Not for a single moment did Kol think that Trilok was trying to purchase spatial rings for all of them. He simply isn't like that. But what he may be trying to achieve, Kol realized, is the lowest price the woman in front of them would be willing to sell them at.

Once they have the price figured out, the two of them will be able to negotiate with a greater force and sap away on the woman's mentality.

"Fine. 440,000 for each ring," The woman finally sighed.

"Oh? And..." Trilok's tone seemed to have gone hesitant once again as he pointed at Weed Harvester.

"What about this? Alone. 440,000?" Trilok inquired.

The woman instantly flared up.

"No bulk purchase, no discount!" She hissed.

"Ah, Boss, boss, please don't be mad with my partner," Kol quickly stepped in. She was introduced as a fellow alchemist, so she played along. "We really have the coin. But... you can understand our hesitation, right? If we purchase three spatial rings at once, our entire savings would be cut off. Since the trade festival will last for another day, we were hoping to purchase one of the rings now, and then the other two tomorrow!"

"No!" the woman shook her head firmly. She now realized that she had inadvertently given out her base price to these two crafty beings. 'Sigh... dad did say that I need more experience in business,' the woman exhaled.

"If you want Weed Harvester alone, then you will have to pay 520,000 for this one. Of course, I can promise you if you return tomorrow and purchase the other two rings, you will be priced 440,000 for each ring!" The woman smiled. Her words stumped Kol for a moment. 

After all, the seller returned Kol's words and added a condition to it which seemed quite fair.

"Boss," Trilok sighed, "Why make things difficult for each other? In fact, I'll be happy to show you my store. I have an amazing concoction that—"

"I don't need other alchemical products," the woman gave a hollow chuckle, "I just work here as a salesman. Only my brother and father are the blacksmith of the shop. I have my own profession to pursue."

"But, I will not sell any of the rings individually for the previously discussed price. You knew about this shop from 3 years ago, but what about others. Not many like my dad exist in this ship and even if they have spatial rings, they won't sell such artifacts to kids like you. Even I'm only showing it since you were shown our collection before. Now, do you want to purchase this Weed Harvester, or not?"

The woman placed her hands on the counter and leaned forward with a provocative smirk.

Trilok and Kol fell silent.

'This woman is stubborn. Threat, anger, or even pleading won't change her stance. She has clearly understood the nature of the situation now. She has something I want and she can ask anything for it. Of course, there are a few ways to save coin. For instance, I can use my cheat to explain about every weapon placed in the shop to amaze her and gain a slightly more even ground but Kol is with me. I had expected her to be a great help this time but because of the seller's stubbornness, we have fewer options. And my skills in blacksmithing are already suspicious enough. 

I never once talked about blacksmithing in my life. Not even to Vayu. But if I keep on pulling that card with Kol here, she will get suspicious. After all, she keeps me company most of the time and I know about her as much as she knows about me. This an awful risk just to save... what, 80,000 coins? If it was before, I would have given up. But right now, I have no need to...'

Trilok's mind continued to process the situation.

'Of course, I can use up all the coins I have earned, and saved to purchase the three rings. But... what will I do with them? Vayu doesn't need items of this cost, of course, he can purchase them on his own or find them somehow. The same is for Kol. I need to focus my funds, on myself.'

"Fine, Boss. You win," Trilok sighed, his shoulders slumped.

Since he's admitting defeat, he might as well let the woman enjoy the taste of victory to feed her ego and leave a good impression so that, in another three years, he can buy stuff at a lower price.

"Good!" The woman joyfully exclaimed and Kol sighed to herself.

It was either this, or furiously negotiating before being thrown out.

"Before you take the ring, I need to see the coin," The woman spoke up.

"Of course," Trilok smiled and patted the first crate closest to him already robbed off of the spirit energy.

"This is two hundred thousand. Please count. I'll count the other two crates meanwhile and separate the coins," Trilok coughed.

"Let me help you," Kol spoke up.

Soon, the woman walked out from behind the counter, not before placing the brocade box away for now, and started counting the coins.

Naturally, it took around one and a half hour to get the task done and with the additional help of the woman's younger brother.

"Here is the Weed Harvester. A drop of blood would suffice to make a contract with it," the woman sighed, rubbing her shoulders while exhaling in exhaustion.

"Ahhh, It's hard having big breasts. My shoulders get tired quickly even if I am a diligent cultivator," she clearly became more open to the two customers in front of her while the youth muttered something about hearing the same complaint again and again before leaving for his furnace.

"Boss, is it compulsory for you all to not wear anything? Because clothes can help you with that problem," Kol finally inquired about the situation. Till now, nobody gave her a clear answer about the situation and would either smirk at her inquiries derisively or scowl without answering.

