The beautiful snake handed over the money with a pained expression before finally heading into the raft.
Seeing the pained look on its face, Ethan guessed that this snake probably wouldn't dare trick him again.
But just to be safe...
Ethan still specifically consulted the Eye of Nightmare, asking, 'There are different levels of spirit stones, high-grade and low-grade?'
'Of course there are!', The Eye of Nightmare seemed to exist specifically to roll its eyes. As soon as it entered its domain, it began complaining furiously about Ethan, 'You don't know? Spirit stones are divided into four types in total: low-grade spirit stones, simply called spirit stones. They're the kind most commonly used as currency.'
'These spirit stones are usually fragments of spirit stone clusters that fell from the sky during the first year of the Catastrophe, or the outer shells of some spirit stone clusters that have already had most of their energy consumed. Anyway, they're just ordinary energy stones with energy that is weak as hell.'
'Mid-grade spirit stones are just a little better than spirit stones. They're usually the middle layer of spirit stones, where some of the energy has been lost, but most of the energy still remains in the stone!'
'There aren't as many of these spirit stones as there are low-grade spirit stones from the outer layer, but they make up for it in quality, so they're classified as mid-grade spirit stones.'
'One is equivalent to ten low-grade spirit stones.'
'As for high-grade spirit stones, simply put, they're the core part of a spirit stone cluster. They're also the finest spirit stones, where the energy is most concentrated and there is very little loss.'
'Normally, in a spirit stone cluster measuring several dozen square meters, at most only one to three high-grade spirit stones can be extracted.'
'One high-grade spirit stone is usually equivalent to ten mid-grade spirit stones, or a hundred low-grade spirit stones.'
'But even so, very few people are willing to take out these high-grade spirit stones to exchange them. If you took them to the black market and exchanged them for low-grade spirit stones, you could probably get a dozen or so extra low-grade spirit stones for each one. That's about an exchange rate of 1:110 or higher, but they're still something you can put a price on without being able to find anyone selling them.'
Hearing this, Ethan asked in return, 'Then doesn't that mean I made a profit?'
'Of course you did,' The Eye of Nightmare sneered, 'That woman was probably afraid of your identity as an alchemist, so she took out a high-grade spirit stone as a token of sincerity for her compensation.'
'You said there were four kinds of spirit stones before. Low, mid, and high, that's only three,' Ethan suddenly remembered what the Eye of Nightmare had said and asked again, 'Then what's the other one?'
'Top-grade spirit stones, obviously.'
The Eye of Nightmare's words immediately left Ethan somewhat speechless.
This world really was direct enough. Basically, the level above high-grade was top-grade. Not a bit of creativity.
'Since high-grade spirit stones are already the core of the spirit stone clusters that fell from the sky, then how do top-grade spirit stones come about?', Ethan asked in confusion, 'Could spirit stones be synthesized?'
'What are you thinking? How could that be possible?'
The Eye of Nightmare refuted him, 'To put it bluntly, spirit stones are energy clusters. Countless geniuses on the black market have had the idea of refining spirit stone energy. They've conducted quite a few experiments, trying to synthesize low-grade spirit stones into high-grade spirit stones with purer energy, but they all failed.'
'And the consequences of failure weren't merely the loss of a large number of low-grade spirit stones. The compression of the energy even caused violent explosions.'
'The most exaggerated incident supposedly blew up more than half of the black market.'
'After that, no one dared to entertain the idea of refining spirit stone energy anymore.'
Ethan asked again, 'Then how do top-grade spirit stones come about?'
'If spirit stones can't be refined and compressed, then how else could they come about? Naturally, they came from beyond the sky,' The Eye of Nightmare continued its explanation, 'When the Catastrophe had just begun in its first year, countless enormous spirit stone clusters fell from the sky and crashed onto Earth.'
'At that time, the smallest spirit stone clusters were nearly a hundred square meters, while the larger ones were nearly a thousand square meters. There were even enormous spirit stone clusters measuring several thousand square meters.'
'And within these sufficiently large spirit stone clusters, there was a super energy-gathering core. It was purple-red in color. Supposedly, you could feel that powerful energy just by getting close to it. You could even activate a magic tool that needed energy to operate simply by placing a single one next to it!'
'As for the specifics, I've never seen one myself, because these top-grade spirit stones are too precious. Almost no one will take them out to exchange!'
'Why is no one willing to exchange them?', Ethan asked in confusion, 'At worst, one top-grade spirit stone could be exchanged for twenty or thirty high-grade spirit stones. As long as the ratio is high enough, surely someone would still be willing to exchange them.'
'What are you thinking? I think you're dreaming about eating shit!'
The Eye of Nightmare rolled its eyes again and said, 'Who told you that one top-grade spirit stone can only be exchanged for ten high-grade spirit stones? The market price of one top-grade spirit stone is a thousand high-grade spirit stones. And even if you offered two thousand high-grade spirit stones, I doubt many people would be willing to take one out and exchange it with you. Because these top-grade spirit stones are simply too precious!'
'Even two thousand high-grade spirit stones wouldn't be enough?', Ethan asked in confusion, 'Why? Could these top-grade spirit stones have some special use?'
'Of course!'
The Eye of Nightmare was too lazy even to roll its eyes this time and simply continued, 'Some siege weapons, especially those super weapons that can destroy an entire city with a single shot, need a super energy stone like a top-grade spirit stone to power them. Ordinary high-grade spirit stones can't power them, no matter how many you have.'