Chapter 283 – Special Requests
Whoos.h.!.+
Then tent curtain was forced open, then a figured rushed in from outside. The elder could not help but frown, he knew for sure that it was Beta, no one but Beta would dare break into his tent like this. He put down the pen in his hand and looked up at Beta.
The elder could not help but pause for a moment because in the hands of Beta was a bag of grain. Beta looked at him excitedly, the elder knitted his brows, “What is it Beta, did something happen?
Beta took a deep breath, then he put the grain bag down. And with a face full of excitement he looked at the elder and then he slowly opened the bag of grain, the contents of the bag fell towards the ground.
The elder watched the actions of Beta, then s.h.i.+fted his gaze towards the grain on the ground. These grains were the best grain he has ever seen in his life. He couldn’t sit still, he stood up, walked towards the Bamboo grain, grabbed some with his hands and lightly chewed on them with his mouth.
Good rice! The elder looked up at Beta and said, “Is this Zhao Hai’s grain?”
Beta nodded, the elder then said, “All bags are the same?” Beta nodded again. The elder immediately told Beta, “Go ask Zhao Hai to come over.” Beta did not say anything, he immediately went outside in haste.
The elder slowly sat down, but his eyes never left the bamboo rice on the ground, such good rice, he has never seen them before in his life. If Zhao Hai supplies this rice, not to mention half price, even if he doubles the price the elder would still be willing to trade.
Before long, the sound of footsteps can be heard outside the tent, after which Beta and Zhao Hai walked in. This time the elder acted very polite. He got up and saluted to Zhao Hai, “Welcome Mister Zhao, please take a sit.” Zhao Hai didn’t dare to act big, he returned the elder’s salute, he then went towards the elder’s right side and sat down.
This is the way humans show respect, Zhao Hai sitting on the elder’s right side shows an act of modesty. This gave the elder a very good impression. After Zhao Hai sat down, the elder looked at Zhao Hai, “For Mister Zhao to bring us such high quality grain, I am very deeply grateful for that.”
Zhao Hai quickly responded. “Elder is too polite, to get into the elder’s graces, this Zhao Hai is honored.”
The elder actually didn’t care about Zhao Hai’s modesty, he looked at Zhao Hai and asked, “Mister has such good quality grain, but why sell it to us at such a low price? I ask Mister Zhao to clear my doubts about this.”
Zhao Hai showed a faint smile as he replied, “There is nothing to complex about it, there are actually only two reasons. First, because these grains are my territories’ produce, therefore the price is very low. Second, is because I have just arrived at the prairie, and seeing the the prairie operates on an open market, the prices would be naturally low, of course, this does not mean that my price would increase later, be a.s.sured elder, my food price wouldn’t change.”
The elder looked at Zhao Hai and nodded. Zhao Hai’s response was justified. The elder continued towards Zhao Hai, “How much grain could Mr. Zhao supply this year?”
Zhao Hai frowned and said, “Only 15 million pounds, my ability to transport is currently very limited, moreover I can only trade this month, after this month winter would arrive. At which point I would probably return to my territory, thus I cannot transport food here.”
The elder gave an understanding nod, humans after all would need to return to their homes. It would be impossible for them to wade the winter with the beastmen race, they are not used to that kind of life, but 15 million jin of grain wouldn’t be too less upon further calculation.
Zhao Hai looked at the elder and smiled, “Elder, I don’t know if I would be fortunate enough to meet with West Wonder King? In order to discuss the possibility of cooperation next year?”
The elder paused for a moment, then he replied, “I don’t have authority for this, I will report your inquiry to the prince, tomorrow I shall give you a reply.”
Zhao Hai nodded, he looked at the elder and said, “There is another thing that I want to talk with elder, now that my men has delivered the grain, they need to leave immediately, can you look to see if I can get the payment for this batch of grain? To save me trouble of bringing them myself.”
The elder paused, then he nodded and said, “Not a problem, but these things needs to be readied, you’ll have to wait for a day. What payment does mister want? Do you want all of them to be argali?”