"Well, in some manner, yes. Every resident of this carnival ship is not allowed to wear a top. It's an unwritten rule and life becomes hell if you do wear something to cover your torse," the woman grumbled while Trilok looked at the ring, thinking of ways of drawing blood from his body.

"Oh, I didn't know that... must be hard," Kol exhaled.

"You don't know half of it," the woman smiled, "But it's sometimes tiring. And girls of the ship tend to get saggy quickly, so either, we cultivate our bodies with more determination or just leave the ship. Migrate to other community ships when we can no longer care about this place anymore."

"What about the men? Don't they... keep staring?" Kol inquired in a whisper.

"Girl, it's natural around here. We don't get aroused by each other's chests," the woman chuckled, "Anyway, you guys will be entering the carnival tonight?" 

"Yes!" Kol nodded with a smile, "It will be our first one."

"Good luck, and a tip from a senior, go easy on the Crimson Heaven. That shit is hard for newbies and what the hell are you doing?" The woman shouted towards Trilok, startling him.

"Get your hand here," she instructed as Trilok hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.

"No, I think I'm fine."

The woman's expression turned bleak before she shrugged. "Fine, then keep on hesitating. Blood should be drawn quickly. You both are body cultivators, too, right? Injuring yourself is always harder. So it's easier to ask someone's help."

Compared to spiritual cultivation, the body cultivators can be identified more easily. The woman in front of them was clearly a body cultivator, too. A strong one at that. Of course, through his information cheat, Trilok saw that the woman had an uncommon physique and a high-ranked epic technique. 

Nodding, Trilok and Kol left while pushing their cart as Trilok hid the ring in his pocket. He wasn't scared of injuring himself. But he was scared by the implications.

---

"Here you go," Trilok smiled and handed Kol three pouches of coin. A bright smile appeared on Kol's face.

"Hehe, thanks, Boss. But... you're not coming with?" She inquired, clearly referring to the purchasing spree they intended to go on. 

"You can wait if you want. But I wanted to collect all the coins and make a contract with the ring. Then if you want, I can help you store your stuff into my ring," Trilok smiled, "And to be honest, I'm a little tired. There's still a few hours before the carnival so I have the time."

Kol thought for a moment and looked at the ship with many totems inscribed on its surface.

"Then... Boss, can you be quicker? I saw a few Pound Scorpions in the market. It would be a pity before they are sold out."

"I can try," Trilok nodded. They were standing in front of Kol's house and once they decided on a course of action, they walked inside with the cart.

As Kol settled in, she quickly entered the bathroom with her set of pills while making sure nobody saw her. On the other hand, Trilok sat down after closing the door to Kol's room. In his hand was a knife after being placed over the fire for two minutes. It was sharp and glowed a warm light.

Gulping, Trilok carefully pushed the sharp edge of the knife against his other index finger and sliced open a small wound. He only felt a little sting and soon, dark red blood slowly seeped out of his injury. Placing the knife on the floor, Trilok observed the blood and after a few seconds, a slight buzz echoed from his wound and a very thin and small arc of electricity suddenly zapped around his finger, more specifically, his blood.

This was the [Trait] of his Body Cultivation Technique. The impure blood flows through the veins so using this cultivation technique, the veins of the cultivators carry a form of lightning purification. Slowly, the blood will be free from as many impurities as possible and make the body stronger more naturally.

'If I had sliced my finger in front of others, it would have been clear that my cultivation technique is different from Kol. In fact, Vayu, Kol, and I bought the same technique but only Kol is using it. Vayu has an Earth-ranked technique and I've upgraded mine to a high-ranked one.'

He sighed and dropped his blood on the green ring.

While feeling a little conflicted about following his own advice— to hide your greatest fortune even from your closest confidante— once again, Trilok felt himself suddenly 'touched' by a strange sensation. He looked down and found the ring had somehow absorbed the blood. Of course, this was the blood enchantment coming into play.

'It's already done?' Trilok thought to himself. He wore the ring onto his right thumb and the large ring instantly contracted around his thumb to fit snugly. Using a little spiritual energy within his body, Trilok suddenly felt like he could explore a pure white room. The dimensions of the room were 3*3*3 meters, making him gulp at the personal size of the space.

'Holy! Yes!' Trilok clenched his fist.

Improvement.

This concept can be marked with growing stronger, richer, or wiser. However, the last aspect is truly hard to measure.

Meanwhile, Strength can be measured using levels of cultivation. And wealth can be measured using the artifacts that represent a milestone.

For instance, a spatial ring.

Only a rare few in the community possessed such items. Even Noland only received it due to his father's heritage. In fact, it was extremely hard for Noland to keep the spatial ring to himself. He did not have the strength to protect it then, and even now, he relied on his connections.

