"I told you diamonds don't hold their value."
Jorah, the former rich kid, now "plant person," looked at the diamond necklaces that were once priceless, capable of making his female companions squeal with delight, now strewn carelessly on a stall like garbage, ignored by everyone. He couldn't help but shrug and comment with the tone of an experienced elder, tinged with a bit of schadenfreude.
In stark contrast were the basic necessities displayed at the adjacent stalls—food, toilet paper, lighters. These unremarkable items from before the apocalypse had now become the most sought-after "hard currency." Every stall was surrounded by sallow-faced survivors, eyeing the goods with a mixture of longing and caution, haggling with the vendors.
As Elara and her group walked deeper into the trading post, they felt the distinct "class" divisions even more clearly.
The trading post, from the outside in, could be roughly divided into three tiers.
The outermost area, where they had just entered, was the most chaotic and dirtiest, mostly populated by the weakest and poorest wandering survivors. The items they traded were mostly useless pre-apocalypse "luxuries" or miscellaneous junk scavenged from the ruins.
Moving further in, they entered the second tier of the trading post. The environment here was noticeably cleaner and tidier. The survivors setting up stalls and milling about wore relatively neat and clean clothes, and many even had weapons tucked into their belts. The items they traded also became more "high-end." In addition to basic food and living supplies, simple weapons, ammunition, and even… low-level mutated creature materials began to appear.
And when they passed through the second tier and reached the very core of the trading post—the interior of the main prison building—it was a completely different scene.
This was the true "high society" of this trading post.
The people active here were, without exception, powerful ability users or leaders of various factions. The items they traded were all "treasures" that ordinary survivors would never even see—high-performance modified weapons, powerful explosives, rare materials from high-level mutated creatures, and even… people secretly trading in human lives and… intelligence.
Elara's group, well-equipped and with their distinguished demeanor, had attracted a lot of attention the moment they entered the trading post. By the time they passed through the outer and second tiers and reached the core area, they had become the center of everyone's focus.
Elara looked at the dazzling array of goods flowing between the different stalls and felt a little overwhelmed.
The accompanying researchers and Jorah, however, soon noticed another issue—the unit of currency marked on the price tags next to the goods was not any pre-apocalypse currency they were familiar with, but strange symbols distinguished by numbers and colors they had never seen before.
"What… do these mean?" Sarah, the botanist, asked, pointing at a sign next to a loaf of bread at one stall that read "3 (Gray)."
"They use crystal cores for payment," Elara explained at the right moment. "The number represents the quantity, and the color in the parentheses represents the grade of the crystal core. For example, gray represents the most basic energy core, the kind obtained from the lowest-level ordinary undead."
As she spoke, she took out several small, bulging cloth pouches from her tactical backpack, which she had prepared in advance, and handed one to each person beside her.
"I know you probably don't have any on you, so… I prepared some for you in advance," Elara said with a smile. "Consider it… an advance on your salary and an activity fund."
"Whoa! You... you've collected so many crystal cores?" Jorah took the heavy cloth pouch, opened it, and his eyes widened in astonishment. Inside, it was filled with gray, various-sized crystal cores, at least a hundred of them.
For most ordinary survivors now, every single crystal core had to be dug out, one by one, from the heads of terrifying undead, at the risk of their own lives. A "whale" like Elara, who could casually pull out so many, was practically a walking vault.
"Yes."
Before Elara could answer, Seraph, at her side, had already answered for her, quite proudly. On this topic, she was more than qualified to speak. After all, she was the one who had witnessed Elara, without batting an eyelid, dig the first crystal core out of a zombie's rotting head. Though the memory of that scene, even now, still made her feel a little sick.
"And not just these ordinary cores," Seraph said, carefully pulling out a small pouch made of special fire-resistant material from inside her close-fitting clothes and gently opening it.
Inside the pouch lay a dozen or so crystal cores of various colors, emitting faint elemental glows. Most of them were a beautiful orange-red, in varying shades, like a pile of amber soaked in fire, exquisitely beautiful.
"Look, these are all fire-attribute crystal cores that Elara specially collected for me," Seraph's tone held a barely concealed note of pride and showing off.
"Mm-hmm," Elara said, nodding at the group with a smile. She began to explain her reasons for collecting the cores with a half-true, yet plausible-sounding story.
"Although we don't yet know how to accurately measure and classify the levels of ability users, ever since Seraph's powers broke through and advanced in battle, I've noticed that... to a certain extent, ability users can directly absorb the energy from cores of the same attribute to replenish their consumption, and even accelerate the growth of their own abilities."
She glanced at Vespera, who was standing beside her, and continued, "Also, including Vespera's advancement last time, the reason the process was so dangerous was because of a huge energy deficit in her body. In the end, it was only by using a large number of high-level crystal cores as an energy bridge that she was able to successfully complete that 'upgrade'."
Vespera, hearing Elara mention her, immediately nodded vigorously in agreement.
Of course, Elara saying she "just recently learned" about the function of crystal cores was a small lie. In fact, she had known the secret that ability users could absorb cores to enhance themselves since her previous life.
It was just that in her past life, because she had a rare dual space-time ability, and due to Leon and Ashley's deliberate concealment and suppression, she had almost never had the opportunity to access and use the crystal cores that truly belonged to her, the ones that could help her improve her strength.
But in this life, she would never let the same thing happen again. She would collect enough resources to make not only herself, but also these trustworthy companions around her, even stronger.
After hearing Elara's explanation, everyone else present, whether they were researchers or the soldiers, had looks of sudden understanding and contemplation on their faces.
So, crystal cores were not just the "hard currency" of this apocalypse, but also… the "energy source" that could make ability users stronger!
This piece of information was undoubtedly extremely precious to every single one of them.