Chapter 285: The Elixir.

Kael stared at Aurelius for several seconds after hearing his ridiculous introduction, unsure how he was even supposed to respond to it.

"I think I’ll just stick with Aurelius."

Aurelius paused before nodding approvingly.

"Well, that’s acceptable."

He didn’t seem offended in the slightest. Instead, Aurelius casually glanced around the Start Room, his golden eyes sweeping slowly across the brightly pink-colored walls.

"Quite an interesting choice of colors you have here, brat."

Kael’s gaze followed his, his teeth clenching slightly.

This motherfucker.

He didn’t say it aloud, of course. There was no reason to waste time arguing over the color of his Start Room. Besides, he had more important things to do.

"Actually, I called you here because I wanted to take a look at your wares."

Aurelius turned his attention back toward him.

"Sure. Since you possess one of my VIP cards, I suppose you have the right to do so."

His expression became slightly more serious.

"Though you better not be wasting my time. If you are, I might just revoke that VIP card."

Kael nodded calmly.

"Sure."

Aurelius raised his hand.

The moment his fingers moved, a translucent screen suddenly appeared in front of Kael.

Kael’s eyes immediately narrowed.

It wasn’t his Status Window. Instead, the screen was filled with rows upon rows of items, weapons, armor, potions, materials, artifacts, and strange objects whose purposes Kael couldn’t immediately identify.

Each item had its own price displayed beside it, ranging from relatively cheap to downright absurd.

Kael only needed a few glances before his expression gradually changed.

"This..."

He had already considered himself wealthy.

After all, the amount of Tower Coins he currently possessed was something most challengers could only dream about. But as Kael scrolled through Aurelius’s shop, that confidence slowly began to disappear.

There were items worth billions of Tower Coins.

Not millions.

Billions.

And those weren’t even the most expensive things listed.

Kael continued scrolling, his eyes moving across the various items as his expression became increasingly strange. There were simply too many things that cost ridiculous amounts of money.

Then something caught his attention.

An item was displayed prominently on the screen, its price listed as five Premium Coins.

Kael’s eyes immediately stopped.

He glanced at the item for a moment before turning toward Aurelius.

"This one says Premium Coin. What does that mean?"

Aurelius looked at the item Kael was pointing toward before answering casually.

"It’s simply a higher denomination of Tower Coins. One Premium Coin is equal to one hundred billion Tower Coins."

Kael froze, his mouth slowly falling open. One hundred billion, for a single Premium Coin.

His gaze snapped back to the shop interface.

The wealth he’d been so proud of, barely over a hundred billion Tower Coins, suddenly looked laughably small.

In other words, everything he possessed combined would barely amount to a single Premium Coin.

And he was looking at an item that cost five.

Kael’s expression became slightly complicated.

He continued scrolling.

Twenty Premium Coins.

Thirty.

Fifty.

Then he saw one whose price was just a little short of one hundred Premium Coins.

Kael stared at the screen in silence.

Just what kind of monsters were buying these things?

Aurelius seemed to notice his expression.

"Of course, most of the items that cost that much aren’t actually meant to be purchased with Tower Coins."

Kael raised an eyebrow.

"What do you mean?"

Aurelius casually crossed his arms.

"That much Tower Coin isn’t easy to gather, even for people at the higher levels of the Tower. It isn’t impossible, obviously, but anyone capable of accumulating that much wealth isn’t going to casually throw it all away on a single item unless that item is truly worth it."

He gestured toward the shop interface.

"So, for the more expensive items, direct purchases aren’t the only option. Exchanges are much more common."

"Exchanges?"

"Exactly. If you possess another item, or perhaps several items, with enough value and quality to match what you’re looking for, you can trade them instead."

Aurelius smiled.

"Of course, the value doesn’t have to be exactly the same in terms of Tower Coins. What matters is whether the items being offered are considered equivalent in quality and usefulness. If you possess something valuable enough, you can exchange it for something else of comparable worth."

Kael listened quietly.

After a moment, he nodded.

That made sense.

Without his Multiplier, there was no chance he would have been able to gather even a fraction of the wealth he currently possessed. Even with everything he had accumulated so far, his fortune was barely enough to equal one Premium Coin.

An ordinary Tower climber would need an enormous amount of time, luck, and opportunity to gather that kind of wealth.

Why would someone who had somehow accumulated dozens of Premium Coins then spend all of it on a single item?

Trading something of equivalent value was far more reasonable.

Kael’s understanding of the Tower’s economy had just expanded considerably.

With his question answered, he shifted his attention back toward the shop.

He continued scrolling through the endless list of items, carefully examining the things that caught his attention. Yet the longer he looked, the harder it became to maintain his original intention.

There were simply too many tempting things.

A weapon here.

An artifact there.

A strange material that he could already imagine finding a use for.

A potion with an effect that made him want to immediately add it to his Inventory.

Kael eventually stopped scrolling.

"I better stop."

Aurelius glanced toward him.

"Already?"

"I’ll start looking for what I actually need before I get tempted into splurging."

That was the problem.

In only a few minutes, Kael had already seen enough items to make him want to throw reason out the window and start buying everything that caught his eye.

Fortunately, most of them were ridiculously expensive.

That made resisting them considerably easier.

For now, he would hold back.

Once he obtained the things he actually needed, he could always come back and browse the shop again. There was no reason to waste his attention on things he didn’t currently require.

Kael stopped his aimless scrolling and began searching properly.

He filtered through the shop with a specific purpose now, ignoring the tempting items that appeared along the way. His eyes moved steadily across the interface until, after searching for a while, he suddenly stopped.

An item appeared in the center of the screen.

The display expanded automatically, bringing the item into full view.

Kael’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"The Elixir."