[Weed Harvester: An uncommon artifact under heaven with the objective to persevere all forms of plants even after harvesting them.

Special Traits: The storage sealed within the ring can persevere the freshness of a floral lifeform for 360 days.

(Upgrade Requirement: 700,000)]

'... Excuse me, what?' Trilok looked at the end of the description. This wasn't there. No item, he had ever checked the status of, had the option to upgrade. Even The Weed Harvester didn't have this option until... 'Until I contracted with this ring,' Trilok thought and looked towards his thumb.

'Now... this is amazing.'

He smiled to himself. Soon, he opened up every location he had hidden his savings into before storing the items into the spatial ring. He had to touch the items but it was clearly much more efficient when he could just use his spiritual energy to retrieve the pouches of coin from the ring.

Out of the initial 647,500 coins earned from the sale of his concoctions, he deducted their cost, so that he can continue to create more vials of oil. Then, he deducted the cost of the ring and all he was left with was 27,100 coins as pure profit. Then, his own savings were a little over 700,000, which allowed Trilok to have 727,100 coins to spend. 

He then looked at his information panel.

[Name: Trilok

Age: 20

Spirit Vein: Purple (Upgrade Requirement: 5,000,000)

Cultivation: Spiritual Enhancer— 5 (Upgrade Requirement: 47,000), Common Physique— 6 (Upgrade Requirement: 9800)

Spirit Points: 1,990,289

Technique: Sea God's Essence (Earth-Legendary)(Special Traits: Heart of Sea— 2, Ruler of Ocean: 2)(Upgrade Requirement: 2,000,000)

Emperor's Shock Fist (High-Legendary)(Special Trait: Lightning Veins— 1)(Upgrade Requirement: 100,000)

]

'Left by a little. Still, I would need a little more than 2 million points since the increase in cultivation technique will force my cultivation to reset and fill the necessary gaps in strength by the additional spirit points.'

Even if he doesn't use coins, he can collect the appropriate amount of spirit points by Cultivating himself, or so he hoped to achieve.

Of course, this wasn't the time to dwell in such matters.

Instead, he walked out of Kol's room and waited for a few minutes.

And then some more.

*Thuck*

*Thuck*

*Thuck*

"Hey! What the hell?! Are you sleeping in there?!" Trilok banged the door to the bathroom violently, giving Kol a fright as she yelped inside.

"C-coming! Just— no, ah, Comminnng!" She shouted and within a few minutes, walked out and quickly closed the door to the bathroom.

Her flushed cheeks couldn't be more prominent as she hissed with a flustered expression, "What? Can't a woman have some quiet time?"

"She can. Can't a man end up being impatient?" Trilok crossed his arms.

"This isn't over!" Kol spat while walking past Trilok.

Shrugging, Trilok followed and spoke up, "You really don't want to buy gourmet recipes? I saw a recipe for Rattle Pork Fish. We will be passing a school of rattle porkfish in two weeks. The prices would be low and you can finally start experimenting."

"Rattle Pork Fishes are hard to process," Kol groaned softly.

"Well... that's why their dishes are rare and their recipes are more expensive. You create a recipe of your own with solid effects and you'll be good to go the next time a trade ship arrives," Trilok added.

Kol thought carefully. The two would idly suggest to each other about various things. Trilok could sometimes provide a fresh perspective on gourmet cooking while she would sometimes inspire Trilok with his trade.

"Umm..." Kol frowned a little. 'A single rattle porkfish takes almost 13 minutes to process and the chances of destroying the material is very high. So, I would have to either give up on the job for a while or my cultivation. But I can't leave any of it. A job brings in money, and cultivation is the only source of strength provided to me. Let's say, by some miracle, I manage to create a great recipe for the fish, in the end, it would bring me no amount of money right away. To build my own business... no, I needn't think that far. Miracles don't happen willy nilly...'

"I think I'll start with something cheaper. A recipe under 4-5 thousand coins while using the remainder to purchase body refining resources," She finally shrugged. A difference of 4000 coins wouldn't matter to Kol in the big picture and if she can finally create a recipe for clownfishes, she will have the chance to set herself up.

On the other hand, Trilok had different thoughts. He only advised because he felt troubled himself.

On the surface, purchasing body refinement materials would give him an absolute cover as to his rapid gain of strength. But, is it smart to waste more than 700,000 coins just to create an excuse?

The best course of action for Trilok, right now, was to somehow exchange all his coins with 'alive' ones. This will give him an additional 700,000 points! With that, he can upgrade his body cultivation technique and also upgrade his Cultivation levels!

Once he has strength, he will be able to enter the management circle of the ship and finally have enough authority to gain another source of coins.

'Let's just stroll in the carnival and see if there is something valuable or not.'

Trilok sighed to himself.