Chapter 41 - Commotion in Town
Red Leaf Town, Fountain Plaza.
The entire plaza was dyed crimson by the setting sun. There were quite a lot of Lifestyle players[1] setting up food stalls and selling snacks that were unique to God’s Domain.
These snacks tasted delicious, and they were much better than the delicacies in real life. Also, their selling price was just 2 or 3 Coppers. It was truly a bargain.
Many players would come here to rest and taste the delicacies of God’s Domain after a day’s worth of hard-fought battles. After all, they could only earn tens of Coppers in a single day, and after deducting the expended costs, they would only be left with slightly over ten Coppers. So, giving them a treat should not be a problem.
There were quite a few couples sitting on the stone benches, chatting. They ate the food they bought as they enjoyed a lovely time.
Suddenly, every player in Red Leaf Town received a System Announcement.
System: A player has triggered a special storyline. ‘Insurrection of the Little Fishmen’ has been activated. An Expedition Quest has been activated in Red Leaf Town. Players can now receive the Expedition Quest from the Adventurer’s Guild. Completing the Expedition Quest will reward players with bountiful rewards and Guild Reputation.
All the players were shocked. In Red Leaf Town, a place where Quests were extremely rare, there was actually an Expedition Quest. Moreover, the rewards were great. It was truly unimaginable.
“Who was the awesome person that actually triggered a special storyline?”
The player who achieved this feat attracted the attention of every player in Red Leaf Town. Everyone wondered what great rewards this player gained for activating the storyline. After all, activating a storyline was definitely a rare occurrence. So, how could the rewards be few?
Quite a lot of players started having their own wicked thoughts. They wanted to kill off the player who activated the storyline Quest. Unfortunately, the System Announcement did not reveal the player’s name.Compared to the average players, the various large Guilds were in a state of turmoil. At this stage of the game, aside from clearing Dungeons, there was not a single Quest that was capable of increasing Guild Reputation.
A Guild required Guild Reputation to level up. As long as their Guild could reach Level 2 a step earlier, they would be able to obtain the corresponding Guild benefits, creating a large advantage over the other Guilds.
Currently, the other Towns surrounding Scarlet River also received the same System Announcement; it wasn't just Red Leaf Town. All of the large Guilds began strategizing a plan for their crusade against the Little Fishmen.
Meanwhile, Shi Feng, who was the cause of all this commotion, currently sat inside the Auction House.
The Auction House was a very convenient place. The items placed on auction by players were not just limited to Red Leaf Town; they could be seen and bought in the hundreds of Towns and small Cities under the influence of White River City. However, the Auction House was very cunning. They charged a 5% handling fee for all items auctioned, so the items there are usually very expensive.
However, the Auction House was unquestionably the best place for players to sell certain items anonymously. Also, it had been quite some time since God's Domain started. The players had already amassed quite an amount of Coins, and the large Guilds should have already piled up a lot of funding. If Shi Feng were to set up a stall in Red Leaf Town, not only would he attract attention, he might also be targeted by people like Flaming Tiger.
More importantly, the reason Shi Feng chose the Auction House was that there were too few players in Red Leaf Town who could afford the items he planned to sell. However, it was a different story if there were hundreds of Towns competing for them.
Hence, Shi Feng placed a Mysterious-Iron Plate Armor on the Auction House, setting its base price at 25 Silver Coins. Then, he placed five pieces of Bronze Equipment, with the base price of the Plate Armor at 3 Silver Coins, and the others at 2 Silver Coins. As for the Level 10 Fine-Gold Greatsword, the result of placing it on auction would be too terrifying to imagine. This weapon was worth at least 2 Gold Coins, which was the equivalent of 200 Silver Coins. Currently, even 1 Silver Coin was extremely precious; so who would be able to even afford the weapon?
Following which, Shi Feng searched his bag via the half-transparent screen. Initially, players were gifted with a bag that had 100 slots. However, it was far from enough for Shi Feng. Every player could equip a maximum of seven bags. So, Shi Feng immediately bought six of the largest bags currently available. Each of the bags had 25 slots, and each sold for 40 Copper Coins. Six bags meant 240 Copper Coins. Such an amount was definitely unaffordable to normal players, but it was just a small sum to Shi Feng.
Shi Feng's storage space increased by a lot after equipping the six bags.Afterward, Shi Feng left the Auction House and set up a stall not far from it. He was not the least bit interested with the Storyline Quest he triggered.
