Chapter 124: Acquiring Herbs

{Friend, could you tell us how you manage to resist the attacks of the psychic illusions? We don’t even dare to enter, because something goes wrong within just a few hundred paces.}
“Yeah, can you tell us how to get in? We just want to hunt some prey on the outskirts.”
Since this mountain appeared nearby, many have entered and lost their lives.
Matters related to mental attacks, and even items tied to psionic abilities, were no longer news around here. Although most understood such treasures were beyond their grasp, they still yearned to enter the mountain—because the life force of the beasts within was a source of extra time for them.
Unfortunately, this place was a forbidden zone for them; they could only ambush the occasional beasts that ran out, and that depended on luck.
Yet these people before them could enter the mountain and deal with the threat.
Luo Bin had just finished off a few more rabid giant beasts. Only after they dared not approach and fled in all directions did he wipe a handful of grass leaves over the bloodstains on his sword, and let out a chuckle, saying:
“Sorry, folks. We’re just here to find someone. We won’t be playing along with you all anymore.”
{Boss, aren’t you going to continue? We’ll back you with the investment.}
Amid a wave of lamentations in the financing model.
The crowd watched disappointingly as they saw the extra-lifespan dividends portioned out to them from a few months or years to over a decade.
Luo Bin cheerfully tried to hand half of the remaining roughly hundred and fifty years’ worth of Chronon to Yang Zicang, only to be met with a scornful glare and refusal from him.
“Xue Lao’er hasn’t been found yet; things don’t look good.”
……
Both Yang Zicang and Luo Bin felt only a slight sense of disappointment, while Qiao Ming back in Hub Town was already lost in anxious uncertainty, torn between hope and fear.
“I can only hope that no one has yet caught wind of the model’s report on the discovery of the Chrono Weapon.”
The fact that partners were able to move freely within the mountain impressed Qiao Ming while stirring up trouble for him, leaving him both in admiration and paranoia.
He could only pin his hopes on those having the real chance to find the weapon in time and give it back as per their agreement. Otherwise, facing off against two quadrilateral models, it would be pure wishful thinking to use the forces of the Lost-Frequency Land to pressure a surrender of the weapon.
Outside the mountain, Lost-Frequency Land.
YangZicang and Luo Bin wandered around the outskirts of the forest for half a day. After dealing with a few wild beasts, they took turns sleeping and resting. Once the train appeared at night, they set off toward the nearby Ji Yun greenhouse zone.
A gentle night breeze blew.
In the Land of Lost Frequencies, people were driven by survival instincts, their sense of day and night blurred. Outside the greenhouse zone at night, figures carrying small buckets walked to fetch water from the Wangchuan Stream. Inside the greenhouses, it was even livelier, seeming no different from daytime.
“Who goes there?”
“We’re here to collect some medicinal herbs, like Silver Leaf Grass, dried Phantom Vine, and Rainbow Fruit.”
The gatekeeper of the zone didn’t ask them any further questions. He simply pointed them toward the trading area for outsiders and let them in.
Half an hour later, YangZicang walked out of the entrance loaded with large bundles of medicinal herbs, leaving the guard staring wide-eyed.
“So cheap, all this cost less than twenty years of Sequence Time.”
Luo Bin clicked his tongue in amazement: “That pill cost at most the equivalent of five months to make, but they dared to priced it at a hundred years.”
“He was waiting for me to haggle. Even if I cut it down to five years a piece at the back of his foot, he’d still make ten times the profit.”
Luo Bin flipped through a herbal catalog he had bought, which turned out to be the most expensive item, costing him 10N.
Inside were useful plant specimens and names that had been compiled over the years in the Land of Lost Frequencies. Some names were established by convention, while others came from data obtained through deciphering books from other worlds.
“I used to have a book that recorded magical pattern arrays from another world,” Yang Zicang said as he walked, carrying his bag with a stick.
“Used to? You haven’t been here that long…” Luo Bin thought for a moment, adjusted the bag slung over his shoulder, and asked speechlessly, “Where’s the book?”
“It got shattered by that one shot I used to block a rat.”
“……”
Wasn’t that right when this guy first entered this world? What rotten luck.
By around three or four in the morning, Yang Zicang had scoured all the medium and large shed areas nearby, buying up every medicinal herb that could be used to make incense pills.
This commotion even caught the attention of the young reporter.
The bored little ones curiously sized up Yang Zicang, laden with bags and bundles, but since no fame growth occurred, they merely watched out of idle curiosity.
In Hub Town, the duty staff watching several screens yawned.
“What are they up to?”
They stared somewhat puzzled at the two figures, Yang Zicang and the other, shuttling between the shed areas all night long.
“No idea, no context whatsoever—who knows what they’ve been doing during the day.”
……
By the time Yang Zicang finished his all-night scavenging and amassed a mountain of medicinal herbs, it was almost time for the temperature to rise again.
Seizing the final moments before the train returned to the city’s metro tracks, Yang Zicang rode the nightmare subway to a spot near Hub Town, then led Luo Bin on foot toward the hazy city on the horizon’s edge.
Upon re-entering the town, shrouded as if in mist, the faded figure of Mori was already waiting here.
“Good morning.”
“Morning, Mr. Zicang. Another sleepless night, huh?”
“It’s fine—sleeping during the day is warmer.” Yang Zicang joked, having hung out with Zuo Feixian and the others a bit more these days.
“Haha, alright. Well, this nightmare machine is the best one I borrowed from someone.”
Beside him was something like a radio, covered in scale-like patterns, a model artifact formed from a slain nightmare.
Luo Bin immediately recognized its purpose: it could expand the scope of the financing model, receive model financing requests from farther away, and also enable proactive investments targeting strangers at greater distances.
