Chapter 38: Earthen Round Shield’s Hot Sales
Translator: Zenobys Editor: TheRealSeal
Ever since Zhang Yang started the ‘Physician’s Friend’ quest, he had not returned to the city!
When he finally did, the first thing he did was to store all his junk items into his storage before checking his mailbox. A few days ago, the mail assistant informed him of new mails, but he could not retrieve any as he was away.
The mails came from the auction house, informing him of his sale of the [Earthen Round Shield] which had transacted for 870 gold pieces. He received his payment after having 87 gold pieces deducted as tax.
Zhang Yang had a look at his inventory and realized that he currently had 15,300 gold pieces. If this game had a Personal Wealth Ranking Board, he’d definitely be on the list!
With the intention to learn the <Alchemy> skill, Zhang Yang decided to forget <Mining> and proceeded to the Alchemy Shop. To gain a fortune from <Mining> would mean to invest quite a lot of time that Zhang Yang did not have. The only reason for him to learn <Mining> was for the class quest in Beginner Village.
Shortly after, he took out the [Beginner Anti-Shadow Potion] recipe and patted it on his chest. A gold light shone and his <Alchemy> list now had something added to it.
Zhang Yang went to the auction house, opened the shopping window and searched for the keywords [Brassica Weed] and [Gingko Flower]. As soon as he confirmed his search, rows and rows of the items were listed out. Normally, a stack would usually cost 20 silver pieces. However, there were sellers that attempted to scam others by placing only one herb and selling it at the same price, deceiving careless players into buying them in a bid to earn more.
Zhang Yang selected all the available [Brassica Weed] and [Gingko Flower] with a price of no higher than 30 silver pieces to purchase. What was once in abundance at the auction house was wiped clean and now, there remained only a few units of herbs being offered up for sale by other players.
While the others were still in the midst of purchasing the same ingredients, they did not realize that a huge supply of them had disappeared, leading some to turn furious.
“What?! Where are all the [Gingko Flower]? I just saw over 100 stacks a few moments ago, and now there are only 7 units left?! Motherf*cker! Which son of a b*tch is trying to sell 1 unit for 20 silver! I clicked it twice!”
“[Brassica Weed] is gone too. What the hell? How am I supposed to raise my <Alchemy> level like this?!”
“Which bastard is so rich to buy all those herbs in an instant?!”
[Brassica Weed] was one of the materials used to create the [Beginner Healing Potion] while [Gingko Flower] was used to make the [Beginner Mana Potion]. The drop rate for these two recipes was rather high and players would usually rely on them to raise their <Alchemy> level. It was expected that players would be distraught when Zhang Yang cleaned all the shelves.
He headed back to his mailbox right after that to retrieve all the purchased [Brassica Weed] and [Gingko Flower]. However, having insufficient inventory space to collect them all at once, he had to place most of the herbs temporarily into the bank. When a character was created, they were given a free bank column from the system that had 100 slots. Players would then need to pay if they require more space. Additionally. the more slots you bought, the higher the price would be, increasing the price by 10 times for each subsequent purchase.
Zhang Yang had bought 3 bank columns which gave him more than enough space to store his purchases from the mailbox. He felt the pinch of spending 1,100 gold pieces for them though.
Once that was settled, he went back to the Alchemy Shop to buy a large amount of [Empty Bottle] to create the [Beginner Anti-Shadow Potion] with his newly learned <Alchemy>.
‘Ding! You have created [Beginner Anti-Shadow Potion] x1. Your <Alchemy> Mastery has increased by 1 point.’
‘Ding! You have created [Beginner Anti-Shadow Potion] x1. Your <Alchemy> Mastery has increased by 1 point.’
…
‘Ding! You have created [Beginner Anti-Shadow Potion] x2. Your <Alchemy> Mastery has increased by 1 point.’
Wow. 2 bottles? Zhang Yang smiled and felt that this must be the advantage from his Luck attribute! The Luck attribute provided a certain chance to have 2 end products whenever a player crafted something. The higher the Luck attribute, the higher the chance! Despite that, the chances would still be very slim even if a player had 100 Luck.
After exhausting all of his materials in his inventory, Zhang Yang immediately ran to the bank to exchange his crafted potions for more materials and began crafting more. With the ridiculous settings in the system, it took 2 seconds to create a bottle of potion. Zhang Yang bought 370 stacks of materials which could be converted into 7,400 bottles of potions…
It took 4 hours of potion crafting to use up every material he had, but thanks to that, his <Alchemy> skill had surpassed Amateur level and with that, the [Beginner Anti-Shadow Potion] icon turned grey. This meant that he could no longer obtain any experience points from crafting it to further increase his <Alchemy> mastery. As he looked at the neatly arranged potions in his bank, Zhang Yang felt a strong sense of accomplishment.
Currently, a bottle of [Beginner Anti-Shadow Potion] costs only 5 silver pieces, but once players proceeded to the next dungeon, Marzerway’s Lair, , those potions would begin to fetch 1 gold piece for each bottle. That’s a guaranteed bestseller right there! Naturally, the prices for [Brassica Weed] and [Gingko Flower] would be raised as well, reducing the profit margin.
Zhang Yang opened his Friend List and noticed that Fatty Han had just logged in! He sent him a private message, “Hey Fatty, quickly stock up on any [Brassica Weed] and [Gingko Flower] you can find! Prices will be increasing over the next few days! If the price doesn’t exceed 2 gold pieces, buy them all!”
“Damn, Little Yang, for real?” Fatty replied hastily.
“Fatty, this is a golden opportunity right here in front of you! It’s up to you to grab that chance!”
“Little Yang, I only have 16 gold pieces, I can’t get much with what I have!”
