Astral Pet Store Novel - Chapter 215

Chapter 215: A Huge Sum of Merit Points

“Mr. Su, can you… help us distribute those merit points?”

Su Yanying felt as if the three million merit points Zhou Feng had transferred to her were like a hot potato. Making three million merit points was equal to killing three eighth-rank beasts.

For recently graduated explorers like them, a million merit points represented a considerable amount.

Su Ping helped them obtain those merit points and the amount was much larger than what they had expected. Besides, Su Lingyue was Su Ping’s sister. How to distribute those merit points had become a conundrum.

Su Ping could tell what was bothering her. “Just distribute the merit points according to your contributions. Don’t overthink it,” Su Ping said.

Su Lingyue forced a bitter smile. If they had only been given a small number of merit points, they could share them based on their contributions. However, the amount at hand was huge. If she were to distribute based on her contributions, she could pocket one to two million by herself and that would make the others be envious of her.

Those merit points were appealing to Lu Pengfei and the long-legged girl as well. But they had to discard this wish upon hearing Su Ping’s words. They regretted not having performed better during their exploration.

Su Lingyue noticed Su Ping wasn’t speaking in her favor. She threw a look at him in confusion. She was neither happy nor disappointed. It was Su Lingyue’s nature to be reasonable and she found it normal that the distribution of the merit points should be based on their respective contributions. She just found it surprising that her despicable brother could be this fair.

Since her three peers didn’t disagree with Su Ping’s words, Su Yanying came up with a proposal. “Then, I will take one million merit points, Su Lingyue will take eight hundred thousand, and the two of you will each take six hundred thousand. How is that?”

Lu Pengfei and the long-legged girl were relieved. The disparity between their shares was smaller than the two had thought. They could tell that Su Yanying did not strictly split up the merit points according to their contributions. If she had, the two of them would only get three to four hundred thousand.

“Thank you, Yingying.”

“Thank you.”

The long-legged girl and Lu Pengfei expressed their appreciation to Su Yanying.

Su Lingyue was happy about the result and she had a better impression of Su Yanying. Su Yanying felt a burden had been lifted off from her shoulders after seeing them so pleased. She knew she had done a good job splitting the merit points. She didn’t take the full amount of what she deserved but she did earn their trust, and they could be a part of her connections in the future.

Ye Chenshan and Luo Guxue looked at each other and smiled. Both of them saw her in a favorable light, since she was smart also had a high emotional quotient.

They were done dividing the spoils… no, merit points. Afterward, Su Ping logged onto the explorers’ store’s website and searched for the materials he was looking for.

Many items were displayed on the webpage. They were dazzling to look at.

“What are you looking for?” Su Lingyue asked curiously when she saw Su Ping browsing this webpage.

Su Ping gave an ambiguous answer, “A kind of material.”

“A kind of material?” Su Lingyue was even more puzzled.

Ye Chenshan, Luo Guxue, and Zhou Jing were eager to find out what material could Su Ping need when he was already so powerful.

All of a sudden, Lu Fengpei uttered his question with a trembling voice, “Mr. Su… this number… is your number of merit points?”

Su Yanying and the long-legged girl were surprised to see how worked up Lu Pengfei was. They shifted their looks to the screen as well. The number on the top column on the page caught their attention. The number was… 432.9… million?!

All of them were stunned still.

Su Lingyue darted a glance at the screen as well and the number astonished her.

Ye Chenshan, Luo Guxue, and Zhou Jing also took a look from the corner of their eyes. The three of them were equally shocked as they read the number. Su Ping had more than four hundred million merit points?

Even for them, gold-tier explorers that had built up their reputation for years, this amount of merit points was incredible!

The three of them stared at Su Ping in utter astonishment.

Su Ping didn’t find the amount enormous. He had just traded a small part of the treasures he found in the Mysterious Realm. He could easily have much more merit points if he had traded some of the more advanced treasures.

He had used those treasures to trade for merit points, just so that he could have the opportunity to buy the materials he needed for his body refinement.

Su Ping just gave a brief reply to Lu Pengfei. He swiped the touch screen to browse through the list of items.

The list went on and on.

