In the mortal financial markets, uninvested cash was subject to inflation. In the rogue training slums, uninvested spirit stones were subject to violence.
A lone fighter who hoarded eighty-eight low-grade spirit stones in a leather pouch was carrying thirteen pounds of glowing crystal-clear mass. That mass emitted a subtle spiritual hum that any wandering Layer 4 thug could detect through a thin wall. To hoard cash was to store volatility.
True wealth, Pei Jing understood, had to be right away converted into productive living and working capital. Dense body nutrition, high-heat fuel, and metalworking assets that couldn’t be stripped from a corpse without a fight.
At dawn, Pei Jing took sixteen low-grade spirit stones from his belt pouch.
He left the workshop by the rear drainage cleft, carrying an empty double-handled wooden hand-barrow. He didn’t visit the stalls operated by Shopkeeper Qian Tong’s Rogue Mutual Aid cartel. He walked two li west along the gorge to the outer border trading yards. There, the northern hunting caravans unloaded their bulk provisions.
Here, prices were determined by raw supply and demand, not by local monopoly fiat.
His first purchase was protein.
At the stall of a bearded hunter who had just returned from the northern scrub plains, Pei Jing selected a whole dried carcass of an Iron-Hoof Swamp Gazelle.
