In fact, Fang Tang did not intend to hire adventurers in the mercenary union from the beginning because he had no money, more accurately, he didn't have the money of this world at that time.
Besides, he and Jiang Jinjiu had searched underground for a long time before they met Warren, but they found nothing about walking mushroom. From this, they can tell that the underground space is very large, and it is of low efficiency and success rate to hire only a few people to go to the underground cave looking for the walking mushroom.
What's more, Fang Tang has a certain understanding of the danger of this world after fighting with Sarman. Even though they were only dealing with a low-level magical beast, it's already a tough job for them. If they encounter stronger, more powerful and a larger number of magical beasts underground, the result would definitely be different. Instead of eating Sarman as their food, they would be the food for magical beasts.
So last night, Fang Tang thought of a triple-win strategy. Before plane travel, they prepared a small piece of gold and some gems as their money so that they could use this gold to exchange some money if they came into a plane that also used gold as exchange currency. If not, they believed these beautiful gems may be used to exchange some money.
Fang Tang intended to use these gold, gemstones, as well as the legend of the elves' treasure that he heard from old Morgan last night, to fake the phenomenon like there are treasures buried underground, so as to attract adventurers to take the initiative to explore in misty forest.
In this way, they don't need to spend a lot of money hiring people to help them look for walking mushrooms. Instead, they could simply pay a higher price buying walking mushrooms from adventures, which were encountered by them in the process of finding treasures and taken back as a booty. As a result, the price would be relatively low because walking mushroom is only a low-level monster plant whose CE is weaker than low-level magical beasts and similar to average beasts. Even an ordinary level-2 warrior can kill a walking mushroom.
With a large number of adventurers heading to the misty forest, Eill Village, as the closest supply point to the forest, can also have incomes by providing food, accommodation and goods exchange. Not only the life of Eill Village could be improved, the trade caravans that old Morgan has always been talking about would also go back to their previous route and stay at Eill Village.
Put it simply, they used a trick to attract adventurers going to the misty forest for an adventure. Then they would earn money from these adventures from food, accommodation and supplies. In the end, they would use the earned money to buy walking mushroom from these adventurers. Trade nothing for something, what a nice play!
So when Fang Tang told Jiang Jinjiu about this plan, Jiang Jinjiu had a sense of relief that his naive little brother had finally grown up.
"I didn't expect you kid that looks immature could plan such a trick!"
"As the saying goes, one takes on the color of one's company. Last time, bro Jiang taught me how to make a convincing story for those bigwigs, which reminded me that I can try to make a story that people can't help but believe this time to attract adventurers coming to misty forest for this adventure."
"Excellent idea, the pupil outdoes the master. But what about the mage in the forest?" Jiang Jinjiu considered the issue more comprehensively.
"The reclusive mage is indeed the biggest uncertainty, but the old Morgan also said that he has not appeared for many years. Even his footman hasn't appeared in the last six months, so there is a possibility that he died or left here, or he is living in a state of isolation from the outside world. So these adventures could also help us find out how this mage would react, otherwise we would be in danger by going in and out this forest frequently.
Jiang Jinjiu approved Fang Tang's plan, then they two discussed more and added some details in the plan. When Fang Tang met Jona, who claimed to be a treasure hunter, at the door of the mercenary tavern, he realized that this person was one of the best candidates to start his trick with.
When Jona left, Fang Tang didn't leave in a hurry, but found another opportunity to talk with the bartender with a scar on his face. He was mainly to understand the operating mechanism of the mercenary union.
As he thought, in addition to rewarding missions, there are also services such as weapon maintenance, item supply, item identification, information trading, and low-level warriors' class evaluation .
Fang Tang started the second step of his plan and took out a compass. This compass is useless in the Olund, but it is very exquisitely crafted. It is a collection of Jiang Jinjiu, and the design style is modeled after the Victorian classic British style, which is elegant, traditional and noble.
Then he said that he wanted to hire an appraiser from the mercenary union to identify what this was. So the bartender took Fang Tang to a room on the second floor of the tavern.
Jiang Jinjiu didn't follow in, but asked the mercenary union to do a warrior's class evaluation for him. As a devoted martial artist, he also wants to know what the fighting style and martial system of warriors in this world are like.
Entering in the door, Fang Tang saw an aged man dressed like a scholar sitting behind a large table and smoking a tobacco pipe while reading.
"Hello, I'm here to do an appraisal." While walking here, Fang Tang has already asked the price. The appraisal fee for magic free items was not high, and the money brought by Warren was enough.
After paying the appraisal fee, the appraiser picked up a magnifying glass and looked at Fang Tang's compass carefully. Having observed a while, he went to the back shelf finding some books to look up, and then returned to the table to compare. He has been doing this for quite a while, yet said nothing.
Fang Tang kept calm and waited for the old man to tell him the answer. Anyway, he was sure that this aged man couldn't find out the origin of this compass.
"I'm sorry, my client. Due to my limited knowledge, I can't identify the specific origin and use of this thing. I can only make a rough guess that this thing may be a guide device. Its workmanship is very fine and gorgeous, which may not be crafted by human. If you really want to know more, I suggest you buy an identification scroll, which could help you get more information about this item."
Fang Tang absolutely won't spend money to buy the identification scroll. He was ready to leave after thanking the old man.
The appraiser hesitated a few seconds, but still stopped Fang Tang. Fang Tang smiled secretly, knowing that there was another person being baited.
"Excuse me, could you please tell me where this thing came from?"
Ceasing his smiled, Fang Tang turned back pretending to be very unhappy, "What? Does the mercenary union have to know the ins and outs of the adventurers' loot?"
"No, I don't mean that, please don't get me wrong... How about I pay you the intelligence fee of this item, will that be okay?" The appraiser stood up and said.
Fang Tang pretended to be hesitant, and the appraiser quickly added: "A gold coin!"
A gold coin is almost equal to the annual per capital income of the villagers in Eill Village, which is a quite high price. So Fang Tang, like a movie king, changed into a greedy expression, "Gimme money first!"
After the appraiser shouted the price, he regretted. For the origin of a magic free prop, the intelligence fee he offered was a bit high. But now that he has said it, he can only clench his teeth and pay.
After getting the gold coin, Fang Tang repeated what he just said to Jona to this aged man. And the appraiser was in a thoughtfully silence after he knew that this item was found in misty forest.
Fang Tang did not care what the appraiser thought, and went downstairs to the tavern. When he got there, he saw that Warren, with a weird expression, was looking at Jiang Jinjiu who was drinking again.
Last night, the old Morgan mistakenly took the anomalies caused by Jiang Jinjiu's breakthrough in his Kungfu as the battled will formation of the glory warrior. As a matter of fact, Jiang Jinjiu was not cultivating Battled Will, he didn't even know whether he is strong or weak in the martial system of this world?
"What's the result? In this plane, the highest class evaluation is 5th-level warrior. Without Battled Will, I guess you should at least be at 4th-level."
Jiang Jinjiu didn't say anything, and Warren beside him finally couldn't wait and answered instead, "Their evaluation result is that master Kratos is not a warrior, but a monk. And they could not do class evaluation for monks ..."
"What? What the hell is that?" Fang Tang didn't know what that meant.
As response, Jiang Jinjiu shrugged with a forced smile.