Zhao Hai shook his head, “No, actually, I was going to talk to the elder about this matter. We have a few elders in the family, they are potion masters as well as alchemists. You should know, they like to collect special ingredients. Therefore, if possible, I’d want some special magic beasts and magic plants, if you were to offer your tribe’s unique magic beast that would be better. Of course, we still would accept Argali as well as wool products as payment, I ask the elder to look into these matters.”
The elder didn’t think that Zhao Hai would have a special request. He looked at Zhao Hai and said, “Mister’s meaning is, if we were to exchange the grains with some fighting bulls of our clan, then you’d offer a high price? What about magic beasts?” [TN: not the Fighting Bull clansmen but instead their ‘cousin’ Fighting Bull beast]
Zhao Hai hastily replied, “Be a.s.sured elder, I’d offer the same high price for magic beasts, but the quant.i.ties of these beasts couldn’t be many. After all, I fear that I couldn’t raise them properly.”
The elder agreed to Zhao Hai’s request, he nodded his head and said, “Well, I can give you ten Fighting Bulls, as well as ten wild blood cows. I hope mister can exchange each cow for 10 thousand jin of grain. Then we’ll use Argali and wool blankets for the rest, what do you think?”
Zhao Hai thinks for a moment then replied, “There’s no problem, ten fighting bulls plus ten wild blood cows account for two hundred thousand jin of grain, that leaves 2,800,000 jin of grain. If 2,800,000 jin were to be traded with argali, it would be 1,400 heads. So I’d like 1000 heads, and the for the rest I’d like 600 blankets. If your tribe has any magic plants, this number can be lowered, what do you think?”
The elder nodded, “Fair enough, I agree. Tomorrow, Mr. Zhao can get the things that you requested. However, currently we don’t have the time to collect more magic beasts as well as plants for mister. The time is too short, moreover, during winter plants would wither, we can only wait for next year.”
Zhao Hai faintly smiles, “That’s fine, the elder can send some people to collect during these days. In a few days my second batch of grain will arrive, then we could trade, withered plants are okay, as long as it hasn’t withered for more than one month.”
The elder nodded, “Very well, we’ll try our best. Mister can return, if West Wonder King agrees to meet mister tomorrow, I’ll immediately inform you.” Zhao Hai expressed his grat.i.tude, then turned to leave.
Looking at Zhao Hai going out, Beta couldn’t help but say to the elder, “Elder, why did you agree to trade him our fighting bulls? What if he studies them what do we do?”
The elder showed a faint smile, “Nothing, rest a.s.sured, humans have spent all these years researching about our soul beasts without much result. And do you think that if we don’t give them some beasts, they wouldn’t have any way to procure them elsewhere? If they really are to be greedy, then why not trade our soul beasts to bring more food for ourselves?”
Beta nodded, not saying anything, the elder turned to Beta, “You go take some people from the tribe and go search for some strange plants. If anyone were to spot some magic beasts, make sure to bring them alive.” Beta complied, then turned to leave.
Zhao Hai went to his tent while a.s.sessing his conversation with the elder. But fortunately, there are no flaws in his part, he acted like any common merchant.
He just deliberately asked the elder for their magic beasts because he is very clear that he can’t be too low-key. Human merchants tend to act high-profile towards the beastmen, so he should be the same from time to time. The opposite would cause other people to have suspicions. After all, spies would tend to be low-key, trying not to stir up trouble as much as possible, on the contrary, if you were to act high-profile, no one would suspect you.
Zhao Hai also would not be too high-profile, but he also couldn’t be a pushover. So he asked the elder for the tribe’s companion soul beast as well as some special magic plants , which could be be interpreted as a lofty request. At the same time, he also disclosed to the elder that he couldn’t get these things at another place.
Zhao Hai knows very clear, that West Wonder King isn’t most afraid of Wales. In his opinion, Herculean Bull tribe was already ruined. Wales is a prince of a declining tribe, they wouldn’t even dare return to the Cow-headed beastman domain. West Wonder King fears the grudge held by the Fighting Bull chieftain.
