Leonard was holding a genuine piece of Kore that was not only valuable monetarily but also academically. There were not a lot of people here who were willing to sell their only stock of 70% pure Kore to a researcher like Leonard because they would end up being used in experiments that, in their opinion, lead to nowhere.
Because of the rarity of these kinds of Kores, sometimes they go for far more Chains than they were originally worth. Some companies were offering to sell him a 60% pure Kore for 1 million Chains, a grossly inflated price that wasn't worth the money. Although he wasn't lacking in Chains, it didn't mean that he would be willing to throw away money like that. Even then, those companies weren't willing to show the actual Kore to him for 'security' reasons.
Patty, on the other hand, didn't have any sort of prejudice against researchers. He didn't have any bias at all. He was willing to let Leonard touch the very expensive Kore without any sort of precautions or any caveats. If he wanted to touch a 70% pure Kore from a loan shark company, they would ask for collateral, even if he was just touching it. It would be in a locked room with security all around watching his every movement.
This house didn't have any security at all. Heck, Patty didn't even look at the Kores anymore. He looked like he was bored waiting for Leonard to finish surveying the Kores in his hand. He was watching the television, for Supreme's sake! It looked like he didn't even care if Leonard walked out of there with the Kore in his hands, not that Leonard would do that. Patty's indifference toward the Kores made him feel that way.
How could Patty act like this towards treasures like these? It was unimaginable for people like Leonard; he wanted to immediately put these Kores into a secure box and use a glove to handle them!
"Do you have a lead-lined box that can safely store these Kores?" Leonard asked.
In response, Patty looked at him like he was crazy. It was as if putting these 'rocks' in an expensive box was too bothersome to do. In Patty's eyes, doing that would only be wasting money that could be used for other more useful things like a massage chair. It made Leonard feel as though he was the odd one out, even though he was just asking what anybody would ask. Nobody in their right mind stored Kores in their house without any sort of security, or at least a box to store them.
"But how do you keep it safe? Surely, there must be some poachers making designs for these Kores. What sort of security do you have in place?"
Patty shrugged. "I am the security."
Leonard didn't know if Patty was just careless or arrogant. Didn't he know that there were professional Dreamers desperate enough to kill for resources? People were killed because they had 50% pure Kores in their inventory. If people found out that Patty had a 70% pure Kore in his house, then raids would surely be planned in the next hour. Not only that, if they found out a mere youth in high school was carrying it without any sort of protection was like putting blood in water. The sharks would pounce at the opportunity.
"But how do you–" Leonard was about to ask how Patty stored his Kores, but while Patty was scratching his head, Leonard saw a ring on his finger. "--is that…"
That looked like an ordinary ring, but his research mind already put the two and two together. The very reason why Patty didn't have any sort of box to store the Kores was because he didn't need them. He had a Space Inventory! That was a luxury that only the wealthy like the Chromic family could afford.
How much capacity did his ring have? 5kg? 10kg? Or maybe even the highly sought-after 20kg? No matter how much he wanted to know, it would be rude to ask Patty directly. After all, it was like asking a person 'How much money do you have right now?'
It was then that a realization dawned on Leonard. He had underestimated Patty all this time, but it turned out that it may have been just a facade. In truth, Patty was some sort of rich inheritor who had the means and power to be able to gather high-quality Kores and store them in his Space Inventory.
Acting like a lowly high school student in a messy house must be a defensive strategy he used to stay under the radar. Even if Patty said that he had high-quality Kores in his house, nobody would believe him. After all, nobody would think that high-quality Kores were stored in this shabby little house in the middle of the city.
It was a perfect disguise, thought Leonard. After all, he himself was fooled. If Patty hadn't shown him these high-quality Kores, he would never have thought that he had them.
Realizing his mistake, he looked at Patty again and used his most presentable face. "Let me introduce myself again. My name is Leonard Ainz, and I am an independent researcher whose dream is to deconstruct Kores and produce them in my lab. My current project as of now involves high-quality Kores, but producing test subjects proved far too difficult to acquire. But thankfully, the graceful Miss Xandra led me to meet you."
"Cool, cool," Patty said nonchalantly, still looking at the television instead of Leonard. It looked like he didn't even hear what the researcher said. "So, are you buying my Kores?"
"Ehem…" Leonard didn't think that Patty would be that forward. They hadn't even discussed prices yet. "Yes, I am willing to buy your Kores. However, for safety reasons, I am only buying one Kore for now–"
"Why"
"First of all, it's because I don't have the necessary security to carry all these high-purity Kores all by myself. Secondly, I still need to check if your Kores are genuine, which I don't doubt, but checking it would allow me to prove your credibility to others. Then I will be contacting you to deliver the Kores to my laboratory with your security because I have no such strength myself," Leonard explained.
Patty didn't like it, but he couldn't do anything about that. In the end, Leonard was the one to decide whether he wanted to buy the Kores or not. If his greatest concern was security, Patty could escort him to his laboratory where Leonard could prove the genuinity of the Kore, and buy all of the Kores right then. However, Patty was too lazy to do that.
"Okay, okay. So what're you buying?"
Leonard looked at the six black crystals in his hand. He didn't want to pick the 30% purity Kore because it was the lowest quality of them all. He also didn't want to buy the 70% purity Kore yet because that was just robbery waiting to happen. In the end, he picked the middle of the group.
"I'll take the 53% purity Kore for now." Leonard returned the rest of the Kores to Patty, leaving only one for him.
Patty took the Kores and immediately stored them in his ring. Leonard's guess was proved right.
"How much would this be?" Leonard asked, his heart thumping. He didn't know if Patty would be like one of the loan sharks and inflate the prices because of greed. Now that Leonard decided he would buy this Kore, the ball was on Patty's court. He could decide any price for it.
"I don't know. Aren't you the Kore expert?"
Contrary to Leonard's expectation, Patty was completely disinterested in ripping him off. He could have inflated the price to get more money, but instead, he was leaving the price to the buyer himself. This was completely out of left field, leaving Leonard dumbfounded. Why didn't Patty try to get as much money from the transaction as possible? Wasn't he running a business?
"Are you sure?"
Patty once again shrugged and watched the television.
Leonard looked at the 53% pure Kore in his hands and did some internal calculations. Usually, 50% Kores were priced at 80,000 Chains. So, 53% pure Kore was priced at about 104,000 Chains at the base market value. However, the prices always vary with different companies, usually selling it at a higher price.
"I'll be buying this with 110,000 Chains, is that okay with you?" Leonard asked.
Patty nodded without any haggling. The transaction between high-quality Kores usually goes back and forth, with each party trying to get the advantage. This time, Leonard gave Patty the advantage and he took it immediately. This greatly pleased both parties, with Leonard getting more eager to buy more Kores from Patty.
"You have my thanks, sir Patrick. You have greatly contributed to my research." Leonard bowed to Patty. "If you don't mind me asking, from what company are you from? Is it a start-up company that found a new vein of Kores?"
From Leonard's perspective, the only way that Patty acquired the Kores was because he was from a company. And since this company and Patty were relatively unknown, Leonard thought that they were a start-up company that just found a new vein of Kores underground.
Patty didn't know what to say. He wanted Leonard to come back and buy more Kores from him, so he just lied.
"Eh, sure."
Aezure company, Leonard memorized. 'So that's the new start-up company that would take the Kore market by storm.'