In my need to get more resources, I remembered one of the main reasons I had come.

I had some beast body parts I wanted to get good value out of, and some cool items I had picked up at Martial Citadel that I could barter with.

I witnessed many people pick a spot and set up shop without hesitation so I decided to do the same.

I had the body parts of the many strong beasts’ I had hunted with the Toltemic, and preserved in pots and sacks.

The nomadic tribes' amazing preservation method had kept the value and the quality of the parts even after all this time.

It was truly fortunate that I had managed to learn such amazing techniques from them.

I also took out a couple of Martial Arts Manuals I had already studied or that I had concluded were useless to me for various reasons.

Even though the Martial Arts Manuals had lost a lot of their value in the Citadel, even before the inception of the Focus Shard, I didn't think that was the case outside.

Power and knowledge were always valuable as a Ranker and a good fighting method was no exception; or else how could Unwilling Martial Dojo have established itself to be such a powerhouse, even in Will City.

And just to avoid problems I made sure the manuals I was going to sell were of good quality rigorously taking time before I departed from Martial Citadel to study and test them.

I had long gotten pretty good at doing business with all the experience I had accumulated in Martial Citadel, but I still found myself inspired by an old friend when I did so.

Whenever I was a seller I did my best to emulate Mister Reyas who was a pretty savvy businessman himself.

Even now at this stage of my life, I never forgot the lessons I learned in my birthplace of Beans Village, nor the nostalgia I had for it.

But now I had embarked on the Path of the Ranker, a path that involved mastering many skills, and the path had led me to eventually end up here selling my goods at my very first Ranker Event, a place I never thought I would visit and see even in my wildest dreams.

Soon Many people came up to view what I had in stock.

I wasn’t sure if they were all Rankers since not all of them carried weapons but I immediately made away with my naiveness.

A more plausible reason they didn’t carry weapons was that maybe they were so strong they didn’t need a weapon.

I made sure to keep that in mind and remind myself that my safety wasn’t guaranteed as it had been in Martial Citadel.

All of the people in front of me were killers, it was best to remain respectful.

I had labeled my pots so people knew what they were looking at.

All in all, I had the king beast and other rare animal fangs that were too curved or weird to use as ammo; I labeled the species as best I could since I wasn't to learnt about beast species names, and only knew them by what the Toltemic had called them, but I made sure to make it known that they were all parts from either king beasts, megafauna, or magical beasts so that they would take me seriously.

I also had many pelts, some which I had used as sleeping bags, tents, or extra bags, having used any method so that the excuse of carrying so many things could be justified.

More than anything I was finally looking forward to getting rid of such a heavy load as were all the beast parts I had been carrying until now.

The extra inventory and equipment space would be very useful.

I was betting specifically on the hearts, lungs, livers, and other organs I decided to preserve and not discard of these rare beasts; since I had learned by selling such organs of even the less valuable beasts in Martial Citadel that such materials were very valuable.

The reason I had made sure to take care of and mostly carry the preserved organs of the most high-level or rarest beasts I had killed or collected was to garner powerful Rankers attention.

I was pretty sure that a couple of them were not just magical or something of the sort, as I had also killed what might’ve been pseudo-spirit beasts, including the cursed rats.

It was obvious most of the people here could kill and hunt these animals themselves, but I also knew that unless they were specialized hunters, poachers, or trappers they most likely wouldn’t know how to properly harvest and preserve it, and so would probably not be carrying this stuff around.

Surprisingly I hadn’t seen shops for beast parts or specializing in beast and hunting materials, but I was sure there would be some around.

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I just hadn’t looked in the right places.

The only thing I was going for was the best deal around.

I wasn’t sure of what my collection was worth altogether, let alone individually, but I knew the best way to avoid looking like an amateur salesman was by asking for the best offer and seeing what gets thrown at me.

And so that's what I did.

I set out my pots, tarps, and sacks in the most appealing manner I could with their labels and did, as the surrounding salesman did, and waited in silence for the clientele.

Eventually, some curious people came here and there giving my items a quick look or more insultingly just a side glance.

Eventually, I did get some customers that stayed a little longer.

Unfortunately, after perusing what I had out on display, most of the people moved on to better shops showing no interest.

I did my best effort to remain aloof, and not show the heartbreak the customer's actions were causing me, to not lose respect, but the more they did it the harder it got.

Some did stay behind but hadn’t given an offer yet and they continued to not do so for a very long time.

I had never experienced customers that were like this, not even during my rookie days as a salesman in Martial Citadel.

I was spoiled by the Martial Citadel residents eating up whatever I offered them.

But I knew this wasn’t Martial Citadel, things were different here.

And so I waited patiently until an inkling of a potential sale would show its face.

Eventually, after an excruciating amount of time someone gave me an offer, they offered me 2 Platinum coins for all the hearts I had.

I suddenly went from hell to a beautiful heaven.

That was exactly the kind of revenue I was expecting to make from this place.

My very first offer consisted of Platinum coins.

In my mind, I was more than willing to immediately accept but deep down I knew better than that.

I didn’t immediately respond, not because I was playing hard to get, but mostly because I didn’t expect this stuff to be worth that much.

But I also knew that if I looked too eager I might reveal myself to be a Ranker rookie.

It came to be revealed to me though that contrary to my fears everyone took my silence as a respectful decline instead of what it actually was.

Like a chain effect soon more people started throwing offers at me.

First, it was 2 Platinum coins, then 3, then 4, 6, then finally 10.

I didn’t want to make myself too expensive so I took the offer at 10 platinum coins and moved on to the rest of my items where a similar situation occurred.

In the end, I sold all my items for a total of 100 Platinum coins, 5000 gold coins, and 20 of those blue crystals which I found out were the famous Mana Crystals, widely considered just as valuable if not more than Platinum.

In my hometown of Beans Village, these items were just hearsay and rarely made an appearance to common citizens.

But now I had entered the ranks of those who owned this precious and magical resource.

Right away at first glance, I could immediately discern why they were so valuable.

I could somewhat feel the powerful and valuable magical energy that was held within.

It was obvious to me that this was the magic world's version of the Focus Shard, the Mana Crystal, the true king of all currencies.

I had based my creation of the Focus Shards on rumors of its existence, and on the premise of the battery which I did have knowledge of and owned.

But these were a kind of battery that opened doors no other battery could open.

Even though my foray into Magical Crafting could hardly be considered practicing the Magical Arts in my opinion, I immediately could conceive the manifold projects and creations this precious stone could make possible.

It was immediately apparent why Magic Society and the Magic Arts, in general, had so much clout in Potestera.

Even here in Volunterra where magic wasn’t as widespread, magic energy was still a valuable resource almost nobody would turn down and that could bring unwanted attention, as Yupow had enlightened me on, and which I had unfortunately experienced.

I carefully put the Mana Crystal away with the rest of my earnings in the safety of one of my sled-secured beast pouches.

As it turned out King Beast's hearts, livers, stomachs, and surprisingly even the eyes were quite sought after, causing some people to even squabble over it and give me their best offers.