Chapter 361 – Searching for Business Opportunities Pt. 2

Suo Jia stared at Nicole for a long while before replying, “Nicole, what exactly is the reason you came to the Greater Trade Routes with me? What is your goal?”

Nicole thought about this for a moment before firmly answering, “I have many reasons for coming here, such as completing my family’s Invisible equipment set, becoming a leading role on the Greater Trade Routes, and reviving my family’s prestige!”

Nicole raised her head to look into Suo Jia’s eyes and earnestly added, “However…these are all side goals. The main reason I came here was to repay Young Master Suo Jia. If it weren’t for you, my siblings wouldn’t have been saved, and I would have sold my life to be bound to that vile duke forever!”

Nicole let out a long breath. “My younger brother can revive my family. As for completing the Invisible equipment set, Young Master has already agreed to help me with this task, right? I believe in Young Master’s abilities!”

Suo Jia hesitantly said, “That’s…” He hadn’t imagined that Nicole would say this kind of thing. He’d thought that any person would have personal reasons for braving dangers and risking their life to come here, but he hadn’t considered the possibility that Nicole’s main reason for coming all this was way himself!

Touched, Suo Jia replied, “Listen to me, Nicole, I’m really very moved by your kind feelings. However, I’m not helping you because I want you to repay me like this. We’re companions, comrades-in-arms that are working and fighting hard for the same objective.”

Nicole had a blank expression on her face, clearly having not understood Suo Jia’s words. Upon seeing her confused look, Suo Jia continued, “You could indeed help me if you followed me, but your strength would not rise as quickly. I’m sure you also know that since I’m a merchant, you, as a thief, would definitely be wasting time if you followed me. Like that, even if you become a figure that has successfully passed through the Greater Trade Routes, would it really matter?”

“Your point is…? Nicole vacantly stared back, completely confused.

Suo Jia patted Nicole’s shoulder and smiled. “My point is that the basis of our group is to wander around as much as we please. I don’t want you to exist for my sake, but rather to struggle through obstacles for your own sake. After you get stronger, you can use it to contribute to the entire group. This is my greatest wish.”

Suo Jia paused here for a moment before continuing, “Nicole, I hope that from now on, you will continue to strive for your best with your own self in mind. You should set yourself free, and do whatever you want or like!”

Nicole trembled and bit her lip, having finally understood what Suo Jia meant to say, and nodded. “Alright, Young Master, I’ll listen to you. However…you have to be careful by yourself! There is danger lurking in every step on the Greater Trade Routes. No matter what, you must stay alive and meet with us again!”

Suo Jia happily smiled. “I will. However…you can’t just direct that towards me. You also have to watch your own safety. Remember, when there’s life, there’s hope!”

Nicole nodded, and reluctantly shot one last glance towards Suo Jia, before turning around and whirling out the door like the wind. In a mere instant, Nicole’s figure had disappeared.

With a sigh, Suo Jia slowly sat back down and closed his eyes, limply leaning back into his chair. How could Suo Jia not hope for everyone to stay together from beginning to end? Putting aside other factors, he’d at least be able to transport three times more goods. However, Suo Jia didn’t want the others to all be restricted because of him. Each of them had their own method of training, and Suo Jia wouldn’t allow himself to be so selfish.

After sitting for a long while, Suo Jia finally recovered his spirits and stood up, walking over to the relay station master’s home. Before officially entering the second checkpoint, there were still many things Suo Jia wanted to inquire about.

The relay station master found it a bit strange to see Suo Jia arrive, but he still warmly welcomed Suo Jia. After chatting a bit, Suo Jia finally brought up the main topic, and calmly asked, “Station Master, I’m sure you know I’m a merchant, so I’d like to ask you something: Would it be possible for you to provide some information and intelligence to me?”

“That’s…” The station master paused for a moment before smiling, “I’ve been at this relay station for over ten years now, yet this is the first time anyone has ever asked me for information. Let me ask you, why do you think I’d have any kind of information?”

“Hm…” Suo Jia replied, “The reason is simple. As a relay station on the Greater Trade Routes, the information here must be extremely plentiful. I’m sure that…the bird’s nest outside the door is there to transmit messages between other relay stations, right?”

The station master laughed, “I hadn’t thought your observation skills would be so good. Alright…what kind of questions do you have? Go ahead and ask!”

Suo Jia’s eyes shone and he smiled, “I believe that the second checkpoint requires some local products from the first checkpoint. I want to know what the most profitable local products would be for me to sell!”

The station master chuckled, “No wonder you came into the Greater Trade Routes as a merchant group, you definitely have a business mind! At the very least, nobody else has ever considered such matters before.”

He pondered the question for a bit before answering, “The product that you could make the most money out of is definitely the magic fruit. I’m sure you also know that the Toughening Fruit is something that every checkpoint has, but the Freezing Fruit and Control Fruit are only produced in Icebound Valley, and magic fruits cannot be preserved for long. Thus…as long as you could transport Freezing Fruit and Control Fruit to here, the second checkpoint, I’m sure you could gain huge profit!”

