"You're talking about the ones sold in this Mysterious Shop?" The pot-bellied player shook his head. "No, I won't. The price is too high. Only a fool would buy it!"
"What if I gave you a subsidy. Say you buy a bottle of this low-level healing potion, I'll chip in with 3 silver coins." The smile on Li Hanqiang's face grew warmer.
"A subsidy of three silver coins, that's equal to buying a low-level healing potion for nine silver coins. That's a good deal!" The pot-bellied player seemed confused. "However, will you actually give the subsidy? You're no fool."
"Heheh!" Li Hanqiang spoke manipulatively. "Let's do a commercial analysis now if we bought every single potion in this Mysterious Shop with a subsidy of 25% on the sale price. Friend, do you see the potential? Let me do the math for you. With the subsidy, you'll be buying the potions at 10% off. For example, if you buy a low-level potion, it's a clean profit of 1 silver piece. With the more you buy, like 100,000 bottles, or even 1,000,000 bottles, you could make a lot of money."
"What profit? Why would I need so many low-level healing potions for?" The pot-bellied player looked at Li Hanqiang with a blank stare.
"To resell!"
Li Hanqiang reminded him, "You buy the goods at 10% off, and let's say that you sell them at 95% of retail. As long as it's cheaper than what's offered by the shops in the system, players will buy it. I'll do the math for you again. If you buy 10,000 bottles of low-level healing potions and sell them at 95% of retail value, you can make a profit of 50 silver coins!"
The pot-bellied player paused, giving the proposal some serious thought. He then replied, "It sounds like a good idea. However, the players can learn Alchemy and make a variety of potions in the future…"
"That's the future. Time is money. Why shouldn't we take advantage of the fact that players currently cannot make their own potions at the moment and make a profit off that? Whether or not we make a large profit or not is entirely up to how you play it!" Li Hanqiang said. "As long as you give me the blueprint for Blue Ripple Pond, I'll give you the subsidy with a limit of 1,000,000 bottles. When you complete this exploit, you can make more than 10,000 gold coins. The secret to wealth is now before you!"
The pot-bellied player was stunned, and he massaged his head as he spoke, "Give me a minute, I need to think!"
Li Hanqiang could tell from his behavior that the deal was nearly sealed. He praised himself for being a genius in his heart. This was how one made use of the Mysterious Shop.
When a player spends at the Mysterious Shop, he could get 30% of the profits. Even if he gave a subsidy of 25%, he would still get a 5% profit. This was the epitome of a free lunch.
As expected, after a moment, the pot-bellied player made a fist. "Deal! Lord Li Hanqiang, you must keep your word!"
"Of course!" Li Hanqiang replied. "Give me the blueprint. Don't worry, I won't run away. Where would I go?"
The pot-bellied player hesitated before speaking, "Give you the blueprint now… That's fine, but you'll need to give me 5 gold coins as a deposit!"
"That's fine. We can call it a front payment for the subsidy." Li Hanqiang happily transferred the 5 gold coins to him.
The pot-bellied player smiled widely as soon as he got the gold and dropped him the Blue Ripple Pond Construction Blueprint. He had no intention of holding the city, and after he added
In that way, Li Hanyang made his first friend in the game. On his friend's list, he saw the pot-bellied player's nickname: Big Trader.
Looking at the blueprint in his hand, Li Hanqiang laughed out loud.
He did not care about fishing skills. What he cared about was the "raising the percentage of special monsters showing up during monster attacks on the city" and the "secret skill".
It was a shame that the blueprint was of no use right now, as he would have to wait until he had fended off the third wave of monster attacks on the city.
A moment later, a light fell on the Chaotic City. Dark Redemption, Fanning Knight, and Fiery Blade Sage had all arrived.
Unfortunately, Li Hanqiang's mission announcement was not as effective as he had hoped. Apart from these three, no other players had showed up.
The main issue right now was because gold coins were hard to come by. The number of adventurer players who could gather up 1 gold piece were few indeed.
Dark Redemption and the others were in high spirits, clamoring to get into the fight.
Li Hanqiang walked over to Fiery Blade Sage, and took out his Complexion Longsword as he said, "Fiery Blade Sage, I'll rent this blue grade weapon to you for ten silver coins."
"Huh?" Fiery Blade Sage's mouth dropped. "This was originally mine!"
"You have yet to redeem it from me, so it's not yours." Li Hanqiang replied. "Whether or not you want to lease it is up to you."
"I'll lease it!" Fiery Blade Sage waved at Li Hanqiang. "Using my equipment to make money off of me, you're just too cold-hearted. Put the rental on my tab."
"Okay, I'm just joking. I'm not a miserly person. Take it!" Li Hanqiang dropped the blue Complexion Longsword before he turned and spoke to the others, "Brothers! Fight hard! This wave of monsters has a 100% chance of having special monsters. If you can get a large treasure, I'll give everyone a bonus!"
"Are you serious?" Fanning Knight asked.
"Of course!" Li Hanqiang had already equipped the Summon Special Monsters Order and planned to use it at the first moment to summon special monsters to have a good start.
Of course, the positions of the three of them needed to be set. Li Hanqiang placed Fanning Knight and Fiery Blade Sage in the front lines, and let Dark Redemption form the second line.
A moment later, the announcement went up across the city. The third wave of monsters was about to attack.
As soon as he saw The Space-Time Wormhole open, Li Hanqiang immediately broke the Summon Special Monsters Order.
[Ding, item used successfully. You have summoned a Level 5 'Metal Skinned Boar King'!]
From the Space-Time Wormhole, before the army of monsters even appeared, a massive boar roared as it charged out.
This boar was as big as a buffalo, and even though it was only Level 5, it had 1000 HP. It had two tusks as big as an elephant's, with blood-red eyes and massive hooves. It was wild, fierce, and looked extremely intimidating.
Fanning Knight and Fiery Blade Sage were shocked. In all their time since joining the game, they had never seen such a fearsome beast.
"Look at the length of those tusks, it's more elephant than boar!"
"If you could capture it and ride it as a mount, that would be so cool!"
The two of them exclaimed as they could only watch, petrified in their spots.
In a few heartbeats, this Metal Skinned Boar King was thundering towards them.
From what they could judge, the beast could cover 100 meters in ten seconds.
Fanning Knight and Fiery Blade Sage did nothing, and watched the beast leave.
Li Hanqiang nearly spat blood in anger and yelled, "What are you two dummies doing? The monster is getting away!"
"Aiyo, fight, fight!"
Fanning Knight and Fiery Blade Sage immediately came around to their senses and hastened to get their weapons ready.
At this moment, the horde of monsters appeared. They were all Level 3 Black Boars. Fanning Knight and Fiery Blade Sage both entered their rage mode, and their blades slashed like windmills.
Li Hanqiang could not be bothered with them anymore and levitated towards the Metal Skinned Boar King, using the basic arrow tower to lock it in as he shouted, "Dark Redemption, quickly! Kill the Boss! If you do, I'll give you a prize!"
"Leave it to me!" Dark Redemption was immediately on it as he consumed a low-level Inspiration Potion.