Chapter 181 – Scammer Attempted to Sell Second-Hand Tesla as Brand New. Florida Man Scammed Him and Bought It for $1,000.
The giant monkey-tailed man guided Leo to his store and showed him a portal. He gestured for him to go in.
"Where will this lead to?" Asked Leo.
"Ya gonna be teleported ta da ride. Hope in, and I'll show ya."
Leo was skeptical about this. He was afraid that he might be teleported to another planet, and he might not be able to return to the stadium. Still, this spaceship was the clue to the origin of his first entity Fate Crystal. Leo chose to bite the bullet.
"Alright."
He entered the portal. After crossing to the other side, Leo found himself on the bridge of the spaceship. The salesman also followed Leo to show him around.
"@#$!%%!@#$"
The guy's speech became incomprehensible after they entered this place. Leo frowned and tried to communicate with hand sign language.
"I-Don't-Understand-You." Leo moved his mouth and moved his hands around.
The salesman slapped his forehead. He wiggled his fingers and gestured for Leo to go back. Leo agreed and crossed the portal back to the stadium.
"Ma bad, Nu'Earthe. I forgot that the translating system only works here. Anyway, I'll show ya the hologram of da ride instead."
The language barrier was still a thing. Without the stadium's mysterious influence, no one could communicate or trade around here.
The salesman guided Leo to a large table, whose surface was a hologram projector. After a few seconds of typing, the projector displayed a hologram of a spaceship in the posture. He then invited Leo to stand on an observer platform to inspect the ship from above.
The observer platform was a transparent floor above the hologram projector. Leo hopped on it and gazed at the spaceship hologram below.
The spaceship design was a combination of a U.S.S. Voyager from Star Trek and Gundam Series. The oval front looked similar to a saucer UFO but the middle and the back featured a bridge control tower, cannons, guns, and even a hangar for shuttles and smaller ships.
However, noticeably, there were many cargo rooms. This ship looked more like a cargo plane or a commercial plane than a battle spaceship.
The hologram displayed the interior of the spaceship, including its specs and descriptions.
The salesman introduced the perks and exciting parts of this mothership.
"Ya ain't getting this classic from elsewhere, dawg. Those freaks from Divine Stellar Court… excuse me, da Nu'Earthes from Melon Eusk Galaxy… mass-produced dis to invade the Cathulhus. Ya can guess what happened. Those cats called 'em to pull up and beat their asses! Da rest is history!"
"…"
"Anyway, dis is a remnant of that war. Dis one got smuggled before the war began, and it got passed down to ma hands. Of course, the mileage is only less than a thousand light years."
Leo wanted to retort that a thousand light years as a mileage was quite a distance. However, this was a spaceship, so Leo couldn't refer to a car's mileage standard.
"How much?"
The salesman grinned. He showed four fingers.
"Four… what?"
"5,000 Soul stones, and it's yours."
"…"
Leo raised his eyebrows, surprised by the cheap price tag. He thought that the salesman would ask for lifespan like the stadium clerk did.
The salesman paused for a moment as he noticed Leo's unhappy expression. He lowered the price.
"If ya can pay in cash, I can give ya a promotion, Nu'Earthe! How 'bout 3,500 SS?"
Leo leered at the bald giant, "Is this ship damaged?"
The salesman sweated profusely. He shook his head, "No way! I got dis brand new! Ya can check its condition later!"
Leo pursed his lips and coughed, "Excuse me. Give me a minute. I need to check something."
"…Okay."
Leo walked away from the salesman. He opened his online shopping system and searched for the same spaceship model. Also, Leo filtered the search and narrowed it down to only spaceships and motherships.
[Stellar Model 3 – Standard]
[Stellar Model 3 – Long Range]
[Stellar Model 3 – Performance]
[Stellar Model 3 – Transporter]
[Stellar Model 3 – Star Orbiter]
[Stellar Model 3 – Star Carrier]
[Stellar Model 3 – Star Destroyer]
In the list, Leo noticed many alternative models. Some were designed to be a commercial spaceships while the latter ones were customized to be battleships.
Leo managed to roughly memorize the spaceship's outline and the number of guns. As the salesman's spaceship had too many blank rooms inside, he figured that it might be either the transporter model or the commercial one.
He checked the price tags next. Then, he almost vomited blood.
The commercial one cost a million YOL. The other models were even more expensive.
The top-of-the-line, Star Destroyer Model, had a whooping price of 20 million YOL! This didn't include the upgrade fees in the future.
Leo closed his system screens. He turned around to look at the salesman.
"1,000 Soul stones?"
The salesman rejoiced that Leo wanted it. However, he was reluctant to sell it at that price. Thus, he haggled.
"Can't do, Nu'Earthe. But I'm feeling generous. If ya really want it, I can do 4,800!"
"I see. Well, maybe later. Thanks for showing the sightseeing."
"Wait, wait, wait!"
The salesman sweated waterfall. He rubbed his hands and hunched his back while his ugly suspicious smile disturbed Leo.
"I can't go that far. How about 4,500? I need to eat, ya know?"
Leo shrugged, "My resources are limited. I can't afford that."
"Err…"
The salesman scratched his head. He gave Leo a meaningful look into the latter's eyes.
"How much da ya have on you?"
Leo widely grinned, "1,000."
"DAMMIT! Can't you give more? I'll be in under if I sell ya at dat price!"
"Like I said, I can't afford it. But if you can lower it to 1,000, maybe I can come back with cash in a month or two."
