Chapter 113: These Wouldn’t Count as Spiritual Fruits!

Ethan’s brows furrowed.

“What?”

“If you agree to the marriage, you won’t have to think about money ever again. Something as little as academy fees won’t even be a problem.”

Ethan felt a wave of disgust wash over him.

“You really are unbelievable.”

“Ethan—”

“If you’re not going to withdraw the money, then I’ll find a way to send it back to you one way or another.”

Before Steve could respond, Ethan ended the call. He stared at his phone for a moment, his chest still rising with anger.

Then his expression slowly changed.

He had said he would find a way. And he would.

But first, he needed to know exactly how much money he could make on his own.

Ethan immediately entered his dungeon. The familiar environment appeared around him, but he didn’t spare anything else a glance.

His eyes went straight toward the place where his money maker was growing.

Please. Please let it have bloomed already.

He was going to prove every one of these people wrong.

***

When Ethan’s eyes landed on the spot where he had buried the fruit, he almost thought he was looking at the wrong place. And for a moment, he simply stared.

The blank patch of soil he had been seeing every time he checked was gone.

In its place stood a small, miniature tree, its delicate branches covered with more than twenty glowing apples. They looked nothing like ordinary apples. Each fruit had a faint spiritual glow surrounding it, the light shimmering softly across its smooth surface as though spiritual energy had been condensed directly into the fruit itself. Even the tiny leaves on the tree seemed to carry a subtle radiance, making the entire little tree look almost unreal inside his dungeon.

Ethan stared at the little tree for several seconds before his eyes widened in disbelief.

Then his face lit up as he let a delighted squeal escaped him.

“It really worked!”

He stared at the tree in disbelief, his excitement growing as he looked at the glowing fruits.

“It really, really worked!”

He had actually done it!

His mysterious book’s instructions had not been nonsense after all. He had followed the procedure, planted the fruit, waited, and now there was an actual spiritual fruit tree standing in front of him.

Sure, it had only produced a little over twenty fruits instead of the hundreds or thousands he had secretly imagined, but Ethan wasn’t going to complain. Something had grown, and that alone was already a huge success.

It was a start.

And he definitely wasn’t going to waste time now that he knew the method actually worked.

His next step was obvious.

Marketing.

If spiritual fruits were truly as rare and highly sought after as the book claimed, then he needed to test the waters and see whether people were actually willing to buy them. The easiest way to do that was to put his products online and see what kind of reaction they received.

There was just one problem.

Ethan had absolutely no idea how selling things online worked.

He knew how to buy things, obviously. He knew how to browse through things, compare prices, and occasionally wonder why people were charging ridiculous amounts for things that looked completely ordinary.

But actually selling something?

That was an entirely different matter.

After thinking about it for a moment, Ethan decided there was only one person who could help him with this.

Rin.

He pulled out his communication device and quickly sent him a message.

I’m facing a life-threatening situation. Emergency SOS. Come quickly.

The message was sent.

Ethan didn’t waste another second. He turned around and entered his dungeon, quickly plucking all the glowing apples from the miniature spiritual tree before carrying them back out with him.

He had barely stepped out of the dungeon when a knock sounded at his door.

Ethan blinked.

That was fast.

He walked over and opened the door, only to find Rin standing outside with a suspicious expression on his face.

“You dummy. Emergency situation? What emergency situation is that, hm?”

Ethan immediately grabbed him by the arm and pulled him inside.

“It was an emergency situation!”

Rin stumbled inside, looking even more confused as Ethan hurriedly shut the door behind him.

Ethan then began explaining everything, from how he had discovered that spiritual fruits were rare and highly sought after to how he had followed the guidance in his mysterious books and actually managed to grow one himself.

Finally, he revealed the glowing apples.

Rin’s eyes immediately lit up.

“You…”

He stared at the fruits before breaking into a wide smile.

