Chapter 73: The Two Requests

Ain saw the number "2" hovering over the trading forum icon and was overcome with excitement.

"Finally, someone responded!"

He disregarded his previous plan to browse Liberty Firm's catalog and hastily opened the trading forum. Just as he expected, in his account, there were two new messages in response to the attribute traces measurement service he had posted almost two months ago.

These were direct messages to his trading forum account, not to the trading post itself.

In his trading post, Ain had adjusted the settings to turn off the comments. This was to avoid the insults, mockery, and jokes that originally flooded in soon after he first posted his service.

But this didn't affect his plan.

The trading forum offered a platform to trade, providing guarantees to all parties involved. However, this would inevitably leave behind traces.

Ain's Cyberspace access had reached 3-star, unlocking the feature for anonymity. His Cyberspace account was connected to his true identity, and with this feature, Ain could create anonymous avatars to interact within Cyberspace. Although these avatars were ultimately bound to his account, third parties within Cyberspace wouldn't be able to trace them back to Ain's account.

When he posted his service on the trading forum, he had used an avatar to do so.

The next thing to consider was the transaction method.

Every physical transaction within Cyberspace had to rely on Cyberspace Transmission. Third parties, such as the trading forum, integrated Cyberspace Transmission into their platform to facilitate transactions.

To Ain, the difference between using the trading forum's platform and trading directly was the number of traces he would leave behind.

Using the trading forum's platform would obviously leave records in the forum's database, especially since they required more information to secure the transaction.

On the other hand, a direct trade would limit his exposure only to whoever Cyberspace's central authority was. Although his information would still be exposed, Ain believed that someone with authority over Cyberspace wouldn't pay attention to a small character like him.

Moreover, how vast was Cyberspace that encompassed the entire world? With its immensity, countless data was generated and exchanged every second. Ain's measly transactions weren't noteworthy.

As for securing his transactions? Ain didn't care.

Scan only cost him a measly amount of spirit energy. If he were to be scammed, his losses would be minimal. Moreover, Ain planned to charge them before completing his side of the transaction. Otherwise, how else was he supposed to pay the transmission fee?

With everything on the right track, Ain opened the two responses and carefully read through them, confirming that they were indeed what he thought they were.

The two messages had arrived the previous evening, only an hour apart from each other. Ain thought back and realized that he hadn't checked his hololink since yesterday as he was immersed in his alchemy studies and training.

The first message was from an avatar by the name of Goddess Nocturnal. Goddess Nocturnal asked him to measure the attribute traces of some resource samples that had already been transmitted over.

Moreover, they directly agreed to his listed price.

The message was short and concise, only stating these two things.

Ain read through it twice before moving onto the second message, which was from Green Water. Green Water had similarly asked for attribute traces of some resource samples. But unlike Goddess Nocturnal, Green Water wished to negotiate the price.

After pondering over the two messages, Ain made up his mind and immediately left for the Cyberspace transmission hub. On the hoverbus, he opened Green Water's message and typed his reply after thinking things through.

He calmly refused the price negotiation. The other party had already transmitted the resource samples over. This clearly displayed Green Water's intentions to test Ain's service. The price negotiation was likely just a probe to save some expenses in case his service was a scam.

Not long after, Ain received Green Water's reply, who acquiesced to the original price.

About an hour later, he disembarked in the vicinity of his destination and completed the remaining journey on foot. Ain glanced up at the slim, black-and-white building and entered the premises.

The last time he visited the transmission hub, Ain had already familiarized himself with the procedures.

The wait was brief, and it was soon his turn. The clerk scanned two tokens on Ain's hololink before handing him two packages.

The tokens on his hololink were the transmission tokens.

This was another safety feature that enforced anonymity during a transaction. Once a trade was initiated on Cyberspace, a unique transmission token would be generated for that trade.

When Goddess Nocturnal initiated the trade with Ain, a transmission token was generated and delivered to the two of them. In order to transmit the package to Ain, Goddess Nocturnal only had to present the transmission token at a Cyberspace transmission hub.

This method concealed their locations, with only the intermediary, Cyberspace, being privy to this information. Not even the transmission hub would know the destination of the packages. The only clue was the transmission fee, which could provide insights into the transmission distance. But this information was useless most of the time.

After retrieving his packages, Ain didn't return home, but instead rented a room nearby.

