Dong Tianyu, who had initially thought that he could easily handle the situation, repeatedly used Divine Sense to carefully examine each of the Mysterious Cores on the display. However, all of those Mysterious Cores, apart from differences in size and appearance, were identical in every other aspect.

"Is my Divine Sense not working, or is their forgery so sophisticated that even my Divine Sense can be deceived?"

No, I had compared the Blood-Colored Mysterious Core with the Black Devil Core using Divine Sense before. Although many parts of them were similar, there were indeed differences between the two.

The only issue was that after the previous comparison, I remembered that there were differences between the two, but I forgot which one was the Blood-Colored Mysterious Core and which one was the Black Devil Core.

Looking at the Mysterious Cores on the display, which were identical except in appearance, although Dong Tianyu often doubted his Divine Sense, he was more inclined to trust the judgment it provided at critical moments like this.

If all one hundred Mysterious Cores on the display belonged to the same type of core and since the seller had clarified that the vast majority of the Mysterious Cores were Black Devil Cores, then all of these Mysterious Cores should actually be Black Devil Cores, with no Blood-Colored Mysterious Cores among them.

Dong Tianyu thought back to the Levels of Deception he had once heard of:

The low-level stage of deception involved outright lies, relying on an individual’s gift of gab to swindle others.

The intermediate stage of deception was characterized by ambiguous words, allowing the other party to fill in the blanks with their imagination.

The advanced stage of deception was to mix nine truths with one lie, deceiving the other party only at the most crucial point.

The top-level deception consisted of all truths but with the sequence of the words reversed, resulting in statements contradicting reality.

For example, "She is with someone else, I hit her, we broke up."

But the actual sequence was, "I hit her, we broke up, she is with someone else."

Each sentence was true, but by reversing the order of the sentences, the conveyed facts were different, turning the true sentences into a lie.

Thinking of this meme he had seen online before the disaster, Dong Tianyu instantly figured it out. The seller was setting a trap, taking advantage of human nature’s penchant for gambling and the desire for a bargain.

Since the seller was setting a trap, there must be accomplices among the audience. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

With this in mind, Dong Tianyu stopped using his Divine Sense to observe the Mysterious Cores on the display and instead began to scan the crowd with Divine Sense, seeking to identify the seller’s accomplices.

Although they were well concealed, Dong Tianyu’s Divine Sense was able to identify several accomplices.

Dong Tianyu’s method of identifying accomplices was straightforward: at this time, everyone present felt either tense or excited, except for those accomplices who appeared very calm.

Even though the expressions on people’s faces varied, Dong Tianyu could judge their true state of mind directly by scanning their heartbeat and pulse with his Divine Sense.

Some people naturally appear calm in various situations, but these people are the minority.

At the very least, it was unlikely that in a group of forty or fifty people, there would be seven individuals who were all emotionally steady. Dong Tianyu couldn’t believe that so many naturally calm individuals happened to be present. It seemed highly likely that these individuals were the accomplices of those setting the trap.

Having confirmed that the sale of the Blood-Colored Mysterious Core was a setup, Dong Tianyu naturally lost interest in staying any longer and decisively turned around to leave the area.

As for stepping forward to expose them?

Dong Tianyu did not possess such a strong sense of justice. After all, right at the entrance of the Trade Market, there was a warning sign clearly informing that only the first five rows of shops guaranteed the quality of goods sold, and from the sixth row onwards, it was buyer beware.

Continuing forward, Dong Tianyu saw many scenes similar to the one before, where many people were gathered together.

Driven by curiosity, Dong Tianyu would also run over to join in the excitement, but each time after using his Divine Sense to investigate, he found that these were just people deliberately staging scenarios.

’I always say, with my lousy luck, how could I possibly come across a windfall like the novel protagonist Brown Edward, who finds huge bargains wherever he goes.’

Dong Tianyu had a clear understanding of his own luck; after all, just traversing and being reborn had already exhausted the luck he had accumulated over several lifetimes. In the future, when encountering situations of unexpected wealth, Dong Tianyu would carefully and seriously confirm the circumstances every time.

Although he hadn’t browsed everything, a rough walk around revealed that it was indeed possible to find bargains here, but they were all minor ones.

Apart from those shops deliberately staging setups, the fairest trade here was found in shops betting on magical objects.

Because magical objects look no different from ordinary items before their correct activation methods are found, many shops would display various miscellaneous items for customers to choose from.

And the vast majority of customers buying miscellaneous items, lacking a clear method of detection, base their purchases solely on visual appeal.

While the miscellaneous items for sale in the shops here vary in price, the proportion of items that are magical objects is almost consistent. Dong Tianyu inspected several shops carefully and found that, despite the varied pricing, each shop had at most one or two magical objects.

Perhaps other magical objects were hidden better, and Dong Tianyu failed to detect them, but as far as the objects Dong Tianyu confirmed as magical, he put them all into his Storage Space.

After visiting so many shops, Dong Tianyu had also noticed an interesting phenomenon, which was that the shops selling miscellaneous items, regardless of how their individual items were priced, sold all their miscellaneous items at a uniform price, regardless of their type or size.

Entering a shop to purchase miscellaneous items didn’t require bargaining, as all items inside were priced uniformly, so there was no need to worry about the shopkeeper judging the customer or deliberately marking up prices.

Although there were many more shops selling miscellaneous items that he hadn’t patronized, Dong Tianyu did not continue his bargain-hunting journey.

Dong Tianyu took out the folding tablet (locator) he had just bought, logged into the Trade Market App, and immediately made an online selection and application:

I want to open a shop — Temporary stall rental — Confirm shop location — Confirm shop rental time (one day) — Choose type of goods for sale (daily necessities, food) — Pay the rental fee.

Afterward, a navigation arrow appeared on the folding tablet, leading Dong Tianyu to the location of the shop he had just applied for.

Indeed, expensive items do have their benefits, as it had many extremely useful Apps installed. Although most of the Apps could only be used within Magic City Base One, the convenience provided by these Apps truly made the device worth every cent.

Of course, it would be even better if there wasn’t a separate charge for each individual App whenever it was used.

Following the navigation, he arrived at the newly applied-for shop, where the shutter door was currently closed.

Observing through his Divine Sense, the shutter door in front of him was just a very ordinary one. Forget Dong Tianyu’s Cultivation Level, even a relatively strong ordinary person could open this shutter door with just a few attempts.

But even with such an ordinary shutter door, no one dared to break it by force. Basically, everyone would key in the password in the lockbox on the doorpost and open it following the proper protocol.

Thinking about it, breaking in here simply meant saving a bit on the rental fee, but forcing entry would surely bring the market management to intervene, and then it would be impossible to peacefully sell one’s merchandise.

Therefore, practically everyone, like Dong Tianyu, would apply through the proper channels.

After opening the door, there was a space about ten square meters inside, with shelves against three walls, and a wooden counter in the middle of the room.

Not giving much thought to the simplicity of the shop, Dong Tianyu directly took out a long table from his Storage Space to set up inside the shop, and then he found an LED camouflage light to hang outside the door.