Chapter 44 – Exchange

The next day,

Mu Yuan directly logged into the Taixuan Covenant Platform. While browsing through various exchangeable items, he contemplated how to utilize his three thousand Contribution Points.

“60 units of Black Iron Stone are worth 3 Soul Crystal Coins, and the platform also lists the exchange price at 300 points. It’s not expensive, but there’s no discount either.”

Mu Yuan pondered.

His Elemental Orb was still not secured, so there was no need to purchase this batch of Black Iron Stone early. However, he had to reserve these 300 Contribution Points.

As for other matters, the construction of various ordinary-tier Miracle Buildings had already exhausted all the subsidized Soul Crystals. He had even supplemented several hundred grams himself, leaving very little Soul Sand remaining. And he hadn’t even accounted for the Mage Tower, a massive consumer of crystals.

He definitely needed to exchange for some Soul Crystal Coins.

After some thought, he began searching for Remnant Souls, filtering by Rank from low to high.

「Gargoyle Remnant Soul (Rare One-Star): 300 Contribution Points.」

「Imperial Guard Remnant Soul (Rare One-Star): 250 Contribution Points.」

「Griffin Remnant Soul (Rare One-Star): 350 Contribution Points.」

Mu Yuan fell silent for a moment, then changed the filter to sort by price from low to high.

What popped up was the Goblin Warrior Remnant Soul, priced at 199 Contribution Points.

Mu Yuan: “…”

And then? What about lower ones? Why aren’t there any lower-tier Remnant Souls?!

He had originally intended to exchange for some Falcon Remnant Souls and, depending on the situation, exchange a few for Little Skeleton and Slime Remnant Souls.

However, not to mention Little Skeleton Remnant Souls, there weren’t even any Skeleton Soldier Remnant Souls.

This couldn’t be right, could it?

Wasn’t the Taixuan Covenant Platform touted as a place where any rare item could be exchanged? He couldn’t find them at all!

Probably, the creators of this platform never imagined that a Lord would use precious Contribution Points to exchange for One-Star Remnant Souls.

Most Lords would only reluctantly use their valuable Contribution Points to exchange for items they couldn’t purchase on the market.

But Mu Yuan was also helpless. Should he just keep these three thousand Contribution Points unused until the new year?

Of course, he could directly exchange them for Soul Crystal Coins and then slowly acquire various Remnant Souls using Soul Sand.

And he did plan to do exactly that.

Then he should exchange for a few more Soul Crystal Coins.

“However, exchanging all three thousand Contribution Points for Soul Crystals would be too wasteful. Senior Jiang also emphasized that Contribution Points are hard to come by, and new Lords don’t have many opportunities to earn them.”

But at this stage, rare-tier Treasures couldn’t be sent to the Eternal World. What should he exchange for?

Mu Yuan pondered, patiently searching slowly.

Soon, his eyes lit up.

“That’s right, I almost forgot about Breakthrough Materials. It’s not easy for players to collect these on their own, and the market has always been in short supply. Exchanging them with Contribution Points is just perfect.”

He checked and found that, depending on the category, the price of Breakthrough Materials ranged from 200 to 350 Contribution Points, which included one main Material and several auxiliary Materials.

Perhaps because undead-type Materials were relatively scarce, a set of Breakthrough Materials cost 300 Contribution Points.

Whales would have prepared early. If he forgot about this and got stuck at a Rank soon after, it would be quite awkward.

Mu Yuan considered that he should probably prepare three or four sets, right?

After all, when the Lord Trial arrived, wouldn’t it be safer to have three or four Professional Tier combatants? He actually thought it was too few, but he couldn’t exchange for too many either.He was quite relieved that with the future ranks of Deadbone, Bone Two, and other skeletons, breaking through to the Professional Tier wouldn’t pose much difficulty. Unlike the three-star units of veteran players, which still had a chance of failure when advancing to the Professional Tier.

This was precisely why some veteran players had stagnated for a long time without being able to step into the Professional Tier.

“Using Contribution Points to exchange for breakthrough materials is actually a slight loss, since these can be bought with Soul Sand—at most, you might need to wait in line for a while.”

