Cave Refuge

But when those survivors encountered danger and immediately fled, it meant that all the Contribution Points they had worked so hard to obtain would disappear.

Survivors who had made it this far were basically no fools. Perhaps they didn't notice the Imperial Court's intentions at first, but after experiencing similar situations several times, even the slightly clever ones understood what the Imperial Court was thinking.

However, having realised this, the fact remained that the Imperial Court's strategies were top-notch open conspiracies. There might have been ways to break them, but the likelihood was virtually zero.

The reason was quite simple: Any city established by the Imperial Court only accepted Contribution Points in all its official shops after its completion, and the rewards for tasks issued by the Officials were also exclusively in Contribution Points.

At this point, Contribution Points were like money in a bank account or wallet—seemingly a bunch of useless digits, yet recognized by too many people and shops for their value.

Furthermore, trading with virtual currency rather than bartering made things countless times more convenient, so even if one didn't use the Contribution Points distributed by the Officials, they could still survive by trading goods for goods, despite the potential complications.

But people have a herd mentality; when a certain object is used by the vast majority around them, they will subconsciously ignore the risks involved with it, until the danger truly befalls them.

Plus, with each city's Officials promoting it forcefully, even those who had been deceived and learned their lesson still had no choice but to go with the flow in the face of reality. Otherwise, those who didn't follow the rules set by the Imperial Court would have a hard time living in the cities under its jurisdiction.

Since the Water Base had completely sunk, the Contribution Points unique to it were naturally invalidated. This was why Zachary was reluctant to go to the cities built by the Officials in the early stages—he feared being harvested like a piece of chive.

Zachary didn't quite understand the excitement exhibited by Madeline; after all, in his eyes, ordinary food that could fill one's stomach was the true hard currency at this time. Those high-value ingredients stored in the Storage Space should have little demand now.

But what Zachary didn't know was that those high-value ingredients he spoke of were far more than just preserves for Madeline. High-level ingredients also had a shelf life, but because Storage Spaces had become widespread, as long as the ingredients weren't frequently taken out of the Storage Spaces, the shelf life of most ingredients could be almost infinite.

In Madeline's eyes, these high-level ingredients inherently possessed a certain value due to their effects upon consumption. Coupled with the preservative capabilities of the Storage Spaces, these high-level ingredients, in her view, were very much like the Spiritual Stones often found in most novels.

If accumulated in a certain quantity, they could be used both as resources consumed during Cultivation and as a temporary currency for equivalent trade.

This was similar to the Mysterious Cores, which had been used as currency during the flood disaster—if their prices didn't fluctuate too much. If the price variation was too significant, ordinary people would buy gold to stabilize the market prices, just as the elderly did before the Natural Disaster.

Unfortunately, with the flood disaster receding, those Mysterious Ships that had been floating on the water had mysteriously disappeared and were no longer seen, making the Mysterious Cores a discontinued resource—used one less one. Consequently, they couldn't be used as a regular currency anymore, and so the high-level ingredients in Zachary's hands had become a target in Madeline's eyes.

Seeing the gleam in her eyes, Zachary didn't care too much. After all, at this time, he didn't think Madeline could have many resources to attract him, so he casually said, "I still have plenty of crops and meat in my Storage Space.

"To be honest, if it hadn't been you asking me, I would have straight up told anyone else no, but since you've asked, I definitely wouldn't hide anything from you," Dong Tianyu said. "But to be frank, even at this point, I won't go too low on the price, otherwise, I can't justify it to my superiors."

Hearing this, Madeline's smile grew even more radiant. "Don't worry, Zachary, I definitely won't shortchange you," she said and then proceeded to pull Zachary towards her house, as it was not convenient to carry out the transaction in public.

After returning to the Taylor family home, they went straight to the second floor. Entering a room and closing the door behind them, Madeline took out a pile of odds and ends from the Storage space.

While Dong Tianyu was looking at the scattered items on the ground, getting ready to scold Madeline for bringing him junk as if he were a rag-and-bone man, he suddenly considered a possibility and began to scan the junk with his Divine Sense.

As Dong Tianyu carefully scanned the pile of clutter with his Divine Sense, he was astonished to find that within this assortment, except for two or three items that could be identified as ordinary by Divine Sense, the majority of the rest appeared as indiscernible to his Divine Sense.

This situation greatly suggested that the items on the ground might all be curios. Until now, it had only been curios that presented themselves as visible to the naked eye but undetectable by Divine Sense.

After Madeline pushed the curios aside, she began to haul sack after sack from the Storage space. In no time, she had moved enough to fill half the room—hundreds of bags.

Although Dong Tianyu's Divine Sense had not detected the curios that Madeline took out earlier, it did not fail him this time with the bags she had moved afterward. He instantly knew what was inside each sack.

Yet when Dong Tianyu realized that the sacks were filled with Black Devil Cores, his expression became momentarily dazed. Not that he had never seen these mysterious cores before, but that was in the past when obtaining a Mysterious Core was relatively easy. With enough courage, one was bound to encounter a Mysterious Ship on outings.

Now, however, with the floodwaters that had engulfed the earth receded, the Mysterious Ships naturally disappeared along with the water. At this point, it wasn't just about getting a room half full of these Mysterious Cores; even acquiring a single sack could be borderline impossible for the average person, and if there was a chance, it would come at a tremendous cost.

The same Mysterious Cores that would deter the average person were what Madeline had just produced in such abundance, which made Dong Tianyu very curious about where Madeline could have gotten all these cores.

Knowing that when the Water Base sank, Dong Tianyu and his family of three moved temporarily to Madeline's fleet, and Dong Tianyu had already cleared out all the Mysterious Cores from Madeline's Storage space with various goods, his curiosity was naturally piqued when Madeline could produce so many good things after not too long.

Noting Dong Tianyu's curious gaze, Madeline didn't offer any explanation. Instead, she rolled her eyes at him and said impatiently, "It's not like you're the only one with a special channel for obtaining goods. In my eyes, you're just a part-time merchant, while I am a professional. It's only natural that I have sources for goods that you don't know about."

Hearing this, Dong Tianyu did not continue to probe and instead began to debate with Madeline over the actual value of the curios on the ground and the Mysterious Cores that Madeline had already brought out.

Madeline argued from the perspective of their dwindling availability and the near impossibility of obtaining them anymore, driving up their value, while Dong Tianyu tried to lower the price by downplaying their actual utility.

Though the two were on good personal terms, when it came to business, they had a fierce debate over the value of the goods.