“Anyway, it’s pointless to buy those crappy things that only add a few dozen kilometers with Timeslic. I’ll grab a better one when I get the chance—this will do for now.”
“How many kilometers can it extend?”
“Heh heh, this thing has a range of over two hundred kilometers. It’s top-tier stuff—no wonder the owner was reluctant to sell it.”
Luo Bin nodded. This device was among the best in his own requisitions. The fact that this man could borrow it suggested he had good credit.
“But what exactly are you planning to do?”
“You’ll find out.” Yang Zicang picked it up, testing its weight. This was the main reason he came today.
“Your connections are much better now, huh. You even managed to borrow something like this.”
“It’s all thanks to the Boost License.”
Luo Bin’s ears perked up.
“You have no idea how crazed the experts in Hub Town have become. Even those Red Model guys in our city are bugging me desperately, begging to get in touch, all for a ready-to-use secret technique.”
Morian lifted his head. “Good thing I went for the private, high-end route from the start; otherwise, I wouldn’t be able to move on the street without getting surrounded. But as word slowly spreads, the pressure’s building. Heh heh.”
“Oh, right, and here are the Ability Spheres you wanted.” Mori handed a small pouch of Ability Spheres to Yang Zicang.
Beside them, Luo Bin’s heart started pounding.
Damn, so those skill books came from this guy after all.
Luo Bin’s small eyes darted between Yang Zicang and Mori, pondering how likely it was that he’d get his hands on a good secret technique in the future.
So far, from what he knew, there were four books: Flame, Frost, Silent Night, and Glass Perception.
Among them, Frost had the weakest presence, because gathering snowflakes took much longer than shooting flames, and its freezing ability was limited. But sometimes it came in handy—especially in cold zones like snowy mountains, where it would be the strongest secret technique.
He wondered how many other goodies they had that he didn’t know about.
“How many timing cycles do you think we can grab this time?” Mori asked.
“No idea. If it’s a few hundred kilometers, it’ll take them forever to get here. Besides, even if I finish collecting the herbs, at most half a month later, they’ll start being harvested again.”
“Yeah, that’s true. This business is only profitable upfront.”
“Well, we’re not the only ones who can make incense pills. When that happens, the price will drop significantly. So we can only earn a large amount of temporal energy in the first one or two weeks, but it’s still a decent opportunity.”
Luo Bin became increasingly uneasy as he listened. “Wait, you collected these things just to sell incense pills?”
Yang Zicang smiled and handed a small pouch of incense pills to Mori, then took one out and tossed it to Luo Bin.
The two took a sniff and felt their pores open all over. Luo Bin’s entire body went numb in an instant—half from the fumes and half from excitement.
“I really feel like coming over to join you two,” Mori said.
“That’s simple. You just need to implant my hub, and I’ll be able to come in and pick you up.”
Mori had witnessed Yang Zicang’s Mind Dragon eject the hub with his own eyes, and he still had a subconscious fear of that sight. He shook his head:
“Bro, it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just that the thought of having something like that in my head makes me feel like I’ll lose my mind. Let me get past this mental block first before we talk about it.”
After a pause, he continued:
“I looked into the matter we discussed last time where we last discussed it. A standard shop, thirty square meters, rent is fifty thousand temporal units per year. But it’s only open to people from cities ranked within the top thirty.”
“What, you’re planning to open a store?” Luo Bin, who was immersed in bookkeeping, blurted out in shock.
Mori replied with a soft “mm” and continued:
“We want to secure our own shop. For now, the only options are to sublet from these people or buy a shop outright from the top fifteen ranking slots—even the smallest one starts at 200,000 time sequence year, with an annual tax of at least 10,000 time sequence year. The upside is that shop owners are exempt from the monthly deduction of 300 time sequence year.”
This was the perk of being a merchant in Hub Town.
Luo Bin was taken aback.
This was an A+ class piece of information, worth at least 2,000—no, now that he’d seen more of the world, two thousand or three thousand was nothing; this information was worth at least 5,000 time sequence.
His mind raced with excitement—if he could get his hands on a shop, he might not have to risk his life so desperately. Running a business in the legendary Hub Town was a place where you’d never have to worry about safety.
Just selling goods would guarantee a steady flow of time sequence every month, making one no different from an immortal deity.
But the price of those shops was exorbitant, truly biting.
“So, do you have any more training contracts left? Sell some and buy one.” Luo Bin blurted out eagerly.
If he wasn’t mistaken, this guy beside him might just change his destiny.
Morrie was about to speak, but Yang Zicang shook his head.
“Rarity trumps all— even for teams capable of stabilizing an A-rank area, it’s uncommon for them to churn out tens of thousands of time sequence in one go. We’ve already sold four or five copies recently; if we keep selling more, the price will drop.”
“Exactly. Getting these training contracts is a rare opportunity, and there’s no telling when we’ll get our hands on a batch like this again. So we need to be frugal.”
“And once our shop is established, the sale of training contracts will be its most important commodity. To maintain the shop’s enduring prosperity, it’s necessary to ensure their steady and sustainable supply.”
After saying this, Yang Zicang turned to Luo Bin with a knowing smirk.
“Tell me, how much is this piece of information worth?”
“Seven or eight thousand or more… Ahem, Zicang, bro, you gotta have faith in me.”
Luo Bin turned to look at Mori.
“My friend, I’m Yang Zicang’s close buddy—we’ve been through life and death together. From now on, we’re all brothers. If you need anything, you can count on me. How about we swap some lifespan with each other?”
Mori calmly scanned the fat man’s face, smiled, and said nothing.
With that, Luo Bin displayed his model.
“I used to just be a triangle. Then I met Brother Zicang, and guess what? My model successfully evolved!”
Mori was instantly astonished, his jaw nearly dropping out of its socket.