Chapter 119: Excitement and Nervousness!

Ethan woke up exactly one hour later, right on schedule.

Normally, he would probably have been tempted to sleep a little longer, especially after everything he had gone through recently, but there was no way he could stay asleep when he was feeling this excited.

And nervous.

Excitement because his spiritual fruits had actually sold out on their first day.

His very first day.

Ethan couldn’t help feeling ridiculously excited about that.

More importantly, the fruits weren’t fake.

The people who had purchased them and actually experienced the effects would know that they had gotten something real. If the spiritual energy inside the apples had produced noticeable results for them, then there was a good chance they would come back and purchase more. That meant he had already received the kind of feedback he had been hoping for without even realizing it.

His first experiment had worked.

Really worked.

But along with the excitement came the other feeling.

Nervousness.

Because there was one extremely important part of selling something online that he had somehow forgotten to think about.

Delivery.

Ethan stared at his phone.

He had been so focused on growing the spiritual fruits, creating his vendor profile, taking pictures, setting the price, and finally launching the product that he hadn’t properly considered what would happen after someone actually bought one.

Now real people had ordered his fruits.

Actual customers.

And he had to send their orders to them.

That meant packaging the fruits, figuring out how to transport them, and making sure they actually reached the buyers. He couldn’t simply leave the orders sitting in his vendor account. If he wanted people to trust his store and purchase from him again, he needed to prove that he could deliver quickly and reliably.

And that was exactly why he needed Rin.

Ethan picked up his phone and checked whether Rin had seen the message he had sent earlier.

The moment he opened their conversation, his eyes widened.

There were already countless messages from Rin.

Ethan stared at the screen before opening them one by one.

Wait, how?!

It’s good news, but how?!

This is really incredible, Ethan!

You have some seriously good luck!

But now we’ll have to send out their orders so they know you’re fast and reliable.

And we need to order the next rare fruit batch too.

I’m coming over.

Ethan continued reading.

Oh no, it’s already late. How about tomorrow?

Then another message.

Wait, I have classes and you do too, right?

And finally:

Okay, after classes we’ll meet and send out the orders.

Ethan couldn’t help himself.

He burst out laughing.

Why did Rin seem even more excited about his store selling out than he was?

This guy was seriously taking his new business venture personally.

He had barely woken up and Rin had already gone through an entire emotional journey on his behalf, apparently planning their next steps before Ethan had even had time to process the fact that every single apple was gone.

Ethan chuckled again as he shook his head.

He reacted to Rin’s messages with a laughing emoji before typing his response.

My classes end by five. You can come over anytime you’re done with yours.

He sent the message and stretched, finally feeling the last bit of sleepiness leave his body.

As he shifted, however, he suddenly noticed a tiny presence lying beside him.

Ethan looked down.

Lumi was curled up next to him, her fluffy little body almost completely swallowed by the blankets. Her large ears were relaxed, and she looked thoroughly comfortable, still sleepy from whatever she had been doing while Ethan rested.

A small smile tugged at Ethan’s lips.

He gently reached over and smoothed his hand across her fluffy head.

Lumi barely reacted, only shifting slightly before settling back down.

Ethan couldn’t help finding her adorable.

"Alright. Time for business."

He didn’t waste any more time.

He gathered the rare fruits he and Rin had stolen and carefully brought them with him as he entered his dungeon.

Once inside, Ethan immediately looked toward the area where the miniature spiritual apple tree was still rooted.

His expression changed.

"Ah..."

He had completely forgotten about that.

The little tree was still occupying the only particularly good location he currently had available for his spiritual-fruit experiments, and now that he had a new batch of rare fruits to work with, he needed the space.

He couldn’t exactly plant everything around the existing tree and hope it would somehow work.

He needed to move it.

Fortunately, Ethan had already thought about this possibility earlier.

He reached into his belongings and pulled out the small hand trowel he had collected from Rin beforehand.

"Good thing I thought of that."

Ethan crouched beside the miniature tree and carefully began loosening the soil around its roots.

He didn’t want to damage it.

The tree had already proven itself valuable by producing more than twenty spiritual apples, and Ethan had no intention of accidentally killing the only successful spiritual-fruit tree he currently possessed just because he was too impatient to move it properly. He didn’t know if it could still produce more fruits but he couldn’t damage it until he was sure.

He worked slowly, digging around the base and gradually loosening the soil until the roots began to separate from the ground.

He continued digging until he had loosened enough of the surrounding soil.

Then, with one final careful pull, he finally uprooted the miniature tree.

Ethan immediately carried it toward another suitable area of his dungeon and replanted it there, making sure the roots were properly covered before gently pressing the soil around its base.

Once he was satisfied that the tree was secure, Ethan stood and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"Phew."

That was done.

Now came the important part.

Ethan turned toward the rare fruits he had brought inside.

The excitement in his eyes returned almost immediately.

This was what he had been waiting for.

He had already proven that he could transform an ordinary fruit into a spiritual fruit, but these were different.

These were rare fruits.

If Rin was right about their value, then successfully infusing them with spiritual energy could produce spiritual fruits worth several times what the original fruits were worth.

Ethan carefully selected the first three fruits he had decided to experiment with.

He placed them carefully in front of him.

Then Ethan took a slow breath.

His excitement faded into concentration as he prepared himself.

The next step was the main thing.

He needed to channel his spiritual energy into the fruits.