I received several messages the moment I went online—
System Notice: Congratulations, the item "Blood Maddened Lion Equipment Set" you consigned for sale has been sold for 2.75m gold. After deducting the 5% intermediary fee, you received 2.6125m gold!
System Notice: Congratulations, the item "Chest Armor of Barbaric Strength" you consigned for sale has been sold for 110k gold. After deducting the 5% intermediary fee, you received 104.5k gold!
System Notice: Congratulations, the item "Frozen Earth Equipment Set" you consigned for sale has been sold for 900k gold. After deducting the 5% intermediary fee, you received 855k gold!
……
In total, I received around 70+ auction-related system notices. After bringing up the virtual calculator and tallying all the numbers, I concluded that Lin Yixin and I had earned a total of 4.8 million gold from our trip to Dragonbone Mountain Range and Arctic Temple yesterday!
I took some screenshots and sent them all to Lin Yixin. Then, I sent her a message: “Yiyi, we got 4.8 million gold from our trip yesterday. Should I transfer 2.4 million to your bank account immediately after I convert them to RMB?”
“Mn, okay!” Lin Yixin replied.
I quickly converted the gold to money and transferred them to both our accounts. Just like that, Lin Yixin and I gained 2.4 million RMB respectively. Including the money I got from the Purple Thunder War Axe recently, I had over 5 million in my account right now. My next goal was to become a ten-millionaire!
Alright, done! Lin Yixin was grinding, and I wanted to go to the palace and buy a piece of land!
Before I went there, I took out the Appointment Token from the warehouse. Without this, it would be impossible to make the purchase. The adventurers might be the one who founded the empire and expanded its borders, but all the land in the realm still belonged to the n.o.bles. Exploitation was a must unless I gave up on my plan completely.
I ran toward the palace and entered the main hall in no time. Just like the last time, the weak and foolish king was seated on the throne.
Holding the Heaven-stealing Sword in one hand, I strode up to the king and showed him the Appointment Token. Then, I said, “Your Majesty, I would like to own a shop!”
“Oh?” The old king looked at me with muddy eyes. “I wasn"t expecting a warrior as powerful as you to appear in Sky City this soon. Alright, you may choose one of these ten shops that are pending for sale. You will need to pay 100k gold for the owners.h.i.+p!”
f.u.c.k!
I cursed inside my head but coughed up as he requested. A second later, a map of Sky City with ten marked spots—the currently available shops—appeared in front of me. There were two shops at each gate, and the final two were located near the royal palace. The best spots to choose were still the two shops near the eastern gate, or more specifically the one that was close to the equipment repair shop and next to the plaza. Players would always be tempted to visit my shop every time they went to repair their equipment.
After choosing the location, I was given the choice to choose what type of shop I wanted it to be. I chose the Magic Consumable shop immediately. As players" average level increased, so did their MP consumption. However, there wasn"t a single Magic Consumable shop in the entire city that was good enough to fulfill that particular hunger. I had been eyeing this business opportunity since the day I came here!
……
Ding~!
System Notice: Congratulations, you have bought a shop at Sky City! The shop number is 0001, and it is located at (1475, 9875) of Sky City. You have 10000 shop shelves, 0 NPCs and 0 working capital!
Ding~!
System Notice: Your shop cannot operate without an NPC. Right now your Sky City Commercial Value is 100 points, so your tax rate is 1094 gold per day. You do not have enough working capital!
……
I was dumbfounded by the two system notices I received. The tax is dead, long live the tax! My business isn"t even up yet, and I owe the system over 1000 RMB already?? Were all shop owners abandoned by G.o.d in their previous lives or something??
I was extremely displeased, but there was nothing I could do about it. I should head to the adventurer inn and hire an NPC shop a.s.sistant now, or I couldn"t sell s.h.i.+t unless I sat in the shop all day and night. But if that was the plan I wouldn"t be going through all this ha.s.sle in the first place.
I ran to the adventurer inn and looked around. I saw brawny men drinking themselves silly at the tables, rows of weapons at the racks such as war axes, broadswords and more, and a wooden clerk staring at the bouncing b.r.e.a.s.t.s of female dancers from his counter.
I walked up to the clerk without a word and stabbed the Heaven-stealing Sword on the counter. Then, I growled out my question, “I need a shop a.s.sistant, clerk. How many of them are available right now?”
The clerk nearly stumbled on his feet in shock. He looked like he wanted to say something, but in the end he a.s.sumed a respectful smile after sneaking a glance at my Heaven-stealing Sword. “Honored guest, there are 15 hirable shop a.s.sistants in Sky City right now. You may hire anyone provided that you already own a shop, and you can afford their price!”
