Shang reached the market after a bit of walking. Sure enough, there were plenty of stalls here. Some of the stall owners were trying to attract customers by shouting out what great prices they had, but some didn't shout anything.
Shang walked around the market for a bit under the constant barrage of offers. He didn't really listen to all the shouts since no one was shouting about knives.
But then, Shang suddenly halted and turned in a different direction. He had just heard something interesting.
Shang had thought that he was immune to the devious powers of marketing. Sadly, he had been mistaken.
"You said you have Rank Two ore?" Shang asked the smiling merchant.
"Of course! Only the finest ores at Willie's Five Finger Emporium!" the merchant said with a wide grin.
"I'm interested," Shang asked. "Could you show me what you have to offer?"
"Sure thing!" the merchant said as he took out eight different pieces of ore. Obviously, these pieces weren't everything he had to offer, and they only were for display purposes.
Shang looked at the eight pieces of ore.
"We have more to offer, but I only brought out the best for you!" the merchant said with a wide smile. "These are our finest Rank Two ores, seven for all the different Affinities and one for warriors that decided to take on a purer path."
Shang nodded as he looked at the eight stones. "Can I touch them?"
"Sure thing!" the merchant shouted as he pushed the stones forward.
Shang took each stone into his hand one by one and acted like he was inspecting their quality.
In truth, he had no idea about ore.
He was actually just feeling the reaction of his sword.
Whenever Shang took hold of a stone, his sword would vibrate, and Shang could feel excitement and hunger coming from it.
The sword's reaction to the stones was the same for all of them. Apparently, there wasn't anything special about them. They were all equally interesting to it.
Shang had wanted to test if his sword preferred materials from a specific Affinity, but it didn't. Everything was the same to it.
"How much for the Earth Affinity one?" Shang asked.
"How much do you need? Our prices depend on how much you purchase," the merchant answered.
"Enough to completely reforge this sword," Shang said, slightly rotating so that the merchant could see the sword on Shang's back. Pulling out the weapon was forbidden, so Shang had to show his sword this way.
The merchant looked at the sword and nodded with a wide grin. "You're in luck! That should be just enough to qualify for our lowest bulk purchase discount!"
"How much?" Shang asked.
"To reforge your entire sword, you need around seven units of ore, which would come to 150 gold, but with the bulk purchase discount, it's only 140 gold!" the merchant said.
Shang nodded. "What about the Ice Affinity one?"
"The Ice Affinity is much rarer than Earth Affinity, so it's slightly more expensive. The same amount of the Ice Affinity one comes to 200 gold naturally, but 190 gold for you," the merchant answered.
Shang nodded. "What about the one without Affinity?"
"That's our cheapest one, and it only costs 100 gold. Sadly, since they are in higher demand, we can't offer you a bulk purchase discount," the merchant said.
Shang nodded again. "Thank you for your time. However, at the moment, I lack the funds to purchase any of your wares. I'm very interested in them, but, just for the moment, I have to decline. When I have the necessary funds, I will come back to take a closer look, assuming I don't find a better offer in the meantime."
The merchant deflated, but he didn't lose his smile or professionalism. "That's okay! You can find me here Monday to Wednesday. I wish you luck in acquiring the funds you need!"
Shang nodded and said his goodbyes.
'So, that's the tradeoff, huh?' Shang thought as he continued looking for a knife. 'The selection of wares here is more than broad. From what I can tell, there is stuff from all around the world here. The students can find everything they will ever need in this marketplace.'
'However, in return, the prices are ridiculous,' Shang thought. 'That one guy I met in one of the towns on the way to Warrior's Paradise offered me ore of similar quality for only 40 gold. Sadly, he had only one kind of Rank Two ore for sale, and there hadn't been another merchant that sold Rank Two ore.'
'And I can't blame them. If I were them, I also wouldn't sell it locally but in a vast and rich city like Warrior's Paradise. Most students come from prestigious backgrounds, and they're not lacking any money. The merchants can sell their wares without competing in prices in the academy.'
'If I want to upgrade my sword, I need to get some gold. Additionally, I should ask one of the teachers where the ore is sourced. Maybe I can get it cheaper by traveling there.'
After walking around the marketplace for a while, Shang found a stall that sold knives.
It was a hunting store, and the knives they sold were for skinning beasts. Oftentimes, hunters didn't go into the Wild Forest just to hunt one single beast. Most of the time, they went in there for the entire day, killing everything they could find and were allowed to kill.
Beast meat could be sold for quite a lot of money, but the ratio of gold to volume and weight was far lower than things like teeth, fur, and claws. Not many people had Space Rings, which meant that they had to carry their prey with beast sacks.
pᴀɴdᴀ nᴏveʟ If they carried the entire corpse, they would need to return to Warrior's Paradise immediately since they simply couldn't carry more. Because of that, most of these kinds of hunters simply removed the most valuable things of their prey and left the meat and bone in the wild.
That also had the positive side-effect of increasing the beast population again. After all, the corpses would quickly be consumed by the wildlife there.
Shang purchased a skinning knife suitable for all beasts in the First Realm for two gold. There were no shaving knives on the market since every warrior in the academy simply used their weapons to shave. Of course, a lot of them simply didn't shave at all.
After getting the knife, Shang also went to the Exchange Hall, the place where students could exchange their wares for Contribution Points and vice versa.
Shang asked the clerk to check his balance, and the clerk said that Shang had 20 Contribution Points on his account. Apparently, 20 Contribution Points was how much the full corpse of a Pest Cat was worth.
Shang knew that attending a normal lesson gave a student one Contribution Point while attending a core lesson gave them two Contribution Points. Core lessons were the class-specific lessons for whichever class the student was in.
'One Pest Cat is worth ten core lessons or 20 normal lessons. That's not much but also not little. On one hand, someone needs to study for basically an entire week to get that many Contribution Points, but on the other hand, someone doesn't have to put themselves into danger for only one week.'
'I guess it depends on the power of the student how they view the situation.'
Shang also checked up on the prices of the ore in the Exchange Hall.
The cheapest Rank Two ore was 2,000 Contribution Points for one unit of ore. As the merchant had suggested earlier, Shang would need seven units for his sword, which would come to 14,000 Contribution Points.
That sounded like a lot, but it actually wasn't.
Just by studying, a student wouldn't be able to get that easily, but that wasn't an issue. There were enough beasts and missions for everyone. Additionally, Shang's sword was rather big since it was so long. It wasn't as big as a true two-handed sword, but it was definitely very big for a one-handed sword. Other students probably wouldn't need as many Contribution Points.
Before Shang left the Exchange Hall, he also looked at the mission board inside it. The mission boards were all over the academy, and they all showed different missions.
The one in the Exchange Hall listed transportation and escort missions.
The one that gave the least rewards already gave ten Contribution Points, and the mission was only to get something from Blizzard's Edge. That wasn't even a full day of travel for Shang.
The more lucrative ones gave hundreds and even thousands of Contribution Points. Of course, the really good ones were locked to warriors on the General Stage.
After looking at the missions for a while, Shang left the Exchange Hall. He wanted to get back to his room, shave, and then take part in some lessons.
Sadly, on his way back to the main building, what he had anticipated would come, had come.
Four students at Shang's age were looking at him with crossed arms.
Stars Gerbon stood between them.