I became a god by treasure hunting after arriving 500 years early

The alligator man kept rolling around and wailing as if he'd gone mad.

"Dig it up, time to clean Kamosh's teeth!"

"Mr. Lu, he says they...admit defeat and are willing to offer up 100 Spirit Essences."

Lu Yuan leaped back to his own base camp.

The soldiers still strictly followed the discipline, standing erect, but the tension in their hearts had settled down a lot.

Victory!

It wasn't easy...

If it had been a different Great Grandmaster, they might not have been able to win.

"How did it go? Any observations?"

A scientist displayed the recent battle footage on a screen: "That arm must be from an Anomaly, capable of using a certain degree of Anomaly Ability..."

"But having that arm installed might come with a terrible cost."

"We guess that the octopus tentacle was connected to the soul. Once the arm got damaged, the soul was also affected; that's why the alligator man couldn't bear the pain and collapsed on the ground."

Lu Yuan's eyebrows furrowed tightly, the speculation matching his own thoughts.

Because physical pain is bearable; by using the Spark to cut off the nerves, it could be endured.

But damage to the soul, even the Extraordinary Spark couldn't muster strength against it.

"Additionally, the arrogance and haughtiness this alligator man displayed might be a facade. Or rather, all mermen might be incapable of expressing emotions."

"Because they remained cold as ice even during the most intense moments of the battle."

A civilization without emotions is indeed strange.

Even Insect Soldiers have emotions.

"What do you think, is this Nanyu civilization worth exchanging with?" Lu Yuan asked in the captain's office, sipping on some fruit wine. The drain from the Spark Energy earlier made his heart race.

Faced with this question, the crowd split into two factions.

The Conservative faction believed that there were many doubts about the South Island Civilization. They might possess some inhumane technology—for instance, the merman soldiers might have undergone high-tech modifications and, being cold-blooded, were not as closely connected to emotions as humans.

This meant mutual understanding would be challenging.

Since they had already won, the chance to incite strategic misjudgments was low; hence leaving directly would mean all is well.

However, the Radical faction believed that value systems should not be forced upon other civilizations.

What do the value systems of other civilizations have to do with humans?

Could humans really be thinking of liberating the entire Pangu Continent? Different civilizations have different societal and ideological structures; do humans have the ability to correct others?

"My point is, differing value systems could lead to significant strategic misjudgments. We think human life is important, but if the other party comes from a society with little regard for human rights and doesn't fear death, then some of their decisions might be completely different from ours. If they're a reckless civilization, even slightly weaker than us, war risks could arise. Take the Insect Race, for example..."

Lu Yuan sighed. When the Insect Race encountered humans, even if 99% of their population died, they would wage war as long as victory was possible.

Indeed, this had to be guarded against.

"This civilization is really bizarre, it gives me a bad premonition."

"Ladies and gentlemen, we won this gambling match, didn't we? They're the ones who should be worried! What are we afraid of?"

And this Nanyu civilization clearly possessed some knowledge unknown to humans, and they might have even found relics of a High-level Civilization!

Their technology was more advanced than that of humanity; it wouldn't be bad even just to buy some electronic products from them.

After a passionate discussion, humans of the present were quite practical. Lu Yuan himself couldn't care less about what kind of social system this "South Island Civilization" had, whether it had humanity or not; just make a trade and then say farewell.

I won't visit you.

And you don't come to visit us.

Isn't that fine now?

As for the risks... what in the world doesn't involve risk? Even standing still, you could be attacked by wandering anomalies.

With their minds made up, the once-opposing experts shut up, and the scientists began to discuss what should be traded and which goods would yield the highest profit.

The most valuable of all, naturally, is knowledge.

Trading intellectual property is a business with no cost but huge profits!

Of course, people were not willing to sell fundamental knowledge indiscriminately; only some superficial information could be traded.

Next in line was finished Extraordinary Equipment, weapons, consumables - these civilization-unique items would carry a certain added value.

Finally, there were raw materials, which had relatively low added value, unless you were deceiving some completely ignorant noob civilizations, which made it hard to make a big profit.

Of course, raw materials were also fairly solid; their fair value was easy to ascertain, making negotiations relatively straightforward. Under normal circumstances, they would be prioritized in the discussions as an "icebreaking trip," to enhance the friendship between both parties.

"Humanity's warehouse has an abundance of Fire Attribute Materials, too much to use up, so trading some for Water Attribute or Ice Attribute materials would be a great deal. Otherwise, they'd just be taking up space."

"But wouldn't that expose the fact that we've come from the volcano?" An expert expressed his concern.

"They might deduce that the volcano is rich and decide to attack us."

"We can't be afraid of everything... Folks, we're not weak..." Lu Yuan was perplexed by their timorous attitude; after all, the others were merely primitive civilizations...

Alright, better to be a little cautious.

Trading life materials would mean exposing either the Opium poppy or the Tree of Life, two Anomalies that certainly shouldn't be carelessly revealed.

Trading volcanic materials would expose our movements.

As for materials of other Attributes, humanity's own stock wasn't abundant, so they weren't keen on trading them away.

Under these circumstances, exposing a bit of our trail isn't such a terrible thing.

"Let's mix the coffin materials we've dug up from the Source Fire Civilization with volcanic materials and trade some away, we've got plenty of those... Superior Level and above materials, we'll hold off on selling for now."

"Some Extraordinary Equipment below Ordinary Level could be sold in exchange for raw materials."

Humans initially took pride in nurturing a batch of highly skilled craftsmen, including 31 Rat Artisans!

Though the Rat Artisans were not very obedient, they needed to maintain their touch. If they used human materials to craft equipment, the ownership naturally belonged to humanity.

On the human side, due to recent changes in Qi Fortune, 8 talented newcomers with Craftsmanship have emerged, bringing the total close to 20.

With such a robust reserve of craftsman talent, Lu Yuan was confident that, aside from the Alien Civilization, there were few civilizations in the Ninth Epoch that could compare to humanity!

The consensus was to trade for more Life Attribute materials. It would be ideal if we could equip 400,000 people, each with an item to enhance their cultivation...

Alright, that gap was indeed too large. 400,000 pieces of equipment, even if it were only jade pendants, would require a tremendous amount of materials...
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"So that's that, I'll leave the negotiations to you all."

"Try to expose as little information about us as possible and dig up as much about them as you can."

A few hours later, the Nanyu Civilization sent over 100 units of Spirit Essences as Spirit Crystals, which are even more solid than materials.

Humans currently have a reserve of about 2,300 units of Spirit Essence in Spirit Crystals. (Near the volcano, due to fluctuations in Epoch Qi Fortune, quite a bit has been absorbed.)

"It's actually made of pearls, quite peculiar."

"Could it be some kind of biological material?" Several experts inspected these quail egg-sized spheres seriously, confirming there were no surveillance devices or bugs inside. After making sure the trade was indeed fair, they heaved a sigh of relief.

Winning the gamble and gaining 100 units of Spirit Essence, everyone was still quite pleased.

As for what came next, that was a long process of communication and exchange.

The humans first prepared an inventory list, detailing the approximate information and respective prices of items.

The Mermen seemed to have some degree of willingness to communicate, and they also handed in their inventory list.

The contents were...surprisingly astonishing!

...