Chapter 913: Intermediate Shop
Translator: Hellscythe_ Editor: FluffyGoblyn
After these six players conversed among themselves, they left the Teleportation Hall and stepped onto the busy street as everyone watched.
As soon as the group left the building, the leading white-haired, middle-aged man carrying a black-and-white spear summoned a giant snow-white wolf. The wolf was even larger than a lion.
An Assassin, wearing dark-gray leather armor with two blood-red daggers hanging from his waist, summoned a black warhorse beside the middle-aged man. The warhorse sported silver armor and looked far more majestic than the horses NPC soldiers used.
The instant these two Mounts appeared, they had immediately attracted the attention of every player on the street.
“Damn, who are those people? Their Mounts are definitely not Common rank.”
“You’re right. I’ve never seen any Common Mounts that look that cool. At the very least, they should be Bronze, maybe Mysterious-Iron, Mounts.”
To current players, even Common Mounts were a luxury, not to mention Mounts ranked Bronze or above.
Hence, when the players on the street saw these Mounts, both envy and admiration filled their hearts. Some beautiful female players even sent the white-haired man on the giant wolf flirtatious glances.
Nowadays, God’s Domain was increasingly popular. One frequently saw the game mentioned in the news. Moreover, powerful Guilds were offering annual salaries ranging from 500,000 Credits to 6,000,000 Credits, depending on a player’s strength. To ordinary people, this was an astronomical amount of money.
Seeing as the white-haired man rode a Bronze Mount or greater at this stage of the game, his salary must have been in the seven-digit range.
“Hahaha! Boss Blood, I think those beauties are interested in you!” an Elementalist, who wore a robe embroidered with runic symbols and exuded a refined air, poked fun at the white-haired Berserker leading his group.
“It’s a pity that these beauties will never catch Boss Blood’s eyes. After all, his heart already belongs to someone. Why won’t these beauties look at me instead?” a Level 39 skinny, male Swordsman said as he sighed.
“Masked, you really should learn a thing or two from the Boss. If you put more effort into your improvement, you would’ve already reached Level 40 and could a Mount to woo those beauties.” the male Assassin on the black mare snorted.
“How can I possibly compare to Boss Blood? Even now, I have not passed the test or obtained a title, unlike you, Kirin, who obtained your title half a year ago,” the Swordsman named Masked Angel said enviously.
“Alright, that’s enough chit-chat. Focus on our task. I will head to Zero Wing with Kirin. The rest of you, catch up with a carriage,” the leading Berserker named Bloodsucker ordered sternly.
Immediately, everyone fell silent and did as they were told. The four Level 39s rode an advanced horse carriage and followed Bloodsucker and Kirin towards Zero Wing’s Guild Residence.
Although the advanced horse carriage was fast, it was still slightly slower than the snow-white wolf and black warhorse. As a result, the gap between the two groups gradually increased.
The party caused a Commotion everywhere they went.
—
Meanwhile, the Candlelight Trading Firm’s entrance was overcrowded.
Before anyone knew it, the Candlelight Trading Firm had recruited over 300 Lifestyle players. With this number, everyone could see how powerful the Firm’s foundations were. The other trading firms in Star-Moon Kingdom could not compare to this.
“Guild Leader, we’ve reached our recruitment limits for the moment. Any more and we’ll have to send these people to the Lifestyle Associations,” Melancholic Smile reported worriedly as she looked at the numerous files on the newcomers.
One thousand, two hundred people–this was already beyond what the Candlelight Trading Firm could handle. If they really recruited this many people, they would lose money each day, rather than make it.
“It’s fine. Bring all of the information you have on the Candlelight’s branch Shops,” Shi Feng instructed, waving his hand dismissively and chuckling.
In God’s Domain, Shops were officially categorized by star-ranks. However, one could also categorize a Shop by its size. Players in his previous life had realized his and summarized the differences. There were a total of four categories.
Basic Shop, Intermediate Shop, Advanced Shop, and Special Shop.
To begin with, 1-star and 2-star Shops fell under the Basic Shop category. A Basic Shop could only accommodate a limited number of Lifestyle players, and a firm had to rely on numbers to make up for the lack of space. A Basic Shop’s assistance it could provide to Lifestyle players was also quite limited.
The Intermediate Shop category included 3-star Shops to 5-star Shops. In terms of size, Intermediate Shops were massively different than Basic Shops. As long as a Shop reached 3-star status, it gained far more room than a 2-star Shop. Hence, when the various Guilds opened their own Shops, while it was relatively easy to upgrade a 1-star Shop to 2-star status, it was many times more difficult to upgrade a 2-star Shop to a 3-star Shop.
Naturally, upgrading from an Intermediate Shop to an Advanced Shop was even more difficult.
Meanwhile, the benefits an Intermediate Shop could provide became more obvious. The Basic Meditation Room was a primary example.
After Shi Feng’s command, Melancholic Smile compiled all of the information she had on every Candlelight’s branch Shop and handed the files to Shi Feng.
Not only was the compiled information detailed, but it was also easy to understand.
So far, the Candlelight Trading Firm had a total of 25 Shops. Among them, 24 were branch Shops. These branch Shops covered 22 cities. The fact that the firm had expanded so much was partly due to Phoenix Rain’s secret assistance. Her help had allowed the Candlelight Trading Firm to set up Shops in the cities of a few neighboring countries. Moreover, she had only sold the Shops to Shi Feng at a price slightly higher than the initial cost.
Phoenix Rain is certainly dedicated in her work. Shi Feng smiled slightly after reading the information.
Among the many Shops, six were within the Black Dragon Empire. Moreover, five of these Shops were in cities with a player population in the millions. In addition, there were six Shops in the kingdoms neighboring Star-Moon Kingdom. Among them, four were in the Purple Thorns Kingdom. All four of these Shops were in the top ten most populated cities in the kingdom. As for the remaining two branch Shops, they were in the Twin Towers Kingdom. Unfortunately, most of the kingdom had fallen into ruin, and only the capital city remained standing.
Shi Feng had to admit that it was beneficial to cooperate with a major power. Without Phoenix Rain’s help, Shi Feng would have to exhaust himself to no end to achieve a similar result, and this would have greatly impacted his personal growth.
Based on this alone, one could see how frightening the foundations of God’s Domain’s major powers were. Currently, Zero Wing’s advantage only lay in the fact that it had a lot of liquid funds. However, this did not mean that the game’s major powers were poorer than Zero Wing. Rather, these powers reinvested most of the money they earned into valuable Lands. Although Zero Wing had a lot of money on hand, it didn’t have anywhere to invest.
In terms of capital turnover, the difference between Zero Wing and these major powers was obvious at a glance.
I will have to thank Phoenix Rain. I would have had a hard time using up these five slots otherwise. Shi Feng then chose five branch Shops and upgraded them to 2-star Shops. When upgrading these Shops to 2-star status, he saved far more money by using the special rights of a 3-star Shop than when he had used a Promotion Order. Each Shop only cost 600 Gold to upgrade. With this, he only needed to spend 3,000 Gold to obtain five 2-star Shops.
Meanwhile, of the five Shops Shi Feng chose, three were in the Black Dragon Empire, with one of them in Lake Heart City. As for the remaining two slots, he used one on a Shop in the Purple Thorns Kingdom, and the other on the Shop in the Twin Towers Kingdom’s capital.