Swhoos.h.!.+
I glanced at the hireable NPC list. Their skills were clearly displayed, and even better, I saw an elite-rank NPC out of the 15 NPCs that were listed—
Dakara (Common)—Flexibility: 67, Business Sense: 81, Orderliness: 70, Ability: None, Permanent Employment Fee: 3120 gold
Jessica (Common)—Flexibility: 71, Business Sense: 77, Orderliness: 82, Ability: None, Permanent Employment Fee: 4080 gold
Lirado (Common)—Flexibility: 81, Business Sense: 75, Orderliness: 66, Ability: None, Permanent Employment Fee: 3784 gold
Stray (Common)—Flexibility: 80, Business Sense: 72, Orderliness: 74, Ability: None, Permanent Employment Fee: 4284 gold
Avni (Elite)—Flexibility: 91, Business Sense: 95, Orderliness: 99, Ability: Copy, Permanent Employment Fee: 21095 gold
Kellis (Common)—Flexibility: 61, Business Sense: 70, Orderliness: 54, Ability: None, Permanent Employment Fee: 2209 gold
……
One of the names of the NPCs had dark gold font. Clearly, it was the elite NPC. However, they also cost an insane amount of money to hire. With the same amount of money, I could pay someone a monthly salary of 1800 RMB and have them work for me for an entire year!
I read every detail carefully before I made my choice. Flexibility represented work capability, Business Sense represented the ability to identify the value of goods, and Orderliness—also the trait I valued the most—was the ability to sort goods. If an NPC was so stupid that they couldn"t even separate A from B, all they would achieve was raise the shop owner"s blood pressure to dangerous levels.
In the end, I gritted my teeth and chose Avni. If she could manage the shop properly, then the benefits were worth the cost!
I slapped exactly 20195 gold on the counter before replying, “I would like to hire Avni as my shop a.s.sistant!”
“Very well!” The clerk stared at the pile of gold with bright eyes while nodding vigorously. “Please give me a moment to bring Avni over, honored guest!”
The clerk went to the back of the inn after saying this. As promised, he soon returned with the shop a.s.sistant I hired, a purple-haired girl named Avni...
Wait a second... She"s no ordinary woman!
I noticed immediately that Avni had sharp ears and grayish brown eyes. Her fingernails looked sharp enough to cut, and she was wearing a s.e.xy leather armor that accentuated her curves well. But all of these features were nothing compared to the fluffy white tail sticking out of her leather short skirt and swaying back and forth as Avni smiled at me.
“You f.u.c.ker!” I grabbed the clerk by the collar angrily. “What race is she? Give me back my 20k gold, you fraudster!”
Clutching the bag of gold with an iron grip, he said, “She… she"s an outcast of a beastman tribe… a fox girl who was kidnapped by an adventurer and sold to this place, to be exact…”
He then moved closer to my ear and whispered, “But I can guarantee that she"s still a virgin. You"re definitely the one who got the better end of the deal, honored guest!”
My eyes turned as wide as saucers. “f.u.c.k you…”
On second thought, maybe this was fine. A seductive fox girl was hardly an unacceptable shop a.s.sistant NPC, not to mention that she was pretty enough to increase sales by 50% even if she did nothing at all.
Once I had convinced myself, I looked at the NPC girl and smiled at her. “Come with me!”
“Yes, master…” she answered softly.
The two of us got out of the adventurer inn and walked toward my shop. The was right next to the equipment repair shop, but it was still empty and closed.
I looked at the NPC girl again and thought that her name wasn"t good enough, so I said, “I"m going to give you a new name…”
The girl turned red and looked at me with expectation. “What will be my new name, master?”
I thought for a moment before answering, “From now on, your name is White Fox!”
The girl looked confused for a second, but she quickly nodded. “Thank you, master. White Fox is here…”
“Hehe, you"re welcome!”
In fact, she was a member of the white fox race. She just looked mostly human except the tail. Speaking of which, I found it rather odd that a girl with a b.u.t.t as round as hers would wear a rather revealing leather short skirt, not to mention the tail sticking out from beneath.
……
When we arrived at the shop, White Fox entered it like she had done it a hundred times in the past before smiling at me. “Master, your shop needs a new name, working capital, and goods to sell. Please resolve these issues as soon as possible!”
“Mn!”
I brought up the shop interface and pondered for a moment. What should I call my shop? A while later, I decided to name it “Sky One”—or not. It didn"t sound cool enough in my head, so I changed it to “Air Force One”. Alright, now it sounds cool and domineering!
After inserting my shop name, I checked my backpack and saw 170k gold sitting inside it. I dumped 100k under working capital immediately. Then, I used that money to make purchase orders for all Magic Consumables between Rank 1 and 10, buying at 70% the market price, and set the sale price to 110% of the market price. This should be enough to make my business sustainable!
Besides that, I dumped all the excess equipment I had into the equipment and item shelves and left White Fox to decide the price. She had a Business Sense of 95, so she should be able to read the equipment and price them appropriately. The 20k I spent on her was worth it after all.
Finally, I went out and purchased a ton of Green Pepper, Garlic and Salt. Then, I made hundreds of stacks of Rank 8 Magic Consumables—Snow Rabbit Soup—dumped around 80% of them in the shop and raised their price. I wasn"t worried that the customers would balk at the high prices because the number of high-level mages and priests was growing each day.
I kept 100 stacks of Rank 8 Magic Consumables to myself, or more accurately, Murong Mingyue. She was a high-level priest and had over 4000 MP. A Rank 8 Magic Consumable could restore 1200 MP, so without a sufficient amount of Magic Consumables she could easily run out of MP and cause a party wipe. Countless players experienced this every day in the borders of Sky City.
Beep!
I was expecting this, but Murong Mingyue had grown impatient since I made her wait longer than I said I would. The message said: “Where are you? We"re waiting for you on the bridge at the eastern gates! Come quickly!”