In the store, Su Ping even found the Life Fruit that could cure his mom’s unmentionable disease once and for all and the Longevity Fruit that could increase people’s life expectancy by five years. But the Longevity Fruit was only effective once for each person. Taking more of those fruits would be useless.

Neither was expensive and could be purchased with over one million merit points. For the average explorers, earning one million merit points implied having to kill one eighth-rank beast. But in Su Ping’s case, one million meant nothing.

Su Ping bought the two of them and then scrolled down the page.

Soon, he found the item he needed: Fire Crystal.

That was from the heart of a beast at the peak of the ninth-rank; the Fire Crystal contained rich and potent fire elements. For pets of the fire family, eating the Fire Crystal would mean that they could rise by one rank directly, better understand fire-related skills, increase the strength of fire elements within them and make them more compatible to fire elements. The Fire Crystal was an extremely cherished item.

The Fire Crystal’s price was three million merit points.

That was a price that Su Ping could easily afford. However, the color of this item was gray, indicating that it was sold out.

What the heck?

Su Ping was speechless. This was annoying and vexing.

That was the last item he needed for the cultivation of the second level of his Solar Bulwark. The item was extremely hard to find. Finally, he saw this item on the list but it wasn’t available.

That was to say, he had to go to another channel.

That would waste so much time.

Su Ping took a deep breath to calm himself down. In frustration, Su Ping closed the webpage, logged off his account, and stepped aside.

“You can have the machine now.” Su Ping heaved a sigh.

By then, the others had calmed themselves down from the initial shock of seeing Su Ping’s massive amount of merit points. Ye Chenshan noticed that the item Su Ping wished to buy was sold out and that he was disappointed. Ye Chenshan asked, “Mr. Su, are you in a hurry to get this item? Maybe you can go to some auctions to try your luck. Or, if it’s more urgent, I can help you post a bounty mission, but that will cost you a huge amount of merit points.”

“A bounty?” Su Ping looked at him in confusion.

“That is right. We can publish the mission among the Longjiang City explorers. You can ask for the Fire Crystal itself or the whereabouts of the beast itself,” Ye Chenshan explained.

Su Ping was intrigued by this proposal. “Then, let’s ask for both. How do I do that?”

“I will take care of it for you,” Ye Chenshan answered, “But if you are asking for the Fire Crystal directly, the reward would have to be, I suppose, over ten million. On the other hand, if you are asking for the whereabouts of the beast, just over one million will be enough for the reward.”

Su Ping replied without any hesitation, “Let’s ask for both. I don’t mind the merit points.”

Ye Chenshan forced a smile. He knew this would be Su Ping’s answer. Indeed, given the number of merit points Su Ping had, he could definitely afford this.

“Sure. Mr. Su, I will let you know as soon as I get some news,” Ye Chenshan said.

Su Ping nodded. “Thanks.”

“No Problem.” Ye Chenshan smiled.

Luo Guxue added, “Maybe you can check the exchange office at the academy. Our academy knows some secret channels to collect some of the good stuff. I can give you some of my points if you don’t have enough teacher’s points.”

Su Ping’s eyes glowed. Indeed. Since he had become a teacher at the Phoenix Peak Academy, he had yet to obtain any benefits. Dong Mingsong had previously made the promise that he could use his points to redeem some of the treasures that were even hard to come across at the black market. He had never tried that. Perhaps he could find what he was looking for in the academy.

“Then Mr. Su, you can take a look at the academy and I will post the missions as well. If you can find it, tell me and I will call off the mission,” Ye Chenshan said.

Su Ping nodded. Trying several alternatives could increase the chances of success.

Su Yanying and the students listened to the conversation with complicated feelings. It was as if they were in a different world.

Su Yanying logged onto her account and quickly allocated the three million merit points.

She logged off after having done that. Su Lingyue was thinking about logging onto her account but eventually didn’t. She threw a glance at Su Ping and asked, “Did you buy the Life Fruit?”

“Yes.”

“Is that for…” Su Lingyue sounded hesitant.

Su Ping was speechless to her reaction. “Of course it’s for mom,” Su Ping said grumpily.

Su Lingyue had guessed that Su Ping had bought that for their mom. Buying the Life Fruit had always been her goal. Previously, she had worked up the courage to jump out and argue with Zhou Feng regardless of the consequences just because she was desperate and wanted to take the chance to get the merit points so that mom could recover sooner.

