Chapter 581: Terrifying Aptitude

Han Fei and the others were stunned to hear that from Old Bai.

Han Fei had bought intelligence from Uncle Faceless before, who said that ultra-quality pearls were as valuable as low-quality spiritual stones, and that high-quality pearls, ultra-quality pearls and low-quality spiritual stones were the main currencies in the Unknown Place.

It was also why he had been determined to make money. Two billion might seem like a lot, but it might not be impressive at all from a different perspective.

Old Bai simply walked to them and said, “Come on and give me your money.”

Everyone: “???”

Immediately, everybody except Luo Xiaobai stood before the Sea Swallowing Seashells. Han Fei waved his hand and stored a large area of Sea Swallowing Seashells.

Han Fei said, “Sir, you can’t copy Uncle Faceless. It wasn’t easy for me to make this tad bit of money. Wouldn’t it be outrageous if you take it away from me?”

Xia Xiaochan nodded. “That’s right. We swindled… Earned this money through hard work.”

Zhang Xuanyu begged, “Sir, we’re poor people!”

Le Renkuang was secretly hiding the Sea Swallowing Seashells, knowing that it was impossible to get the money back from Old Bai after he took it away.

Old Bai, however, was amused. “You sons of b*tches, do you really think I’ll rob you of your little money?”

Everybody nodded quickly. The man robbed them of ten thousand mid-quality pearls earlier. How could he not be tempted by two billion?

Old Bai turned around and looked at Xiao Zhan. “You explain to them.”

Xiao Zhan smiled speechlessly. “Okay, just give the money to the president. He won’t claim it. It’s just that you can barely spend these mid-quality pearls in the Unknown Place if you take them there.”

Han Fei interrupted, “Why? Aren’t mid-quality pearls a popular currency? We’ll just exchange them.”

Xiao Zhan simply said, “Okay, since you’re bound for the Unknown Place, I might as well explain it to you.”

Everybody was briefly stunned. Were there more secrets behind this?

Xiao Zhan asked, “Do you know how mid-quality pearls came into being?”

Everybody shook their heads. They really didn’t know that. All they knew was that they were used as money.

Xiao Zhan simply explained, “The pearls excavated from the ocean can store spiritual energy. In the Unknown Place, people use high-quality or ultra-quality pearls because those pearls contain abundant spiritual energy. After they use up the spiritual energy, the high-quality pearls will turn into mid-quality pearls, and some will turn into low-quality pearls.”

“Huh?”

Han Fei suddenly remembered that the high-quality and ultra-quality pearls in Forge the Universe did have spiritual energy. He had always thought that they differed from the mid-quality pearls because of the spiritual energy they had.

Han Fei asked in surprise, “So, mid-quality pearls are actually useless garbage from the Unknown Place?”

Zhang Xuanyu’s eyes were wide. “So, we have been treating garbage like treasure?”

Xiao Zhan shook his head. “Not quite. After all, trades are always necessary when there are people. Since we can’t barter as we did in ancient times, we need a currency, and the mid-quality pearls whose spiritual energy has been used up are still of a good quality and can meet the needs of trades.”

Suddenly, Han Fei said, “There’s something wrong with that approach. If the mid-quality pearls are continuously shipped back from the Unknown Place, there will be more and more mid-quality pearls in human society, which will lead to currency inflation and a plummet of purchasing power.”

“Currency inflation?”

Xiao Zhan was briefly stunned. He had never heard the word before, but it sounded like a neat description.

Xiao Zhan nodded. “That’s right. As more and more mid-quality pearls are stacked, their purchase power will significantly drop, so the Thousand Star City recollects a tremendous number of mid-quality pearls and disposes of them every century. They will return to the ocean as energy. Then, the mid-quality pearls’ purchase power will go up again.”

Han Fei asked in a stunned state, “How are they disposed of? Thrown into the ocean? Where are they? Let’s look for them.”

Xiao Zhan: “…”

Old Bai scoffed. “Just shut up and listen.”

Xiao Zhan went on, “The disposal isn’t dumping, but crushing the low-quality and mid-quality pearls into pieces and making them disappear in the world. You might not know this, but even though the mid-quality pearls are out of spiritual energy, the matter that constitutes the mid-quality pearls contains energy too. The energy in each individual pearl isn’t significant, but it’s not small when too many pearls are gathered. It will be fed back to the ocean and appear in another form. Do you get it?”

Luo Xiaobai nodded. “Yes. The matter that constitutes the mid-quality pearls will be absorbed by fish or other creatures and transformed into other things.”

Zhang Xuanyu and the others understood it too, but not entirely.

Han Fei was the only one who shouted, “Conservation of energy?”

Xiao Zhan asked, “What the heck is that? Stop saying things that we can’t understand.”

