Trading

Although construction was complete, there was still some time before City Opening. The territory had built a Trading Hall, so he might as well take the time to browse the market. Perhaps he would find something useful.

He first opened the chat area.

The thousand-person newbie group was as lively as ever.

But most of the content was meaningless.

Most people were complaining, venting their misery, or asking for help.

New lord were really having a hard time. Every day, they had to rack their brains to outwit adventurers while staying alert for threats from the Dark Races and monsters. The group's daily pity party had practically become a regular event.

Qi Ji had 11 Zombie Soul Essences left.

There were many Common Zombies in the Doomsday Frenzy Secret Realm, and the Soul Essence drop rate was quite high.

Deploying these monsters cost nothing, though extracting Soul Essence consumed 1 point of Qi Ji's Mental Strength.

One point of consumption.

It was nothing.

Common Zombie Soul Essence production was expected to be extremely high in the future, and the territory faced no threats in the short term. There was no need to treat these Soul Essences like treasures.

Qi Ji pondered briefly.

He listed all 11 Common Zombie Soul Essences in the trading area.

"Common Zombie Soul Essence" was a First Order Soul Essence, also known as a Gray Quality Soul Essence or an ordinary-quality Soul Essence.

However, even Soul Essences of the same rank had obvious differences in quality, which could be divided by star rating. For example, one-star Gray Soul Essences, two-star Gray Soul Essences, three-star Gray Soul Essences, and so on.

The higher the star rating,

the better the quality of the Soul Essence.

Generally, the highest rating was five stars.

Qi Ji's Zombie Soul Essences were merely one-star Gray Soul Essences. Based on the price data he had gathered from lurking recently, Soul Essences of this quality sold for 7 to 15 Soul Crystals in the Lord's Market.

So how much should he list them for?

Zombie Soul Essences were indeed the lowest-grade Gray Soul Essences.

But Qi Ji believed his Soul Essences had two major advantages.

First, Common Zombie Soul Essences came with many monster templates. There were dozens of different Zombie templates, such as Riot Zombies, Worker Zombies, Firefighter Zombies, and more.

When creating monsters or forging Mercenaries, different forms could be selected according to the actual situation.

At the very least, they were more practical than other First Order units that were equally weak.

Second, Zombie Soul Essences were an entirely new type of Soul Essence. That alone gave them considerable value. After purchasing them, lords could also use them to fish for adventurers, which was not a bad option.

Then 15 crystals it was!

Qi Ji listed all the Zombie Soul Essences.

Whether they sold or not, he would treat it as a market test and set an example for future large-scale sales.

After completing the listing,

he began browsing the products in the trading area.

Although this was the newbie lord trading area, there were quite a few kinds of goods. The most common were various Monster Essence Souls.

Goblin Soldier Soul Essence, one-star Gray Soul Essence, priced at 9 Soul Crystals.

Skeleton Archer Soul Essence, one-star Gray Soul Essence, priced at 12 Soul Crystals.

Kobold Hunter Soul Essence, two-star Gray Soul Essence, priced at 20 Soul Crystals.

Qi Ji was not particularly interested in Soul Essences.

He looked through the other trade goods instead.

There were food, materials, formulas, equipment, blueprints, and more.

What interested him most were blueprints.

Blueprint: Skeleton Barracks, First Order special blueprint, priced at 2,400 Soul Crystals.

Blueprint: Mercenary Enhancement Camp, First Order special blueprint, priced at 2,000 Soul Crystals.

Blueprint: Novice Barrier Tower, First Order special building, priced at 3,200 Soul Crystals.

Expensive!

Far too expensive!

Even the cheapest First Order special building blueprints cost over a thousand Soul Crystals, while practical facilities, especially those that could protect the Dungeon, basically started at three thousand.

His current financial situation simply could not afford them!

