Corpse Maidens?

  Pierce followed Lawson's pointing finger. several young women sitting inside an iron cage immediately came into view.

  They sat motionless, staring blankly ahead. Their skin was pale, and their delicate features seemed slightly rigid. Loose, pitch-black robes could not hide their graceful figures. If not for their completely black eyes and the dense aura of undeath radiating from them, they would look no different from ordinary human girls.

  "Corpse Maidens do not need sleep, do not need to eat, work without complaint, and never feel fatigue. They are undoubtedly the finest servants," Lawson introduced them while carefully observing Pierce's expression.

  Seeing the young Wizard's eyes remain clear and calm—lacking the look of someone with "special inclinations"—he swallowed the rest of his sales pitch.

  However, as soon as his voice faded, Tobin shook his head and retorted, "Although Corpse Maidens do not need food, they must absorb Nether Energy periodically, or they will decay and 'die.' That is a significant expense."

  "Moreover, places where Corpse Maidens stay for long periods will breed Corpse Qi. Unless one has the constitution of a Knight or higher, living in the same environment as a Corpse Maiden for a long time will lead to illness and vitality loss at best, and life force exhaustion and death at worst."

  Lawson looked at Tobin in surprise. He hadn't expected this plain-looking middle-aged man to know so much about Corpse Maidens.

  Looking at Pierce's youthful face again, Lawson instantly realized: This man must be an officer from the Wizard Management Department, specifically accompanying this newly advanced Wizard to select slaves.

  People from the Wizard Management Department were shrewd and hard to fool.

  Thinking of this, Lawson instantly perked up, putting on his best professional demeanor. He chuckled and guided Pierce to another section.

  "It does not matter. If my Lord is dissatisfied with the Corpse Maidens, there are many other slaves to choose from."

  "For example, this one."

  Lawson stopped in front of another cage and pointed to the creatures inside.

  "Water Sprites. They have a gentle temperament, love cleanliness, and can manipulate the power of the water element. They are also an excellent choice for servants."

  The Water Sprites Lawson mentioned were about a meter tall, slightly taller than Halflings. They had coppery hair and skin like creamy fat. Their faces were perfect, as if they had walked out of a painting. Their deep, dark eyes were large and round, and their ears were long and folded back, carrying a hint of elven characteristics.

  Although Water Sprites had "water" in their name, they did not live in water. On the contrary, they preferred to live in small groves or on the peaks of hills.

  Water Sprites were known as the embodiment of nature's beauty, their appearances born exquisite. In many fantasy works, Water Sprites were often tools to provide help to heroic knights. Unfortunately, reality was cruel. Because of their weak combat power and exquisite appearance, Water Sprites were extremely popular slave commodities in many planes, making them easy targets for planar slavers.

  "My Lord, Water Sprites are indeed very suitable for the daily cleaning of the mansion," Tobin leaned in and whispered.

  Pierce nodded slightly and turned to ask Lawson, "The price?"

  Lawson's spirit lifted, and he answered without thinking, "450 Magic Stones for one Water Sprite. If you buy more than five at a time, you get a 5% discount."

  "Too expensive!" Tobin refuted without hesitation. "Do not think I do not know the market price. A Myriad Flower Sprite is only about 700 Magic Stones. Your Water Sprite is far less valuable than a Myriad Flower Sprite. It is not worth 450 Magic Stones at all. At most 300."

  "Guest, you must be joking. 300 Magic Stones is enough to buy a Green Sprite, maybe..."

  The two engaged in a battle of words, haggling back and forth, and finally settled on a price of 415 Magic Stones per sprite.

  The Water Sprites in the cage seemed to foresee their fate of being sold. They hugged each other, trembling, looking at Pierce and the other two with fear.

  "My Lord, this price is about right. You will not get a lower one in other tents," Tobin whispered.

  Pierce nodded slightly and pointed to the cage. "Six Water Sprites. I will take them all."

  Lawson beamed with joy, nodding repeatedly.

  Six Water Sprites, even with a 5% discount, would cost over 2,300 Magic Stones. This was undoubtedly a big deal. With this deal done, the commission he could get was not a small amount. How could he not be excited?

  "Does my Lord need other slaves?" Lawson became even more enthusiastic, bowing his waist a few degrees lower unconsciously. "Do you have foreign races here that are good at taking care of rare plants?"

  "Yes, of course!" Lawson nodded without hesitation. "Wood Elves and Withered Leaf Sprites are experts at tending rare plants."

  "Wood Elves are 100 Magic Stones each, and Withered Leaf Sprites are 50 Magic Stones each. How many do you want, my Lord?"

  Pierce estimated slightly and said, "Five Wood Elves and ten Withered Leaf Sprites."

  "No problem. I will take the liberty of giving my Lord a 10% discount on these."

