[Based on your "Charm," you received the following information:]
[Item Na]: Gloom Destruction (Damaged)
[Category]: Public Facilities/Equipnt Tools
[Quality]: "Social Institution"
[Attributes]:
This institution contains consciousness and requires ’Society’ corruption level to reach 100% to awaken.
[Energy Cycle (Damaged)]:
The Gloom Lantern notices the absorption of energy. While holding the institution, every release of three different types of spells will randomly return the mana points consud by one of those spells.
Damaged: Limited to seven tis per day.
[Source Energy Release (Damaged)]:
During combat, the Gloom Lantern continually absorbs the mana points released by you. Once the progress reaches 100%, it will release imdiately. Lasts for three seconds, causing 15,000 6% of the target’s current health points in magic damage. During the release of thermal impact, the institution will enter cooldown.
Cooldown Ti: 15 seconds.
Damaged: It will permanently be scrapped after five consecutive releases.
[Introduction]:
"[Ruin Fla Society] Satan Jima, a typical Lurker-type society. Its citizens aren’t particularly good at direct combat but rely on the Mysterious ’Ruin Fla’ to implant the idea of ’Society’ into the hearts of mortals. Then, it manipulates mortals as its pawns, reviving repeatedly and achieving near-immortality."
"The predecessor of ’Society’ was civilization. Sohow, everything it owned, whether tangible (such as land, farmlands, factory facilities, research institutes, armies, and population) or abstract (technology, faith, culture, history), beca completely fused into one giant and terrifying monster. It can self-repair by devouring civilizations to enhance itself."
"This power hasn’t been blessed by the Starry Abyss and is on the verge of shattering. You need to proceed with extre caution and preferably avoid using it."
Length: 16 inches
Net Weight: 2.2 kilograms
Material: Stomach mucosa cells of the Ruin Fla Society (immune to corrosion damage)
"A piece of junk that’s about to shatter. Are you really going to buy it?"
————————————
"So, how about it? Looks pretty good, right!"
The tree person laughed heartily and patted the lantern:
"I’m Harlowe, and I have a knack for picking up trash—cough—clearing battlefields. Those regular hunters don’t dare go to the ’Society’ battlefields, but I dare. They don’t dare to pick up fallen institutions, but I dare! This is top-notch fresh junk—err, institution. Do you want a piece? Held by a Senator."
"Hmm..."
Li Aozi rubbed his chin.
"Let think about it..."
In reality, he had no intention of buying this junk. He just wanted to ss with the guy.
"I feel like this one is pretty good too."
Li Aozi said as he picked up the previous pink snowball, pretending to be ’curious’ and said,
"Can you introduce this to ?"
[Performing a ’Lie’ action...]
[Specialty · "Unilateral Action" Activated!]
[Charm] Check succeeded, the other party believed your lie.
"Oh—this thing?"
Harlowe’s eyes lit up and he imdiately said enthusiastically,
"This is a good item! An institution of the [Dream dicine Society], nad Dream Snow. It can make any creature indulge in a beautiful and gentle snowy scene, unable to extricate themselves while rapidly aging in reality."
Keep lying.
Li Aozi remained expressionless, listening with great interest but inwardly full of contempt.
[In the previous life, Harlowe the big swindler road the third layer of the Starry Abyss, always selling items that could soon be found for cheaper elsewhere.]
Harlowe, as a swindler, was different from the regular rchant who gouged prices.
This tree person never sold fakes, purely making profit off information asymtry.
He was the kind of person who would open a specialty hospital in front of a top-tier hospital or sell prefab dishes at a welfare cafeteria. Just a few steps away, you could find cheaper items.
That’s how Harlowe made his money.
But if Harlowe only made money off information asymtry, with a profit margin peaking at over 900%, that would be one thing.
The key is, he also monopolized!
The items on this stall were mostly subpar goods discarded by higher-ranking hunters, slightly repaired, and then sold at sky-high prices.
