“Well, the prices,” Tian Zhe could only sigh heavily after learning the cost of the spiritual crystals.

“They always cost that much,” Mei Ling disagreed with her employer.

“Young master, prices in our trading house “Heavenly Jade” are the fairest in the whole Jade City,” the owner of the shop interrupted their conversation.

“Here, I want to hear you last,” Tian Zhe complained. “Well, then for ten small spiritual crystals, you will give me a twenty percent discount, the same goes for ten fragile spiritual crystals, and I also buy three crystal thickets.”

“But I’m not ready to make concessions,” the shop owner did not calm down.

“You don’t have much to lose, considering the number of goods sold. Not to mention that I will buy the crystal thickets at full price. Also, since I am planning to buy two medium spiritual crystals, I hope you will enter into my position and make concessions.”

“...” Where did such greed in such a young body come from? “Perhaps I can make concessions.”

“Oh yeah, don't forget to drop a couple thousand off the cost of Medium Spirit Crystals.”

“Young gentleman, our trading house is not a market. It is not customary for us to bargain, and the fact that I am ready to make concessions is due to the fact that we do not want to spoil relations with your family.”

“Don't worry. I didn’t come to you as a representative of the sacred family of the Fire Orchid,” Tian Zhe also did not stop. Despite the amount of his own savings, he will receive the next pocket expenses only after the first academic tests, and before that, another three months. “I give my word that you have nothing to lose and that in the future, the number of requests for your spiritual crystals will only increase.”

“Can the young master guarantee it?” having heard the words about profit, the shop owner finally wondered why the young master of the Fire Orchid family could need so many spiritual crystals.

“Yes, if my mentor’s experiments are successful, the demand for spiritual crystals will increase.” To add weight to his words, Tian Zhe lied about shopping for his nonexistent master.

“Then why don’t you send the servants for the crystals?”

“If I send a servant, then only through the elders of the family, and in this case, the results of the research will go to my family, and it is far from the fact that you will profit from this,” in his heart Tian Zhe only regretted that he had begun to bargain.

“My master wants to share information with everyone, and it is not profitable for him to get it to anyone family,”

“Well, maybe they can spend ten thousand taels more. It's just one golden tael.“

“Let me see.”

“Mei Ling, show me where there is another trading house with similar goods.”

“Yes.”

“Wait, I agree to your terms, and I'm ready to sell everything for half the price.”

“…” Tian Zhe felt uneasy. One small spiritual crystal is worth a thousand taels, a fragile crystal five hundred taels, while the average one was worth ten thousand. Just because Zhe also wanted to buy practical clothes and weapons, he decided to bargain for at least some bag since he did not know how much a more or less useful weapon of bronze rank cost. “It's nice to be dealing with you,” Zhe, just try to start smiling like a contented idiot. Stoneface, stone face.

“What are you? I hope for fruitful cooperation,” at first the owner of Heavenly Jade wanted to make small concessions out of friendly thoughts since the second heir of the Fire Orchid in the future will become an important client taking a high position in his family, especially since the discount requested by the young men was insignificant for the background of the income of his store. Still, now, when the young man promised a sharp demand for spiritual crystals, the possible profit promised him mountains of gold. “The young master will not forget that he promised to increase the demand for my crystals.”

“You can trust me.” Trying to keep a calm expression on his face, Zhe pulled out the money. “Here are three gold taels. Throw some fragile crystals for change.”

“Thank you and wait a bit. I will bring your goods,” having received the money, the shop owner left.

“Are you sure the demand will increase?” Mei Ling heard this whole farce from the very beginning and wondered what her employer was up to. Depending on his answer, it will depend on what she can expect from working with him.

“Nope, I'm not sure, but I hope I'm right,” Zhe could only sincerely answer his subordinate.

“…” Mei Ling tensed. “He will definitely give me problems.”

Five minutes later, the shop owner brought the goods.

“Ten small spiritual crystals, ten fragile spiritual crystals, three crystal thickets, and three medium spiritual crystals,” reported the shop owner.

“You brought an extra middle crystal,” Zhe could not help but notice the discrepancy in the quantity of goods.

