Chapter 497 – Artisan Slaves
Zhao Hai looked at Ren, then he showed a faint smile and said, “You really have good eyes. You should do your best to keep it.” Then he was led into the shop by Ren, the others also followed.
After having entered the shop, Zhao Hai stared. The inside didn’t look like what a shop should be, one could even call this a living room. The ornaments and decorations inside was commonly seen on living rooms, it wouldn’t be bad if it was one.
Ren immediately asked Zhao Hai and the others to sit down. Zhao Hai didn’t hesitate and just sat down just as Ren presented him with tea. Ren just stood respectful as the asked Zhao Hai, “Sir Marquis, what can this little one do for you?”
Zhao Hai looked Ren and smiled faintly, “What else? I’m here to buy some slaves, both men and women. I have just recently bought a castle and want to place some slaves to maintain it.”
Ren immediately nodded and said, “Alright, how many slaves does sir Marquis need? How many males and females?”
Zhao Hai waved his hand and said, “Why are you asking these things? Lead me to see them first, I want to look at their quality. If they’re good, then I would buy a large number. If they aren’t up to par, then I wouldn’t want to buy even one.”
Ren smiled and said, “Then Marquis, please, follow me. I believe there won’t be any shop in this valley who would sell low quality goods. Because of the valley’s vicinity to Carson City, the guests here are all great n.o.bles, we wouldn’t want to risk our business, so we certainly wouldn’t sell substandard goods.”
Zhao Hai waved his hand and said, “Talking is useless, go, go guide me.” Ren complied and then led Zhao Hai to walk towards the back of the shop.
Right behind the shop was a very big cavern. There were large and small caves inside as well. These caves held people inside, the people only wore the simplest clothing on their bodies, just enough to cover important parts. The rest of their bodies were exposed.
Each cave had about 10 to 100 people in them, men and women were separated. It was only here that the face of the slave market was seen, they didn’t seem like people at all, they were more like beasts waiting to be sold.
Zhao Hai looked at these slaves, he has to admit, these slaves were really very good. They were all young people, and from their skin, one could see that they are all very healthy.
From their eyes, Zhao Hai can see that all of them were strictly trained. Their eyes were expressionless much like their faces, they looked just like Zhao Hai’s undead. If it weren’t for the fact that they were living, Zhao Hai might have thought that all of them were undead.
Zhao Hai looked at these slaves calmly. He was currently a n.o.ble, he couldn’t just lose heart in front of these slaves, otherwise he would be looked down by the other n.o.bles.
With the state of the continent, n.o.bles wouldn’t lose their hearts when dealing with slaves. Because of this, Zhao Hai also acted as though he was calm.
Looking at the slaves, Zhao Hai nodded and then turned to Ren, “Good, Mister Ren, these are very good. Alright, I’ll go take 200 men and 200 women. These people should be enough for my castle.”
Ren nodded immediately and said, “This is not a problem, Sir Marquis. You can take them any time you want. If Sir Marquis wants us to deliver them on your doorstep, as long as we have your address, then we can send these slaves as soon as possible.”
Zhao Hai nodded, then turned to Ren and said, “Ren, does your shop some specially skilled slaves? Like Artisan slaves, or som battle salves? As long as you have those slaves, then I also want a lot of them.”
When Ren heard Zhao Hai, his eyes couldn’t help but turn bright, he quickly replied, “I invite the Marquis to the living room, this is not the place to talk.” Zhao Hai nodded and then returned to the living room. Ren went to give a person some commands before he served Zhao Hai a new cup of tea.
To be honest, Ren was initially quite disappointed, 200 male and 200 female slaves can only be considered to be a small scale transaction in a shop like this. Altogether, it only costs 300-400 gold coins, their shop can only make a little amount of money. Average n.o.bles would buy slaves in transactions that involved thousands to tens of thousands of gold coins. Some transactions even make it to to a hundred thousand gold coins. Compared to Zhao Hai’s small transaction, it’s certainly not worth mentioning.
But when he heard that Zhao Hai wanted some artisan slaves and battle slaves, Ren became happy. Artisan slaves and battle slaves are several times more expensive than average slaves, some were even several hundred times more expensive.
If Zhao Hai wanted dozens of artisan slaves and battle slaves, it certainly wouldn’t be called a small-scale transaction. But he didn’t believe that Zhao Hai would buy so much, all of the artisans and battle slaves on their shop was worth millions of gold coins; such number wasn’t small. Average n.o.bles wouldn’t spend that much money on slaves.
