Jake’s Magical Market

For those familiar with the series, I have a question. As background I really enjoyed book one (audiobook). I am REALLY struggling with book 2 however. I don’t think it’s the new narrator. It just feels like it’s been 14 chapters now of almost nothing happening. Is this cultivation shift how the rest of the series goes? I generally really struggle with cultivation books for this reason. I definitely prefer the dopamine hit of numbers going up and action. Debating dropping the series, but before I do I wanted to see if this is just a transition moment in the books or if really does hard switch to cultivation permanently?