“However, many veteran players can purchase breakthrough materials but can’t obtain Rare Remnant Souls. These are the true treasures that should be exchanged with Contribution Points.”

“Still, Rare Remnant Souls are useless to me, while other rare items… Wait, it seems I can exchange for some valuable treasures that don’t need to be sent into the Eternal World and can be used in reality.”

For example, among nurturing treasures, the most precious ones are those that can directly enhance the player’s own strength.

Crimson Blood Fruit is just the most common type. He needed more valuable and significant treasures to rid himself of the weakling title of “one-skeleton strength.” This way, not only would he feel more secure in reality, but he also wouldn’t hold the team back during explorations in the Eternal World.

Such advanced treasures are almost impossible to come by.

While Soul Sand is hard to buy, exchanging with Contribution Points is precisely worth it.

These are the most worthwhile treasures to exchange for.

Mu Yuan searched around and finally settled on a product called ‘Nine Profound Nurturing Fluid’—a nurturing solution infused with multiple rare-grade medicinal herbs.

“This way, what I plan to exchange includes a large amount of Soul Crystal Coins, nurturing fluid, and several breakthrough materials… Wait, 3,000 Contribution Points don’t seem to be enough!”

…

Reserving some Contribution Points for future essential exchanges, Mu Yuan directly exchanged the rest for 6 Soul Crystal Coins and nurturing fluid worth 1,000 Contribution Points.

Now, he just had to wait for delivery.

During the wait, Mu Yuan switched back to the game and began his daily grind.

He controlled three War Falcons to take off in turns, flying toward the north, east, and west.

The main focus was exploring the north.

This was because he had learned that their batch of newbie Lords was located in the northeastern part of the Taixuan Alliance. Naturally, the further north they went, the deeper into the wilderness, and the richer the resources.

However, the deeper they ventured, the more likely they were to encounter powerful monsters, requiring constant caution and thorough reconnaissance of the situation.

…

Mu Yuan recorded the following in his notes:

“Through the War Falcons’ reconnaissance, today we expanded the map range by another three to four kilometers and discovered some new types of monsters, including Ghouls, Gnolls, and Harpies.”

“Those Harpies are so big… I mean, so fierce. They are three-star monsters, capable of flight and possessing ranged attack abilities. The War Falcon nearly got killed; we can’t go near that area anymore.”

“Today’s reconnaissance of the Goblin Camp to the north still yielded no results. There are too many Goblin Spear Throwers there, and they are too vigilant. The War Falcon had its feathers shot off again—I’ll remember this grudge for Asun.”

“War Falcon Three ventured deep into the Venomous Spider Forest and discovered many large, car-sized Striped Venomous Spiders. Although these Striped Venomous Spiders are only three-star monsters, their large size suggests a high Rank, likely Level 9 Great Perfection strong spiders, and they are guarded by a group of smaller venomous spiders… War Falcon Three almost got stuck in the spider silk and met its end.”The War Falcon spent its entire day narrowly avoiding death, which is precisely why hunting falcons are considered ‘luxury consumables.’

Mu Yuan sketched and marked important areas on his draft map, having already planned out his daily schedule for the next few days.

However, today’s reconnaissance also brought bad news—he had lost track of the wandering ogre.

Having a rare monster lurking nearby was always unsettling, but fortunately…

「Prompt: Arrow Tower construction complete. Please inspect, Lord.」

After more than half a day, the two Arrow Towers were finally completed.

Standing over ten meters tall, with a gray lower section and a brown upper section, these defensive structures now towered over his territory, greatly boosting his sense of security.

After all, the arrows shot from these towers were even more lethal than Bone Two and Bone Three’s charged throws, and the arrows could be fired continuously.

The catch was…

The arrows weren’t free.

Mu Yuan tested it and found the cost was roughly one Soul Crystal Coin for 100 arrows—a bit pricey, definitely not for everyday use.

“Even though the territory has become safer, and even though I just received a large sum of Soul Crystals, which should have doubled my happiness… why do I feel like I’m running out of money more and more?”

(End of Chapter)