Raising Ducks for Daily Rewards-Chapter 17: The General Store

Fengyu entered the shop for the first time.

He looked to the left and rows of large rice and grain bags lined up, price shields on them.

’Spirited Rice, one spiritual stone per ten kilogram. That’s way too much!’

While it seemed rather cheap, it wasn’t at all!

Ten kilograms was enough to feed him for three months, but only if all he ate was spirited rice!

If one compares it to his ducks – one duck ate around half of what a human does. This is because once animals become Spirited Beasts, their appetite becomes a lot larger.

Just based on their meals, they needed 10-12kg monthly.

Since he fed them freely to improve their bloodline, naturally the number was closer to 12kg.

In that case, just to feed ten ducks, he would have to pay 12 spirit stones.

Meanwhile, when buying his feed from the Ming and Ling twins, he only pays 10 spirit stones.

’Direct transactions are so much cheaper.

In addition, the feed I buy is composed of several grains, all beneficial to beasts. If I did that, who knows how much I would have to pay?’

He saw that while rice was based on 1 stone per 10kg, some grains only gave you 9 or 8 kg.

Looking behind the rice, he saw some meat variants presented.

He knew even less about the prices of meat than about rice and grain. Besides seeing that duck meat was priced at 10 spirit stones, and that chicken meat was at 5, the rest was obscure.

The price difference in duck and chicken meat is larger than in their eggs, because in the end, eggs are daily consumables while meat is more of a luxury item.

In addition, meat often had the ’luxury’-price. Even if the theoretical price of duck meat was around 7 to 8 spirit stones, since it is meat of a higher quality, it was directly priced at 10 stones.

He looked at the reception and saw that there was still one person doing business, so he instead turned around to the left side of the shop.

Here, the products were sparsely placed on shelfs...

But each one was spiritual!

Pills, talisman, and even three weapons!

’Wow! To think such a small village shop sells these items!’

Looking at the signs, he saw that the prices were even more outrageous –

< Spirit Inducing Pill: induce spiritual power into a mortal. If they have roots, they will directly be pushed to the first stage of Qi Refining. If they don’t, then they will be pushed to the first-rate martial artist stage. Price: 1 Spirit Stone. Single Pill. >

< Low-grade Spirit Gathering Pill: cultivation pill for early-stage Qi Refining cultivators. One pill can be refined in 3-5 days. Price: 15 Spirit stones. Sold in bottles. >

< Low-grade Rejuvenating Pill: spiritual power recovery pill for early-stage Qi Refining cultivators. Up to three can be taken at once, requires rest afterward. Price: 1 Spirit Stone. Single Pill. >

< Low-grade Breakthrough Pill: pushes the bottleneck and allows early-stage Qi Refining cultivator to forcefully advance in their cultivation. Price: 30 Spirit Stones. Single Pill. >

Besides these, there were a few more, but Fengyu paid them no more attention.

Even if he was able to afford them, they wouldn’t be useful to him.

He was a cultivator, so the inducing pill would be useless. Since he gained cultivation from the eggs laid, he could ignore the second pill too.

There was no imminent danger, so he could purchase the rejuvenating pills when he had some left over.

As for the breakthrough pill – this was even worse. The wording was important, ’pushed bottleneck’ and ’forcefully advances’. This means the next bottleneck will be even worse. If he used a middle-stage pill instead, this could be mostly avoided. Or even better, if he could get his hands on a potion, then even a low-grade one would suffice...

He sighed slightly then turned around to the other items.

Fire Arrow Talisman, Water Chain Talisman, Earth Armour Talisman... low-grade talismans of the five basic spells could be found here.

Besides them, there was also the Ice Thorn Talisman and the Golden Shield Talisman.

Ice and gold were both derived elements – one derived from water, the other from earth. Both elements were known for their great battle usage. Among the most destructive, the first element in front of these two would be lightening. But the price of lightening is even higher, because while ice and gold still had some defensive abilities and thereby split their focus, thunder was a purely offensive element. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

Finally, there were three weapons –

Earth Shield, Fire Sword and Wood Staff. All low-grade weapons.

’Basic ones but proven to be good. Earth has the highest defensive capabilities among the five elements, Fire is strong and explosive and the Wood Staff has various runes inscribed that passively improve every wood-spell cast, making it a favourite for spiritual farmers who can’t afford the proper set.’

He could see that although these weapons were basic, they targeted the key needs of cultivators in the village.

While the shop surely had better ones laying around, no one of them could compare to these three in attraction.

Though when he looked at the price, he was slightly shocked –

80 spirit stones for the sword, 110 for the shield and 150 for the staff!

This showed a part of the weapon refining industry.

Defensive items were always more expensive since one shield can block the full attack of a sword, no matter how many times it attacked.

On the other hand, auxiliary items were mostly expensive based on their use, the difficulty of crafting them, and their use in day-to-day actions.

A sword is only useful in a fight.

But a wooden staff could be used every time you casted farming spells, and also when you cast wooden attack and defense spells in a fight. It was quite understandable why its price was nearly double that of a sword.

In extreme cases, an auxiliary tool can be up to ten times the price!

’It’s quite understandable... if I had to choose, I would also rather buy the staff that has many uses, than a sword that can only attack. Even if I had a second choice, I’d choose the shield. And if I had three choices, I would ask if they had other auxiliary or defensive items, or maybe keep the money to buy some talismans...’

He was quite honest and slightly disdainful of pure attack weapons.

If he bought one, it should at least be a strong deadly weapon.

A sword was a battle weapon – it was good when fighting one on one, but in any other scenario, it would be quite useless.

Blades are better fighting one against a group. Spears are better in a large attack. Bows and arrows are better when hunting. And for a deadly attack, a dagger, thorn or needly would all be better.

He really couldn’t understand in which scenario he, a normal cultivator, would need or want a sword.