Hidden genius: Black belly snake

After walking for a while, Tang Yue and Lotte entered the market square.

The sound of hawkers and meat vendors filled the air around them.

Tang Yue was a special celebrity in the meat markets.

Though several eyes were locked on to them all the way from the zither palace to the market district, the minute she and Lotte stepped into the chop shop rows, the number of prying eyes on them instantly quadrupled.

Not only was the princess from the elven royal family, an extravagantly paying customer, and potential love interest of either the crown prince or the General's daughter, but was also a powerful trend setter!

Because of her and Marvin, the fire twin-tailed birds suddenly started selling like hot cakes.

Their prices sky-rocketed almost to that of a mid grade beast and now were one of the top sought after low grade beast meat.

In fact, the bird meat rarely even got to the open markets and was usually bought out in the black markets.

So many of the vendors hurried over and started eagerly welcoming Tang Yue and offering their day's specials.

Zyrn, the vendor elf who had personally dealt with Tang Yue the last time around, quickly ran over to her, pushing away the other competition.

"Hey Hey Hey! Stop crowding, you assholes."

"Zyrn, you conniving bastard. You can't hog the princess all to yourself!"

"Shut up. Watch how you speak in front of a lady!" Then not allowing anyone else to talk, he quickly guided Tang Yue to his shop.

"Welcome, your highness. Please come this way. I have everything prepared for you."

"Oh ok ok." Tang Yue chuckled in amusement. 

This feeling of the spotlight is not too shabby! I could really get used to this! She grinned.

Lotte also closely followed behind them sweating profusely. The princess was getting more and more famous every single day!

Once the trio reached the shop, Zyrn excitedly pulled out several parchments from within his chop shop and shoved them into Tang Yue's hands.

"This is for your kind perusal, your highness. Please tell me what you need." He quickly bowed and asked.

Tang Yue did not have anything specific in her mind when she walked over to the market square and only intended to look around and make decisions accordingly on the spot.

So she eyed the parchments with interest. These listed the wares that were currently available in the shop.

They also surprisingly listed the wares that were available in the other shops around them as well.

"You are proving to be quite a resourceful shopkeeper." Tang Yue nodded.

Zyrn blushed and abashedly mumbled in reply to the unexpected compliment. "Thank you, your highness." He was not used to the royal family members talking so politely.

Tang Yue waved her hand and continued looking at the parchments, with her eyes glued on to them as if she was looking at a treasure trove.

"Got this. Need this. Need this. Need this. Got this." She kept mumbling to herself for quite a while.

Tang Yue's emerald eyes gleamed with interest as she went on a huge shopping spree.

She needed about 10 low-grade beasts to complete a low-grade beast bloodline.

And she could roughly buy 10 of them with 5 gems, with each low-grade beast costing about 500 gold coins and a single gem valuing roughly 1000 gold coins.

With the number of gems at hand, Tang Yue did some fast maths and decided to spend at the most 50 gems, saving some for future use and in case she needed any herbs.

This way she would be able to absorb at least 10 low-grade beast bloodlines, thereby boosting her strength and power quite a bit.

Not only that, but some of these low-grade beasts had special elemental affinities just like the fire twin-tailed birds.

So she had specifically included them in the list to see if she could gain affinities to other elements as well.

Double checking the list once more, Tang Yue sighed. "If only I could upgrade my evolve ability with the sheer use of it!! This is a lot of meat!"

Because from what she had understood and gathered so far, she possessed skills of two different kinds.

One that could be upgraded by repeated usage and the other that could only be upgraded with her so-called level increase or through a stronger bloodline evolution.

The details were still vague and unclear, thanks to the unhelpful nature of that old bastard, but it didn't matter too much.

Tang Yue had all the time in the world to explore her abilities and take things slowly, improving her strength step by step. Or at least that's what she thought.

After going through the list several times and examining all her options carefully, Tang Yue finally picked her 10 main targets.

She happily licked her lips and ordered 10 each of 10 different low-grade beasts.

Zyrn nodded, bobbing his head up and down in excitement. These 10 beasts were most probably going to be the next 10 hot cakes! He inferred.

Any betting man with a bit of common sense would know enough to stockpile these, and store them in advance!

The elf carefully jotted down the order and scurried along into the shop, busying himself with the order and packaging.

This time he packed everything completely so that others were not aware of what was inside.

But when he walked out, he saw Tang Yue and Lotte chatting with a few other vendors and his heart dropped.

"Your highness, sorry for the wait. Your order is ready." 

He quickly grabbed Tang Yue's attention and brought her focus back to the store, while shooing away the unwelcome vultures with the other hand.

Tang Yue couldn't help but chuckle at the sight of the amusing shopkeeper. 

Were they all acting like this because of the alchemy test or because of the kisses? She wondered.

She quickly paid the guy and pocketed all the meat into her space pearl.