Daily life at the college (VII)

After earning 8 gold coins from Song Baiyue, Linyin happily left the school with the kitten.

Within a 200-meter radius of the college, there's a small shopping street selling everything. Signs of all colors and materials are crammed together, creating a strange visual bombardment for first-time visitors.

The street was less lively during the day than at night, with many snack vendors closed. The only things left on the street were a few scattered tables, chairs, and benches, so worn they looked unrecognizable. The vendors had probably been too lazy to clear them away.

Linyin strolled leisurely, her hands in her pockets, and happened to pass by the small fantasy beast supply store. The doorway was still hung with colorful, cheap plastic beads, fluttering casually in the wind.

"Kitten, do you have any impression of this place?"

The kitten followed closely, its tail curled into a question mark shape.

"That's where I found you." Linyin pointed to the small ditch in front of the store. "You were soaked in the sewage. It stinks."

The kitten whimpered, and Rinyin was defeated. "Oh, let's not talk about it."

The kitten moved its ears and looked into the shop, "Meow!"

Linyin followed the direction of Koneko's gaze and saw that inside the glass door, a girl with a crew cut was talking intensely to the boss. The girl next to her had a row of Lei Bi soda cans tied to her belt.

Yuzhu and Shuijing? Are they going to buy mythical beasts?

After exchanging a glance with Koneko, Rinyin walked forward and pushed the door open.

As soon as I opened the door, I heard Yuzhu's angry voice, "Boss, you can't do business like this. The Frost Wolf's phantom egg was 300 gold coins last month."

The boss, cigarette in hand, spat in Yuzhu's face, whether intentionally or not. "Little classmate, do you understand the market? It's normal for the price of mythical beast eggs to fluctuate from time to time." He waved his hand, "All mythical beast eggs are rising in price, not just the Frost Wolf's."

"But you've raised the price too much!" Crystal pointed at the 600 gold price tag. "You've doubled it! Do you have any shame?"

"Respect isn't as important as food," the boss said, unblushing. "That Fantasy Beast competition only happens once every four years. It's the only time you students are most generous, and it's only recently that I can earn a little more. Please understand." He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. "If you have a budget of 300 gold coins, you can check out the Yellow-level Fantasy Beasts. Here, they're over there."

He pointed to another row of shelves, older and more haphazardly arranged.

"But before the Yellow Level, it was over 100..." Yuzhu wanted to say something, but Shuijing pulled her hand and said, "Forget it, there's nothing to talk to him about."

"He just relies on the fact that his car is near the school. We can buy it somewhere else." Yu Zhu's eyes were slightly red. "It will just cost a little more money for the journey."

The boss's lips flickered with sarcasm as he heard this. He leaned back, his hands folded behind his head. "I'm trying to advise you, but don't waste your energy. All the legitimate shops are raising their prices right now. Unless you're incredibly skilled and have connections, you can try the black market."

As he spoke, he crossed his legs. Finally, he reached for the teacup on the table and took a sip slowly, as if he was not worried at all that they would just leave.

The boss had an ugly face and a terrible way of eating, but what he said was true. 600 gold coins per person, two people would be 1200 gold coins. Rinyin opened the terminal and looked at her balance... well, not even close.

Meanwhile, Shuijing seemed to have made up her mind. She patted Yuzhu's hand and, smiling, told her her plan: "Our combined money can buy one. You can use it to sign the contract first. We can save up later, and when the price drops, we can buy another one together. The remaining one will be mine."

Yuzhu shook her head desperately, "I don't want it. If you give me the money, you won't be able to be selected."

"You're stupid! Even if I contracted a frost wolf, I might not be selected." Crystal patted the can at her waist. "I actually prefer studying these things to raising mythical beasts and fighting them."

"Nonsense! You clearly want to participate!" Yuzhu's tears welled up in her eyes. Crystal wasn't particularly strong physically, but she'd always trained diligently and had long since started saving for her first mythical beast. If her desire to participate in the ladder tournament was 50%, Crystal's was 300%. How could she let Crystal give up something she'd always wanted to do to fulfill her wish?

"We can take out student loans, and then work a few more jobs to pay them off later." Yuzhu choked up, "Anyway, either we buy it together, or we don't."

"You're crazy. With the interest rates on student loans going up like that, even if we sell both of us, it still won't be enough to pay back the debt in a few years." Crystal was about to explain to Yuzhu earnestly the dangers of such usury when she heard a familiar voice.

"Boss, the quality of the mythical beast eggs you have here is not good." Linyin pointed at the "600" on the price tag, "It's not worth the price."

The golden light in his eyes faded. Only about half of the mythical beast eggs on the shelf had any vitality left. The rest, in Wuji Zhenqi's vision, glowed with all sorts of strange colors.

I wonder how many of them can escape the fate of being thrown into the stinking ditch at the door.