“This is at the expense of the institution,” the merchant answered calmly. “So to speak, a gift in honor of future cooperation.”

“Thank you,” resigned to the inevitable cooperation, Zhe accepted the goods. “Mei Ling, let's go.”

---

When he finished buying the crystals, Tian Zhe dropped into a clothing store, where he once again complained about the discrepancy between his clothes and the standard of living and culture of the Jade City.

Initially, he wanted to buy simple training clothes, but after a morning escape in clothes that kept clinging to something, he completely changed his wardrobe. Instead of several layers of robes that created a noble prince's image, Zhe bought himself wide black trousers that did not hinder leg movements and a dark blue shirt that resembled karate dogis and socks. Under the dogi, Zhe wrapped bandages from an iron moth's silk and bought silk sleeves to protect his hands, which completely covered his hands.

“Heaven, they have socks, but no boxers or swimming trunks. Why does this world remind of its medieval setting only at such moments?” as a native of Earth, Zhe preferred practicality to fashion and therefore wanted to buy clothes that did not hinder movement, did not hang like robes and adequate underwear. From wearing a loincloth, he wanted to cry every day. “Yes, and something similar to ankle boots is not here either. You will have to be content with boots with raised toes.”

“Five thousand taels for clothes and one gold for sleeves; together with bandages, about sixteen thousand bronze taels come out. I have about fifty thousand left for weapons.”

Having finally bought himself a dao sword and a bronze grade composite bow, Tian Zhe felt sorry for his expense.

“Fifteen thousand for a sword, ten for a bow, and two thousand for arrows,” the inner toad tried to strangle the boy. “Maybe I should have taken the equipment from the weapon family, though then I will have to explain why I need a small arsenal.”

“Master, why do you need a bow?” Mei Ling was interesting due to the fact that in Jade City, archery was not very popular among warriors and spellcasters.  “Wouldn't it be better to buy a crossbow if you don't want to let enemies near you?”

Already from Silver rank, the hide of most demonic beasts was strong enough that when shooting with a bow, it was impossible to pierce them, not to mention how difficult it is to make a bow with high penetrating power to injure beasts above the bronze rank.

“What for? I would say a habit because, with a bow, I feel calmer,” answered Zhe honestly. Tian Zhe from this world knew how to handle melee weapons, but Yang Li, from his old life, knew how to shoot a bow and was more comfortable with the thought that if a demonic beast attacked him, he could weaken him with a couple of shots before the melee began. ...  “Okay, let's go to the academy. I hope they let you through without any problems. I need your help.”

---

Arriving at the academy and settling the formalities with the passage of Mei Ling, Tian Zhe began to test the knowledge from the books in practice.

“Mei Ling, hold the small spiritual crystal and pour a small amount of energy into it,” Tian Zhe handed the crystal to his bodyguard. “Just try not to destroy it.”

“It will be done.” The girl took the crystal and followed her master's instructions. Usually, if someone of her rank had infused spiritual energy into a low-quality crystal, the latter would have collapsed due to an overabundance of spiritual energy. Still, having high energy control, she managed not to destroy a small crystal calculated to determine the spiritual strength of bronze spellcasters and warriors.

“Interesting,” stroking the crystal in the girl's hands, the boy thought. Under the influence of the girl's spiritual energy, the transparent crystal turned yellow, and inside its crystal structure, sparkles of light with a greenish tint sparkled. The light was quite intense that even if the spiritual core was green, it could be distinguished from the general background and counted. “Yellow Spiritual Core.”

Tian Zhe was interested not in the color of his subordinate's spiritual core, but in what attributes it possessed.

“What does the green color of sparks mean?” Thinking, Zhe wrote down the result in a notebook. “It seems that the shape of the spiritual core cannot be found out.”

“Okay, let's try the method from Hunter,” this Zhe took out two crystal thickets from the space ring and filled them with water, threw one fragile spiritual crystal inside each of them. “You can already release the small crystal. Now come and release your spiritual energy into the water. Let's see what happens.”

“I remind you that I can’t see anything.” Mei Ling proceeded to the next instructions.

