-103- A Bountiful Harvest (Please Subscribe!) (2/10)

“I want this one, this one, this one, and that one…”
Touji pointed consecutively at four spirit eggs.

Without a doubt, these four spirit eggs were all of premium quality.

“All right… all right…”
The merchant put on a mask of forced pain and nodded in agreement.

There were many eggs at the stall, and the merchant himself wasn’t entirely sure which were fake and which were genuine.

However, among the five spirit eggs Touji had chosen, two were definitely premium quality.

He was very clear about this, as they were placed right next to the marked eggs.

Regardless of whether the other three eggs were real or fake, or what their quality was, just the loss of those two premium-quality spirit eggs was enough to make him wince.

A single premium-quality spirit egg could be sold for two hundred thousand Alliance Coins.

Touji had just spent two hundred and fifty thousand Alliance Coins to buy at least two premium-quality spirit eggs.

The merchant was so distraught he nearly fainted in the restroom.

“Merchant, there’s no need to test whether the eggs are real now; I’d like to take them home and check myself.”

Touji’s request left the merchant no choice but to comply.

This was the rule in the egg gambling market.

If the customer didn’t want to test the eggs, the merchant could not force them.

After packing all five spirit eggs, Touji had no intention of leaving just yet.

There was still one spirit egg with curator-level quality.

Wasn’t there?

(▰˘◡˘▰)

“Merchant, I’d like to try one more intermediate-level egg.”

Touji pointed at the adjacent stall.

The merchant had a total of three stalls: basic, intermediate, and advanced.

The basic stall held five premium-quality spirit eggs, several common and ordinary-quality eggs, most of which were fakes.

The intermediate stall housed one curator-level quality spirit egg, eight premium-quality eggs, several common and ordinary-quality eggs, with fewer fakes than the basic stall.

The advanced stall had only one curator-level quality spirit egg, which had already been chosen by a previous merchant’s plant. The remaining eggs included twelve premium-quality eggs and twenty ordinary-quality eggs, with no common-quality or fake eggs.

In other words, buying from the advanced stall meant a high chance of drawing a premium-quality spirit egg.

However, spending half a million Alliance Coins for a single premium-quality spirit egg was an absolute loss.

Hearing that Touji wanted to gamble again, the merchant’s heart skipped a beat, fearing that Touji would take away the curator-level spirit egg from the intermediate stall.

But then he thought, who had such incredible luck?

What if he drew a fake?

Then earning twenty thousand Alliance Coins as pure profit would at least soften the blow from losing those premium-quality spirit eggs to Touji earlier.

“All right, all right! One intermediate-level egg, right? Two hundred thousand Alliance Coins, please pay here.”

The merchant wiped the cold sweat from his brow and gestured for Touji to pay.

Touji opened his phone and scanned the code to pay two hundred thousand Alliance Coins immediately.

Then he began selecting from the intermediate stall.

Onlookers started jeering, mocking Touji as foolish and wasteful.

Spending four hundred fifty thousand Alliance Coins in one go?

Going home was not going to be a simple matter of kneeling on a washboard.

The two middle-aged men who had drawn fake eggs earlier began laughing derisively at Touji.

“Why not… this one?”

Touji deliberately pointed to a fake egg. Upon seeing that it was a marked egg, the merchant instantly brightened.

Touji shook his head, dissatisfied.

He then pointed to a premium-quality spirit egg.

The merchant frowned slightly, hinting that one was no good.

“How on earth does this merchant do business? His face tells us exactly which eggs are real and which are fake—how can anyone possibly choose the wrong ones?”

Touji glanced briefly at the guests watching the spectacle, the ones who had drawn fake eggs.

If they weren’t lacking intelligence, they wouldn’t have drawn fakes.

Touji decided to be straightforward; he didn’t want to play games anymore. He picked up the curator-level quality spirit egg directly.

“This one, wrap it up for me. I don’t plan to test it.”

He handed the egg to the merchant.

The merchant accepted it excitedly, preparing to wrap it.

In his mind, this egg was undoubtedly a fake.

To prevent the customer from noticing any deception, most marked eggs were fakes, and the ones surrounding them were definitely premium-quality spirit eggs.

This was the merchant’s deliberate arrangement to avoid mistakes from his plants.

This egg bore a clear mark—a faint reddish watermark, which the merchant himself had made.

But the merchant had forgotten one thing:

He had also put a red watermark on the only curator-level spirit egg, to make it look just like a fake.

At this moment, the merchant believed Touji had drawn a fake egg and was making a pure profit of two hundred thousand Alliance Coins.

He wrapped the egg with particular enthusiasm.

But in reality, this was the curator-level spirit egg that the merchant had personally handed over.

After finishing the packaging of all six spirit eggs, Touji hired a Mighty Porter to help carry them.

The Mighty Porter was an employee of the Mighty Company, hired by paying a fee to help elderly or physically limited people carry items. Charges were hourly.

Like the Doodooli Quick and the Windspeed Dog Speed, the Mighty Porter was a service provided by one employee partnered with a Mighty, serving customers.

With the Mighty’s help carrying the six spirit eggs, Touji felt much more at ease.

Exiting the gambling egg market and passing through the alley, Touji hailed a Kentaro cargo vehicle.

Although the Mighty Porter took only about ten minutes to carry the eggs out of the market, the fee was charged by the hour.

Touji paid a total of one thousand Alliance Coins.

Riding in the Kentaro cargo, Touji returned to the breeding house feeling fully satisfied.

He had considered continuing to gamble at other stalls.

But clearing out the entire egg gambling market in one night was not very prudent.

Better to pace himself and clear it out slowly.

After all, the entire gambling egg market had nearly a hundred stalls combined.

Touji was in no hurry.

“Six spirit eggs in total: one curator-level quality, five premium-quality.”

He placed each of the six spirit eggs on the shelves.

Now, the JOJO Breeding House’s shelves displayed spirit eggs of all four quality levels, from common to curator.

The newly acquired curator-level spirit egg belonged to the sumo wrestler category.

Among fighting-type spirits, the sumo wrestler was a representative figure.

Curator-level sumo wrestler spirit eggs commonly sold on the market went for over a million Alliance Coins.

Touji was equally decisive, pricing it at one million Alliance Coins.

Like the Cotton Bird egg, Touji wrote one line on the sign at the entrance:

“Sumo Wrestler: Curator-level spirit egg + incubation package + skill learning of choice + spirit ball = one million Alliance Coins.”

This was roughly the market price, but the inclusion of a skill and incubation package plus spirit ball was a generous bonus.

As for the five premium-quality spirit eggs, they were of species like Geodude, Zubat, Paras, and others that mostly lived in caves.

They were priced at about two hundred thousand Alliance Coins each.

… (To be continued)