"Lucas," Farah suddenly called out.
"Mhm?" In response, Lucas could only look up and mumble as he still had a big piece of pancake stuffed into his mouth.
"Come with me," Farah motioned as she stood up, doing her best not to laugh at the stuffed cheeks of the young boy.
Hurriedly chewing and swallowing, Lucas washed down what was left of the pancake with a sip of water before chasing after Farah as she walked towards the kitchen.
Moment's later, in front of a couple of big barrels containing the processed lych tree sugar, Farah wore a contemplative expression.
"Is there something wrong with my sugar?" Lucas asked hesitantly. The look on Farah's face was more one of curiosity, rather than worry, so he was inclined to believe she had discovered something unusual about it, rather than a problematic issue.
Instead of replying directly, Farah simply said, "Use your Soul Sense on this barrel and tell me if you notice anything different about it."
A being's Soul Sense, be they human, beast, or some other species, was essentially an extension of their consciousness and will and could be used to enhance these senses, or like a separate entity that could probe and investigate one's surroundings. Depending on the strength of one's Soul, their level of training, and the fineness of their control, the accuracy with which an individual could scan their environment could vary dramatically even if they were in the same relative Realm.
Generally, after breaking through to the Sea Establishment Realm, a Mortal Realm Practitioner was capable of mobilizing their Soul Sense on an instinctual level, but because they had not truly begun cultivating and had extremely limited reserves of Soul Qi, the most this new ability was good for was to somewhat sharpen their reflexes and senses.
Those with particularly high talent would be able to immediately condense a true Soul Sense and extend it beyond their physical body; however, before reaching the Soul Initiate Realm, the amount of information even a genius Practitioner could gleam from doing this was severely limited.
The best analogy would be a blind person reaching out their hands to study the surface of an object. They might be able to figure out its general shape, size, temperature, weight, and other basic properties, but as for its colour and other visual properties, that would remain a mystery, making the picture they had incomplete.
Of course, there were always exceptions, like Lucas.
After accidentally discovering Lucas had opened his Soul Sea, Farah had been regularly teaching him on how to use his Soul Sense. At first, her idea was to teach him how to better conceal his Soul Qi fluctuations, allowing him to hide his unusual condition better, but it wasn't long after they begun training that she discovered something unexpected.
Perhaps because of the way in which he broke through to the Sea Establishment Realm, Lucas' Soul Sea was far bigger than normal, granting him a much more abundant quantity of Soul Qi and thus a more powerful Soul Sense.
While this was a boon to the young boy in many senses, it also came with a significant drawback. In essence, since his Soul was bigger, he needed to absorb and refine more Soul Qi to break through from one Step to the next.
Given this unique condition, Farah suspected that the reason Lucas made it to the Second Step Sea Establishment Realm at the same time he broke through to the Second Step Body Tempering Realm was because he had too much Soul Qi crammed into his Soul Sea to begin with. Essentially, the Soul Qi burst forth when his physical body was strengthened, allowing him to have a double breakthrough.
Regardless, after confirming this abnormality, Lucas had to again increase the amount of time he spent cultivating; otherwise, it would take years longer than he originally anticipated to reach the peak of the Core Formation Realm.
Still, having a powerful Soul Sense did have its advantages, such as right now when Farah asked him to examine the barrel of sugar.
For others in the Second Step Sea Establishment Realm, they would likely have not noticed anything off about this pile of sugar; however, with his keener senses, Lucas soon discovered an anomaly.
It was quite subtle, barely even noticeable in fact, but it was definitely there.
"The concentration of World Qi is higher in my sugar than the surrounding air?" Lucas muttered aloud, still not completely sure about his observation.
Nodding in approval, Farah complemented the young boy, "Impressive as always. Your ability to control your Soul Qi is quite remarkable."
Farah wasn't just offering empty praise; she had really never encountered anyone in the Second Step Sea Establishment Realm with such precise control over their Soul Qi and Soul Sense. Then again, she had never met another 9-year-old Sea Establishment Practitioner either.
Completely glossing over the complement he received, Lucas was far curiouser about this unexpected phenomenon as up until now, he hadn't noticed anything special about the sap he collected or the sugar he had refined.
Picking up a spoonful of the sugar, Lucas began examining it closer, trying to figure out what exactly had taken place for these tiny crystals to now contain a higher-than-normal concentration of World Qi. It wasn't unusual for there to be variations in the concentration of World Qi between different materials, but the amount in his new sugar was clearly too high to be explained by natural factors.
Wait, crystals? A thought suddenly occurred to Lucas as he turned and asked, "Senior Farah, could it be that these crystals are acting like Spirit Crystals, absorbing World Qi from the air?"
"Possibly," Farah acknowledged before shaking her head, "But I think the more likely case is that the process you went through to turn the tree sap into sugar is what caused this phenomenon."
Intrigued, Lucas put down the spoonful of sugar and silently asked for further explanation.
Thinking for a moment, Farah first asked, "When you were selecting lych trees to… tap, was it? You chose the biggest and oldest ones you could find, right?"
"Yes," Lucas nodded, "I thought that the bigger the trees were, the more sap I'd be able to collect from them."
"A reasonable thought," Farah concurred before continuing, "That means that the trees you used were probably all more than 100 years old, which is plenty of time for them to have absorbed a large amount of World Qi."
Having had things explained to this point, Lucas quickly caught on, "What you're saying is, like a Human or a Wild Beast that gets stronger with age, so do lych trees?"
