He first messaged Merlin and his team that he was planning to rent property and it would take some time. He suggested them to go and search for any new quests. The best options in a town would be the merchant shops and the adventurer's guild.
The temple would also provide decent quests, but as the team already had a quest from the temple, they wouldn't get another. But Tetsujin and Slaine immediately made their way towards the temple.
Now that Blackrock had become a town, it would have an official adventurer's guild where one could check out several new quests around the town. A new area also opened behind the town. A new path was created from the back gate leading to a small barracks.
The barracks and guard towers weren't usually seen around a beginner village or a beginner town, but it was different for the Blackrock town. It was more along the lines of a town which would be near the borders of other kingdoms.
As he went into the town hall, he noticed that the hall was quite good infrastructure and a serene quality which was uncharacteristic for a beginner town. The only thing that made it appear like a beginner town was the lack of any high-level personnel walking around.
The calm feeling was probably due to the recent change to a town and none of the players having enough reputation to do any transaction at the town hall. But there were still NPCs at the lobby, who were moving around.
They went to a receptionist at the lobby. "We are adventurers looking to buy a few properties of the town. Could you please show us the available lands for purchase?" asked Shadow.
"Adventurer Shadow Tyrant, you are first-class citizen. This allows you to only purchase one land and rent two more in the town. Please wait near at the office of the town head. We are short on staff and the head is a meeting right now," replied the receptionist.
"Adventurer Crimson Power, I cannot allow you to perform any purchases. I am willing to answer any other questions you have," said the receptionist turning towards Rudra.
"Go do some other quest or something. I will see what I can do," said Shadow as he went to the first floor leaving Rudra behind. With nothing to do here, Rudra went back to the marketplace. If Balthazar was going to buy a land or rent a property, he needed to gather players to make good use of it.
He can't build a guild quarters without registering a guild which isn't possible till level 10. So, the only alternative was a shop. A shop without wares is useless and money draining. So, he needed to convince a few trade profession players and also buy a few recipes and designs.
For that he needed to make sufficient preparations. He already had Slaine recruiting members at the marketplace. For recipes and designs, he went to the auction house.
Though the auction house allows only for transaction using coins. If an independent player, places the recipe, he could always contact the person and decide on a price to exchange with credits. He needed to gather a decent amount of basic designs available.
The auction house seemed to be having many of these. There were even black iron and bronze designs being sold. Many guilds sent representatives for trading and buying any new equipment and designs.
Though there are many guilds, they mostly fought for the high-grade equipment. The more powerful ones didn't even care about black iron designs. The migrants mostly wanted to buy recipes and designs which are rare.
This left all the basic recipes designs native to the town to be easier picks. Rudra soon managed to bid, contact sellers and gain a few recipes and design below level 5. He also managed to get a couple of level 5 designs.
Right now, guilds were trying to contact Shadow and waiting to see if they can pull him in. If they can acquire him, recruiting a strong player base at the Black Iron town would be extremely easy as they can have their guild property at the town. He wanted to set up a shop with his guild's name as soon as possible to dissuade other guilds.
Shadow in the meantime had spent more than 10 minutes outside the town head's office, when finally, someone came to call him in. Inside the office apart from the town head, Strontson there were a few other NPCs including Kade and the deacon from the temple.
There were a total of seven NPCs sitting by a rectangular table in some sort of meeting. It looked like these NPCs were just done with their meeting and about to depart.
Shadow quickly greeted Kade as he approached Strontson. Strontson gestured him to a seat by the table. "Adventurer Shadow Tyrant, please be seated. All the developments in the town were due to your eminent work in collaboration with the temple. We were discussing on how to develop the town. What have you come here for?"
"Sir, I wish to rent or purchase a land to sell merchandise made by me and few other fellow adventurers," said Shadow coming to the point directly.
"Well then, you have come at the right time. We are trying to gather more people to develop the town and we would welcome any adventurers to help us with these efforts. With the road to the city closed, we have very little support and it is not good for a town to continue like this," said Strontson.
