There were no clear rules that stated that ordinary items could not be sold as goods in the market.
However, it was an unspoken rule among the cultivators, that only items containing spiritual force could be sold as spiritual objects in the markets.
For example, the sabers and swords that Wang Ping had seen earlier, including the knife that he usually used to chop the bones of demon beasts, were spiritual weapons forged by cultivators, via adding ores that contain spiritual force.
No one would consider these spirit weapons to be divine artifacts. However, when imbued with spiritual force, they would indeed become sharper and more durable than ordinary blades. It was not entirely wrong to call them spiritual objects.
However, if the item did not contain any spiritual force, no matter how rare it was, cultivators would generally not sell it in the market.
Therefore, although the person had spoken with a rather unpleasant tone, many cultivators who heard his words felt more displeased with the cultivator who had broken the unspoken rule.
Perhaps this was the effect that the person who spoke had wanted to achieve.
Wang Ping looked up and saw a gray-clothed middle-aged man with a sallow complexion sitting cross-legged on the ground. In front of him was a piece of wild wolf skin that was a few feet long, and on it were two enormous gray eggs that were the size of human heads.
In front of him was a stout middle-aged man clad in silk. His arms were crossed in front of his chest as he looked at the gray-clothed middle-aged man with a sneer. He was the one who spoke.
Seeing that everyone's gazes within the market were drawn over by the words of the stout middle-aged man, and most of them wore looks of displeasure, the gray-clothed man's face paled. He frantically cupped his fists towards the surroundings and said, "Fellow Daoists, don't be misled by this Xu fellow. I have absolutely no intention of disrespecting Senior Black Shark Drifter, nor do I intend to break any rules."
After he spoke, he glared at the stout middle-aged man hatefully, and then pointed at the two giant eggs in front of him, saying, "These two eggs are pretty good. When they hatch into young birds, they can grow into giant birds with wingspans close to 30 feet in the future."
At this point, the man's tone suddenly changed. He raised his voice and said, "Fellow Daoists, you are all smart people. You should know that a giant bird with a wingspan of 30 feet can carry a human. I'm sure all of you know what this means to us Qi Refinement cultivators!"
Of course, cultivators could fly. As long as they reached the Foundation Establishment stage, they could automatically master the art of flying.
However, if one's cultivation wasn't at the Foundation Establishment Stage, they could only rely on flight artifacts if they wanted to fly.
In the vast Golden Pearl Island, among the dozens of Qi Refinement cultivators, there were only less than a handful of them who had flight artifacts.
Thus, as soon as the gray-clothed man finished speaking, Wang Ping and the others immediately understood why he had taken out these two ordinary bird eggs to sell as spiritual objects.
To be honest, Wang Ping did feel tempted upon hearing the man's words.
He was not the only one. There were also many others who were tempted.
After all, most of them might not even have the chance to own a flight artifact in their lifetime. Moreover, an ordinary bird's egg shouldn't be too expensive, right?
However, before anyone could act on their temptations, the stout middle-aged man laughed coldly and said, "Hehehe, Old Xu, your words can deceive children, but if you think that you can trick all the fellow Daoists here, you've miscalculated."
He then spoke loudly, "Our fellow Daoists here know that these mortal birds have limited stamina. Even if they can fly for a while, they definitely won't be able to fly for long before they run out of energy. They can't fly too high either."
"Moreover, mortal birds are unable to protect themselves. If they ride these mortal birds in the air and get attacked, they will become living targets. Once the bird dies, if the rider doesn't die along with it, he will just become crippled!"
"With these two hard-to-improve shortcomings, I won't even have to talk about how much effort it takes to tame a mortal bird, nor how to prevent it from flying too far away after its wings grow strong enough."
It was indeed logical!
After hearing the words of the stout middle-aged man, the cultivators who had originally been tempted calmed themselves down immediately.
Everyone knew that the stout middle-aged man was clearly at odds with the gray-clothed man and that he wanted to disrupt his business.
However, what he stated was indeed valid. There was no exaggeration in his words.
If one wanted to just experience the feeling of flight, he could buy an egg.
But if he fantasized about riding a mortal bird out to sea, or riding it out to battle, that might just cost one his own life.
However, with that on everyone's attention, no one raised the issue of whether the presence of the two bird eggs had broken the rules of the market.
No matter what, the value of these two bird eggs shouldn't be any less than those swords that only contained a bit of spiritual force. It was indeed no problem for them to be sold as ordinary spiritual items.
The man in gray noticed the changes in everyone's expressions. At this moment, he naturally held a heavy grudge for the stout middle-aged man who had disrupted his fun.
He glared at the stout middle-aged man and coldly snorted. "Humph, Xu, you don't need to show off your intelligence. I have always been an upright and honest person. I never had any intentions of selling these two eggs at a high price. Each egg only requires two low-grade first-stage demon beast materials. Fellow Daoists, you can buy them if you want. If you don't think it's worth it, just take it as a rare sight!"
Two pieces of low-grade tier-1 demon beast materials were indeed not too high of a price, but it was definitely not cheap either.
After all, the itinerant cultivators of Golden Pearl Island weren't so knowledgeable about the origins and traits of various spiritual herbs and ores. As such, they weren't too good at determining their exact value.
However, they were able to gauge the value of demon beast materials.
Therefore, demon beast materials were akin to currency among them. Most of the time, they were used to exchange for spiritual stones and beads in transactions.
Two pieces of low-grade tier-1 demon beast materials could be sold to the Li Clan for ten low-grade spirit stones, which was almost equivalent to the annual income of a middle-stage Qi Refinement cultivator like He Meng.
As for Wang Ping, if he hadn't killed the two Alligator-Tailed Toads, not counting the "Heaven Earth Shell" and the Golden-Striped Prawns inside of it, his entire net worth would not even be enough to amount to one piece of low-grade tier-1 demonic beast material!
Therefore, after the man in gray spoke, those who were originally keen immediately lost interest.
Using two low-grade tier-1 demon beast materials to exchange for an ordinary bird egg, that could only be used as a plaything once it was raised, was so wasteful that there were not many cultivators present who were that extravagant.
There were people who could do such a thing without caring about losing their materials, but these people either already had a flight artifact in hand or were already saving up materials to exchange for one. Why else would they waste their materials on such a flashy but useless thing?
Wang Ping, however, was unlike those people.