The Fair Scale of Heaven and Earth

Seeing the people from the Chixiao Sect go inside, those waiting outside grew even more anxious.

They were eager to see the Chixiao Sect members come back out and tell them that the center had truly settled all their outstanding payments and even signed an agreement for the next order.

That would mean they could continue this business indefinitely and finally have a very substantial, stable source of income.

At the same time, they could not help worrying. What if the transaction center spent too many spirit stones settling the accounts of those ahead of them, leaving nothing by the time it was their turn?

Or what if, after completing this order, the other side decided not to continue working with them, or began reducing the amount they were willing to purchase?

With so many uncertainties weighing on them, none of them could calm their hearts.

In this state of nervous anticipation, they entered one after another when their number cards were called. Each of them came back out beaming, carrying bags filled to the brim with spirit stones.

By the time the final sect had gone inside to settle its accounts, the transaction center had still not run into the shortage of spirit stones everyone had feared.

The center was, however, extremely strict when it came to checking the quality of the goods. There were highly detailed requirements for the grade and condition of every type of item.

The people watched as Li Zhouxuan placed a small object on his desk. It was nothing more than a white board about the size of two palms. Yet when Li Zhouxuan placed a storage bag containing goods on it, the little white board immediately extracted every item inside and wrapped them in several small orbs of light, which floated in the air.

Li Zhouxuan could then determine the grade of the goods in each orb by its color and settle the account accordingly.

If anyone questioned the number of items assigned to a particular grade, Li Zhouxuan did not take offense. He would simply draw out a jade slip and gently touch it to the orb of light. The orb would then imprint the quality of every item it contained, along with any flaws and the basis for its assessment, onto the jade slip.

This little white board was one of the hidden rewards Lin Xiao had received after completing the city-building mission. It was called the “Heaven-and-Earth Fair Scale.”

To make it easier for the transaction center to inspect incoming goods, Lin Xiao had brought it here for everyone to use.

In truth, its function went far beyond measuring the grades of these items.

When Lin Xiao had used its appraisal function, this was the description he had received:

“Heaven-and-Earth Fair Scale. Ordinary function: It can be used to assess the quality of any item in detail, and its findings can be recorded onto an accompanying measuring slip. Special appendix: The two extremes of the world are easy to distinguish, yet black and white throughout the ages are always difficult to clarify. One day, when Heaven and Earth are transformed, Heaven and Earth themselves shall provide justice.”

Lin Xiao had not yet had the time to study the latter part carefully. In any case, the object was extremely useful at the transaction center, so he had placed it there.

Whenever someone raised an objection, Li Zhouxuan would hand the jade slip to that person for inspection.

However, the jade slip had to be used together with the Fair Scale, so naturally, they were not allowed to take it away. Anyone who wanted a copy could take a stack of paper from the pile beside them and make a rubbing of the contents.

Quite a few sects were working with the transaction center for the first time, so it was perfectly understandable that they did not completely trust Xiushui City. However, after raising their doubts and receiving such detailed explanations, they found the results easy to accept.

They had no choice but to accept them. The information on the jade slip was simply too thorough. No matter which item was examined, it could pinpoint the exact location of every flaw and explain the basis for determining the severity of that flaw.

If someone still refused to believe it, they could select the item they thought had been misjudged directly on the jade slip. The Fair Scale would immediately pick out that item and suspend it in the air, marking every single flaw in an extremely conspicuous manner so that nothing could be missed.

Such methods gave everyone an even deeper understanding of Xiushui City’s capabilities.

Some of the Nascent Soul cultivators among them were not incapable of judging the quality of everything in a storage bag in an instant. At most, however, they could sweep through it roughly with their divine sense and form a general impression. They could not produce a conclusion as detailed as the one given by this Fair Scale.

Perhaps Nascent Soul cultivators who specialized in the various cultivation arts could accomplish such a feat. Clearly, however, these cultivators from the mortal world were not experts in such matters.

Most of their time was devoted to cultivation. Although they could not exactly be called laymen when it came to these cultivation-related skills, they were certainly far from being highly proficient. And this required mastery not of just one skill, but of every skill involved.

Even these cultivators themselves could not achieve such a level, yet Xiushui City had already produced an object like this for inspecting goods...

The difference between them was too great to contemplate deeply.

After handing over their goods and receiving their spirit stones, the sects and imperial families did not leave. Instead, they gathered once more before a desk near the entrance to the External Trade Office.

This was where the transaction center sold its goods.

The person in charge was a young man.

He actually belonged to the Miscellaneous Affairs Hall, but the hall elder, Liu Yunan, had sent him down the mountain to help.

The young man was Baizhu.

He sat behind the desk, with shelves beside him whose every compartment was filled with storage bags.

Whenever someone from a sect or imperial family came over with a completed order list, Baizhu would take the list and swiftly retrieve the various goods from the different storage bags on the shelves according to its contents.

Originally, the sects and imperial families of the mortal world had not been particularly concerned with the grades of the goods. After all, the prices offered by the transaction center were already extremely low, so they felt that as long as the quality was not too far off, it would be fine.

What they were buying were, in any case, only basic resources. A slight difference in quality would not normally lead to a drastic difference in price.

But after seeing the Fair Scale used to inspect the goods they had sold, they could not help feeling curious. They wanted to find out whether the goods sold by the transaction center were graded with the same level of precision.

This minor matter did not need to be reported. Li Zhouxuan could make the decision himself. He told everyone that they could use the Fair Scale after he finished receiving their goods, but only to inspect items being bought or sold at the transaction center on that occasion. If they brought in additional items for inspection, they would have to pay a testing fee.

Li Zhouxuan also settled on the testing fee immediately: one spirit stone could be used to inspect one hundred low-grade items or ten mid-grade items.

Li Zhouxuan was essentially in charge of all external trade matters, so he naturally had the authority to set the price. However, he had not chosen it arbitrarily. He had based it on the approximate number of spirit stones consumed when the Fair Scale was used.

At present, all the goods traded by the transaction center were only low-grade or mid-grade items, so he knew the Fair Scale’s consumption for those two tiers.

As for higher-grade items, there was no point in setting a price yet. The cultivators probably had no higher-grade goods that needed to be inspected at the moment.