After Zhao Hai and the others arrived at the living room and sat down, Ren immediately went to Zhao Hai’s side and said, “Sir Marquis, we also have some artisan and battle slaves at the shop. But sir must know that the price of these artisan and battle slaves are very high. And these include the most ordinary ones among them.”
Zhao Hai nodded and then looked at Ren and said, “Ren, I don’t care about the price as long as they are worth it. I believe you know about the fact that I own Golden Island, what I need there the most were artisan slaves, we can discuss their prices. Also, if you have slaves that are whole families, I want them as well. Very young slaves are also good, but I want a discount on them.”
Ren understood Zhao Hai as he nodded, “The Marquis’ words certainly made this one feel relieved. This shop has a lot of good quality battle slaves as well as artisan slaves. Artisan slaves are have many types according to which production branch they are skilled in. And their prices depend on how skillful they are. We also have a lot of battle slaves with varying strengths, the more strong the slave, the more expensive.”
Zhao Hai nodded and said, “Let’s go look at the artisan slaves first.”
Ren nodded, then went to one side of the living room and took a big book from a bookshelf. Then he placed the book in front of Zhao Hai as he said, “Sir Marquis, this has all the names of our shop’s artisan slaves. Their situations are present as well, Sir Marquis can take a look.”
Zhao Hai nodded and then carefully took the book and read its contents. The artisan slaves in Ren’s shop were very good, all of them numbered more than 200 people. A lot of them were carpenters and masons, their speciality was also written. Quite a few of these slaves were blacksmiths and the like. What made Zhao Hai the most surprised was that there were actually two artisans that can brew alcohol, there was also one Potion master present.
Zhao Hai placed the book down and looked at Ren and said, “You really have a potion master slave? How can a potion master become a slave?”
Ren smiled and said, “Sir’s eyes are really as bright as torches, immediately noticing the problem at a glance. This potion master isn’t an ordinary person. He used to be a fairly famous potion master, but later in his life, he developed a highly toxic potion that had exploded, spreading its effects outside of his laboratory and had killed a lot of people. Because of this, he was demoted into becoming a slave, we had spent quite a lot of money in order to buy him.”
ZHao Hai nodded, he wasn’t very excited about this potion master. This was because he already has the Processing machine to make potions for him. If he wants a potion, he can just have the machine make a potion that was even better than ones that a potion master can make.
What Zhao Hai was interested about were the other slaves. Except 30 of them, the others had their own families with them, one of them was even a family of three generations.
Zhao Hai handed the book over to Laura and the others. Laura wasn’t polite and took the book and scanned through it. Meanwhile, Zhao Hai’s action made Ren surprised, but when she remembered who Laura was, he became calm again.
In Carson City, it wasn’t only Zhao Hai who had become famous, Laura and the others acquired some fame as well. Laura and Megan held the most fame. There was no need to mention Megan, she was one of the twin flowers of the Imperial Capital, it was impossible for any n.o.bles who didn’t know of her. Because of Laura’s relations.h.i.+p with Zhao Hai, people went and had her background investigated. When they received their reports, they found out how formidable Laura was in the past.
She was a flower of Purcell Duchy. She started from scratch and managed to establish her own business presence in the duchy. She even managed to become the most powerful merchant of the duchy at one time.
Even the not too famous Meg has become famous right now. Meg was in herself a talented mage. This young and was already a 6th rank Water Mage. This basically meant that her future achievements would be limitless. Because of this, her reputation wasn’t any lower than Zhao Hai’s other fiance’s.
Laura carefully read the register and then nodded before handing it over to Megan. Megan took a look and then handed it over to Meg who also scanned through its contents. Zhao Hai looked at the three, then all of them made a nod.
Zhao Hai turned to Ren and said, “Ren, I want all of these slaves in this book. I also want those 400 slaves I mentioned before. Moreover, do you have some young slave? I want to buy some to train myself.”
Ren stared, then he became overjoyed, he didn’t expect Zhao Hai to take all of these slaves. This was surely a huge transaction, the overall price of these 200 slaves was around 200 thousand. The potion master alone was worth 20,000 gold coins.
A transaction worth 200 thousand was a huge business for even a shop like them. Ren quickly said, “We don’t have child slaves here because this was just a place to sell them. Slaves would only be sent here after being trained. Only artisan slaves who have their families with them have children included.”