"We will be issuing new quests to speed up this process," said Kade who along with an armored man was still waiting while the others left the room. "This is my apprentice, Shadow Tyrant," said Kade introducing him to the man in armor. "This is commander Renner. He had been sent by the royal to make sure that the town is safe from foreign forces," said Kade.
The blackrock village originally was a beginner village with limited population. With the sudden change to a town, the game had to compensate the increasing populace with similar amount of quests. The new barracks behind the village might also have been to the same effect.
The upgrade to a town seemed to have opened up few new regions behind the Blackrock town which weren't there in his previous life. There are bound to be new quest there and even though he didn't know much about those areas, he knew about almost all possible monsters and the weaknesses of most of the monsters that would appear in the game for at least 6 years.
"Nice to meet you, adventurer. I hope you will continue your efforts in the development of this town," said commander Renner with a tilt of his head. "With Kade as your master, I hope you could provide us with equipment and fortifications for the town," he continued.
"I will surely try my best, Sir Renner," said Shadow. "Master Kade, I was unable to find you at the location of your shop. Could you please tell me where I can find you?" he asked Kade. Shadow had been unable to purchase designs and he had a secret way of gathering designs. He didn't want to lose this source and hence, enquired Kade about it.
"Oh! Adventurer Shadow. We have requested Sir Kade to be leading the forging association at our town," said Strontson with a laugh. "We never knew Sir Kade is a celebrity till Sir Renner informed us. You can sure find him at the forging association."
"I will be leaving now, Mr Strontson. Sir Kade could you please accompany me. I would like to discuss with you, the details of our cooperation," said Renner taking blacksmith Kade with him.
"Renner seems to be very familiar with Kade. It looks like my master has a strong background," though Shadow seeing them both leave together. "I better improve my relationship with both these NPCs. It could provide useful."
"Let us see, what properties are available," said Strontson as the two of them left. He produced a scroll from his pocket and gave it to Shadow. The scroll listed various properties that are for sale and rent along with their location and cost.
Though Shadow had a constant source of income from the portal, it wasn't an inexhaustible source. It currently provided him about 32 gold which was far from enough to purchase a plot of land. It would slowly increase as the number of players in vita-nova increased.
It was just the launching day of the game and many were waiting to see if there would be any effects due to use of somnium technology. By the next few days, the player base of the game would increase by a hundred-fold, it would see the peak of new players in about a month and it would still continue to have new players even after five years.
With the amount he had on him, he couldn't purchase land but could definitely rent a few shops. The lands were being sold for a minimum price of 100 gold and those weren't the lands near the market. There were five shops available near market, each of which had a rent value close to 15 gold per month.
Though he had bought a few properties on some territories in his previous life. They were on the outer reaches of town when they upgraded as most of the best properties were already purchased by that time. So, he didn't expect it to have such a high price. His expectation was something near 50 gold which if he had the members of the Crimson Realm use credit exchange to get gold was easily achievable. So, purchasing land was no longer an option.
Still he decided to rent a shop right on the market right beside the portal. He thought it would be best if he finds a shop which was at a busy area. The greater number of players that saw it, the more popular it would become.
He didn't even need to open it right now. He just needed it for publicity of the guild. He was provided the deed for renting the shop by the Strontson on payment of 15 gold. With the remaining gold he could make decent renovations to it if required.
Once that was done, he had no more business at the town hall and immediately left to the shop. He also asked Rudra to meet him there. They found one of guards and showed him the deed. He quickly removed the restraints on the shop and let them inside.
The went into the shop and examined it. It had two floors and covered about 400 sq feet per floor. It was still not configured and even the name of the shop had been left blank. The decided to make the ground floor as a display area and the first floor to be a restaurant.
The cook profession had become a moderately famous one due to the special dungeon 'Cave of Wargs'. The wolf and warg meat were resources it gave to every player. This prompted more players to attempt the cook profession at this stage.