And Zhao Hai, by requesting for fighting bulls and wild blood cows, gave clues to the elder that he is not related to the chieftain of the Fighting Bull Tribe.
Strictly speaking, West Wonder King’s tribe is a branch family of the Fighting Bull tribe so they also use the same bulls as the main tribe. Their beasts, the fighting bulls, have bodies filled with short black hairs, a very violent ox-headed bull. The bull’s height is nearly three meters, they cannot use magic but they have great strength, ranked in the top ten among the cow-headed domain. Moreover, they also have a special ability, Rage!
Rage can be considered as a very strange ability, because of their fury, their strength and defensive ability would greatly explode. No matter what level the opposing beast is, they would still dare to charge. This point is what excels them compare to other magic beasts.
Ranks of magic beasts are very strict, like the fighting bulls which can be considered as sixth rank magic beasts. Ordinary sixth rank beasts, when they meet eighth ranked beasts, would be immobilized, thus letting the eight rank easily slaughter them. But the fighting bulls are different, they are not afraid, whether it be eight rank or ninth rank beasts, as long as they are in a state of rage, they’d dare to make the first move and charge.
The wild blood cows, are a dark-type magic beast. They place only at the fifth rank, only five levels. They can perform simple blood magic, but this beast actually is most suited for the fighting bull clan.
The name wild blood actually doesn’t conform to the cow’s nature because of its two blood magics, one is Quick Recovery and the other is Gloom.
These two magic belongs to Support-type magic, Quick Recovery can be cast on somebody to quicken their wound healing my many folds, some being dozens of times faster. Gloom is a mental type black magic, once used, the target would become absolutely rational, like a puppet, and seemingly forgetting what anger is.
These two magics fit the Fighting Bulls perfectly. Regarding the Fighting Bulls’ temper, with which single word can cause a fight, and their mounts would be similar, once the rage skill is used, it would be in a state of extreme anger, no matter if ally or foe, it would only know to charge, which in a battlefield is very fearful.
But the two skills of the wild blood cow happens to suppress this enraged state. So the Fighting Bulls absorb the wild blood cow’s soul and train in their skills. After practicing in these skills their beastly souls would obtain two new abilities, which is to quickly recover wounds as well as make them retain a calm condition, not only them, but also to their mounts.
Their name of wild blood cows became so because they are completely blood red. Normally with black and white eyes, their eye color would turn red once in battle, like a violent man when he is angry, therefore it was given its name of wild blood.
Before, the Fighting Bull tribe is only an ordinary tribe within the cow-headed race. Their temperament is too bad along with their very disobedient mounts, they couldn’t control their temper which wouldn’t differentiate between friend or foe. Because of these qualities, they were not very well-liked among the cow-headed race.
Afterwards, after generations of effort, they finally were able to find soul beasts most suitable for them, which multiplied their battle effectiveness my many folds. Now they are famous within the cow-headed race as strong warriors.
The human race, all these years, has had researched beastmen soul beasts as well as beast relatives. They want to discover a way to crack this method that gave beastmen immense strength. But till now they still haven’t succeeded. The Beastmen are still using soul beasts but humans are still using battle qi.
Humans have always coveted this method of obtaining strength from the beastmen for a long time. If they were to discover how these beastmen managed to have companion beasts, this would greatly increase the might of their cavalry. If they were to know how to use soul beasts, then their battle power would also increase greatly. But unfortunately, just as the beastmen said, these two abilities were given to them by the Beast G.o.d. With the exception of the beastmen, no other race could use these abilities.
Zhao Hai also knows that, before, some human merchants would purchase soul beasts as well as unique beasts from the beastmen and then bring them back to Human territory to do research on. But unfortunately, most of these beasts would die of illness. Even if its alive, the humans still couldn’t find anything in their research.
Because of this point did Zhao Hai propose to the elder his purchase of their fighting bulls and wild blood cows. This is because he knows the elder will sell, in addition it would eliminate some of the elder’s wariness of him.
As he returned to his tent, Zhao Hai immediately turned on the monitor. The words Beta and the elder has said right after he left gave him relief. He has now found out that the elder’s wariness of him has basically disappeared.