Close Combat Mage

Chapter 363 - Haggling Part 2

Originally, Suo Jia had thought that because of the magic’s original attack range, power, and other factors he’d need to use at least a dozen Hailstorm Techniques to eradicate the mass of boars. But it seemed that with this strengthened hailstorm a single attack was enough to completely kill off all 300 boars!

He gaped in shock at the Sea God’s Trident in his hand. Did it really only double the magic’s might? No…this wasn’t even a proportional effect anymore, it was exponential! However, Suo Jia couldn’t tell exactly how much it was being boosted.

Suo Jia commanded the Diamond Dragon to land back on the ground. As he looked around at the boar corpses all frozen in ice he couldn’t help but let out a sigh of admiration. This was the power of a Divine Artifact?

By now, the Diamond Dragon had already recovered its energy and finished repairing itself from the previous impacts. Thus, under Suo Jia’s prompt, the Diamond Dragon restarted its advance towards their destination.

After two days of travel, Suo Jia had crossed over 2000 kilometers and obliterated six more crowds of magical beasts to finally arrive at the city built next to the mines: Scarlet City!

Now that he’d completed this journey Suo Jia was finally able to comprehend the main difference between the first and second checkpoints: the number of magical beasts. At the first checkpoint, Suo Jia would at most only encounter 30 at a time. But at the second checkpoint, the number had increased by tenfold to 300 at a time. Smaller magical beast communities couldn’t possibly survive in this place.

Of course, because their numbers were larger, the amount of territory they covered was larger as well, meaning that the frequency of encounters was less. However, each encounter would always have at least 300 magical beasts involved!

If any other person encountered such a massive number of magical beasts they wouldn’t have any choice but to flee. But Suo Jia was different; with powerful strength and the might of the Divine Artifact, Suo Jia plowed forwards. Thus, his current travel speed was even faster than it had been at the first checkpoint.

Upon arriving at Scarlet City, Suo Jia first replenished his food supply at an inn before heading to the market with the aim of selling out the pickaxes in his possession as quickly as possible.

However, Suo Jia didn’t plan to open his own shop to sell the pickaxes this time. He preferred to use that time to do other useful things. Suo Jia’s purpose for this business wasn’t to earn profits but to increase his strength!

After wandering around the market for a long time he found that there were many pickaxe shops. Most of them sold pickaxes that had been repaired after being broken, but even those were sold for prices of up to 10,500.

Although these pickaxes could still be used, their dimensions were no longer proportional and harder to transfer strength through. This lowered their ore-extracting efficiency extremely and most of the pickaxes’ tips had shortened in length by at least 10 centimeters after being repaired so many times.

Suo Jia decided on a plan, and after circling the market a few more times, entered the largest shop. As soon as he walked in the salesperson warmly welcomed him and courteously said, “Mister, have you come to buy a pickaxe and try your luck?”

Suo Jia glanced around and noticed that the intact pickaxes being displayed were actually an astonishing price of 20,000 each! He couldn’t help but inwardly gasp in shock.

After his survey of the shop, Suo Jia responded to the salesperson, “I’m not here to buy pickaxes, but rather, to talk business with your boss. Go and tell your boss that I’ve come with a huge business proposal!”

The salesperson hurriedly nodded and sped towards the backdoor. If this person was here to discuss a huge business proposal, he couldn’t be offended.

Soon afterwards, a short and stout middle-aged man was led over by the salesperson. After seeing Suo Jia, the boss asked in confusion, “I’m the boss of this shop, may I ask why you’re looking for me…”

Suo Jia smiled and shook the boss’s hand. “It’s like this: I have 10,000 excellent quality pickaxes I want to sell out. Are you interested?”

“What?!” The boss’s jaw dropped in shock as he asked incredulously, “What did you say? 10,000?! How is that possible?”

Suo Jia chuckled and waved his hand to pull out one of the pickaxes and passed it to the boss. “You can take a look yourself, it’s this type of pickaxe. I hope that you will be able to propose a suitable price. If it’s too low, I’m sure that other shops will definitely welcome me as well.”

The boss hurriedly accepted the pickaxe and carefully scrutinized it, occasionally knocking on it to test its hardness.

After a long while, he praised, “This really is an excellent good. Although it isn’t a peak grade pickaxe it can already count as a premium item. But…do you really have 10,000 of these?”

Suo Jia firmly nodded and calmly replied, “As long as you offer a suitable price, I will provide the goods. If the price is good enough I can even supply more!”

“What?! More is possible?!” The boss stared at Suo Jia in disbelief.

Suo Jia confidently answered, “That’s right, that’s what I said. However…typically, I don’t like selling out so many goods in a single city. After all…the demand in one city is limited!”

The boss knit his brows together in deep thought. After some time, he abruptly raised his head to look at Suo Jia, “Can you tell me how many of these pickaxes you can provide at most?”

Suo Jia hesitated for a bit before finally answering, “If I’m satisfied with the price, I can immediately supply 10,000. But you must keep in mind that I only have the heads of the pickaxes. You have to fit the handles yourselves!”

The boss shook his head excitedly. “Fitting the handles isn’t a problem at all, those are everywhere. The problem right now is whether you can really supply 10,000 of these pickaxes immediately…”

Suo Jia furrowed his brows. “Boss, that isn’t the immediate problem. Right now, the main question is how high Scarlet City’s demand for the pickaxes is. I don’t want to oversaturate my goods here. I’m sure you understand as well that if that happens, the prices will be inflated and fall, and our profits cannot be ensured!”

The boss could tell from Suo Jia’s reply that he indeed had the amount of goods he claimed and urged, “I agree that your words are reasonable, but…you’re underestimating Scarlet City’s demand. Anyone here would want at least a dozen pickaxes like this. With such excellent quality pickaxes, the speed of ore extraction would increase, as would the production of ores. The investment and manufacturing are definitely proportional!”

He paused to think for a moment before continuing, “How about this, I’ll purchase all your pickaxes for a price of 13,000 each. I can guarantee that even if you ship them to other cities this will be the highest price you can sell them for unless you plan on opening your own store to sell them. Otherwise, this is the limit!”

Suo Jia did some calculations. After buying the pickaxes from Suo Jia, this guy would definitely sell them for 15,000 each and gain a profit of 2,000 per pickaxes. Although selling a single pickaxe wouldn’t amount to much profit the sum of 10,000 together meant a profit of two hundred million!

Suo Jia scrutinized the boss’s expression for a long time before firmly stating, “How about this then? I’ll sell all my pickaxes to you for 14,000 each. If you agree, then let’s start immediately. If not, I’ll go to another store. I’m confident that there will definitely be many people willing to complete this transaction with me!”