Han Fei coughed and said, “I’m saying that, assuming that our world is closed, then the energy in it will be fixed in total. No matter how much energy we take from the Infinite Ocean, the total amount of the energy won’t reduce but will only exist in a different form. It will build up in our bodies and disperse into the world after we die. But all in all, the total amount is fixed.”

Xiao Zhan and Old Bai looked at each other in bewilderment. It seemed that Han Fei had understood the logic rather quickly.

Xiao Zhan simply said, “That’s right! That’s exactly the case!”

Han Fei suddenly blushed. “So, our so-called cultivation is the continuous process of transforming part of this world into ours, and the more we take in, the stronger we will be?”

Le Renkuang added, “That’s easy to understand. It’s like the food I had wasn’t mine to begin with, but it would be mine after I ate it.”

Luo Xiaobai thought for a moment. “Wait, what about the spiritual plants that I control?”

Before Xiao Zhan said anything, Han Fei had explained, “Isn’t it simple? It means that you temporarily borrow some energy from the world and then return it. As you level up, the amount of energy you can borrow will increase.”

Zhang Xuanyu asked, “Then aren’t soul warriors like me consuming our own energy all the time?”

Han Fei explained, “That’s why a distinguished soul warrior has to pick up a technique that can let them absorb spiritual energy while they’re fighting. They’re only durable if they have that.”

Xia Xiaochan interrupted, “Then what about the stealth of hunters?”

Han Fei was stunned. “Is stealth related to energy too?”

“Hiss!”

Xiao Zhan and Boss Bai looked at each other in bewilderment. How was the topic deviated from currencies to cultivation? Also, it had taken them a long time to understand these things, but Han Fei and his companions, especially Han Fei, seemed to be born with that knowledge.

Old Bai and Xiao Zhan became serious. A genius in training wasn’t a real genius unless he had high aptitude. From what they had seen, Han Fei’s aptitude was really unbelievably high!

“Cough, cough…”

Old Bai said, “Hunters are a special kind. To become a hunter, one has to know about space. Maybe you don’t know it, but if you don’t have the talent in that aspect, you can’t become a hunter. It has nothing to do with energy.”

Han Fei asked further, “Sir, then what is knife intent? And what are beliefs? Aren’t they energy too? Are they a kind of advanced energy that we can’t comprehend yet?”

Stunned, Old Bai didn’t reply until a long time later. “You can understand them as a higher form of energy, which isn’t exactly from this world but is sort of a rule and a magnificent power. You can’t really understand the mysteries until you reach a certain level… Now, give me your money. I’ll try to exchange them for high-quality pearls for you.”

“You can do that?”

Hearing that, Han Fei and the others hurriedly threw out the mid-quality pearls they just hid. Only Han Fei kept a hundred million to himself.

This hundred million could be reserved as funding for the Thug Academy’s and the Fish Dragons Gang’s development.

However, Han Fei suddenly remembered something else and asked, “Sir, let me ask you something. Can you exchange low-quality spiritual stones for mid-quality pearls?”

Han Fei suddenly remembered how he exchanged one low-quality spiritual stone for ten thousand pearls from Uncle Faceless. The more he thought about it, the weirder he found it to be. If the mid-quality pearls were pure currencies, how could the exchange rate be 1:10000?

Old Bai asked, “Do you have low-quality spiritual stones?”

Han Fei grinned and said, “I have a few.”

Old Bai said, “It’s about the capacity of spiritual energy. One high-quality pearl contains about a thousand points of spiritual energy. The rule that a hundred mid-quality pearls are exchanged for one high-quality is only made to balance the economy. In fact, nobody is willing to do that exchange. One ultra-quality pearl, on the other hand, contains ten times more spiritual energy than the high-quality pearls, so fewer people would exchange ultra-quality pearls for mid-quality pearls. If an idiot was determined to do so, there would be a ten-time gap, which means that one ultra-quality pearl can be exchanged for ten thousand mid-quality pearls.”

As he talked, Old Bai peeped at Han Fei. “One low-quality spiritual stone and one ultra-quality pearl both contain about ten thousand points of spiritual energy, so a low-quality stone can be exchanged for ten thousand mid-quality pearls too. Of course, only an idiot would do such an exchange.”

Han Fei was instantly bummed. It seemed that he was an idiot. He didn’t know the different amount of spiritual energy contained in the pearls.

Thank god Han Fei didn’t exchange many with Uncle Faceless, or he would’ve suffered a heavy loss.

After collecting their Sea Swallowing Seashells, Old Bai finally yelled, “Get the hell out of here and do what you should! Right, stay out of trouble. You’re not here to make money but to dominate the match of the 36 towns so that the Thug Academy will resound in the 36 towns again.”

Driving Han Fei and the others away, Old Bai trembled in shock.

Xiao Zhan: “???”

Old Bai held his chest. “I need a moment.”

As he talked, Old Bai said to the Ghost Eye Giant Crocodile which was pretending to be dead in a corner, “You come with me.”