Measuring attribute traces didn't require much time and he could do it anywhere. Of course, it was best to be away from prying eyes.

In a small room, Ain turned on the lights and closed the curtains before setting the packages on a table.

The first package was Goddess Nocturnal's package, a wooden container with numerous tiny compartments. Ain observed the container with intense curiosity. This was a special container used to preserve medicinal ingredients. This was a common item amongst alchemists. Ain also possessed a similar container, but his container was inferior to what was before him.

He didn't linger on it for too long and continued his work.

There were tiny samples from various medicinal ingredients in each compartment. Ain glanced through them all but failed to recognize most of them. This didn't dishearten him. Ain was aware that theoretical knowledge needed to be reinforced with practice.

Moreover, the tiny pieces further increased the difficulty of identifying them.

When everything was in place, Ain placed one of the samples in his palm and used Scan.

[Name: Blue Jade Grass]

[Attribute: Water]

[Rank: Advanced Rank-1]

[Attribute Traces: Water 72.369%, Ice 9.674%, Wood 9.814%, ...]

"So, it's Blue Jade Grass." Ain thought as he recorded the attribute traces with an accuracy of one decimal place.

He once again observed the sample closely before moving onto the next one.

[Name: Sky Elevation Tea Leaves]

[Attribute: Wood]

[Rank: Advanced Rank-1]

[Attribute Traces: Wood 92.731%, Earth 3.981%, Water 0.258%, ...]

Ain repeated the same process until there was only one sample left. He had deliberately saved it for last.

Similar to nested dolls, this sample had been placed within two layers of containers.

After carefully retrieving the sample, Ain once again used Scan.

[Name: Bitter Soul Fruit]

[Attribute: Soul]

[Rank: Advanced Rank-1]

[Attribute Traces: Soul 84.826%, Wood 10.627%, Water 1.247%, ...]

"Soul attribute?" Ain thought with some surprise. This was his first encounter with anything related to the soul attribute. The soul attribute was amongst the rarer attributes such as light and dark attributes.

Ain scrutinized the sample for a while before returning it to the containers.

Then, he turned his attention to Green Water's package.

This package was small compared to the previous one, unexpectedly small. It was about the size of his palm. Ain opened the package and retrieved a small box from within.

From Green Water's message, Ain was aware that there were multiple samples transmitted over.

Since this tiny box was obviously incapable of containing so many samples, the answer was obvious to him. This was a spatial storage device.

Every weekend, Ain would yearn for a spatial storage device. If he possessed such a thing, his weekly trips would become much easier, and even his income would increase drastically. After all, the primary factor that determined each trip's limit was always his carrying capactiy.

If he could eliminate this problem, Ain could achieve more with every trip.

After fantasizing for a few seconds, he brought his attention back to the small box.

Without any obvious instructions, Ain could only use his common sense. He physically opened the box.

Just as he was expecting it not to open, the lid actually moved, revealing the interior. There was a ring embedded into the soft cushioning within the box.

Seeing this sight, Ain realized the error in his thinking. The box wasn't a spatial storage device, but rather, a container that held a storage ring.

But this didn't dampen his excitement. Ain picked up the ring and observed it from various angles before placing it on one of his fingers.

After admiring his hand for a while, he realized that the previous problem still remained. He didn't know how to operate this storage ring.

Thinking back to the spirit master inheritance book, Ain tried the obvious solution, which was to inject spirit energy into the ring.

As soon as he did so, numerous small containers appeared in the air and dropped onto the table with some noise.

Clatter!

Ain looked at the mess of containers on the table. The containers seemed sturdy, so the short fall didn't damage them.

"It's pretty simple." He thought to himself. He tried it once more, but no more items appeared this time.

Realizing that this was everything, Ain scanned all the samples and recorded their attribute traces. Just like the previous batch, these samples were also Rank-1.

When he was done, Ain placed all the samples back into the containers and placed them on the table.

This time, he didn't attempt to figure out the method to place them into the storage ring on his own and immediately searched on Cyberspace.

A minute later, Ain turned away from his hololink, having found what he needed.

He grasped one of the containers in his hand, ensuring that the ring was in contact with it. Then, he injected his spirit energy into the storage ring. As soon as he did so, the container suddenly disappeared from his hand.

Ain repeated the process on all the containers, returning them to the storage ring. After he was done, with some reluctance, Ain removed the storage ring from his finger and returned it to the small box.