  Lawson said with a face full of smiles, then led Pierce to select the Wood Elves and Withered Leaf Sprites.

  Wood Elves were the elves Pierce had seen working in the medicine plots of Garden No. 8. They could naturally communicate with plants and were good at taking care of various rare plants. Their understanding in this aspect was by no means inferior to a Tier 1 Potioneer.

  The same was true for Withered Leaf Sprites. They could sense the state of plants better than Wood Elves and naturally awakened spell-like abilities similar to Plant Growth, allowing plants to grow better.

  However, they were small in size, similar to Myriad Flower Sprites, and found it difficult to move pots and pans to water plants, so Pierce specially bought a few Wood Elves to help.

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  After making the selection, Pierce waved his hand. "That is all."

  "A total of 3,265.5 Magic Stones. I will remove the fraction and charge you only 3,260 Magic Stones."

  After Pierce paid the fee, Lawson added, "Our trading firm has a free delivery service. We can send the slaves to your residence. Do you need it, my Lord?"

  Pierce nodded and wrote down the address of the mansion. "Send them here."

  After Lawson agreed, Pierce led Tobin out of the tent.

  Since he had finally come to the slave market, Pierce wasn't in a hurry to go back, so he strolled around.

  There were many types of slaves in the market, including those at the Legendary Knight level, whose prices were not much higher than Water Sprites. A Tier 1 Legendary Barbarian in his prime cost only 600 Magic Stones.

  Pierce had actually considered buying a few foreign races as followers, but after careful consideration, he gave up. Slaves sold in the slave market generally didn't have good aptitude or potential. Furthermore, foreign races couldn't cultivate the Omniscient Breathing Technique, so it was better to cultivate his own people, which had more promise.

  While his thoughts drifted, Pierce unknowingly arrived at an incredibly noisy area surrounded by various sharp and harsh beast roars.

  It was a place selling Magical Creatures.

  "Even magical creatures are sold in the slave market?" Pierce was a little surprised.

  Tobin explained with a smile, "My Lord, this is a unique business of the Myriad Realms Slave Market. Among the three slave markets, only this one sells magical creatures."

  Pierce immediately slowed down and looked at the stalls one by one.

  Unexpectedly, there were quite a few types of magical creatures here. Parrot Beasts, Ankhegs, Arrowhawks, Basilisks, Couatls... There were even powerful magical creatures that formal Wizards would covet.

  For example, the Azure Dragon-Snake (Behir).

  This magical creature was said to have a trace of thin dragon bloodline in its body. Many Wizards liked to extract its blood for research, intending to refine the dragon bloodline from it. Moreover, the Azure Dragon-Snake itself was not weak in combat power. It would take at least three ordinary Tier 1 Legendary Knights joining forces to suppress an Azure Dragon-Snake. The capture difficulty was not low. Therefore, the price of an Azure Dragon-Snake was as high as 1,200 Magic Stones.

  As he strolled, Pierce corresponded the magical creatures he saw with the data in his mind, treating it as expanding his knowledge.

  However, after turning a corner, his gaze suddenly shifted. He walked a few steps quickly and stopped in front of a stall.

  Tobin was stunned. After reacting, he hurriedly followed. He thought Pierce had seen a magical creature he was interested in, but upon closer inspection, he was a little confused.

  It was just a flock of Red-eyed Ravens. What was so strange about them?

  Red-eyed Ravens possessed the ability to see through illusions, easily detecting invisibility and phantasms, but their combat power was very low—only slightly better than ordinary ravens. Among many magical creatures, Red-eyed Ravens were considered one of the lowest types. Only some Wizard Apprentices would buy Red-eyed Ravens to guard their houses. As for Wizards, they preferred to rely on protective arrays and warning traps.

  Despite his confusion, Tobin didn't dare to disturb Pierce and stood quietly aside to wait.

  Pierce stared intently at the Red-eyed Ravens in the cage. The moment he saw the Red-eyed Ravens, he suddenly thought of Mist Raven.

  After he advanced to Wizard, although Mist Raven's strength had improved, the increase was far below his expectations. Mist Raven, having fused with all the Fog Crows, could probably barely contend with an ordinary Wizard who had just advanced. But once it encountered a Wizard approaching the limit of the Rank 1 Gaseous Phase, it would likely be crushed.

  Of course, under normal circumstances, it was already very amazing for a familiar to have such combat power.

  It should be known that familiars were originally transitional items for the Wizard Apprentice stage. They were transformed from ordinary creatures, which destined them to have a low innate foundation. It was simple to cultivate them to the Knight or Grand Knight level, but going further, the difficulty multiplied geometrically. For a formal Wizard's familiar, having combat power at the Tier 1 Legendary level was already good. Mist Raven would absolutely crush 99% of familiars out there.