He would not fight over the rewards with the others. He already had his fill; so it was only proper for the others to have the leftovers.
“Buying Magic Essences and Stones in bulk. A stack[2] of Magic Essences for 6 Coppers; a stack of Stones for 10 Coppers.” Shi Feng loudly shouted.
At this stage of the game, Magic Essences were some of the materials needed to practice Enchanting, whereas Stones were one of the building materials Engineers needed. However, many Level 0 to Level 3 monsters would drop these materials when killed, so they were barely worth anything. The materials the many Guilds obtained were also sufficient to supply their own Lifestyle players, so they would never buy any of them. As for normal players, they would only occasionally buy these materials.
However, there was still an ocean of players that did not know how to deal with these materials. They would usually sell these materials to NPCs at a low price. A stack of 20 bottles of Magic Essence sold for 5 Coppers, and a stack of 100 Stones sold for 9 Coppers. Shi Feng bought them at a price of 1 Copper Coin higher, so there were quite a lot of players who were willing to sell their materials to him. An extra Copper per stack would still be quite a significant income.
Magic Essence was one of the required materials to make the Garrison Armor. Besides that, large amounts of Copper Ore and Bronze Ore were also needed. These ores were scarcely available, and all the large Guilds bought them in bulk. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to get ahold of them.
Shi Feng also originally planned to grind for ore. However, now that he had the Philosopher's Stone, ore was no longer a problem. The Philosopher's Stone could carry out Elemental Refinement. That meant it could refine Stone. There was a great chance to obtain ore, even rare ore. There was absolutely no need for Shi Feng to personally grind for them; he could just buy them at an extremely low price. Because of this, tens of thousands of players had effectively become Shi Feng's laborers.
Very quickly, a large crowd of players had gathered in front of Shi Feng.
“Big Brother, I have 6 stacks of Magic Essence here. Will you take them?”
“I have 3 stacks of Stone; do you want them?”
Many players started asking Shi Feng, worried that his bag would fill. After all, they just had too many Magic Essences and Stones. There were no players who were willing to buy these materials. However, it was also a shame to just sell them to the NPCs, so the materials just stayed inside their bags.
“I'll take all of them. Just trade them over,” Shi Feng said.
Before this, Shi Feng amassed quite a bit of wealth. Including his transaction with Gentle Snow, he was in possession of quite a lot of Coins. Shi Feng could definitely buy large amounts of Magic Essences and Stones.
A player was selling three stacks of Magic Essences here… A player was selling five stacks of Stones there… Within moments, Shi Feng had acquired 60 stacks of Magic Essences and 85 stacks of Stones. The money that remained in his pockets was less than 10 Coppers now.
“Sorry, but I’m full,” Shi Feng packed up his stall after explaining.
Suddenly, the many remaining players who came to sell off their Magic Essences and Stones had faces filled with disappointment.
“Big Brother, will you still buy them in the future?” A player asked.
“I will. However, it will still be a period before I do buy them. You all can save them up for now.” Shi Feng resolutely said. The amount of Magic Essences and Stones Shi Feng just purchased was far from enough for him to become an Advanced Forging Apprentice[3].
After leaving the business street, Shi Feng arrived at the Forging Association. He paid 5 Coppers to rent a Basic Forging Room for one hour.
Inside the Basic Forging Room, all the equipment needed for forging was provided; players did not need to buy their own equipment. The Intermediate Ranked Forging Room was a lot better; it could increase the success rate of Forging by 3%. However, it costs 1 Silver per hour to use that room. As for Advanced Forging Rooms, those were not available in small Towns. They were only available in Cities. However, their prices were extremely staggering.
TL Notes:
[1]Lifestyle players: Players who focus on their Auxiliary Jobs i.e. Forgers, Alchemists/Potionmakers etc.
[2]a stack: This is a gaming term used to refer to a group of identical items which will take up only one space/slot in the player’s bag. The stack of items has a maximum limit as to the amount of items it can hold within a slot, i.e. a full stack of Magic Essence has 20 bottles of the item. If a player has 21 bottles of Magic Essence, a second stack will be created in the player’s bag.
[3]Advanced Forging Apprentice: Forgers can be distinguished into several stages, which are Forging Apprentice -> Forger -> Master Forger -> Grandmaster Forger. These stages are then further distinguished into three different ranks, Basic -> Intermediate -> Advanced