There were a total of seven stone cutters in the Black Market. The woman seemed to know one of them and spoke with great familiarity, "Zhao Bin, cut these stones for me. If you find anything good, I’ll buy you a drink next time."

Hearing this, Zhao Bin shook his head with a bitter smile. "We’re in the Black Market. Can you please not use my real name?"

"You work for the Black Market, what are you afraid of? Hurry up and start cutting," the woman said impatiently.

"Sigh, you’ve already lost fifty thousand Spirit Stones this month. Even if you..." Zhao Bin paused for a moment before continuing, "Even if your family is wealthy, you’ll go broke sooner or later if you keep this up."

Song Changsheng was taken aback. ’Good heavens,’ he thought. ’No wonder she’s so extravagant. Who else but an extraordinary person could lose fifty thousand Spirit Stones in a month and still be having fun?’

’She’s probably the young lady of some major power.’

As soon as Zhao Bin spoke, the woman’s expression turned unnatural. She had just been talking a big game in front of Song Changsheng, and now this guy had laid her real situation bare in just a few sentences. ’Isn’t he pulling the rug out from under me?’

For a moment, she was both embarrassed and angry. "Enough with the chatter! Get cutting! If you don’t find anything good, I won’t let you off the hook!"

Zhao Bin immediately threw his hands up in surrender. "Alright, alright, whatever you say. It’s not my money you’re losing, anyway."

He casually selected a stone from the pile before him and took a dark dagger from a box at his side.

The dagger flashed up and down in his hands, and layers of gray dust rustled to the floor.

His movements were swift but careful, shaving off only a thin layer with each pass.

Soon, the watermelon-sized stone had been reduced to the size of a fist. At this point, Zhao Bin became even more cautious, his cuts growing more precise.

This was the stone the woman had the highest hopes for, having spent nearly a thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones on it, so her heart was now filled with anticipation.

But Song Changsheng had already inspected it. It was just a rock, without a single speck of Spiritual Light inside.

Sure enough, when the last slice was made, there was absolutely nothing.

The woman staggered, almost falling over. "What a useless rock!" she fumed. "How dare they sell this for a thousand Spirit Stones?"

Zhao Bin seemed accustomed to this. Ignoring her complaints, he picked up the next stone. Unfortunately, this one was also empty.

Striking out twice in a row was a heavy blow to the woman. She looked completely dejected, like a deflated balloon.

She muttered to herself nonstop, "Impossible... This doesn’t make any sense... I spent ten thousand Spirit Stones on a secret stone-gambling manual. How could this be happening?"

Song Changsheng overheard her, and everything clicked. ’So she bought a manual from someone else,’ he realized. ’Looks like she got scammed hard.’

Fortunately, the third stone finally yielded a prize: a bronze-colored bell that looked somewhat worn, its surface marred by several deep scratches.

With his keen eye, Song Changsheng could tell at a glance that it was a Magical Artifact from the Ancient Era. In terms of grade, it was comparable to a modern Tier One top-grade artifact, worth three hundred Spirit Stones at most. It was a small loss.

Even so, it was a shot in the arm for the woman. A flicker of light returned to her lively eyes.

As the saying goes, nine out of ten gambles are losses. The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.

Under Zhao Bin’s skilled hands, the rest of the stones were quickly cut open.

Out of the entire pile, only six stones had possessed any Spiritual Light, and of those, five turned out to be losses. Only the very first stone she had chosen yielded the root of a Tier Three Low-Grade Spirit Plant that still retained its vitality. That one turned a small profit.

This was what amazed Song Changsheng the most. These stones from the Ancient Battlefield had existed for who knows how many eons, yet a Spirit Plant encased within could remain alive. It was truly bizarre.

This sparked a bold idea in his mind. ’If a person were encased inside, could they achieve the same magical effect?’

Just then, Zhao Bin’s voice interrupted his daydreaming.

"Are you planning to take these things with you, or sell them to the market?"

The woman waved her hand impatiently. "What would I want with this junk? Exchange it all for Spirit Stones. I’m going to the second floor."

"Three thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones in total," Zhao Bin quickly quoted a price.

Song Changsheng was secretly astounded. In less than an ancient hour, her investment of over seven thousand Low-Grade Spirit Stones had turned into a bloody loss of four thousand. ’The word "gamble" is truly terrifying,’ he thought.

And from the sound of it, she intended to continue.

Taking the Storage Bag from Zhao Bin, the woman weighed it in her hand. "Three thousand... Barely enough for one round of fun upstairs."

She winked at Song Changsheng. "This first floor is just for you rookies to have a bit of fun. The stones are cheap, and the stuff you get is cheap."

"The second floor is different. You can find real treasures up there. That’s where I found my Jade Exquisite Pagoda. The Black Market offered me a hundred thousand for it, and I refused to sell."

Song Changsheng raised an eyebrow. With her luck, finding a treasure worth over a hundred thousand Spirit Stones was truly not easy. He couldn’t help but ask, "Then how many Spirit Stones did you spend to get it?"

At his words, the expression under the woman’s mask froze. She turned and silently walked up the stairs.

Beside him, Zhao Bin couldn’t hold back a chuckle. "Fellow cultivator, you really struck a nerve. That Jade Exquisite Pagoda... she actually got into a spat with someone and recklessly spent over a hundred thousand Spirit Stones to get it."

"So she still lost money in the end," Song Changsheng said, taken aback. For a moment, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ’A real degenerate gambler.’

"I wonder if her luck will be any better today. Fellow cultivator, care to go up and see?"