“Sorry,” Tian Zhe replied lightly and stared at the contents of the bowl. Typically, the crystal thickets are used by spellcasters and warriors to dilute ink in them and mix with the blood of demonic beasts so that they can then write spells into scrolls. Now Zhe used crystal bowls to keep the spiritual energy in the water to the maximum. “Nothing has happened.”

After breaking the fragile crystal, the formed crystals remained on the bottom of the bowl.

Tian Zhe believed that since this world is most similar to the short story "Saga of the Seven Scriptures" that even he, his family, and classmates resembled the characters of the short story, then all the conventions of the world will also be repeated.

“Does this mean that I found myself in a situation with an infinite number of monkeys, knocking on the keyboard of typewriters for an infinite amount of time, and it just so happened that this world coincided in some details with the world of the novel?!”

All his expenses with the purchase of crystals were connected in order to prove for himself the existence of attributes of spiritual cores, such as elemental affinity and the shape of a spiritual core. According to the novel, people in the Jade City developed very slowly or could not communicate with the spirits of demonic beasts connected precisely with the contradictions caused by different attributes of spiritual cores and development techniques used by the cultivating adepts during their practice.

For the same reason, Tian Zhe believed that his spiritual core had an elemental affinity and form for which the Divine Phoenix technique was simply not suitable, despite the fact that members of the Fire Orchid family specialized in spells of the element of fire.

“Okay, you can stop,” Tian Zhe could only sigh heavily. “I don’t think the paper used for the spell scrolls is good enough to try out the Naruto method.” Tian Zhe's heart was slowly sinking into the darkness of depression.

After Mei Ling finished her experiment, Tian Zhe took out another Small Spiritual Crystal and proceeded to test himself.

“I hope that green is not the standard color of sparks in spiritual crystals,” Zhe pondered the possible results since he only remembered the color of his spiritual core due to the fact that when testing spiritual strength, people usually look at the intensity of the glow inside spiritual crystals, not the shades of individual sparks of light.

Unlike Mei Ling, Zhe did not limit his spiritual flow by pouring spiritual energy into the crystal. In the end, he did not even reach the bronze rank, and his spirit power could not destroy the small spirit crystal in any way.

As the spirit crystal began to change color, Zhe's face tensed, and the only thing he could squeeze out of himself was one single word.

“What the heck.”

---

“No, this is logical, and to some extent, predictable. In the end, there must be some kind of information carrier with memory, but I thought that rebirth in other worlds with the occupation of a foreign body occurs according to the principle that souls are absolutely identical in their properties,” Zhe talked about his situation. He knew several options for getting into other worlds from short stories:

Occupation of the body whose soul has died due to some kind of injury or magic.

Merging of completely identical souls.

Rebirth in the body of an infant, regardless of the species of the new body.

Getting into your own body.

The last option disappears immediately. The third option can also be discarded, yet Yang Li “awakened” in a teenager.

The first two options remain, which he considered relatively equivalent since he could not prove or refute his belonging to the first or second situation.

Although Tian Zhe was leaning towards the second option, his spiritual energy test hinted at the first option. And why? Because the color of his spiritual core does not match what was revealed before the “awakening.”

“Well, at least not purple,” Tian Zhe could only mutter.

“Sorry, what?” Mei Ling could not understand the situation with her employer. All the students at the academy know what kind of spiritual core they have, so she wondered what happened since the mood of her employer had changed dramatically since he began to test himself.

“Nothing special, the color of my spiritual core turned blue,” Tian Zhe thought deeply and therefore did not realize that he had just given out information that contradicted the foundations of this world. No one can change the color of their spiritual nuclei during their lifetime. Even if the adept destroys the soul of another person and occupies his body, then in the new body, the adept will retain his old spiritual core with all the attributes.

“What did you just say?” Mei Ling came up and, forgetting all decency, began to shake Zhe. “It is impossible for the spiritual cores to change their color. Even if I am blind does not mean that I am dumb!”

“Sorry, Sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you,” laughingly Zhe looked at the crystal in his hand. “Let's go a little later to the rector. I need to clarify something with him.”

Despite the failure to define the shape of the spiritual core, Tian Zhe was successful in some ways.

Within the blue spiritual crystal, sparkles of gold sparkled brightly.