It was just that, this difficult goal of hers had been achieved by Su Ping so effortlessly…

Su Lingyue was a bit crestfallen. She had witnessed the sea changes in him time after time but she could never get rid of the image she had of him from the time when they were kids. At this moment, Su Lingyue suddenly had the realization that her despicable brother had truly turned into the backbone of the family.

For all those years, she had always been the pride of the family… her mom’s pride.

At the moment, she sensed that Su Ping would be the biggest pride of the family, and even… even she would be proud of him.

Su Ping didn’t know what Su Lingyue was thinking about while she was so quiet and he did not bother to find out. He bid farewell to Ye Chenshan and Luo Guxue. “I have to go back to the base city now. Are you guys heading back?”

Luo Guxue shook her head. “I have to take care of something else. I’ll be back in a couple of days.”

“Me too,” Ye Chenshan said.

Su Ping asked again, “Can you let me borrow your car?”

Ye Chenshan answered at once, “Of course. I can go back with Luo Guxue. You can take my car.”

“Okay.”

Su Ping didn’t say thank you. He would just remember Ye Chenshan’s kindness.

Su Yanying, Lu Pengfei, and the long-legged girl also said goodbye to Su Ping.

Su Ping nodded to them and told them about things to look out for while they were out exploring.

Su Lingyue came back to her senses and mumbled goodbye to Su Ping.

Su Ping had other ideas. “You’re coming back with me.”

“Why?” Su Lingyue was surprised.

“No reason.” Su Ping was unwilling to go into the details.

Su Lingyue found this strange. She looked into Su Ping’s eyes and she could tell that he was not joking around. All of a sudden, she felt disturbed.

But she didn’t voice her confusion since there were others present.

…

…

Having said their goodbyes, Su Ping took Su Lingyue to the car and drove away.

“What is going on?” Su Lingyue was not in the mood to check out this car. She put forward her question as soon as they were outside the base.

There was no one else around and yet Su Ping didn’t go into the details with her yet. “You know that I visited the Mysterious Realm and I may have upset some folks there. In case those guys want to get back at me, you and mom will have to live in my store.”

Su Lingyue was taken aback.

As far as she could tell, those that went to the Mysterious Realm were powerful people. Following that logic, the ones that Su Ping had provoked would surely be some bad characters.

At the same time, she didn’t understand the choice of Su Ping’s words. “Why do you mean by saying you may have upset some folks? Can you not tell if you have upset people?”

Su Ping cast a glance at her. “If you ask me, I’d say I didn’t upset anyone. However, say, some ugly dudes are envious of your good looks and they want to get back at you. Would you say that you have upset them?”

Su Lingyue was speechless.

She had grown used to the fact that Su Ping never acted normally so she knew this was his way of offering a metaphor.

“That is to say, you meddled in someone else’s interests?” Su Lingyue figured out the reason quickly.

Su Ping nodded. “You’re not so stupid after all.”

Su Lingyue raised her eyebrows. She crossed her arms in front of her chest and huffed, “I am a genius. I am the No.1 in my grade! Never mind, I’m not in the mood to talk about this. Anyways, do you know who wants to get back at you? Are we supposed to hide like this forever?”

Su Ping squinted. “I don’t know now but I will find out soon enough.”

Su Lingyue looked at him. She detected a sense of danger in his eyes, which startled her. She realized that this brother of hers was not an innocent person. He wasn’t someone to be provoked.

They drove into the base city.

Several hours later, amid the roaring noises of the engine, they arrived at the Taohuaxi Street of the lower town area.

Su Ping began to pay attention as soon as they reached the street. If the background manipulator of the Mysterious Realm had found out who he was, that person might have already set up an ambush here.

He didn’t slow down and kept on sounding the horn. Luckily, the street was shabby and distant with few people present.

Soon, they arrived at the store.

The fact that nobody had intercepted them while on their way relieved Su Ping. Surely those people have yet to take action.

He got out of the car, then he took out the keys and told Su Lingyue to enter the store with him.

Su Ping closed the shutter door and said to Su Lingyue, “Go and call mom. Tell her to come to the store.”