"Whether it's worth it or not, you have the final say. If you don't want to buy it, don't talk nonsense." The boss took a look at Linyin's clothes and found that she was another person who couldn't make money, so he lost his patience instantly.

"This, this, and this." Linyin casually pointed to a few boxes. "These contain healthy mythical beast eggs. The rest are problematic, especially this small box." She walked over and picked up the box of mythical beast eggs labeled "Fire Skylark." "The ones I have are close to death."

The boss's face suddenly changed when she picked out the few boxes of healthy eggs, and the cigarette butt almost dropped on his mouth. "Nonsense! Our store is an authorized store of the Fantasy Beast Palace. How could we do such a thing?"

"Did the Fantasy Beast Palace allow you to change the price?" Crystal complained quietly behind her back.

"You don't have the final say, Boss." Lin Yin calmly put down the box of fire lark eggs. "The Fantasy Beast Hall has a registration office in our academy. It should be convenient to contact them to contact the relevant personnel to come over for testing."

"...Alright, alright. Frost Wolves, huh? Three hundred! I'll sell them to you at the original price!" The boss realized that Rin and the other two were in cahoots and just wanted to put the matter to rest quickly. "How many do you want?"

Shuijing and Yuzhu excitedly took out their wallets, but were held down by Linyin.

"The boss might not be familiar with the law," she said with a broad grin. "According to Article 59 of the 'Phantom Beast Protection Act,' intentionally selling eggs of dying phasic beasts will result in the revocation of your business license."

As she spoke, she hugged Shuijing and Yuzhu one by one, "How can we guarantee after-sales service for a store that's about to close? We won't buy from this store."

"You're shameless, aren't you?" The boss is quite capable to be able to gain a foothold here. Scale-like patterns appeared on his neck, and he actually began to transform into armor.

In his eyes, a few poor students without phantom beasts, seeing someone who can transform into armor, should have known the situation and surrendered, right?

However.

“Meow!”

A pitifully small cat suddenly appeared from nowhere and howled. The boss seemed to be frightened and the scales on his body retreated like the tide.

"Huh?" The boss was surprised and confused. "Armor!" He gave orders to his phantom beast again, but the armored mole just leaned against his legs and trembled, looking listless.

Lin Yin pressed down her hand, which was filled with boundless Qi, and glanced at the kitten in surprise. She didn't intend to argue with the profiteer in front of her any further. "There's a saying that people with weak kidneys can't stand being scared. You and your phantom beast... Tsk, that's a bit exaggerated. A cat's meow can scare you like that."

After saying that, he shook his head and walked out of the store with Shuijing and Yuzhu in a swagger.

Yuzhu was still a little confused, "Boss, aren't we buying it?"

Aren’t these operations later intended to bargain?

Rinyin shook the terminal and the screen showed "Voice call in progress".

Making a "hushing" gesture to Yuzhu, Linyin asked, "Based on your experience, how feasible is it to contract a Xuan-level beast as your own phantom beast during a field trial?"

A calm male voice came from the terminal, "If it's you, then yes."

"Thank you."

Linyin ended the voice call, "Do you remember how Song Baiyue's mythical beast came about?"

Song Baiyue and his Heavenly-level mythical beast? It seems they contracted it directly during the field trials. The boss suddenly asked this...

Crystal and Yuzhu looked at each other, their eyes widening, "Can we too?"

"Didn't I just let you listen to the conversation?" Lin Yin said with a smile, "If he can do it, why can't you?"

"I asked the teacher. We can choose to go to Bright Moon Forest for this outdoor trial, which is where Song Baiyue succeeded."

The two little girls were stunned with surprise, but Linyin pretended to put on a stern face, "Why didn't you ever tell me that you were saving money to buy the mythical beast?" This made her feel so guilty. She had called them "boss" for nothing and let them fall to the point of almost taking out loan sharks for the Frost Wolf.

"Boss, you don't even have a mythical beast yourself..." They are not as stupid as Kaeya, who likes to rub salt into other people's wounds.

Crystal glanced at the kitten, who angrily showed her its claws.

"And boss, you are poorer than us..." Yuzhu complained weakly.

Ah, that's true. Thinking of her wallet balance, Rinyin smiled in a timid way.

………………

In the ultra-cold laboratory, a figure moved against the wall. The low temperature had caused frost to form on the surface of his mythical beast armor. He looked familiar with the place. In the shadows of the third row of incubators, a metal rack glowed with a faint blue light. That was his target.

A label reading "Alien Beast Gene Stabilizer (Type 3)" was affixed to the shelf, and twelve glass tubes were waiting for their users.

Wearing gloves, the figure took off the glass tubes one by one, took out twelve products with very similar colors and characteristics from his arms, and put them back as they were.

Through the metal rack, you can see a huge "Laboratory Rules" posted on the wall at the door.

The first one clearly reads:

"Anyone who leaks laboratory products without permission will be added to the list of experimental subjects."