9 Trade and Barter

Fei Lei raised his brow at her attempt to petition his help and said, "Okay, I'll agree to be your bodyguard, but I don't want any money."

Yan Mei covered her breast and groin as she started to walk backward in a defensive manner.

"You can't take that from me!" Yan Mei shouted making Fei Lei turn red in the face.

Stomping his foot on the ground, Fei Lei shouted back with an embarrassed expression, "I'm not talking about that! Will you get your mind out of the gutter! What I want is knowledge. Teach me everything you know about magic."

Yan Mei looked offended as she crossed her arms and frowned before saying, "What, you don't find me attractive?" Their

"I didn't say that either!" Fei Lei shouted as he crouched to the ground and sighed.

Yan Mei's face lit up a little and an innocent smile came across her face.

"How long can you run?" Fei Lei asked as his eyes peeked over at her.

Yan Mei, feeling a little happy that he thought well of her looks almost missed the question when she said, "I'm a Spell Caster, not some adventurer or mercenary. I'm not good at physical things."

Fei Lei then turned around and said, "Do you know what a piggyback ride is?"

Her face flushed red as she spoke, "Yes, but I'm not a child! Can't you just carry me with that strange transparent hand?"

"No, I have to use all my concentration so we don't fall to our deaths. Now do you want to go to the nearby village or not?" Fei Lei questioned still squatting down.

He stood waiting for her to hop on his back and invited her with a bit of impatience in his voice, "Well?"

Yan Mei couldn't help but blush as she reluctantly placed her arms around his back, and asked, "Okay, now what?"

"Now, you hold on tight," Fei Lei said as he took off.

Surprised by his speed, she gripped onto his neck tightly, and let out a small frightened eep.

When they left the cave, Fei Lei started to create footholds in the air with his telekinesis.

Yan Mei watched as small glass-like platforms formed in the air and glimmered through the early morning sunlight.

Fei Lei took off and began hopping up higher through the air as fast and he could move.

Shooting up into the skies, Yan Mei let out a cry of fear, mixed with excitement. Looking around at the sight before her, she couldn't help but smile as she said, "You, you, can fly?"

"More like run on the air, now, keep your mouth shut unless you want to bite your tongue," Saying this, Fei Lei began to run even quicker.

To make sure she was comfortable he created a thin telekinetic barrier over her body to protect her from the wind speeds.

As Fei Lei dashed across the sky, Yan Mei couldn't help but be shocked at the speeds in which they were traveling.

Yan Mei leaned forward pushing her breast push up against him, she then placed her face near his ear before asking, "How are you doing this? You're moving as fast as a person using a Rank 1 Wind Hast Spell."

Fei Lei almost fell over, catching himself, he turned back to her with a red face and shouted, "I have my secrets! Now be quiet, I have to focus."

Returning his full attention to the matter at hand, Fei Lei started running again when he heard Yan Mei say, "If you want me to teach you about magic, then you have to teach me how you use your Sigil."

Fei Lei stopped again, looking back at her with an annoyed expression, he snorted before saying, "What part of 'no talking' do you not understand? I could just toss you off right here and wash my hands of this whole ordeal?"

Yan Mei looked at him squeezing her arms around him tighter as she shouted, "You can't!"

Fei Lei shook his head and said, "Even though I have no actual education in magic, I do have an unorthodox one. Moreover, I know the first rule of Spell Caster's everywhere, is not to tell them how they use their Personal-Magic!"

"Those are more like guidelines, all Spell Caster's know to take those rules with a grain of salt. Please! I merely want to know how you overcame the Human Transfiguration Sigil drawbacks," Yan Mei begged.

Moving closer to his ear she spoke softly, "Pretty please! Learning magic is all I'm concerned about. It's the only real hobby I have!"

Fei Lei was surprised to hear that she had such a scholar's attitude, he then smiled and said, "You'll teach me everything you know, and I will tell you how I managed to make use of my Spell Sigil."

Yan Mei smiled and said, "Deal! You can't take your words back, or else you're not a real man, at least that's what my papa always says."

Fei Lei shook his head and carried on running across the sky. As they approached the nearest village, he saw that it was a rather small farming village, with a few good shops owned by some low ranking nobles.

Fei Lei stopped a little ways away from the village gates, "Can you teach me to use whatever that...thing you used to run on the air?" Yan Mei asked as she stepped down off his back.

