Chapter 32: Heavy Loss!

“Stop right there! Don’t run!”

Li Xian chased after the figure ahead, so furious he felt like he was about to vomit blood.

His Magic Crystals—all of them—were inside that bag.

If they were stolen, both he and Sara would be forced to sleep on the streets.

But this was the Imperial Capital, crowded with bustling people.

The figure was small and agile, darting swiftly through the crowd, while Li Xian, hindered by the throng, found it hard to catch up.

Watching the figure slip further away, Li Xian lost his patience.

He couldn’t just let them get away; he had to retrieve his belongings.

In desperation, he grabbed Sara tightly and made a sudden leap, vaulting over the crowd to land right in front of the thief.

Startled, the thief hastily fled into a nearby alley, with Li Xian hot on their heels.

While Li Xian’s speed was restricted in the crowd, it was a different story in the empty alley.

The distance between him and the thief visibly shrank.

The thief was clearly panicking, looking around but finding nowhere to run.

Li Xian seized the opportunity, grabbing the thief’s cloak.

“Hmph!” The thief kept running fiercely.

The two forces pulling against the cloak caused it to tear, and the thief lost balance, crashing heavily onto the ground with a pained groan.

“Huh?” Li Xian froze, startled by the pleasant sound of the groan—it was a girl’s voice.

Looking at the thief before him, Li Xian was completely stunned.

Without the cloak, the thief’s true appearance was fully revealed: long white hair, worn-out clothes draping a slender frame, and most strikingly, a pair of long ears and a fluffy, large tail.

“This… a Fox Girl?”

The words slipped out of Li Xian’s mouth, making the fox girl even more alert.

She turned around, expressionless, but her eyes betrayed a trace of fear and unease.

There was a fresh wound on her pale knee, obviously from the fall, bleeding profusely.

“A Fox Clan member?” Sara, still dizzy from the chase and being carried, finally regained her senses and blurted out upon seeing the girl.

“Fox Clan?” Li Xian raised an eyebrow.

Come to think of it, during those days at the Adventurers’ Guild, he’d heard adventurers boasting about similar things.

Besides humans and magical beasts, this world had many other races—Dwarves, Elves, and so on.

These humanoid races were collectively called Demihumans, and the Fox Clan was apparently a branch of the Beastkin, also categorized under Demihumans.

“Why did you steal my things?”

Regardless of who she was or what race she belonged to, stealing was never right.

The fox girl didn’t answer, only staring coldly with her pair of emerald eyes—icy, wary, and full of rejection.

Such a fox girl was anything but cute…

Li Xian frowned slightly.

No matter what, he had to get his things back.

He stepped forward to take the bag from her hands.

But his approach seemed to deepen her guard.

Her emerald pupils narrowed sharply, radiating danger.

“Hiss—!”

The next moment, Li Xian gasped, frowning as he looked at his bitten arm.

Though it wasn’t serious, a row of teeth marks appeared, damp and fresh.

Looking up, he saw the fox girl had already escaped, vanishing somewhere unknown.

Li Xian wanted to give chase but then spotted the bag on the ground and dropped the idea.

After all, he had his things back.

He still had to sell them and couldn’t waste time chasing after an un-cute fox girl.

Leaving the alley with Sara, Li Xian felt a faint sense of loss.

Fox girls were such wonderful creatures, especially with their fluffy tails—just looking made him want to reach out and pet them.

Unfortunately, this fox girl was anything but endearing; not only did she steal, she even bit him…

Shrugging helplessly, Li Xian pushed those thoughts aside.

What mattered most now was to quickly sell the Magic Crystals to earn living expenses.

He picked up the bag from the ground, opened it, and poured out the crystals, counting them.

“One, two, three… seven, eight… huh?”

Li Xian’s voice trailed off abruptly.

The bag should have contained eight Magic Crystals, but one was missing.

And it seemed to be the largest one…

The Magic Crystal of the Scarlet Flame Tempest Lion had somehow been hidden by that fox girl without him noticing!

“This…” Li Xian twitched at the corner of his mouth.

What a heavy loss!

The most valuable Magic Crystal just given away for free?

By now, dusk was settling.

Despite the heavy loss, there was no time to waste.

He had to find a shop that bought Magic Crystals and sell the seven high-grade ones he still had.

The Imperial Capital, being the most prosperous city in the Roland Empire and home to the most elite Mages, wasn’t short on shops that purchased Magic Crystals.

After walking a short distance with Sara, Li Xian found one.

“Seven high-grade Magic Crystals?”

The shop owner, evidently experienced, wasn’t shocked by the seven crystals Li Xian laid on the counter.

He just glanced at Li Xian’s young face without saying much.

“Yes. How much can I get for all of them?” Li Xian asked nervously.

He didn’t really know their exact value, but the price would directly affect whether he could afford lodging and meals.

“Hmm… the overall quality of these seven crystals is decent. However, this one from the Fireball Mouse King is a bit low in purity, so I’ll value it at one thousand Gold Coins. The others are one thousand five hundred Gold Coins each. Altogether, that’s ten thousand Gold Coins.”

“Ah?” Li Xian was stunned.

Were these crystals really that valuable?

Ten thousand Gold Coins!

That was practically the reward Sara had announced for the quest!

Gained and lost, lost and regained—life was indeed full of surprises.

But Li Xian’s astonishment was something else to the shopkeeper.

“High-grade Magic Crystals are priced like this. Only Transcendent Magic Crystals have truly high value—more than ten times that of high-grade ones. You can check other shops if you like. I guarantee no one in the Imperial Capital will offer you a better price than us.”

Transcendent Magic Crystals were worth over ten times more than high-grade ones!

Li Xian was shocked.

If that was the case, then what about Legendary Magic Crystals?

And the one from the Scarlet Flame Tempest Lion?

It must be priceless.

And that priceless Magic Crystal had just been stolen…

What a heavy loss!