Chapter Fifty-Seven: The Merchant

  One night without incident, the next day after breakfast, Xian Ni'er was going to collect magic crystals again, and Mo Xin Ke also went with her. Under the pretext of finding a suitable task to earn some money, everyone knew in their hearts that he was anxious to avoid someone's entanglement.

  The words "accept the task" piqued Han Jin's curiosity, and Michelle and Stilberg also wanted to broaden their horizons. In the end, everyone left the hotel and headed towards the Mercenary Guild.

  The square in front of the Mercenary Guild was packed with people, much more lively than that night. Xanier led the crowd through the square and walked to a counter, took the paper and pen handed over by the other party, and opened a line of receipts on it.

  "It can't be like this, right?" Kairui said softly.

  "What's wrong with it?" Xian Ni'er was taken aback: "I received it like this yesterday."

  "Too much!" Kaili pointed to the bill with her finger, and at the top of the bill was written: Purchased 200 third-grade earth-elemental magic crystals, priced at 20 silver coins each.

  "What does it mean?"

  "We currently don't know the reasonable price of earth-elemental magic crystals, nor do we know the market's stockpile. Buying them like this will result in a huge loss."

  "Then you write the receipt." Xanier gave up her seat.

  "Good." Kelly responded concisely and took over the pen and paper, scribbling down a string of numbers.

  The receptionist at the counter took over the documents, and after flipping through them, she raised an eyebrow. Unlike Xanier, Qili's orders were all for small quantities of five pieces each. The first row was priced at twenty silver coins per piece, the second row at nineteen silver coins, decreasing in price by one silver coin per row, until only fifty magic crystals were purchased, with the final price dropping to ten silver coins.

  The receptionist glanced at Keli with a very rude gaze. Posting tasks and trading items are free here, but after the business is done, the Mercenary Guild will collect 1% commission from both parties. For someone like Keli, even if all the orders were completed, the Mercenary Guild wouldn't make much money, which would inevitably lead to disdain.

  "Alright, let's go somewhere else then." Keli said nonchalantly.

  "Only fifty magic crystals? Not enough."

  "No, our goal this time is to find a reasonable price first." Keli thought for a moment: "Xian Ni'er, did you acquire 200 magic crystals all at once yesterday?"

  "No, I started collecting fifty and soon finished them. Then I collected another fifty. When I turned around and came back, they were all gone again. So I simply collected two hundred."

  "Tian..." Ke Li stared blankly at Xian Ni Er.

  "Is it done? Once it's done, let's go upstairs and take a look." Mo Xinke shouted from behind.

  Xian Ni Er and others turned around just about to leave, when the receptionist called out in a bad tone: "Hey! You haven't paid the deposit yet!"

  "How much?" Xian Ni'er asked faintly.

  "Three gold coins."

  Xian Ni'er tossed down three gold coins, grabbed the receipt with the mercenary guild's seal on it, and turned to leave. Qiuli hesitated for a moment before finally speaking up: "Xian Ni'er, since you agreed so quickly, doesn't that mean the price you offered was already too high? Why didn't you lower it?"

  "I don't understand, and I didn't think much of it." Xanier felt a bit embarrassed.

  Han Jin and Sasou exchanged a glance, yesterday when hiring Little Joseph, Xanthe casually tossed out a gold coin with an attitude that even if she knew how to do business, she wouldn't waste her energy. Han Jin was someone who had suffered hardships, and when he first arrived in this world, he was starving, Sasou wasn't wealthy either, they all more or less experienced the bitterness of being penniless, so together they silently criticized and condemned Xanthe, but on the surface still maintained a nonchalant expression.

  The Mercenary Guild building is divided into four floors. The second floor is the high-end trading area, and only those with a transaction amount of over 100 gold coins can go to the second floor. The third floor is the VIP room. As for the fourth floor, even the native Mosike doesn't know what it's used for.

  The Mercenary Guild was home to tens of thousands of mercenaries, and its scale could be imagined. The large hall on the second floor was hundreds of meters long, with more than thirty stone pillars, each over a meter thick, and each pillar had several lamps hanging from it, which were not oil lamps but magic crystal-powered eternal lights.