"No, no I will not." Fei Lei answered.

"Why?!" Yan Mei shot back.

"Because it doesn't correlate to magic," Fei Lei said with a joking tone.

In response to his teasing, Yan Mei stomped her foot and shouted, "Meanie!"

Fei Lei ignored her name-calling and walked through the village gate. Looking around Fei Lei inspected the overall state of the village, he saw that it was similar to the middle ages in Europe, there was no sign of technology or any understanding of science.

There were starving children on the street begging for their next meal. Dying crops infected with plant-eating insects and almost all of the townspeople were poor, with no middle-class to be seen anywhere in sight.

Fei Lei frowned before saying, "This place is really run down."

He turned back to see Yan Mei passing out money from a strange black ring on her finger.

The beggars eagerly took the money and started to run off. Fei Lei sighed as he shook his head as he walked over to her.

Placing his hand on her shoulder, Fei Lei said, "And now, you just put a mark on your wallet."

Yan Mei gave him a funny look, "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you don't understand how the poor survive, some of those kids will try and keep the money from their handler and tell them you were the one passing it out. Then the hustler will probably hire bandits to steal from you if the kids fail. Those that try to keep the money for themselves will probably be beaten or even killed. If you wanted to help them, you should have given them food," Fei Lei answered shaking his head.

Yan Mei's face paled, as she went turned to go chase after the children Fei Lei grabbed her shoulder and said, "Going after them now and taking the money back isn't going to help."

"Then are you going to just let them suffer?" Yan Mei looked at Fei Lei with fury in her eyes.

Fei Lei sighed a little before turning his head to the side and letting out a hidden smile.

He was happy to see that Yan Mei would just give away her money to the poor so selflessly as she did, that, and she wasn't as stuck up as he first thought.

Grabbing her waist, Fei Lei jumped onto a nearby roof with Yan Mei attached to his hip as he said, "If you want to help people like this, and I mean really want to help, then you have to solve the root of the problem. What you did would only provide a temporary solution, if you want to help them, get them a job, or teach them to live without money. Fish for a person and you feed them for a day, teach them to fish and you feed them for life."

Yan Mei had never heard that idiom before, but she rather liked it as she mumbled it a few times to memorize it, "Teach a person to fish, huh?

He started following the largest group of kids and Yan Mei followed him, only stopping so that Fei Lei could carry here to another perch.

After a few minutes, they arrived at a rundown shack to see the kids handing off the money to a middle-age out of shape man, and as Fei Lei expected, they were being used by that man.

In return, they only received a small meal that looked like week-old bread and was rewarded with no money of their own.

Fei Lei helped Yan Mei hop down and the two walked over to towards the children.

The man who was in charge of the orphans looked at the kids and back to Fei Lei, it appeared that he was just a regular old bum who had nothing better to do than make the peasants of this village miserable.

"You morons led someone here? Useless all of you!" The hustler shouted as he tried to hit a kid.

Fei Lei grabbed his hand and gently slapped the criminal into the wall.

Surprised by his strength, Fei Lei played it off as if meant to use that much force and approached the child-abuser.

Fei Lei then took on a fierce expression as he gabbed the kids' handler by his hair and said, "Now listen up! Scumbag! Whatever you're wasting their money on ends here."

Fei Lei punched a fist-sized hole through his house as a show of force before he continued speaking, "You're going to take the money and build a proper orphanage, or else."

Fei Lei then pointed to Yan Mei and said, "You see my magician friend over there? She's going to put a little curse on you, and if you don't treat these kids right and do your job...Well..."

Fei Lei gave her some hand gestures as if he were saying, play along.

Yan Mei smiled as she understood the gist of what he wanted her to do, she waved her hand as a scorch mark appeared and branded the man's arm.

Fei Lei held the thug in place while he yelled from the pain of being branded, and after the mark had been singed into his flesh, Fei Lei showed a wicked smile as he said, "You have 5 months to build that orphanage. Better hurry and finish in time, if you don't want that mark to spontaneously combust into flames."

The hustler's face whitened and started to sweat profusely, "Please spare me! I promise! I promise! Just take this thing off of me."

Fei Lei denied the crook's request and then turned to the kids.

Walking over he put his hand on the shoulder of the oldest child and said, "Okay kids, return any the funds and any valuables that you stole to their owners, and keep enough to fill your stomachs. You guys can't count on him and need to learn to take care of each other. Especially you kid, as the oldest it's up to you to take care of them."