“Oh!” Suo Jia’s eyes lit up brightly. “Then, aside from magic fruits, is there anything else I could exchange that would give me some more money? Magic fruits are small in size, so if I transport those alone, I’d be wasting a huge amount of space. That would be poor business sense.”

The relay station master smiled in reply. “You’re right, using an empty interspatial ring to run around on business isn’t appropriate. If you want to ship goods around, I recommend you try transporting mining tools. As you already know, Barry Island is where illusion gems are from, and this means that it needs a large amount of tools to extract the ores. Pretty much every adventurer will buy a dozen or so tools to go pick at the illusion gems, so…the value these mining tools have is beyond astronomical!”

“What?!” Suo Jia couldn’t help but break out into cold sweat at this. Truthfully….Suo Jia had also thought of going to the mines to excavate a bit and try his luck at digging up some super illusion stones, but it looked like Suo Jia wasn’t the only one that wanted to do that.

The station master laughed, “There are over a thousand mines total on Barry Island. Each one has 100 miners there collecting the gems, and the excavation tools can only be used for a week. In other words, Barry Island requires a hundred thousand mining tools every week!”

“Heavens!” Suo Jia’s jaw dropped in astonishment; he couldn’t believe his ears upon hearing this number.

The station master glanced at Suo Jia’s shocked expression and added, “Also, there are over 10,000 adventurers scattered throughout Barry Island. Typically speaking, each adventurer needs ten excavating tools, which means there’s another hundred thousand mining tools needed. Recently, an extremely high quality pickaxe was sold for a high price of 10,000 Trade Route coins. Now think about it, how much profit could you gain from all this?”

Suo Jia dumbfoundedly stared at the station master, and swiftly did some mental calculations. Barry Island didn’t produce metal, nor did they have any blacksmiths, so all pickaxes were outsourced. This meant that the amount one could earn from selling a pickaxe had reached a frightening cost of 10,000 coins! The important part was that outside the island, these pickaxes were actually very cheap and could be bought at a negligible price of only 10 coins!

       Chapter 362 – Haggling Pt.1

Seeing Suo Jia’s excited expression, the station master couldn’t help but give a dry smile, “Don’t get excited too soon; although going back might not be a major issue, how are you going to return here? To my knowledge, there’s a huge backlog of adventure groups waiting on that side, yet there’s only one ship that comes here per day.”

Suo Jia shook his head and confidently replied, “That’s not a problem at all. Neither going back nor returning here are issues, I can just build my own ship to travel!”

“What! Build your own ship?!” The station master stared at Suo Jia in shock. “Stop joking. If ships could just be built like that, wouldn’t everyone have done it ages ago? The stretch of water between the first and second checkpoints is called the Changing Sea. There’s only one chance to cross through every week; if you try to go any other time, you’ll end up lost at sea.”

After a pause, he continued, “Even if you go on that specific day, you won’t necessarily be able to get here. The Changing Sea can only be safely crossed by the local fishermen that have been trained at the relay stations. In addition, this training takes at least 10 years to complete. You shouldn’t underestimate these matters.”

Suo Jia’s expression turned to one of disappointment as he did some quick mental calculations. After a while, he resolutely declared, “Alright, well, even if I can only carry out this business once, I must do it! I’ll get on the next ship and rush back to the first checkpoint!”

“Alright…” The station master helplessly replied. “Since you’re so adamant about it, I won’t say anything else. You should prepare immediately; the ship is about to head back now. The next time it will leave will be exactly a week from today.”

Suo Jia gratefully thanked him and stood up to head towards the wharf to board the ship and return from whence he’d come.

Although the distance between the two checkpoints was only 100 kilometers or so, it still required an entire day of travel to go back and forth at the small boat’s speed. The boat would set out in the morning, and not arrive until the afternoon, before once more setting off and arriving at the first checkpoint in the evening. Once it was nighttime, the Changing Sea’s dense fog would rise, and the chance to cross the waters would have passed.

During the following half month, Suo Jia was constantly moving around day and night. After running around the ten major cities at the first checkpoint and successfully filling his ten interspatial rings with pickaxes, he rushed back to the wharf.

Suo Jia spent another five million coins to buy that week’s ship pass, and rushed back to the second checkpoint. This time, he didn’t make a stop at the relay station. Instead, he mounted his Diamond Dragon and directly advanced to the nearest major city.

Ever since obtaining the ten rank 10 Giant Icebear cores, the Diamond Dragon was pretty much able to maintain its combat state forever. As long as it held the core in its mouth, the Diamond Dragon didn’t have to worry about lacking in energy; thus, Suo Jia’s progress rate was raised several fold, and he didn’t need to take breaks anymore.

The only unfortunate part was that the Diamond Dragon still couldn’t fly. Its enormous heavy body made it impossible to stay in the air. All it could do was jump up with its strength and open its wings to glide over a distance. At the moment, it couldn’t do this for a distance longer than 200 meters.

