For the entire hour that followed, Liam had his brain rattled loose by a system cursing him out.
Who knew how long this cat had existed, or how many civilizations it had lived through, because there was no "elegant" turn of phrase it couldn’t swear at him with. For a solid hour not one sentence repeated another. Truly a scholar of great learning.
In the end Liam had to promise to earn thirty million silver stars and deposit them to pay for a name change before the wretched animal would let him off.
Next came the listing. Liam brought out a number of high-technology goods for the system to appraise, and even tried putting in Sawtooth greens and Grass Worms. The system judged both of those to be energy-bearing matter, which could not be listed at a level-one stall.
The system lingered on the Grass Worms for quite a while, then said: [My recommendation is that you keep these and don’t sell them. Not in the Trading Hall and not out in the world either. This thing does a great deal of good for the body you have now.]
Liam asked in surprise: "This worm is that precious?"
The system answered: [What you call a Grass Worm has the system designation Cryomollis. It’s the principal ingredient in the manufacture of pheromone stabilizers in an ABO world considerably more advanced than yours.]
Liam’s mouth fell open as he looked at the boiled worms on the table. Then his eyes lit up into two coin shapes and he fired off questions: "Is that really true? So what’s the best way to get the full effect out of them?"
[With the state of your medical technology, you can’t extract the principal chemical component from its flesh yet. But at your world’s level, simply cooking and eating them the way you’ve been doing is already enough to stabilize pheromones.
Eating them raw is actually the most effective method, but I don’t recommend it, because a living Cryomollis carries a small quantity of radioactive toxin, and eating too many will get you killed.]
Liam shuddered: "I ate one raw the other day..."
[One won’t kill you. Be more careful next time.]
"Thanks, there won’t be a next time." Liam answered obediently. He was very fond of his own life, and going to join his ancestors over a bit of greed for food was not a worthwhile trade.
He rubbed his chin and began working out the business angle. The thing this planet of his had most of was thorny weeds, and every stalk of thorny weed held at least two Cryomollis. He said to the system: "Tell me. If I marketed this dish as a treatment for pheromone control disorders, what should I charge per kilogram?"
The system put on that contemptuous air again: [And you object when I call you short-sighted. How could you possibly sell goods this good by the kilogram? Sell them by the worm! Ten worms for a thousand silver stars!]
Liam swore out loud: "Are you out of your mind? A worm the size of a little finger for a hundred silver stars? Are you trying to get me thrown in prison?"
With a pop, the system that had been hiding inside Liam’s head leapt straight out. It stood in front of him with its paws on its hips, its right forepaw jabbing at his face as it lectured: "Have you taken in a single word I’ve said? This worm is a high-grade medicinal ingredient used to manufacture pheromone stabilizers in an advanced ABO world. In that world, the lowest grade of mental power is grade S. Do you understand? Do you?"
Mental power and pheromones were directly proportional, and grade-S mental power meant the pheromone pressure released was grade S as well. In this world, the people with the highest mental power grade were the former Crown Prince and the Marshal of the 1st Legion, both of them grade SS.
Liam’s eyes went blank and his hands began to shake. If a world where the lowest mental power grade was S still used this worm to make pheromone stabilizers, then set down in his own world it was a priceless treasure.
For the first time, Liam learned what it felt like to have been sleeping on top of a gold mine.
He swallowed, gripping the arm of his chair to keep himself from sliding onto the floor. It was a long moment before his lips managed to open, trembling, to ask the system: "Can this species be farmed?"
The system opened an information panel, checked through it and said: "It can be farmed, but it has to be fed on the red mulberry leaves of a level-three world. And that mulberry only grows in lava soil, with extremely complicated cultivation requirements. Rather than growing mulberry to feed worms, my recommendation is that you buy the leaves directly from over there, which works out cheaper."
Liam scrubbed hard at his own face to get it back to normal, and only then said to the system: "All right, we’ll deal with farming them later. I know what the Grass Worms are worth now, and I’ll draw up a sensible sales plan. For the moment, help me put my goods into the stall."
"Fine." The blue cat immediately swept its claws across the holographic screen, scanning the images and functions of every qualifying item and uploading them to the stall. Ten items went up in this first listing: low-grade nutrient fluid, high-grade nutrient fluid, low-grade medicine, mid-grade medicine, a meteorite energy lamp, radiation-proof armor, a wide-area electric gun, a handheld water filter, a time-freeze storage box, and cut-resistant alloy-fiber fabric.
That done, it asked Liam: "What do you want in exchange?"
A whole array of exchangeable items appeared in front of Liam. The system allowed him to select ten products per exchange. Liam scrolled through them for a while, then chose white rice, wheat flour, sweet potato slips, seed potatoes, heat-tolerant cucumber seeds, fertilized chicken eggs, heat-tolerant yardlong bean seeds, corn seed and Australian mandarins.
Liam had originally meant to pick heat-tolerant tomato seeds, but the moment he saw those plump, juicy Australian mandarins on the projection his mouth flooded with saliva. His reason was screaming at him to eat, so he chose them without a moment’s hesitation.
As for rice seed, in the first place Liam still hadn’t found anywhere suitable to grow wet rice or wheat. On top of that, the temperature on Cygnus at present was far too hot, and this was no time to be transplanting rice.
[Ting. Trade request confirmed and completed. Uploading stall to the Trading Hall... Upload successful. The system will notify you when another host agrees to an exchange.]
On the data panel, the line [Woof Woof’s Stall — awaiting trade] appeared, sparkling.
Looking at the name of his stall, Liam covered his forehead in despair. One minute of impulse, a lifetime of shovelling shit. Thank goodness the system still allowed him to pay for a name change.
He absolutely had to get his hands on thirty million silver stars as soon as humanly possible.
Liam had assumed he would be waiting several days at least. But less than ten minutes later the data panel gave a buzz.
[A stall has requested an exchange. Do you accept opening a trade panel?]
Liam hurriedly pressed accept. A table of light appeared in front of him, divided into two halves. On his side was one unit of low-grade medicine. The other half was empty, and then an object slowly took shape on it.
It was a coarse cloth sack, tied at the mouth with hemp cord, worn so old that the stitching along the edge had come apart.
Liam stared at the sack blankly, wondering when he had ever asked to trade for a cloth sack. But when the system brought up the verification panel, his eyes flew wide open.
[Corresponding item: glutinous corn seed, 3 kilograms. System performing final verification... Verification successful, locking the trade...]
The trade panel immediately displayed a locked status, and the green progress bar shot across at a frankly ungodly speed. At the same moment, the tube of low-grade medicine Liam had placed in the system storage vanished.
[Ting! Trade successful. Please check the item in your system storage.]
Liam drew a deep breath and opened the storage on the control panel. A cloth sack identical to the one on the trade panel sat neatly inside. Liam pressed the button and selected take out.
On the alloy tabletop there appeared an old, worn cloth sack, entirely out of keeping with the era.