Apart from cooking meat which required them to buy provisions such as stove and utensils, cooks could also produce simpler dishes like sandwiches, juices and other drinks using fruits, water and bread which were always available.
Similar to forging and alchemy, cooking also required tools which they decided to buy and provide to their members at the restaurant. The forging and alchemy also required coins and resources to manufacture products. He left the remaining gold he had to Rudra so that it would speed up the process.
The main aim of them buying a shop was to attract more members to their guild and a restaurant was a very effective method even in real-life to make people notice them.
They decided the name to be Crimson Realm Equipment and Consumables. They had a notice placed on their shop that said opening tomorrow. Even though they managed to rent a shop, they still needed to gather trade profession players and also need to have sufficient products to sell.
Most of the basic recipes and designs required for a shop to start were already gathered by Rudra. But they also needed at least a few high-end items to be displayed on their shelves to get popular. Being Kade's apprentice, he had an advantage over other blacksmiths. He made his way towards the forging association.
Along the way, he was contacted by Merlin and Tetsujin. They already gathered a few quests which they wanted to complete. They were also wondering if they could complete the hell mode of the 'Cave of Wargs' first.
Though they had the advantage in making blackrock village their base over other guilds among the light faction. The same didn't apply for the first clear of the Hell mode of the dungeon. Moreover, the competition at the town was only among humans as it would be hard to find weapons, equipment and designs for other races at a beginner town at this stage of the game.
But the dungeon was another thing entirely. There were five other races similar to humans who could attempt the dungeon and some of them had racial passives which would be useful in such an environment.
Especially fae and dwarves who have good ways to retaliate in the environment of the dungeon. That is why it was a great surprise for most that a human team got the first clear of the dungeon. With that in mind both Merlin and Tetsujin insisted on attempting the hell mode.
They even had shown him chats on the forums which indicated that the other races were also attempting hell mode. But Shadow had enough experience to know that their racial passives wouldn't be of much use in a dungeon. Though the fae could fly for short durations and dwarves gained strength in a cave like situation, these would be suppressed in the hell mode of the dungeons.
The game had this implemented as without this all the races would have use for their racial advantages in most of the dungeon and human wouldn't get any records. This would definitely make players avoid choosing humans slowly. So, they decided to have this safeguard in place.
Though the forums had shown that the other races were competing for the fastest record and also attempting the hell mode. None of those players told about the suppression they faced in the dungeon. "They obviously wouldn't make others know of the issue they are facing at this time when everyone is competing for the first clear."
With his administrative privileges he could already see that some teams from other races and kingdoms already had completed the elite dungeon and even check out the leader board. It looked like they were trying to beat the system record for fastest completion already.
"Ah! It would be very hard to convince them to lay off the hell mode for now," thought Balthazar as he looked at the records. He suddenly realized that he could actually use this to their advantage. The fastest record was already near 80 minute which was very close to the system approved record of 60 minutes for the dungeon. This was done by a team composed of all fae characters.
"There are many others already attempting the hell mode, but all are failing. Clearly the far have an advantage. Once, the trick with the torches was known, the dungeon became a lot easier. But still none of them managed to complete hell mode. It is clear that they are hiding something," replied Shadow in the team chat.
"That is true. We also have doubts, but we have to try. It will be too late if we keep waiting," said Merlin. It looked like he got really addicted to first clears.
"But we get only one chance and even I can't change that. Why don't you guys try to do the elite mode with Tetsujin and Slaine. With the torches, we have an advantage we didn't use previously. It would also better prepare us for the hell mode," suggested Shadow Tyrant.
"It is not a bad idea. I have yet to try this out too. Moreover, the team which attempted hell mode have already used torches and still failed. If we go in half-cocked, we might waste out chance. Soon, some information is bound to leak. Someone would release or sell the information about it," agreed Tetsujin.
Shadow immediately contacted Slaine and requested him to join them. He would like someone other than him to be on good terms with Merlin and the team.
Slaine was a good choice for this as he got along with most people. He was also an adept player who on suggestion from Balthazar, had been practicing in manual mode.