"In a sense," Farah nodded.
Lucas felt that this was a logical explanation, but then he remembered something and frowned, "No matter how old, lych trees are a Mid-Rank First Order species, the equivalent of a Mid-Rank Wild Grade First Order Beast. The amount of World Qi in my sugar is still too high to be explained by this."
"Perhaps if it was just the pure sap, that might be the case," Farah mused, a smile creeping onto her face, "But like an Alchemist, you took a raw material from a lower Order plant, then refined it repeatedly before obtaining a superior product."
"So that's how it is!" Lucas felt enlightened.
Alchemy, one of the most prominent Spirit Professions in existence, was essentially the process of using herbs, flowers, fruits, animal parts, and even certain types of minerals, extracting their essence through various methods, and then combining them together to produce Spirit Liquids, Pastes, Pills, or other concentrated forms. By doing this, an Alchemist could take lower Grade ingredients and refine them into higher Grade products.
In a sense, this is exactly what Lucas had done with the lych tree sap, boiling it down 50 times over until all he was left with was crystalized sugar.
Undoubtedly, this was the simplest, crudest form of Alchemy imaginable, but it was Alchemy none-the-less.
Scanning the barrel with her own Soul Sense, then carefully tasting a small sample of it, Farah was able to make a quick judgement, "This can be considered a High-Rank Mortal Grade Tier 2 ingredient."
Lucas drew a sharp breath when he heard this, as it was quite a shocking revelation. What this meant was that eating 100 grams of his new sugar was equivalent to eating 100 grams of High-Rank Second Order Beast meat!
A High-Rank Wild Grade Second Order Beast was comparable to a human Practitioner in the Seventh to Ninth Step Vein Opening Realm, and given the innate advantages of beasts, it would often take several such Vein Opening Realm hunters to bring down this kind of creature.
Lucas could count on his fingers the number of times he had eaten such meat in his life, which went to show just how rare a delicacy it was in Redwood Town.
Turning to look at the 150 kg of lych tree sugar in front of him, Lucas couldn't help gulping slightly, realizing that he had really created something outrageous this time.
Only after a long silence did the young boy hesitantly ask, "Senior Farah, do you think it's a bad idea for me to sell this sugar?"
Knitting her brow, Farah thought about it for a moment before shrugging, "High-Rank Mortal Grade Tier 2 food isn't uncommon in the bigger towns and cities of the kingdom. It shouldn't be a problem for you to sell it, but you'll need to carefully consider who you sell it to."
Understanding what she meant, Lucas nodded, "I was originally planning on just having the local peddlers sell it in Harold City, but that's clearly not an option anymore."
The biggest peddler in Redwood Town was Rick. He had his own caravan with 3 wagons and 10 workers who doubled as guards, 4 of whom were in the Vein Opening Realm. If Lucas' sugar had just been a sweet substitute for honey, allowing Peddler Rick to sell it for him wouldn't have been an issue, but now that it had suddenly become a High-Rank 2 Mortal Grade food, that was no longer appropriate.
Merchants and peddlers enjoyed certain protections in the Rockwell Kingdom, but that didn't mean those with wealth and power couldn't bully or harass them.
What's more, once a peddler left a city, town, or village and was out in the wilderness, the laws of the kingdom basically no longer existed; after all, who was to say whether a caravan was attacked by bandits or beasts?
This was why merchants only handled wares that they could reasonably protect with their strength.
A Core Formation Realm peddler wouldn't need to worry about transporting First Order Wild Beast furs and bones from one city to another, as no one would risk attacking such a strong Practitioner for such common materials.
On the other hand, a Second Step Vein Opening Realm peddler, like Rick, openly selling High-Rank 2 Mortal Grade food was basically like begging people to rob him.
Thinking it over, Lucas eventually decided, "The Rising Sun Merchant Guild caravan should be coming through town soon. I can just sell my sugar to them."
Farah agreed, "That's a good idea. They may drive down the price a little, but you won't have to worry about safety or payment with the Rising Sun Merchant Guild as your client. You can also keep your identity a secret as the Guild will never reveal their suppliers' names as long as you request them not to."
"That would be helpful," Lucas nodded, "I should also give this product a different name, so it isn't so easy to trace its origins."
Pausing for a moment, Lucas pursed his lips before asking, "Senior Farah, how much do you think I should sell this sugar for? My original idea was to price it at 3 Gold a kilogram, which is a little cheaper than honey, but it's obviously more valuable than that now."
"That's a tricky question," Farah replied before musing, "Sugar and similar sweeteners are all considered luxury items, so they're always quite expensive. I've had a couple different kinds of sugar and honey before, and taste wise, yours is basically better than any of them. On top of that, as a High-Rank 2 food, your new sugar is useful for all Mortal Realm Practitioners. Even Spirit Initiates will see some small benefit from eating this stuff on a regular basis."
"On the other hand," Farah continued, "Although it can be considered a High-Rank 2 Mortal Grade food, sugar isn't something you eat large amounts of in a single sitting, unlike meat or grain, so the multiplying factor for its value isn't quite as high."
"Hm…" Lucas mulled over this analysis for a while before proposing, "How about 5 Gold a kg, then?"
"Hahaha," Farah immediately laughed before roughly tussling the boy's head, "I see you're still a bit too inexperienced, you little brat."
Feeling like he was being made fun of, Lucas pouted and asked, "What should I ask for then?"
"Don't settle for a Copper less than 10 Gold per kilogram," Farah declared confidently.