"R-Really?!"
The salesman grumbled and scratched his head again. His bald head was slightly red because of the intense scratches. After a serious contemplation, he made another counteroffer.
"Can it be 4,000?"
"Do you think I can procure 3,000 additional SOUL FREAKING STONES without two months?!"
Using past knowledge and experience about the cultivation world and alchemy, Leo believed nobody, even in the higher stage, could obtain as many soul stones within a limited time. After all, essence stones were still a currency within this stadium's domain.
Furthermore, Leo had a way to obtain soul stones.
.
[Alchemy Recipe – Soul Stones]
One Molg Lich's Bone (Any Piece)
Yin Essence
.
[Alchemy Recipe – Soul Stones]
1,000 Essence Stones
Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth Catalyst
Fire, Water, Wood, Metal, and Earth Essence
.
If he wanted to, he could allocate all six alchemy cauldrons to mass-produce soul stones. Then, he might get 1,000 soul stones in a month or two if the production time wouldn't take long.
While the salesman seemed reluctant, Leo turned away from the store, "I'll be back in two months. If you are willing to part with that for 1,000, I'll bring the cash here."
"…"
Leo left the store and visited the other shops in the area. As for the salesman, he remained quiet as he didn't dare to lower his price again.
.
.
The Kong Race originated from the same galaxy as the Divine Stellar Court. Nazz, the salesman, was originally one of the court's marines. However, Nazz stumbled upon a remnant of the war during his patrol, and he deserted the troops along with this spaceship and his past collections.
As he managed to flee here and qualify for the veteran pass, he settled down in the Fate Stadium City and opened a spaceship dealership to sell old junk that he collected throughout the years. So far, he managed to swindle a dozen rookies and got a sizable amount of essence stones for a living.
When Nazz found Leo, he thought that the latter was just another pushover. He dragged him to the spaceship, which he had roughly repaired. Then, he tried to sell it for soul stones.
The real price tag of this spaceship was 50,000 Soul Stones for a brand-new transporter model. As Nazz was aware of its real value, he instinctively haggled to boost the price. However, he forgot that he stole this spaceship from an abandoned planet.
Unfortunately, Leo's reaction terrified Nazz. He looked like a veteran in this field as he suddenly dumped the price. Then, he refused Nazz's counteroffers as if he had seen through the conditions of the ship.
'Dammit! 1,000 SS is too low! But I can't keep it with me for too long. If I don't sell it soon, the Divine Stellar's marines will surely find me here, and it will be confiscated! I should have just accepted the offer!'
Nazz hoped that Leo would come back and take the stolen spaceship out of his hands soon.
.
.
Leo continued his tour in the Fate Stadium City's shopping mall. He visited other spaceship dealer stores and collected a large stack of brochures. Unlike Nazz's store, the other dealerships offered legit brand-new spaceships from their factories.
The standard price of battleships was also intimidating. Some dealers asked for a million YOL as their bosses had a similar lifespan system as Leo's. The other dealerships wanted 10,000 soul stones at the minimum, which was too expensive for Leo's pocket at the moment.
Leo thought to himself.
'I should just get that second-handed ship from that Nappa. It doesn't matter if it's a smuggled ship or an illegal one. As long as I get to investigate my origins, it should be fine.'
Putting the matter to the back of his head, Leo proceeded to the third floor of the mall to see other exotic goods. He wished to learn more from his rival shopping mall.
The third floor looked a lot more like a modern department stores. A thousand luxurious shops lined up along the walkway, and most of their products were clothes, armor, artifacts, and trinkets.
Although most stores offered combat gear for cultivators of various races, not many stores featured clothes for humans. Instead, they prioritized massive gears for giants and big creatures. Even armor and weapons were massive even though the shops and walkways were designed for creatures under five meters tall.
After touring deep into the back alley of the third floor, Leo found a weapon shop for a humanoid-sized creature. He went in to see what they had to offer.
As soon as Leo walked into the bright store, he found a group of floating octopus-cats in the store, holding long swords. One of them held 8 broad swords with 8 tentacles and waved them around.
"These are kinda light, munya!"
The store owner was a stout old man with red skin. He was only 4 feet tall, but his arms and muscles were superior to average adult humans. Strangely, he had 9 fingers and two thumbs on each hand.
For the first time, Leo encountered an alien dwarf.
The dwarf yelled at the small Cathulhus in his store.
"Hey, Miao Meolord! Stop playing with constellation-killer swords for a second! You'll hit the other customers!"
The "Cathulhu" who held 8 swords was a brown cat-octopus. He also had three eyes and long cat ears. While floating, the catopus yelled back.
"You ain't getting new customers aside from us anyway, munya! Let me play with these immortal-graded swords for a second. Maybe, I'll buy them, munya!"
"Bullshit! You stinky Cathulhu never bought shit from my store! Only your brother did!"
The white cat-octopus behind the brown cat wryly laughed. He turned around and noticed Leo's presence.
"Ah! Our benefactor, munya! Aren't you Florida Man, munya?"
Hearing the white cat's voice, the others looked at Leo. The latter also remembered them.
The three cat-octopus creatures were the guys who cheered for Leo when he first arrived at the stadium. However, Leo wasn't aware of these guys' real names.
The white Cathulhu introduced himself.
"Hello, Florida Man, munya! I'm Miao Damao, munya! This is my elder brother and my fiancé, Kat Katerina, munya!"