  Historically, Wizards had tried to transform magical creatures into familiars, but without exception, they all failed. Although magical creatures and familiars were both creatures that had awakened spell-like abilities, there was a fundamental difference between the two.

  The former had naturally awakened spell-like abilities. The latter were originally just ordinary creatures. Through spell transformation and borrowing the Wizard's soul power, they awakened spell-like abilities postnatally.

  The existence of a familiar depended entirely on the Wizard. Once the Wizard stopped supplying mental power, the familiar would gradually die out. It was precisely because of this that familiars could awaken special abilities such as Emotional Link and Shared Vision.

  Although magical creatures could also sign contracts with Wizards and become Wizards' pets, they remained separate individuals. Naturally, they couldn't use the Wizard's soul power to awaken new spell-like abilities or special abilities.

  Pierce certainly didn't want to transform the Red-eyed Raven into a familiar. He just had a sudden flash of inspiration: Could Mist Raven transform corvine magical creatures into Fog Crows?

  It should be noted that a large part of Mist Raven's strength came from the Fog Crows. Whether increasing the number of Fog Crows or strengthening the combat power of the Fog Crows, it could conversely improve Mist Raven's combat power. If this method was feasible, then Mist Raven's growth space would undoubtedly skyrocket to an unimaginable level.

  Pierce's eyes gradually lit up, and he immediately asked the stall owner, "Do you have any other corvine magical creatures?"

  The owner had noticed this young Wizard long ago and didn't dare to offend him. Hearing this, he smiled apologetically, "Sorry, my Lord, I only have Red-eyed Ravens here."

  Pierce was slightly disappointed, but he didn't say anything. He pointed to the cage of Red-eyed Ravens and said, "I will take them all."

  The owner was overjoyed and said hurriedly, "Thank you, thank you, my Lord. There are forty-five Red-eyed Ravens here in total. Three hundred gold coins each, a total of 27 Magic Stones."

  "Can you deliver them to my door?"

  "No problem."

  Pierce nodded, paid 27 Magic Stones, left the address, and turned to leave. He wasn't afraid of the owner playing tricks. Unless the man was tired of living, he wouldn't dare take advantage of a Wizard.

  After leaving the stall, Pierce continued to wander around the square.

  This time he had a specific goal: Corvine Magical Creatures.

  He planned to buy as many raven-type magical creatures as possible and experiment with them one by one after returning.

  It took more than two hours, but Pierce finally found two more types of corvine magical creatures.

  One was the Death Knell Raven.

  This was a social raven capable of emitting sonic attacks. They moved in groups of hundreds or thousands. When encountering strong enemies, they would screech together, emitting ear-piercing sonic waves. When the number exceeded a thousand, the sonic waves emitted by Death Knell Ravens could even forcefully blast a Tier 2 Legendary Knight into blood mist.

  The other was the Nether Raven.

  Even among many corvine magical creatures, this raven was ranked in the upper-middle tier. Nether Ravens were born in places with thick death auras, such as graveyards, battlefields, or plague-ridden towns. They fed on the death energy of corpses. Long-term absorption of death energy allowed them to birth a trace of the Power of Death, causing death erosion to non-undead life forms when attacking.

  Under normal circumstances, a single Nether Raven was enough to easily kill a Tier 1 Legendary Knight. Even a Tier 2 Legendary Knight would have a massive headache facing a Nether Raven. Only Wizards with defensive spells who could briefly resist the Power of Death could deal with Nether Ravens.

  Because the capture difficulty was extremely high, the price of Nether Ravens remained high. A single Nether Raven cost 800 Magic Stones. Fully 80 times that of a Death Knell Raven.

  Pierce eventually bought 53 Death Knell Ravens and 2 Nether Ravens. In addition, he found Red-eyed Ravens at two other stalls and bought a total of 102 Red-eyed Ravens.

  By the time he left the Myriad Realms Slave Market, there were less than thirty Magic Stones left in Pierce's spatial ring.

  "I have to find a way to make money again."

  Pierce shook his head secretly, then took out a bottle of Spirit-Guard Potion and tossed it to Tobin.

  "You worked hard today. This potion is a thank-you gift."

  Tobin caught it subconsciously and said, overwhelmed by the favor, "This is my duty, my Lord, you do not need to..."

  Pierce waved his hand to interrupt him.

  Seeing this, Tobin hesitated but finally accepted it, thanking Pierce repeatedly. A bottle of Spirit-Guard Potion had a market price of twelve Magic Stones. For a Level 3 Wizard Apprentice like him, it was definitely a considerable income. At this moment, his gratitude to Pierce was undoubtedly much more sincere.

  Pierce then hailed a carriage and boarded it under Tobin's respectful gaze, leaving the commercial district.