Every time James Bolton went home, he felt especially guilty toward his family. Back then, his parents had borrowed money from everywhere just so James Bolton could go to college; the two of them spent the whole year toiling in the fields, facing the earth with their backs to the sky, and only managed to earn a few thousand yuan a year—barely enough to pay James Bolton's tuition. Every cent was saved up painstakingly, all for James Bolton to attend that utterly useless university. How could James Bolton not feel guilty!

When James Bolton was in his senior year, his younger sister was admitted to the best high school in the county, but the family really couldn’t afford tuition and living expenses for both of them.

The sensible little sister didn’t complain at all; in order to let her brother finish college, she was ready to go work in the coastal region. When James Bolton found out, he went home and hugged his sister, crying for a long time before finally persuading her to give up the idea. How could he ruin his sister’s future for his own sake?

After crying and feeling exhausted, James Bolton never blamed his parents for being incapable—they had already sacrificed too much for him. He only blamed himself for being so useless, already an adult yet still unable to contribute to the family!

Full of unwillingness, after returning to Nancheng, James Bolton took on four or five part-time jobs just to scrape together his own tuition for that year. After that, he never asked his family for a single cent again, and sometimes even sent a little money home to help with household expenses.

It wasn’t until James Bolton graduated and started working that his parents’ burden was finally eased, but James Bolton's salary wasn’t high. By the end of the year, he had just enough to cover his own living expenses and his sister’s schooling.

The family’s debts could only be paid off little by little by his parents each year, let alone building a new house. The house they lived in now was still the old one built back when their grandfather was alive. Buying a house in Nancheng was out of the question—on James Bolton's salary, even if he didn’t eat or drink for a year, he couldn’t afford even a bathroom.

Thinking of all this, James Bolton finally sobered up. Although the energy exchange device was incredible, he still had to work hard to make money. Not for himself, but for his family—he had to let them live a good life.

“How can I use the system to make money? This thing is so powerful, there must be a way!” James Bolton thought to himself, a bit uncertain.

After thinking for a while, James Bolton decided to go to the antique street today, because from yesterday’s scan results, it seemed that the higher the value of an item, the higher its energy points.

Although he didn’t know if this was true for every item, James Bolton still decided to give it a try. What if it worked? Then he’d be set.

James Bolton couldn’t afford other high-value items, but after being a homebody for so many years, he had browsed quite a few websites and forums about antiques.

James Bolton knew that with antiques, if you were lucky and had a good eye, you could buy something for 100 yuan and sell it for a million in no time. Of course, James Bolton didn’t expect to make a fortune with his own eyes, which couldn’t even tell the difference between a vase and a jar.

He just wanted to test whether the scanning function really determined an item’s energy based on its value. If it did, he could go bargain-hunting to make money.

Nancheng Antique Street was established in the 1980s. Although it wasn’t very famous nationwide, it was definitely the top large-scale antique trading hub in the province. The entire street covered nearly ten acres and was bustling with people every day.

James Bolton squeezed onto the bus for over half an hour before arriving at the antique street. Luckily, today wasn’t the weekend, so there weren’t too many people, but at a glance, it was still packed.

James Bolton thought that if he wanted to check whether antiques had higher energy points, he should first look in some proper shops. Although the antiques in the shops weren’t guaranteed to be genuine, they were still better than the stalls outside.

James Bolton looked around and walked toward a shop with a traditional-style decor called Bogu Zhai. The shop wasn’t very big; inside, there were about a dozen people browsing. The shop mainly dealt in antiques, with a few special counters for gold and jade items.

The sales lady at the entrance greeted James Bolton warmly as he came in. Although James Bolton didn’t look particularly well-dressed and was quite young, there were plenty of low-key people these days, and not every shop bullied customers.

James Bolton shook his head a bit embarrassedly to indicate he was just looking, then walked toward a quieter part of the shop. He activated the scanning system, and in a flash, James Bolton saw that all the antiques on the shelves and the surrounding items displayed an energy value.

James Bolton observed carefully and shook his head in slight disappointment. He found that most jade and jadeite ornaments had much higher energy values than the surrounding antiques, while the antiques’ energy values weren’t higher than some ordinary items.

Thinking about it, James Bolton understood. Although antiques were valuable, that only meant they had survived longer; in essence, they didn’t contain more energy than other things.

For example, ceramics and porcelain were essentially just clay. Once he figured this out, James Bolton stopped looking at the antiques.

He walked over to the jade counter for a closer look and found that the energy of the jade pieces generally exceeded 10 points, which made James Bolton extremely excited!

He had thought that activating the energy exchange device again would be very difficult. After all, a computer only provided 8 energy points, and James Bolton didn’t have enough money to buy a dozen computers to unlock the next skill.

Based on the prices of the jade pieces nearby, James Bolton found that those with around 10 energy points were priced between one and two thousand yuan, meaning each energy point was worth about a hundred yuan. With just ten or twenty thousand yuan, or even less, James Bolton could unlock the next skill.