Chapter 54: The Final Ruins Market Trade of the Zero-Tier Stage

With Song Mingde's definitive response secured, Song Chao and Shen Wenjie naturally had no remaining concerns, and Jiangyuan City returned to peace once again.

Uninvolved in the various undercurrents and shifting tides of this period, Song Chi remained unaffected and continued steadily with his cultivation schedule.

Although the two previous batches of advanced body-tempering potions infused with deep-sea clam pearls had nearly shaken his foundation, once that foundation was restabilized, he could not afford to slacken his meditation and breathing techniques in the slightest.

His father, Song Chao, and his former homeroom teacher, Yang Minghui, had repeatedly emphasized that persistence was the absolute key to cultivating guidance techniques.

No matter what, once one reached the Second Rank, the speed of cultivation would slow down drastically. A momentary lapse in focus could result in exhausting one's entire lifespan without ever breaking through to the next rank. Conversely, the less time spent on early-stage cultivation, the more time could be reserved for the Second and Third Ranks, thereby increasing the hope of ascending to even higher tiers in the future.

In the blink of an eye, over twenty days slipped away.

Inside the Heavens Market, standing before the ultra-long-range spatial gate random deployment platform, Song Chi's face was brimming with excitement.

Today was the day for a new round of market trading to commence. The buffer time on the deployment platform before him had only ten minutes remaining, and the third market trading session would soon open.

Once today's trading concluded, the Heavens Market would successfully fulfill the condition of "completing 3 market trading sessions." Following this, the Heavens Market would be able to upgrade from Tier 0 to Tier 1. At the mere thought of this, the excitement churning in his heart became impossible to contain.

It was not that Song Chi lacked composure, but rather that the benefits brought by this market upgrade were simply too immense. Not only would it further increase the number of spatial gates deployed per session, but the restrictions on the spatial gates would also be elevated from Tier 0 to Tier 1.

To put it simply, the alien creatures previously entering the market were restricted to Tier 0. After the upgrade, in addition to Tier 0 aliens, Tier 1 aliens would also be able to pass freely through the spatial gates.

The significance of this was profound. The reasoning was straightforward: Tier 0 and Tier 1 aliens were much like children compared to adults. A child might have some pocket change, but compared to an adult capable of earning their own living, that pocket change was entirely negligible.

The more wealth the visiting aliens brought into the Heavens Market, the more profit Song Chi, the master of the market, would naturally reap.

Beyond these two points, the market upgrade might also introduce other entirely new functions, though those could not be confirmed yet. Even so, the immediate two points alone were more than enough to fill Song Chi with excitement and anticipation.

With this thought, the somewhat sour mood he had felt from returning empty-handed from his alien sector exploration the day before quickly dissipated.

Speaking of the third alien sector exploration from two days ago, Song Chi could only feel helpless.

While he hadn't encountered any real danger, his vessel had been precisely deployed into a stellar void belt. Piloting the *Sky Dome* at light speed, he cruised continuously for a full twenty-four hours without managing to find a single resource point—it was an expanse of eternal silence from start to finish.

Granted, the Shattered Star Sea possessed quite a few void belts, and many Tier 2 and Tier 3 Fireseed Captains had experienced being dropped into one at some point.

However, such an occurrence typically only happened to veterans who had been awakened for over a decade and endured dozens or hundreds of sector deployments. For someone like him to encounter a stellar void belt on merely his third sector drop, one could only say he had been rather unlucky.

The only consolation was that he had been dropped into a stellar void belt rather than the accretion disk of a black hole. Otherwise, Song Chi would have had to cross his fingers and pray that the Heavens Market's return-traction could reach his Fireseed airship there.

Recalling these random thoughts, Song Chi quickly pulled his mind back to reality. In truth, he was merely grumbling a bit about his bad luck; returning empty-handed was truly no great crisis.

The nearly two thousand strands of Tier 0 floating land origin capital he had reserved were still intact. At worst, it would just take a couple more market sessions to earn it back.

As he mused, the buffer countdown on the ultra-long-range spatial gate random deployment platform finally hit zero.

[Confirm activation of the ultra-long-range spatial gate random deployment platform?]

"Confirm!"

Hummmmm!

Amidst a violent tremor, nineteen beams of light simultaneously illuminated the deployment platform. At the entrance of the market, nineteen illusory spatial gates arranged in an arc quietly materialized.

As time ticked on, various species of alien creatures began streaming in and out through these illusory portals, and the Heavens Market quickly grew bustling and lively.

As for the various commodities within the market, they remained largely identical to the previous two sessions: tungsten-gold battle shields, tungsten-gold spears, primary gene optimization potions, intermediate gene optimization potions, basic civilian exoskeletons, and so on. These were universally applicable items with relatively "inexpensive" price tags.

The only difference this time was that Song Chi had specifically cleared out a single shop. This shop displayed no merchandise at all; right in the center stood only a crystal counter, and resting upon that counter was a blazing white, rhomboidal crystal.

That's right, this crystal was titanium crystal. However, Song Chi had not displayed it to sell; on the contrary, he intended to acquire more.

This piece of titanium crystal served merely as a sample, intended to let the aliens entering the shop clearly recognize what titanium crystal looked like so they wouldn't miss it due to ignorance.

Although resources like titanium crystal commanded a massive market and were strictly regulated throughout the Fireseed human civilization, it did not mean that every star sea civilization valued this special resource, which created the prerequisite conditions for Song Chi's active acquisition.

Even though the number of aliens entering the market each session barely numbered in the hundreds, making the probability of acquiring titanium crystal exceedingly small—and with Song Chi having no immediate use for it anyway—he deeply believed in the philosophy of being prepared for a rainy day.

As long as he actively sought to acquire it during every market session, even if the odds were low, the frequency would eventually add up, leading to the day he finally obtained some. If he weren't even willing to try, that probability would forever remain zero.

Beyond this, Song Chi had actually considered adding "special fire-type rare items" to his acquisition list as well.

Although the vast majority of fire-type rare items could not serve as evolutionary fuel for a Fireseed, the star sea was boundless, and the aliens entering the market came from all corners of the universe. What if he truly stumbled upon a suitable fire-type rare item?

Yet, after some deliberation, Song Chi ultimately gave up on the idea.

The reason was simple: even if he did encounter one, he currently lacked the capital to match its asking price. The value of every star sea rare item was immense; unless he traded with an equivalent rare item, trying to purchase one using other goods would cost far beyond imagination.

Of course, this was only a temporary abandonment. Once the star sea market developed fully in the future, and once he possessed sufficient capital and a variety of other rare items, the acquisition of special fire-type rare items would sooner or later be brought back to his schedule.