If you tried to bypass the middleman and purchase directly from higher-level hunters—Harlowe had already anticipated this. He bought up 90% of the junk, then sent out so minions to buy the remaining percentage and sell it at a ’fair price’ below his.
The higher-level hunters thought that the institution market was competitively fair.
But in reality, it was a monopoly.
The players hated Harlowe to the core. For players, it’s not fear of high prices; they could grind it out.
They feared the painstaking efforts and frugality to buy a graphics card, then surfing the net later to find sothing cheaper and that the price was even dropping.
After a while, you suddenly discover that what you have is sothing that’s been pre-loved by a mining boss!
[Thinking about it, Harlowe should just be starting out... and indeed, his strength is at Zeta Rank (6), really just starting out.]
Li Aozi secretly smiled warmly.
[So you also have days like these, swindler tree person.]
Harlowe saw that Li Aozi was still pondering, thinking he was tempted, and imdiately pressed the advantage, saying,
"This is a valuable item, you should bring out sothing high-value to trade—"
[Canyue] Activated
Lower-dinsional processing.
Plop.
Li Aozi’s wrist gently shook, and the pink snowball suddenly disappeared.
Li Aozi looked at Harlowe, full of suspicion,
"You call this a ’Social Institution’?"
Harlowe’s mind went blank.
After so many years, hunters had always been naive, never doubting his introductions.
Li Aozi held his empty palm, staring strangely at Harlowe,
"Why did it disappear with a gentle shake?"
Before Harlowe could explain, Li Aozi imdiately clenched his fist and shouted, "Damn! Swindler! Law enforcent, co here, there’s a swindler!"
At the mont he clenched his fist, the Dream Snow on his palm was already transferred to the Autonomous Space-Ti Belt.
"Wait, wait! Shh—buddy, don’t make such a fuss, you didn’t lose anything, don’t ruin my reputation."
"What are you saying? Are my rights not violated, so I don’t need to protect them?"
Li Aozi, indignant, called for law enforcent again. He even deliberately lifted his head, revealing his handso face,
"Law enforcent officers—"
"Ahem, it was my fault for not checking closely enough. No worries, you can look at other items."
Newly launched Harlowe’s psychological quality and coping skills were still immature. He panicked when threatened by Li Aozi, quickly backed down, and smiled apologetically,
"No worries, buddy, I have plenty of other goods; you can take a look at each one..."
Though he lost a subpar institution, as long as he could sell one, he was still making a profit.
Li Aozi pretended to skeptically glance at him,
"Really? Hmm, since you’re so sincere, I’ll give it another try."
He said while lifting a blue short sword,
"This is Arthur’s Blade. Once thrown, it will fly back to your hand, very useful—"
[Canyue] Activated!
Before Harlowe could finish speaking, Li Aozi gestured with both hands empty.
"... What’s going on?" Harlowe was confused.
"Hey, what do you an?"
Li Aozi grabbed Harlowe’s roots fiercely, glaring into his eyes and shouted,
"You call this quality control? It vanished as soon as I took it; what is this? Are you trying to deceive ? Where did you put the institution?"
Harlowe panicked. At Zeta rank, Li Aozi’s silver badge on his chest was obviously not at the sa level as Harlowe’s purple copper,
"Calm down—I’m the one who suffered the loss..."
"What did you say? I can see from your proficient actions that this isn’t your first ti committing such a cri. I originally wanted to end it this way and tolerate it, but within a minute, my mind was spinning around with ’Do I have to wait until sothing happens to say sothing?’—If you’re not a deceiver, why not defend yourself? Enough! Why are you shouting so loud? You disgusting tree, getting harassed by vegetarians every ti you go out!"
"Please listen to , sir, you’ve misunderstood—"
Li Aozi grabbed Harlowe’s neck and shouted loudly,
"I don’t want to hear your explanation! For the sake of argunt, even if my rights haven’t been violated, can’t I still claim them?"
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