"I am not sure I can tell you where I acquired it from," Ning said. "There is no point after all since I took away all that was there."
The woman's eyes narrowed. "You took all? What do you mean by all? The entire mine?" she asked.
"Yep," Ning said. "Of course, I've used it all in one way or another. That is all that is remaining."
"Of Lightning Essence crystal," the woman inquired.
Ning smiled. "Maybe," he said.
"If you have anything else of the same quality, our establishment will be happy to buy it from you," the woman said.
"I would be happy to sell it too," Ning said. "If I had any."
The woman sighed, realizing that he wasn't going to give away if he had more of these or not. Instead, she focused her attention on the crystal at hand.
"For this, I can give you 4000 Fire Essence coins," she said. "Would you accept that?"
Ning thought for a bit. "May I ask what the conversion rate that is in this town?" he asked.
"Oh, you're not from here?" the woman realized. "Let's see. 1 Fire Essence coin is 3 Earth Essence Coin, which is 5 Water or Wind coin."
"Hmm? That is quite a conversion rate. Sure, I will take it then," Ning said.
"Papa," Emma quickly called out to him. She narrowed her eyes.
Ning chuckled. "Do you want to bargain?" he asked his daughter. "If you want, you can try it."
Emma looked at the woman whose smile slowly lowered. She looked back at her father and said, "But don't we need more money?" she asked.
"Eh, we can earn more elsewhere," Ning said.
Emma thought for a moment and nodded. "If that is so then fine," she said. "Let us continue."
The woman finally smiled again. "Do you have any preference on which coins you want to get paid in?" she asked.
"Give me an assortment of it. I might have used for all of it," Ning said.
"Let me get the coins ready then," she said and left the room for a few minutes.
The refreshments were there and Ning enjoyed its taste for the time they were to wait. Emma drank the drink she was brought as well.
It wasn't as good as the juices from the divine fruits she was so used to drinking back at home, but it wasn't so bad either.
The woman returned a bit later and then pulled out a large plate on which she dropped the various different coins.
There were about 1500 Fire coins, 3000 Earth coins, 7500 Water coins, and 5000 Wind Coins.
Emma calculated quickly and nodded. "We have it all," she said.
"We do," Ning said and took away half of all the coins. "You keep the rest. Use it on what you want."
"Really?" Emma's face widened into a smile. "Thank you, Papa."
Ning nodded and looked back at the woman. "I assume our work here is done," he said to the woman.
The woman could only sigh and nod. "Yes, it is all done. Please don't hesitate to come back to us if you have more of such unique crystals or such quality crystals," she said.
"Sure," Ning said. "I will remember you if I ever need to sell something. Since I have nothing else, we will leave for now."
The girl nodded and watched as Ning and Emma left the room.
Ning arrived outside and tried to walk away, but the man from before quickly stepped in.
"Did you sell the crystal?" the man asked.
Ning looked at the man that had just analyzed his crystal earlier. "I did sell it," he said.
"Do you have more?" he asked.
Ning paused for a bit. "I already let your manager know what I have. You can ask her," he said.
"She's not my manager," the man said. "I only offer my service here when I can. It's a strictly professional exchange of my ability."
"Oh," Ning said. "I assumed you were a worker of this shop. Still, I don't really have anything to sell anymore."
"Are you sure?" the man asked. "I wanted to know so that I could have some crystals to create a lightning weapon or something like that."
Ning paused for a bit and turned to look at the man with a confused face. "Create a… lightning weapon?" he asked. "Are you a Converter by any chance?"
"One of the city's best," the man said. "Well, I used to be."
The man's haggard look was enough to tell Ning that he wasn't very popular. He wasn't even that well kept after all.
Ning thought for a moment and asked, "As far as I am aware, which isn't a lot mind you, you need to have an Essence that is the same as the object you are trying to convert. If not, you end up losing a lot of it when it becomes a conduit."
"Surely you don't have a lightning core, so how are you going to convert the Lightning Crystal into a Lightning Essence weapon. In the first place, can you even do that?" Ning asked.
"No, no, I'm not going to convert the crystal into a weapon. That is simply impossible," the man said. "And it is also impossible for me to normally make a Lightning weapon, or at least one that is anywhere close to being useful."
"However, with the help of the crystal, I can do a lot more," the man said.
Ning thought for a moment. "I want to learn how to convert something. Would you mind teaching me that?" he asked.
"What? No, I'm not in the business of teaching stuff," the man said. "I hate that sort of thing."
"Hmm, that's a shame. I was hoping to pay you for your time with something that you definitely like," Ning said. "I guess we can go our normal way then."
"Alright, wait wait wait," the man said. "If you can give me something I want, then I will… teach you how to convert objects into weapons."
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