20: Inner city and outer city

“Bang!”

The battle ended quickly.

Then, Shen Xi delivered his last punch, and the giant python's head was brutally smashed, completely losing its life.

“Congratulations, Host, for obtaining two hundred years of Yao Beast life.”

The System’s prompt sounded at the opportune moment.

The giant python was an out-and-out Yao Beast, and killing it would yield the reward of Yao Beast life.

Shen Xi took a deep breath, suppressing the joy in his heart.

He was not in a hurry to use the Yao Beast life; it would be enough to wait until Zhu Feng City and find a quiet place to use it.

As the battle ended, Li Chengfeng and his group immediately approached the giant python with practiced ease.

They pulled out their sabers and, like a skilled butcher, segmented the giant python into countless pieces, collecting the valuable Materials.

“Brother Shen, these Materials can also sell for a lot of money!”

After collecting, Li Chengfeng handed the Materials to Shen Xi.

The giant python was killed by Shen Xi, so they naturally would not take the Materials.

“Mm! Everyone, let’s divide the heavenly spirit stone!”

Shen Xi greeted everyone, making sure each person's heavenly spirit stone was replenished to fifty catties.

Only then did he realize that he now had about five tons of heavenly spirit stone, which, calculated at the market price of five hundred per gram, would be a staggering 1.25 billion Federation currency?

Had he suddenly become a rich man?

Of course, Shen Xi knew perfectly well that this amount of money was actually nothing.

Federation currency was divided into five types: copper coins, silver coins, gold coins, scarlet gold coins, and diamond coins, with a ratio of one hundred to one, meaning one hundred copper coins equaled one silver coin, one hundred silver coins equaled one gold coin, and so on.

Those truly wealthy and powerful individuals in the Federation calculated their net worth in diamond coins.

1.25 billion seemed like an astronomical figure, but in reality, it was only 12.5 diamond coins, not even a fraction of the total assets of those wealthy individuals.

Not to mention, the unfortunate Zhao Minsheng’s Senator father, not long ago, bought a villa in the Inner City’s central area, which cost tens of thousands of diamond coins.

Shen Xi’s money, it could be said, was a drop in the ocean.

But even so, this money would bring earth-shattering changes to Shen Xi's family.

Previously, their family’s annual income was only a few tens of thousands of copper coins.

Now with this money, they could buy a house in the Inner City and no longer live in fear, no longer serving as human shields for the wealthy of the Inner City to defend against Yao Beast attacks.

Thinking of this, Shen Xi couldn’t help but show a brilliant smile.

“It’s safe now, and there’s a deal I don’t know if you’re willing to make?”

Shen Xi looked at everyone and asked.

“Brother Shen, just give the order if something comes up; why talk about a deal? That’s too formal!”

Li Chengfeng quickly replied.

“I plan to provide you with stealth potions. From now on, you will work for me, collecting heavenly spirit stone. I’ll take ninety percent of the collected amount, and you’ll take ten. Are you willing?”

Shen Xi had thought about this for a long time, especially after confirming that Li Chengfeng and his group were not bad people, so he finally made his decision.

He couldn’t stay in the Demon Swamp Mining Area forever, but he didn’t want to give up the heavenly spirit stone as a source of income, so he simply handed this matter over to Li Chengfeng and his team.

This way, Shen Xi could focus on Cultivating and earn money while lying down, and Li Chengfeng and his team could use this opportunity to completely change their families' destinies. This was a win-win situation.

As expected, as soon as Shen Xi finished speaking, everyone excitedly chimed in.

“Willing! We are more than willing.”

“With the stealth potion, the harvest we collect in one go will be worth ten times what we got before.”

“However, even with the stealth potion, we won’t be able to collect much heavenly spirit stone; the guardian monsters will still target us.”

“That is indeed a problem.”

When the guardian monsters were mentioned, everyone couldn’t help but look bitter.

They thought of the heavenly spirit stone they had lost, and their hearts ached.

“Don’t worry about that. As long as it’s in a storage bag, the guardian monsters won’t be able to sense the heavenly spirit stone’s Qi.”

“If I’m not mistaken, the Forbidden Ground should have an unspoken rule: as long as adventurers don’t collect more heavenly spirit stone than a certain limit, it won’t attract the attention of the guardian monsters, who will then specifically hunt them down.”

“So, when collecting heavenly spirit stone in the future, on one hand, put it into a storage bag once collected, and on the other hand, don’t be too greedy. Leave once you’ve collected a certain amount, and the previous incidents shouldn’t happen again.”

Shen Xi carefully analyzed the situation in the Forbidden Ground.

Everyone nodded in agreement when they heard this.

They had indeed never been hunted by guardian monsters before, only once, due to bad luck, had they run into one.

This time, it was probably because they collected too much, touching upon the Forbidden Ground’s unspoken rule, which led to the accident.

“If you all have no objections, then it’s decided.”

Shen Xi asked again.

No one refused; this was a good win-win situation.

The market price of heavenly spirit stone in the wilderness would be a bit lower, but it still reached four hundred and fifty wilderness copper coins per gram. If they could get ten catties in one go, it would still be a considerable income for everyone.

As they spoke, everyone set off again, heading in the direction of Zhu Feng City.

A journey of five hundred li was nothing for a Martial Artist; in just one day, Zhu Feng City was already in sight.

Zhu Feng City was very similar to the safe cities under Federation jurisdiction, also divided into Inner City and Outer City.

The Inner City was the area where the wealthy lived; any one of them had a net worth of tens of millions, and the closer to the central area, the more astonishing the wealth of the rich.

The Outer City, naturally, was the slum area.

In fact, the reason every city was divided into Inner and Outer Cities was simply to protect the wealthy in the Inner City.

Every so often, a beast tide would emerge from the wilderness and assault the city, bringing with it a large number of Yao Beasts.

The strength of Martial Artists alone was simply not enough to protect the city's safety; even ants can bite an elephant to death, let alone Yao Beasts are not ants, and Martial Artists are not elephants.

To combat the beast tides, some unscrupulous individuals came up with the idea of feeding the Yao Beasts.

They built the Outer City and used the people of the slums as fodder for the beast tide.

Once the Yao Beasts were full and satisfied, their desire to attack the Inner City would naturally disappear.

As a result, every time a beast tide occurred, the Outer City would suffer heavy casualties, while the wealthy and powerful people in the Inner City were almost always safe.

This also led to the Inner City's housing prices becoming increasingly expensive, and the closer to the central area, the more expensive they became.

Everyone knew that living in the Outer City offered no guarantee of life, while the Inner City could preserve one's life.

And the wealthy and powerful people in the Inner City, in order to prevent too many people from living there, came up with various methods to restrict the residents of the Outer City.

They controlled the income of Outer City residents, raised housing prices, and increased the prices of various Materials needed for Cultivation.