Renhuang was uniquely successful because of Zhang Lie and the members of Team Zenith. Their might was sufficient to suppress any hunters who might be racist or violent against the aliens, but the same couldn't be said for the larger human enclaves, which both had more hunters and fewer contingencies.
Zhou Liao continued, "What sort of currency is used here? Not coins from the world federation, surely?"
"We use our own currency, one specific to Renhuang," Zhang Lie explained. "The alien races aren't members of the world federation, after all, and they wouldn't value that currency at all. If you want to buy something, you can also barter for it with soulshards."
The reinforcements who had been preparing for a battle were extremely excited to see all the commodities that were being sold in the bazaar—the herbs, plants, special potions, and even the live genetic lifeforms—that they all flocked towards the bazaar and began to buy whatever they could get their hands on.
As the number of hunters increased, however, the value of soulshards began to drop precipitously.
Zhou Liao suddenly frowned. "Hold on—you said that soulshards could be used as a form of currency here?"
"That's right."
"And soulshards come from genetic lifeforms, don't they?"
"Isn't that common knowledge?"
Zhou Liao clutched his head. "In other words, a hunter could theoretically trade a soulshard for a genetic lifeform, kill that lifeform and acquire a soulshard, then trade it for another genetic lifeform..."
He squinted at Zhang Lie. "Isn't this rather unfair to those aliens?"
Zhang Lie countered, "On the contrary, it's a fair deal to everyone. They're agreeing to trade lifeforms that they've captured for soulshards, after all." contemporary romance
Zhou Liao: ...
Was this why there weren't many hunters making a fuss among the human reinforcements that had arrived at Renhuang?
Even those humans who viewed the alien races as their enemies had, after learning of the benefits of the bazaar, changed their minds near-instantaneously. The humans were the only race that could obtain soulshards from killing genetic lifeforms, and this was a significant advantage for such trades.
After all, the alien races couldn't obtain soulshards by any other means.
Of course, soulshards condensed only rarely from genetic lifeforms, so only a few lucky hunters would manage to acquire live lifeforms for "free".
Humans could produce soulshards, the Yeluo could make specialized potions, the wood spirits could cultivate rare and precious herbs and plants, the rock spirits had sturdy bodies and almost infinite regenerative abilities—each race had its own specialty, and this was the humans'.
Compared to the other alien races, humans couldn't be considered anywhere near the best at combat. On the other hand, their millennia of culture made them particularly adept at trading and commerce.
Zhou Liao went to exchange some of his soulshards for Renhuang's currency.
"The appearance of these new hunters really is causing the value of soulshards to drop by quite a bit..."
Before the reinforcements' arrival, a regular-grade soulshard could have been exchanged for a hundred silver coins, but now, it was worth only twenty. As more and more hunters arrived at Renhuang, this exchange rate would only continue to drop.
However, Zhang Lie didn't have any intention of manipulating the exchange rate by buying up regular-grade soulshards from the bazaar—he felt that a laissez-faire policy would be more appropriate.
As long as the market didn't crash, he was perfectly willing to cede control of it to the consumers themselves.
Zhou Liao asked, "What else do the alien races need beside soulshards?"
Although he had quite a few soulshards in his possession, he didn't want to sell them all.
Nevertheless, there were a few gems in Renhuang's bazaar, rare herbs and potions with surprising effects that Zhou Liao was sure he wouldn't be able to find in Qi. If he were to buy some potions now, then sell them when he was back in Qi, he would surely make a tidy profit—about five or six mutated-grade soulshards' worth, say.
Zhang Lie imparted a few important pieces of information to him. "The Yeluo like soulshards. The wood spirits don't really care for them, but they like toys and trinkets—carved puppets, ancient toys, and so on. Actually, they're almost saturated with toys already. They enjoy human culture too, so books, manga, cartoons would also work in trade."
"Really?"
"After all, the wood spirits don't have access to the internet, and they aren't yet able to write their own novels and cartoons. In fact, before we initiated contact with them, they didn't even know about this form of entertainment. Right, don't bother trying to trade them the webnovel [Ultragene Warlord]. Most of the wood spirits have already read it, and it's quite popular in Renhuang."
Zhou Liao blinked a few times. "I can't imagine seeing alien races read our webnovels… Ah, what's that building right ahead? I see a bunch of hunters and alien races entering—it looks quite popular!"
The building they were heading toward was the largest building in Renhuang save the palace itself, whose construction Yun Bing had argued for.
"That's our hunter's guild."
"A hunter's guild?" Zhou Liao seemed a little surprised.
Zhang Lie explained, "Anyone can post quests in the guild, which others can take on for promised rewards."
Zhou Liao continued, "No, no, I understand what a guild is, but I've only ever seen it in games! What's it doing in Renhuang?"
"It's where hunters go to employ the services of alien mercenaries."
"Alien mercenaries?"
"Humans need to get gene fragments to boost their strength," Zhang Lie explained. "Yun Bing's idea was to facilitate this by having a building specifically geared to expeditions outside the city limits." Such employment had previously taken place in the bazaar itself, but Yun Bing rightly anticipated possible issues that might result from a lack of official oversight.
For instance, the mercenaries might very well turn on their employer.
There hadn't been such problems yet—the mercenaries were largely rock spirits and the Yeluo, who were races known for their frankness and honesty. The rock spirits were particularly trustworthy. No incident had yet occurred, but if there was no oversight over such behavior, problems would arise sooner or later, especially as the population of Renhuang grew.
In order to facilitate such employment while simultaneously keeping an eye on such practices, Yun Bing had suggested constructing a guild.
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