthermore, this is just how pricing work for readily available products. When it comes to unique natural treasures with effects that can’t be replicated by cheaper means the price can go anywhere. I have heard of unique E-grade treasures costing as much as Peak D-grade Pills,” Nala continued with some longing in her eyes. “Some items like that will likely appear on the grand auctions before the Twilight Ascent.”
Zac made a mental calculation, and he could confirm that the prices Yilian had given him were more than fair if the pills lived up to the quality the Karabas Pill House was known for. However, he no longer felt like a financial tyrant, though his resources were still shocking for someone at his level. He also realized that the cash infusion might only last him to the middle stages of Hegemony or thereabouts.
That was a future worry though, and it wasn’t all bad. Prices had gone up, but that also meant the value of anything he’d find in the Twilight Ocean would go up as well. If he managed to get his hands on a few once-in-a-century supreme treasures he’d make enough money to actually make some Hegemons green with envy.
The group eventually landed on another disk, and Zac emerged from a blacksmith clan’s storefront three hours later with a small mountain of weapons for his followers. Zac had managed to loot quite a bit from the Undead Incursion, but they didn’t suit all his people.
Furthermore, the smithy actually belonged to the local Elementals. They catered to both the unliving and the alive so Zac also managed to get an upgraded set of gear for the Valkyries. The new spears he had bought obviously couldn’t match the Spirit Tool that Joanna used, but among non-spiritual E-Grade weapons, they were extremely high-quality.
The following days continued in much the same manner, and Zac shored up on everything he or Earth lacked.
He hadn’t initially planned on buying this much, but the level of Twilight Harbor far surpassed what he expected since it had connections to multiple proper B-Grade forces. He had even been forced to buy a few new Spatial Rings since the one he got from Vilari’s predecessor was filled to the brim, and he didn’t want to walk around with Ten Cosmos Sacks attached to his belt since that would ruin his image of a noble Draugr.
Zac also followed up on Calrin’s sage advice and stocked up on huge quantities of materials that were scarce in the Zecia Sector. For example, he bought fifty thousand Soul Crystals in one go, even though they each cost 10,000 E-grade Nexus Coins. It was a huge expenditure, but Zac knew he would probably be able to make a profit even at this price point back home if he ever put them for sale.
His inquiries into Soul Crystals had also exposed something extremely unexpected. Crystals in general were actually not graded in Twilight Harbor, but rather simply called Low, Medium, High, and Supreme-quality Nexus Crystals or Attuned Crystals. High-quality crystals were the same as D-grade crystals back in the Zecia sector, and the Low-quality the same as standard F-grade Nexus Crystals.
The low-quality Nexus crystals were just at twice the price in Twilight Harbor compared to Zecia, clocking in at 100 Nexus Coins each. The Medium Quality crystals cost 10 000, and the high-quality crystals cost 1 E-grade Nexus Crystal each. Above that were the Supreme Crystals, which didn’t seem to have any equivalent in the Zecia Sector.
They cost 1,000 E-grade Nexus Coins each, and they were mainly used by Peak E-grade cultivators and Half-step cultivators. Early-stage hegemons generally used them as well to recuperate lost energy, but the crystals used by greater Hegemons weren’t actually Nexus Crystals at all.
They were rather using something called Cosmic Crystals, which were clearly a far superior natural energy crystal. Their pricing was the same as Nexus Crystals, though they were priced in D- and C-grade Nexus Coins instead. However, only Low and Medium-quality Cosmic Crystals were publicly available. The two higher grades were aimed at Monarchs, and they were essentially strategic resources of the biggest clans.
Cosmic Crystals were probably what was called C-grade Nexus Crystals in the Zecia sector, but Calrin could not even get his hands on low-grade ones there. Perhaps they’d pop up on auctions on D-grade worlds now and then, but you definitely couldn’t purchase them in stores.
Even Zac would explode if he tried to absorb energy from a Low-grade Cosmic Crystal since they required users to have a Cultivator’s Core with their vast energy storage capabilities. But Zac had still bought ten low-quality Cosmic Crystals and one Medium-quality even if he couldn’t use them at the moment.
There was no telling when he’d have direct access to them in the future, so Zac figured might as well keep a few around. He also bought a large store of Supreme Crystals, both attuned and unattuned.
Things finally calmed down after five days, at which point Nala seemed to finally have become inundated to Zac’s shocking reserves of wealth. She had accompanied him for one of his smaller purchases, but that visit to an incensary alone had run up a tab of over 50,000 E-grade Nexus Coins, which almost made Nala faint.
“Where to today, young master?” Nala asked as she picked up him and Vilari on the sixth day.
“Hmm…” Zac mused. “I have bought most of what I need for now. I guess it’s time to visit the Eldritch Archivals.”