Chapter 118: Sold Out! On Day One!

Ethan slowly looked around the garden, taking in the countless varieties of rare fruits surrounding them.

There were so many choices that it was almost difficult to decide.

If what Rin had said was true, then most of the rare fruits here could ultimately generate roughly the same amount of money, or at least something close enough that there was no real point in choosing one based solely on its potential value.

So instead of worrying about which fruit might make him the most money, Ethan decided to choose based on something much simpler.

Whichever one caught his eye the most.

His gaze moved slowly from one section to another until it finally settled on the purple fruits.

They immediately stood out from everything around them.

The fruits were a deep, rich purple, but their color wasn’t completely uniform. Thin, naturally occurring silver lines curled across their skins like delicate veins, and every now and then, when the faint moonlight touched them, those patterns shimmered as though there were tiny traces of energy moving beneath the surface. Each fruit was slightly larger than an ordinary apple, with a smooth, almost polished skin and a small crown-like indentation around the stem.

They looked beautiful.

More importantly, they looked rare.

Ethan pointed toward them.

"I want those."

Rin followed his gaze before grinning. "Good pick." He immediately reached for the small bag he had brought with him earlier, pulling it out so they could store the fruits they collected.

Ethan glanced at the bag before looking back at the trees. "How many should we take?"

Rin shrugged. "That depends on you."

Ethan knew one rare fruit could potentially produce multiple spiritual fruits, but there was no way of knowing exactly how many successful ones he would get from each. It depended on the process, his own effort, and, apparently, luck. Taking too few could mean wasting the opportunity if some of them failed, but taking too many could also create unnecessary problems since it would be more noticeable and would increase the chances of them getting caught.

After thinking about it, Ethan eventually settled on a batch. "Twelve."

Rin nodded.

"Just a full batch?"

"Yeah. If we’re taking them anyway, we might as well take twelve. At least out of twelve, half should surely produce something good, right?"

Rin gave him a look. "You’re really trusting your luck there."

"I have to."

Twelve seemed reasonable to him and so the two of them opened the small bag and began carefully collecting the purple fruits.

They didn’t simply yank them from the branches. Since they needed the actual fruits and didn’t want to damage them unnecessarily, Rin showed Ethan how to loosen the soil around the roots and carefully uproot the smaller fruit-bearing plants where necessary, while making sure they could be replanted later if needed.

Ethan counted as they worked.

One.

Two.

Three.

By the time they reached twelve, the bag was filled with the purple fruits.

Rin looked at the remaining fruits before reaching out and taking two more.

Ethan glanced at him. "What are those for?"

"Tasting."

"You’re eating them now?"

"Not now. I’ll take two with me and try them later." Rin grinned. "You heard what I said earlier. I’ve never actually tasted a rare fruit before. Since we’re already here, I might as well finally find out whether all those rumors about how sweet they are are true."

Ethan shook his head but didn’t stop him.

Once they were satisfied with what they had taken, the two of them carefully retraced their steps. They exited the garden, locked the door behind them, returned the key to the safe, and entered the PIN again to secure it exactly as they had found it.

By the time they made it back to Ethan’s dorm, the academy had become considerably quieter.

Rin handed the collected fruits over to Ethan, keeping the two he had taken for himself. "Don’t start with all twelve at once," he adviced "Experiment with two or three pieces first. See what happens and how the process with actual rare works before you use everything."

Ethan nodded. "Yeah. That’s a good idea."

He had been excited about starting immediately, but Rin was right. He had no idea how the process would behave with these particular fruits, and there was no reason to risk the entire batch without testing it first.

Rin left, and Ethan finally closed the door behind him.

He walked over to his bed and dropped onto it, letting his body sink into the mattress.

He stared up at the ceiling.

He was exhausted.

He wanted to rest for at least an hour before beginning the process of making the new spiritual fruits. If he pushed himself too hard now, he might end up too tired to attend his classes properly tomorrow and he didn’t want that.

His eyes slowly drifted toward his phone.

Speaking of spiritual fruits...

Ethan suddenly remembered his online store.

A small, excited feeling bubbled inside him.

He knew it had only been opened a few hours ago, so there was absolutely no reason to expect any orders yet. He had deliberately listed the apples at the normal price of an ordinary apple, after all, and this entire thing was supposed to be a test.

Still...

He couldn’t resist checking.

Ethan picked up his phone and opened the seller page.

His eyes immediately went to the product listing.

He blinked.

Then blinked again.

He stared at the screen for several seconds, convinced that he had somehow read it incorrectly.

All goods are now sold out.

Ethan sat upright so quickly that the exhaustion he had been feeling moments earlier disappeared.

"What?"

He refreshed the page.

The result remained the same.

Sold out.

His entire stock was gone.

Every single one of the twenty-plus spiritual apples he had listed had been purchased. In just a few hours.

"How is that possible?"

Ethan stared at his phone in complete disbelief.

He hadn’t even expected one person to buy them this quickly. Yet somehow, every single apple was already gone.

His fingers immediately moved toward Rin’s contact.

He sent him a message. Rin, crazy news! I just got sold out. Can you believe that?

Meanwhile, a few hours earlier, within the academy quarters...

Robert hurried into Ronan’s office with an expression of urgency on his face.

Ronan, who had been working at his computer, immediately looked up. His hands moved toward his temples as he let out a tired groan.

"What is it now?" Ronan’s expression hardened slightly. "If you’re interrupting me, it better be for something good."

Robert didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he walked over and held out the tab in his hand.

"Look at this."

Ronan glanced at the screen.

At first, he seemed ready to dismiss whatever Robert was showing him, but the moment his eyes landed on the selling page, his entire expression changed.

He immediately sat upright.

"What?"

His gaze snapped back to the screen. For a long moment, he simply stared.

After such a long time since Aster had disappeared, someone had suddenly appeared online claiming to be selling spiritual fruits.

Ronan immediately took the tablet from Robert’s hand.

"How is that possible?"

His attention first went to the vendor profile.

But his brows quickly furrowed when he found almost no information about the seller.

Although Ethan had provided his information during registration, the selling platform allowed sellers to keep their personal identity anonymous, and that was exactly the option Ethan and Rin had selected when creating the account.

Ronan frowned before moving back to the actual product listing.

He browsed through the uploaded images, studying them carefully.

Then he saw the product.

An apple.

Just an apple.

The entire listing contained nothing more than a single ordinary type of fruit being advertised as a spiritual fruit.

Ronan’s tense expression slowly relaxed.

He sighed. "It’s just an apple."

He handed the tablet back toward Robert.

"This isn’t the first time someone has appeared online claiming to sell spiritual fruits since Aster disappeared. People have made similar claims before, and they always eventually turned out to be lying." Ronan shook his head. "I’m sure this is the same thing."

Robert looked at the listing again. "Yeah. It might be."

He nodded before turning around to leave the office. However, the moment he was out of Ronan’s direct line of sight, Robert opened the sellers page again.

He couldn’t completely shake the feeling that there was something different about this particular listing.

He secretly placed an order.

He initially tried to purchase five of the fruits.

A notification immediately appeared.

Requested quantity unavailable. Only one item left.

Robert stared at the message.

Only one?

He quickly changed the order to one fruit. It was better than nothing. At the very least, having one in his hands would allow him to confirm his suspicions.

He completed the purchase.

For some reason, he couldn’t completely agree with Ronan’s conclusion.

There was something about the apple in those pictures.

Something he couldn’t quite explain.

It really looked like a spiritually infused apple.

And if that was true...