Chapter 566 - 340: Unexpected Discovery
The Western Continent, Dawn Shelter.
Returning to this place, it seemed much livelier than during Su Ze's last visit.
The great beast tide had hit the Western Continent hard, and its hundreds of human settlements, large and small, had not been spared.
When the beast tide came, the people in smaller settlements were powerless to resist and could only flee to the larger, more powerful settlements.
As a result, the Western Continent's two largest shelters, Dawn Shelter and Dawn Shelter, were packed to the brim.
Su Ze was thankful that Dawn Shelter hadn't been razed during the beast tide's assault; otherwise, the clue he had worked so hard to find would have been lost.
In the wake of the beast tide, over ninety percent of the small settlements on the Western Continent had been wiped out. However, not all of their inhabitants were killed by the mutated beasts; a good number had fled to the two major shelters. It was foreseeable that to accommodate the new population, both shelters would have to expand.
The population boom made the two shelters unprecedentedly prosperous. If they were to merge and develop for a few years, they might even become the fourth great continent on Blue Star.
Chenhui Avenue was the most prosperous commercial district in Dawn Shelter.
Su Ze walked down the crowded street without any sort of disguise.
On the Lin Hua Continent, he was a household name, but here, nobody recognized him.
Besides, the shelter was full of new faces who had fled here, so no one paid him any mind.
At every intersection, young women stood in twos and threes. Their clothes were daring and their gazes provocative as they scanned the passing crowd for potential clients.
When someone met their gaze, they would stick out their tongues to lick their lips and beckon with a wave.
Whether it was a man or a woman who stopped, they treated them all the same; they weren't too particular about a client's gender.
If someone stopped, they would immediately press up against them, letting the still-hesitant client feel the fiery sincerity of their chests while whispering softly in their ear.
Even the cold, hard bargaining was completed amidst intimate whispers and nuzzling.
Once a price was agreed upon, the women would lead their clients to their "studios" located in the alleyways.
'I'd heard the people of the Western Continent were uninhibited, and seeing it today, it's really true...' Su Ze looked around with a sense of novelty, comparing the faces and figures of the various young women.
One woman, a mature beauty in a low-cut red minidress, black stockings, and red high heels, noticed Su Ze's gaze. She beckoned to him and licked her lips:
"Hey, kiddo. Want me to draw out your 'essence'? Only three hundred Dawn Coins."
Su Ze smiled. "Can I get half-price with a student ID?"
"Sure. Three hundred, twice."
'More for the same price?'
Su Ze casually pulled a bottle of some unknown evolutionary medicine from his storage item and tossed it to the woman in red. "I don't have any Dawn Coins, but if you sell this bottle, you'll definitely get more than three hundred. Besides, I don't need you to do anything else. Just be my guide for half a day."
The woman in red glanced at the bottle. The words on it were in a foreign language she didn't recognize. She was skeptical, but when she heard Su Ze only wanted her to be a guide for half a day, she thought for a moment and agreed.
Following behind Su Ze, she sized him up and suddenly felt an air of authority emanating from the absurdly young man. She unconsciously dropped her frivolous demeanor and asked, choosing her words carefully:
"Sir... you must be an outsider, right?"
She had changed her form of address, dropping the previous flirtatious nickname.
"Isn't that obvious? I have a foreign accent, and my skin tone is different from yours," Su Ze shrugged, then asked, "Do you know which is the biggest Evolution Items shop in Dawn Shelter?"
"That would definitely be the Stu Commerce Association. I hear they're a top-tier commerce association even over at Dawn Shelter," the woman in red said without hesitation.
"Oh? What's the story behind this Stu Commerce Association?"
This clearly wasn't something a streetwalker would know. She racked her brain and said, "I heard the Stu Commerce Association was also originally founded by outsiders."
Su Ze didn't press her further. "Lead the way," he said. "Take me to the Stu Commerce Association."
...
Inside the Stu Commerce Association, a young outsider accompanied by a scantily clad streetwalker—an odd pair—drew the attention of a clerk.
"Sir, how may I help you?" a clerk in a white shirt and black trousers stepped forward and asked politely.
"I have some business to discuss with your boss in person."
"Well..." The clerk hesitated for a moment. "Please wait here."
The clerk left for a moment before returning. "Sir, please follow me."
He led Su Ze to an office door and said, "Sir, please go in."
Su Ze said to the woman in red, "Wait for me out here."
With that, he pushed the door open and went inside.
As the office door closed, the woman in red quickly took out the bottle of medicine Su Ze had given her and asked the clerk in a hushed voice, "Can you help me see how much this is worth?"
The clerk took the bottle and examined it carefully from all angles. "If it's genuine," he said, "it should be worth two or three million."
"Two or three million Dawn Coins?" The woman in red was stunned.
'How many clients would she have to service to earn that much money?'
The clerk nodded and casually asked, "Do you want to sell it to us? If you're interested in selling, we'll need to authenticate the medicine first."
The purchasing power of a Dawn Coin was roughly equivalent to that of a Lin Hua Coin from the Lin Hua Continent. Two or three million wasn't much in the world of Evolution Items, but for an ordinary person, it was a fortune they could never earn in a lifetime.
This finished evolutionary medicine was already the lowest-grade and cheapest Evolution Item Su Ze could find in his storage item.