“Alright, I’ll mail 1,000 gold pieces to you later! You owe me for this!”
“Haha! That’s good, brother!”
Fatty Han did not express much appreciation through words. Their friendship need not be that courteous, for what mattered more was the deed and the thought of it!
After Zhang Yang transferred 1,000 gold pieces to Fatty Han, he withdrew 6 units of [Plain Copper Plate] and 30 stacks of [Iron Plate] to craft 6 [Earthen Round Shield] at the blacksmith. He was surprised by the results of his first auction of the shields. There were rich people everywhere!
He placed 1 [Earthen Round Shield] for auction with a minimum bid of 400 gold pieces and a maximum buyout price of 1,000 gold pieces for 24 hours while omitting his name. This was the best way to get the best price out of a rare item; selling them one by one. The higher the supply, the lower the price, making it worthless if the stock increased.
After that, Zhang Yang went ahead to look for any strange and special crafting recipes up for auction. Within a few days, what was once a desolate place had now turned into a lively auction house and the number of items for sale had definitely multiplied! Over at the Crafting Recipes tab, there were hundreds of recipes on sale. Most of them being [Beginner Whetstone] recipes and a few other random equipment recipes.
Quoting the official ‘5-year game review’, after the launch of the server, the number of players that joined shot up from 4 million to 10 million in merely 10 days. 3 months later, the developers announced a heaven-defying target game population of 1 billion and ‘God’s Miracle’ continued to steadily grow over time. 2 years later, the game reached its unbelievable goal of 1 billion players. The more high-leveled players therewere, the better the auctioned merchandise that could be found.
[Beginner Whetstone] was the most economical product to use when raising <Smithing> mastery. The only material needed to craft it was a piece of [Iron Plate]. [Beginner Whetstone] was considered as consumable goods and was generally used to polish weapons, increasing its attack damage by 10 for an hour.
Having his <Smithing> skill at an Amateur level, Zhang Yang could not depend on the [Earthen Round Shield] to raise his mastery. He immediately purchased the [Beginner Whetstone] recipe from the auction house, withdrew it from his mailbox and opened his Friend list to send a message to the Mining Specialist.
“Hello there, old friend. How many units of the [Iron Plate] do you still have?”
After a while, he received a reply, “Yo! I haven’t heard much from you these days, and here I thought you did not need these anymore! I’ve got plenty of [Iron Plate]. How many do you want?”
“Alright. Give me 100 stacks!”
Raising his <Smithing> skill to Amateur level would require him to use about 50 stacks of [Iron Plate], but Zhang Yang only had 7 [Plain Copper Plate] that could be used with merely 35 [Iron Plate].
“Whoa!” the Mining Specialist replied in shock, “I’d say, ‘Please don’t scare the crap out of me every time!’ 100 stacks is too many. I only have 50 stacks including the ones in my bank.”
“50 stacks then. Deal. Send it to me whenever you’re ready! Mail transaction as usual!”
“Sure thing, boss! Thank you for your patronage!”
Zhang Yang patted the recipe and learned how to craft [Beginner Whetstone]. The mail would require 30 minutes before arriving and it would be meaningless to just wait, but he had been grinding monsters like a mad man for these past few days and he could not muster any desire to kill monsters within this short period of time.
‘Ding!’
A notification came from the mail assistant. Zhang Yang received a new mail. He was surprised for a moment. He thought that the mail system had changed after he was ‘reborn’. The mail could arrive so soon?
He checked his mailbox and found that it was not from the Mining Specialist but a notice from the auction house. His [Earthen Round Shield] had been sold for the maximum buyout price by a player with a strange name, Windward Three Feet Pee.
I’m rich!
Without wasting anymore time, Zhang Yang ran to the bank, took out a second shield and auctioned it again in the same manner.
‘Ding!’
In less than 2 minutes, Zhang Yang was notified again. The shield was once again sold to Windward Three Feet Pee.
Zhang Yang placed yet another shield for auction and the same buyer bought it once again.
Listed. Sold! Listed. Sold!
After 10 minutes, 5 of Zhang Yang’s shields were sold out and Windward Three Feet Pee had been the one to grab them all. He thought of raising the price for the last few units, but 1,000 gold pieces was already rather plenty so he decided not to do it.
In the initial stages of the game, gold pieces devaluated very quickly. According to the current market ratio of 1:9, 1,000 gold pieces was worth nearly 10,000 bucks! Money really made a difference!
But it mattered not. At the current stage of the game, [Earthen Round Shield] was the best shield available. Aside from Lost Paradise, no other guilds have defeated Dadarerda. [Plain Copper Ore] was also one of the deciding factors in setting the rareness of the shield!
Windward Three Feet Pee should be someone from a big guild, as it could explain how he was able to buy all 6 shields from Zhang Yang.
Gray-Silver grade shields only dropped in Level 20 Hardcore Mode dungeons. According to the game developers, each big guild would need at least 4 to 5 days to explore and complete Marzerway’s Lair when players reached a suitable level.
Marzerway’s Lair was much more difficult as compared to Bangar Crypt. During the exploring period in the beginning stages, players would be stuck for a day in Normal Mode due to a lack of understanding of the boss’ skills. They are then stuck for another 2 to 3 days in Hard Mode and even longer in the Hardcore Mode. It would take up to 10 days just to obtain a Gray-Silver shield.
Furthermore, there would always be a few parties from the big guilds who were able to clear Hardcore Mode with their corresponding levels. Normal players would only return when they have reached higher levels! With that assumption in mind, the demand for [Earthen Round Shield] would last longer but the selling price would drop over time.
It seemed that the Hardcore Mode of Bangar Crypt was still worth raiding!