Chapter 37: Visiting Jay's house.

The hotel consists of a total of 10 floors, and they were allocated a room on the second floor.

Ray took Jay and entered his room while Lily took the key to her room and entered to get fresh up and agreed to meet downstairs.

After reminding Lily they would meet again downstairs in half an hour Ray took Jay into the room and observed the room.

The room was located on the second floor where he could watch the main road from his windows and observe the various stalls.

It consists of a hall area where they can allow guests to wait for them then at the far-right end of the hall area there is a bedroom with one bed and a bathroom attached to it.

Ray instructed Jay to sit down on the sofa in the hall and he entered the bathroom to freshen up.

Jay struggled to move the nearby stool to the window and sat there, watching the gradual increase in the flow of the people on the main road.

Ray dropped his bags on the bed in the bedroom and hastily entered the bathroom to get freshen up.

Within a few minutes, he came back to the hall and called Jay's attention from the window by calling him.

He then took him downstairs and waited for Lily to come down.

While he was waiting for Lily, Ray started conversing with the innkeeper and asked about the locations of the various administration offices in the city.

According to him, there are two administration offices in the city, there is one in the outer city on the other side of the harbor.

The outer city office maintains the security of the city within the city while the inner city administrative manages the land allocation and business tax collection in the outer city.

The inner-city land purchase and tax collection is exclusively maintained by the city lord's mansion.

The inner-city administration has divided the outer city into twelve parts and rented those lands to the Gangs who manage them while the management only collects rent from them and occasionally will come forward to settle the disputes between the gangs.

By the time Ray had gathered the relative information, Lily came down from her room and sat with Jay in the reception area.

Then Ray took them shopping in the shops on the main street of the inner city.

To his surprise, Ray discovered that the gold and coins beneath them held no value in the inner city.

Only white gold coins were used to buy some martial arts exercises and the relative medicines and herbs in the specified shops.

After observing the clothes, he was wearing didn't match the city's culture and style, he went to a clothes store to purchase clothes.

There he found that there is another type of currency used in the inner city by most residents which are broken spirit stones and low-level spirit stones.

Ten white gold coins can be used to exchange for 1 broken spirit stone and 100 broken spirit stones can be used to exchange for one low-grade spirit stone.

Ray first inquired about the spirit stone exchange counter and walked in the direction of the office.

As they kept walking Ray saw the street became busy as many people in the homes came out to shopping and many shops that were closed were also being opened.

Within a few minutes of walking, Ray reached the exchange counter and saw a lazy officer sitting on a table near the reception counter.

He was lazily sitting with his legs on the table, eyes closed, and humming an unknown tune.

As he heard a knock on the table, he opened his eyes and saw Ray standing in front of him.

"Hi, I'm here to exchange my white gold coins for broken spirit stones" and Ray put a cloth bag containing 100 white gold coins on the table.

The officer immediately sat upright, opened the cloth bag, and began pouring the coins out of the bag onto the table and began counting them.

"Sir, you will get 9 broken spirit stones for the 100 white gold you have here, if you agree I can exchange them for you right now" The exchange officer confirmed before he swept the coins into his desk and took small marbles which were sparkling when exposed to the sun and put them in a small bag after counting them twice.

Ray accepted the bag with one hand and put it in his pocket while thanking the officer with a handshake after the transaction and went out.

 He then went outside and met with Lily and Jay who were sitting nearby stalls and enjoying honeyed apples.

After enjoying the food Ray then asked Jay for his home address as he wanted to send him back to his house before his mother returned and started searching for him.

Jay slowly pulled his hand and started guiding him to his house.

While walking Ray observed that they had left the main road and started walking on a small path that was paved with hard stone and was only about five meters in width.

The path connects many beautiful houses and continues up to the edge of the inner city.

Within a few minutes of walking, Jay took them to a two-storied house with a small garden at the front and an acre field at the back side which was enclosed with a 5-meter-tall wall.

Jay then took out a small badge which he showed at the entrance of the inner-city gate to the guards and slowly put it in the grove next to the entrance gate.

After fitting the badge into the grove, there were creaking sounds of gears moving, and the front gate slowly opened.

Jay then took out the badge and skipped into the house joyfully.

Ray and Lily entered the house with Jay's invitation and the gate slowly closed after some time automatically.

Ray observed the house and saw was Jay's family was self-sufficient family according to the standards of the inner city.

He saw the one-acre field in the backyard had grown spirit rice plants which were half dead due to no proper care.

While he was observing the house garden and the spirit rice field the front gate rumbled again and slowly opened.

A Woman who looked around thirty years tiredly entered the house from outside and was shocked to see unknown people in her house.