“When did you become so extremely smart? This is actually a really good and productive idea. It’s hard to make spiritual fruits, so people end up buying them, which makes them rare and highly sought after.”

Rin looked around the room, clearly expecting to see more.

“Where are the other spiritual fruits you made?”

Ethan blinked.

“What other spiritual fruits?”

Rin turned toward him slowly.

“Don’t tell me this glowing apple is the only spiritual fruit you made, Ethan.”

Ethan hesitated before slowly nodding.

“…Yes?”

Rin immediately raised a hand and face-palmed.

Ethan stared at him in confusion.

“What’s wrong? Why are you face-palming me?”

Rin lowered his hand and looked at him like he had just discovered that his friend had somehow managed to walk into a trap that was sitting right in front of him.

“Ethan, apples aren’t exactly lucrative when it comes to selling spiritual fruits.”

“Huh?”

“Listen, when people hear the words ‘spiritual fruit,’ they aren’t thinking about an ordinary fruit that happens to have spiritual energy infused into it. The whole idea behind spiritual fruits is that they’re supposed to be extremely rare fruits that are infused with spiritual energy. The rarity of the actual fruit is part of what makes them valuable.”

He pointed toward the glowing apples.

“Apples are common. They’re everywhere. People eat them normally. If you suddenly put a glowing apple online and claim that it’s a spiritual fruit, most people probably won’t take it seriously. They’ll think you’re selling an ordinary apple, or worse, trying to scam them with some trick.”

Ethan’s expression slowly fell.

Rin sighed.

“Didn’t you check any spiritual fruit samples before you started your production journey?”

“No,” Ethan admitted honestly. “I really hadn’t thought of that.”

Rin stared at him for a moment before sighing dramatically.

“Oh, my dear friend. I take back my earlier words about you being smart.”

Ethan immediately feigned a hurt expression before lightly smacking Rin.

“Enough with the mocking!”

Rin laughed, rubbing the spot where Ethan had hit him.

Ethan ignored his laughter and returned to the actual problem.

“Fine. Then do you have a solution? Where can we find those rare fruits so I can start the procedure again?”

Rin’s expression became thoughtful.

“Rare spiritual fruits are highly protected. The people who rear them know exactly how valuable they are, so when they sell them, they sell them at incredibly high prices. If you buy the fruits and then use them to grow your own, you might be able to produce spiritual fruits, but once you subtract the amount you spent buying the original fruit from whatever you earn afterward, you probably won’t make much.”

Ethan frowned.

That made sense.

“If you can’t afford to buy them, then…”

Rin shrugged.

“The only other option is to steal them.”

Ethan stared at him.

Rin continued as casually as though he had just suggested they go buy lunch.

“And luckily for you, the academy also houses rare fruits in one of its restricted private gardens. All we have to do is sneak in, take what we need, and survive without getting caught.”

Ethan’s eyes widened.

He stared at Rin for several seconds, genuinely wondering whether his friend was in his right senses.

Was this really what they were discussing?

Stealing rare fruits from the academy?

Again?

But then Ethan remembered that he had literally sneaked into an Empire research facility just a day ago to steal resources.

Well…

Who was he to judge someone else?

The realization made him internally sigh.

The cycle of sneaking in somewhere, stealing something, and then somehow ending up needing to sneak in somewhere else to steal something again was beginning to worry him.

Was he gradually turning into a thief now?

Or, worse…

Had he already become a thief?

“Uh, earth to Ethan! Earth to Ethan!”

Rin snapped his fingers several times in front of Ethan’s face, finally pulling him out of his spiraling thoughts.

Ethan blinked and looked at him.

“I’m right here, Rin! I can hear you.”

“Good.” Rin crossed his arms. “So, are you going to do it or not?”

Ethan looked at the glowing apples in his hands, then back at Rin.

There really wasn’t much of a choice.

“I have no choice. I don’t necessarily have the money to buy the rare fruits anyway, so…”

He sighed.

“Stealing it is!”