Chapter 95: Haggle

Eren and Celeste’s footsteps were one and the same as they scaled the tilting tile forwards.

With each of their resounding footsteps, the Array Formation pulsed with a bilious red aura as their Ræzoň empowered the tile to float up higher and higher back up to its original position.

And as they reached the end of the tile, it had returned to a flat plane, allowing them to scale the high walls of the chamber above.

They didn’t stop. With nothing but their footsteps guiding them, they used their Negative Reinforcement to treat the wall as if it was the ground. They ran up, till eventually Eren grabbed the white flag with one hand.

Upon pulling it out of the wall, the Array Formation down below glowed red with its circuits for one last time.

Then, it remained glowing with a red hue, signalling the fact that its traps had been disarmed. From now on, these tiles would no longer fall upon being stepped on with no Ræzoň.

Eren and Celeste landed back on the ground tile, taking a deep breath as they did so.

He was exhilarated.

Contrary to his expectations, Celeste was crucial in their traversal of this trap.

She matched his steps. He thought he’d be the one to adjust to her own pace. But surprisingly, she was able to slow down her own footsteps in order to become perfectly aligned with him.

It was a silent agreement between them. An unacknowledged cooperation that was natural for them both, no discussions needed, no prior arrangements planned. She did what was needed for them to advance, and she did it without any prompting from him.

"That was close," she said beside him. "See?"

"Hmmm," Eren grumbled.

Celeste put her hands on her waist. "I can’t even get a, ’good job Celeste’, ’you did great’, ’I really underestimated you, Celeste?’. All I’ll get is a grumble?"

"You didn’t do so bad," Eren eventually said.

She bumped shoulders with him playfully before saying, "Whatever."

Then, she turned her attention back to the group with an enthusiastic shout. "Hey guys! We did it!"

Sierra immediately came over and hugged Celeste as congratulations. Henry and Abe both looked towards Eren and gave him slanted eyebrows and knowing looks.

"Shut up," he told them.

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Eventually, they harvested all of the Dragonhide minerals from the chamber. Once explored, they found a lot more flaps hidden in the wedges and cracks in between the walls, making their initial estimation quite wrong.

It took them half a day before they eventually finished with their mining. They left the chamber, only taking the Dragonhide and the flag with them.

Unlike the first Burrow they found, this chamber was not suitable to be used as a camp. It was barren, with no source of food, water, or warmth.

Most of the ground was filled with Array Formation tiles. And nobody wanted to sleep on top of those things for fear of it unexpectedly losing power and plummeting to the chasm below.

They returned to the Pitted Cavern, carrying the flaps of leather-like Dragonhide in their shoulders with proud looks on their faces.

As soon as they entered the large and spacious cavern, a few of the hawkers immediately noticed them.

"Is that Dragonhide?!"

"Ladies and gentlemen! Over here! We’ll buy those off of you for five hundred sunspores!"

"No, we’ll buy it for six hundred and fifty sunspores!"

There were a lot of offers coming their way. But Eren ignored them all. He estimated each flap to be worth a hundred sunspores. And they had twelve flaps in total.

These guys were scamming them.

Of course, Eren had no other intentions of selling these Dragonhide to these people. Why else had he created a connection with Pang Cai if not for these types of things?

They eventually found their way to the Cai district. It was a line of stalls owned by the scion of the Cai family, distinct by its imagery of dragons and red symbolisms.

Business must be real good if they had the luxury to design their makeshift stalls.

"My friend! My friend! My friend! Are my eyes deceiving me, or are those Dragonhide?!"

Pang Cai jogged towards them, wiping beads of sweat from his face as he did so.

"How much?" Eren said.

"You guys work fast! You are quite an efficient leader, aren’t you Eren? Most leaders have only just conquered their first Territory—"

"Enough flattery. Give me a price. " Pang Cai’s flowery words of praise would not work on Eren. He was way too experienced to fall for that.

"Ninety sunspores per flap."

Eren turned around.

"Wait! You know, I have to profit too! We have to transform these into usable products, you know? That requires sunspores!"

"A hundred fifty," Celeste said from Eren’s side.

"That’s way too much!"

"Is it?" she asked. "Then I guess we’ll have to seek out another businessman to take our wares to. How about that guy, Eren? He seems desperate to buy our Dragonhide."

Pang Cai stewed for a few seconds, before eventually exhaling. "Fine! A hundred and twenty. That’s my final offer!"

Eren haggled for a few minutes more till the price turned up to 125 sunspores per flap. He knew that was Pang Cai’s limit. It would probably be sold for 130 sunspores, so Pang Cai would profit from only 5 sunspores.

Sierra and the others were overjoyed upon seeing such veteran haggling from both Eren and Celeste. They would have been happy to get a hundred sunspores per flap!

"We’ll have enough sunspores to explore a lot of the other tunnels tomorrow!"

"Eren! We could buy some food to celebrate! I saw a vendor selling some jerky back there."

"How about we buy some armor? That would definitely help us become more safe."

As the entire group were discussing what they were going to do with their sunspores, the entire Pitted Cavern suddenly riled up.

Conversations, hushed talks... it seemed that something was happening.

Eren followed the crowd and saw that they were all looking at the large bright spot in the middle of the cavern.