  In the entire hall, there were almost three to four hundred mercenaries. They either came and went in a hurry, or waited leisurely for something, or gathered together in twos and threes, chatting in low voices. Those who dared to earn one hundred gold coins at most were fifth-grade professionals, and there were even several mercenaries wearing the emblem of warriors and sages. From their demeanor and bearing, it was clear that they were all leaders of small mercenary groups or mercenary corps.

  Outside the window, waves of magical fluctuations rose and fell, the fourteen one-way magic transmission arrays that the Mercenary Guild possessed were at their peak usage during this time. The day's plan was to set out in the morning, and going to the Tala Xia mountain range during the daytime was relatively safer.

  "Shall we go up to the third floor and take a look?" Sasuo said in a low voice.

  "There's no way we can take on that mission, and it's impossible to accept the VIP room task." Mo Xinkai shook his head. Missions couldn't be taken lightly, in order to prevent someone from intentionally causing trouble, one-third of the commission had to be paid first when accepting a mission. If the mission failed or wasn't completed within the specified time limit, the commission would be refunded to the person who posted the mission. As for whether the mercenary group that failed suffered heavy casualties, no one would care.

  Han Jing quietly observed, directly in front of her was a row of crystal screens displaying various tasks and information on purchasing magic crystals, sorted by the amount of gold coins. The reward for each task was at least over 100 gold coins, with the highest being over 900 gold coins.

  Han Jin suddenly discovered that the difficulty of the tasks here was not high, such as the Gale Wolf and Giant Lizard he had encountered before, which were listed in the task bar with a generous reward. His gaze shifted to the side, and he saw another task, a whole Iron Skin Barbarian Cowhide, with a reward of 600 gold coins.

  "What's wrong?" Mo Xinkai asked.

  "Nothing." Han Jin hastily shook his head, if only he had found a way to get rid of those fierce cows earlier, more than 4,000 gold coins! However, he could only think about it in his heart, as Xanier and the others got along very well with the fierce cows. If he dared to speak out, he would definitely be attacked mercilessly.

  "I found that the task here is not very difficult." Sasou and Hanjin thought together: "Mo Xink, let's take a task to try? Can't be idle every day."

  "The task is indeed not difficult, but who will deliver a Wind Wolf to me? In the depths of the Tala Xia mountain range, all sorts of unexpected situations can occur at any time. A migrating or hunting top-tier magical beast is enough to make an entire mercenary squad disappear completely. The difficulty isn't the task itself, but how to survive in the Tala Xia mountain range and find the magical beast you want to hunt. Every year, countless mercenaries lose their lives. Today it's them, if we dare to go inside, tomorrow it might be our turn."

  "Swift Wind Wolf Fang? I..." Han Jin suddenly remembered something: "Why didn't you say it earlier? What a pity!"

  "Yes, how many Storm Wolves did we kill in total? I should have pulled out all their wolf teeth if I had known." Sasou yelled.

  "This... " Mo Xinkuo smiled wryly: "I rarely went upstairs before, how did I know someone was collecting that thing?"

  "Haven't you been upstairs? Are you a mercenary or not?"

  "What can I do myself? Go and die?!?" Mo Xinke glared with his eyes wide open.

  "Why don't you join another mercenary group?" Xanier asked softly.

  "It's better to just take on a random task anyway." Mo Xinkai sighed: "To the Tala Xia mountain range, I still have a chance of coming back alive. If I dare join another mercenary group... then I'm really dead for sure."

  "Some people say the plot is too dull so far, but it can't be helped at first. The protagonist's strength was set too low, and there are crises everywhere that could lead to death. I don't want this other world to be filled with disabilities and mental retardation, nor do I want the protagonist to have a god or dragon as a follower. It's more interesting for them to work hard on their own. Besides, I wanted to write something lighter. If it's too heavy and dark, even I would get tired of it. However, the main storyline will become clear soon, so please be patient for a few more chapters."