After passing the relay station, Suo Jia followed the main path to the closest location: Scarlet City. This wasn’t the largest city at the second checkpoint, but it was the most famous for producing Illusion Gems. Many adventurers tried to test their luck there, so selling the pickaxes there was undoubtedly the best decision.

Before he’d progressed very far…countless magical beasts suddenly swarmed around him in dense packs, pouring towards him from both sides of the path. Upon closer inspection, he realized that they were all giant wild boars!

Although these beasts were similar to boars, they were actually much larger, closer to the size of oxen. In addition…they had fierce tusks coming out from the corners of their mouths that were at least a meter long. It seemed almost as if the boars were hanging off of these tusks instead of the other way around.

These wild boars had cyan colored Life Protections, meaning that they had stronger defenses than the Crimson Bears from the first checkpoint. Although they didn’t possess the fierce bear paws that the Crimson Bears had, Suo Jia knew that those tusks were definitely even stronger than the Crimson Bears’ attacks.

Any experienced hunter knew that the ranking of magical beast types in terms of might from strongest to weakest went boar, then bear, and then finally tiger. The wild boar was ranked first because of its extremely powerful charge. Even tigers or bears would avoid encountering boars.

As Suo Jia thought about this, more and more large boars came bounding out of the forest from both sides, swiftly gathering around him, amounting to the appearance of over 200 boars in mere seconds.

Suo Jia stared in shock at the massive amount of boars crowded around him, and hurriedly stood up on the Diamond Dragon’s head. With a flick of his right hand, he materialized the Sea God’s Trident. Suo Jia knew that relying on the Diamond Dragon alone wouldn’t be enough; if he wanted to eradicate so many boars, he’d have to rely on himself.

Finally, the boars stopped pouring out from the forest. Suo Jia couldn’t help but feel astonished at the sea of boars before him; there were nearly 300 now! Magical beast encounters of this scale were never seen at the first checkpoint.

The boars all began to run over in short strides. The further the distance between them was, the faster their charging speed was. In just a short while, they’d already reached a frightening speed.

Suo Jia firmly gave the Diamond Dragon a command. When the boars were around 20 meters away from the Diamond Dragon, it used its powerful legs to jump up high in the air.

In Suo Jia’s mind, as long as they jumped up above the ground, the wild boars would charge into each other and ultimately lose their speed. Then, upon landing, Suo Jia could blast out the Hailstorm Technique around the Diamond Dragon. Once these wild boars lost their speed, their attacks were pretty much negligible.

Just as the Diamond Dragon’s body quickly rose up, the crowd of wild boars below had already covered the distance between them, and was now 10 meters away from where the Diamond Dragon had been.

Suo Jia watched, expecting them to charge into each other, but just then….a shocking scene unfolded before him. The wild boars that had crossed the ten meter distance below them suddenly lifted their front hooves and jumped up like arrows, swiftly charging towards the Diamond Dragon.

Although the Diamond Dragon had jumped at a very high speed, its body was too large and heavy after all. In comparison, the wild boars were way faster. Suo Jia watched as the wild boars seemed to transform into piercing arrows that rapidly caught up with the Diamond Dragon in midair, their bodies violently crashing into the Diamond Dragon’s sturdy body.

“Bang! Bang! Bang…” Following a series of muffled bangs, the boars all leapt up and rammed their sharp tusks into the Diamond Dragon’s body. In that moment, the Diamond Dragon lost its center of gravity due to the large number of impacts. Without the ability to fly away or land down on the ground again, its body shuddered under the fierce collisions.

Suo Jia inwardly cursed. Once the Diamond Dragon was defeated, he’d lost its protection, and he’d have to face the impacts from the boars himself. There was no way he’d be able to hold up against more than a few such powerful attacks.

Suo Jia clenched his teeth and suddenly raised the trident up high, instantly activating Hailstone Technique. Only such a move would be enough to change the current situation.

With a surge of blue light…a large mass of blue gathered in the air above Suo Jia, and a ton of ice arrows whizzed downwards from the sky.

Suo Jia’s mind went blank as he stared at the concentrated rain of arrows. This obviously wasn’t the first time he’d used Hailstorm Technique before, but it was completely different this time.

Firstly, in terms of range, the Hailstorm Technique coverage had increased from a 40 meter diameter area to an 80 meter diameter one. In addition, the number of arrows that poured down in the same amount of time had doubled. The effect of the freezing air that these Ice Arrows contained, as well as their flying speed, had all doubled as well!

Suo Jia was completely unable to comprehend what was going on as he stared in shock with Spirit’s Eye at the wild boars being shot down one after another. Their Life Protections continued to shatter while the storm of arrows showed no sign of halting.

Finally, the Hailstorm Technique finished. However, Suo Jia had discovered that, most importantly, apart from the fact that the Hailstorm Technique’s attack range, arrow count, speed, and freezing air effect had increased, the duration of the magic itself had doubled.

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