The kids started to do as he said with cheerful smiles on their faces. The oldest was a young boy no older than thirteen, and seeing him work hard for his fellow orphans put a genuine smile on Fei Lei's lips.

Seeing this, Yan Mei walked over to him and said, "Thanks for helping. Ya, know what? You're really cute when you smile."

"I didn't do it for you! Let's just finish shopping so we can go home," Fei Lei responded with a slightly red face.

He headed back towards the town market hiding his expression as Yan Mei followed behind him with a teasing smile and said, "Aren't you going to ask?"

Fei Lei tilted his head back and said, "Ask what?"

Yan Mei lifted her hand to show off the magic item and said, "You have been glancing at it ever since I gave those kids some money, clearly you've never seen one before."

"Okay, I'll bite. What is that?" Fei Lei asked while pointing to the ring on her finger.

"It's a spatial ring. A magic relic that almost no one knows how to make any more, this is the weakest kind you can buy," Yan Mei explained before she pulled tapped the surface of the spatial ring with another that she was wearing.

The items in her spare ring sent all of her belongings to her main ring before Yan Mei tossed the recently emptied ring over to Fei Lei.

As Fei Lei caught it, Yan Mei continued her explanation by saying, "Keep it, it can store up to 100 cubic meters, not a bad for a body guard's paycheck, right?"

Fei Lei put the ring on and asked, "How do I use it?"

"Just put a little bit of your mana into it and think of placing in or pulling an object out," Yan Mei answered as she placed her hands behind her back and skipped to his side.

Fei Lei pulled a large leather pouch off of his belt that was full of 3-Star Magic Beast Cores and followed her instructions.

Using an unnoticeably small amount of Mana, the entire bag disappeared in front of his eyes and he could sense that all the Mana Cores were now floating inside the ring.

"Nice, it reminds me of something. What was it called again, spatial...compression? Augh! These memories are a mess. I just wish I could make more sense of them." Fei Lei thought as he placed the ring on his index finger.

As they made their way into the shopping district, Fei Lei saw many things he wanted to buy. A few beds, clothes, and some different ores such as Iron, copper, aluminum, and gold.

When he tried to pay for the items with the Magic Core, Yan Mei stopped him, and told him, "If you want to buy these mundane things, never use your Magic Cores as payment. If you need Gold Bills, just give me that Fire Core, and I'll give you the market price on it."

"Fine." Fei Lei shrugged his shoulders before he threw over the biggest Fire-type Core he had.

Yan Mei gave off a radiant smile as she handed over three hundred thousand Golden Bills.

After seeing the paper currency, Fei Lei thought that the currency was similar to American paper bills, as the Gold Bills each had numbers representing 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000.

"This much is?!" Fei Lei stared at the money in shock, unaware of how much he was given.

Yan Mei held up the Fire Core with a satisfied expression as she said, "The appropriate amount, I assure you. Ordinarily, it takes a team to take on high ranking Magical Beasts, and usually, the core will get damaged in the battle. Even if someone managed to get a Magic Core in one piece, they would have to split the core with their party members."

"Are there not solo adventurers to take such jobs?" Fei Lei questioned.

Yan Mei shook her head before she responded, "Solo magicians are rare, and fully intact cores even more so. Each low-grade perfect Core is worth 1 hundred thousand Gold Bills. Any mid-ranking magic stones 4 Star trough 6 Star Cores are worth millions, and the last three are high-grade Cores then you can trade those in for billions. Damaged or cut Cores sell for a lot less."

Fei Lei accepted her explanation as he stored the money and started to go on a shopping spree.

He bought the beds, a bunch of random metals, and when he came across a certain shiny crystalline mineral, Fei Lei almost fell down in surprise.

"Excuse me where did you get this?" Fei Lei asked the shopkeep.

As Fei Lei picked up the crystal mineral, the clerk looked at him and shook his head before saying, "It's not diamond, so don't worry about the cost. I just left it out because it's shiny, it's far too brittle to be used in for jewelry. It's only worth 50 Gold Bills if you're interested."

"I'll buy it!" Fei Lei handed over the cash and pulled the ore into his ring.

Looking around before he leaned in closer to the shop owner, Fei Lei then asked, "Can you tell me if you have any more of this stuff?"