At the moment, Qi Ji could only feast his eyes on them. Just as he was browsing through trade information and lord complaints,

Ding. Lord 0340 purchased 11 "Zombie Soul Essences." You received 165 Soul Crystals!

What was going on?

They had all been snapped up!

Qi Ji immediately wondered whether he had priced them too cheaply.

He hurriedly withdrew the Soul Crystals from the trading market.

Soul Crystals +162.

Why were there three fewer?

That must have been the trading market's handling fee!

The Lord's Market had a set of operating rules. In order to facilitate efficient trading and prevent lords from artificially inflating prices and disrupting the market,

all listed goods were charged a fee equal to 1% of their total price per hour. Qi Ji's 11 Zombie Soul Essences had been listed for nearly two hours, so he was charged 3 Soul Crystals whether they sold or not.

They sold even at 15 Soul Crystals? Wouldn't I get rich selling Zombies in the future?

Just as Qi Ji was thinking about it,

he received another private message from a lord.

The sender was the buyer who had just swept up all the Zombie Soul Essences.

Lord 0340: "Friend, do you have any more of these Zombie Soul Essences in stock? If you do, I'd like to buy some more."

Qi Ji had no stock left.

But he did not say so directly.

"My territory has plenty of this kind of Soul Essence, but I don't lack Soul Crystals right now, so I don't want to sell."

He would bluff him first!

Lord 0340: "To be honest, I'm preparing to attack a Fire Element Alien Stronghold soon. I need a large amount of basic combat strength with sufficiently high fire resistance. If you're willing to sell, I'm very sincere about this, and I'm open to barter as well!"

So that was it.

Among the many Common Zombies,

several types had especially high fire resistance.

For example, Firefighter Zombies, Biohazard Suit Zombies, and so on.

That explained why the other party was willing to pay such a high price.

Qi Ji replied, "What can you offer? I'll decide after I see it!"

Lord 0340 immediately displayed several items, including some fairly good materials and equipment. It was not hard to see that his level was not low, but these things were useless to Qi Ji right now.

Until the very end,

the other party brought out a blueprint.

Adventurer Inn, First Order special building. Construction cost: 300 Soul Crystals, 150 Mental Strength, 150 First Order Material Essence.

This was good!

The Adventurer Inn was a common special building.

Its function was very simple: it could increase territory capacity by 100 at once.

In addition, the inn could provide overnight accommodations for adventurers, allowing them to stay in the territory and recover their energy as usual.

The inn could bring at least two major benefits to both adventurers and the territory.

For adventurers,

being able to stay overnight in the territory meant they would not have to queue to enter the city.

For the Dungeon,

having adventurers remain in the territory made it more convenient to recruit them at any time and launch various activities.

For example, when the territory faced an external threat, they could immediately gather a group of Mercenaries to resist it.

Furthermore, by building various service facilities, the territory could not only provide adventurers with a better experience, but also reclaim some Contribution Points, making the territory's Contribution Points more valuable and keeping their value stable.

Lord 0340 named his price. "My blueprint can be exchanged for at least 120 Zombie Soul Essences!"

At 15 crystals each,

that was worth 1,800 Soul Crystals.

This blueprint was indeed worth that much.

Qi Ji immediately cut the price in half. "120 is impossible. I can offer at most 60 in exchange."

"What? 60!"

"Then forget it."

Qi Ji knew that his need for an inn was not as great as the other party's need for Soul Essences, so he had to firmly maintain the initiative.

Lord 0340: "No matter what, the value of this blueprint will not be lower than 100 one-star Gray Souls."

In the end,

after repeated back-and-forth bargaining,

Qi Ji agreed to exchange 85 Zombie Soul Essences for the inn blueprint in Lord 0340's possession. However, it would take around two days to complete the transaction, and the other party accepted those terms.

This deal was very worthwhile.

The Doomsday Frenzy Novice Dungeon was not difficult to clear.

Every clear had at least a 50% chance of dropping Common Zombie Soul Essences.

With the territory's current scale and growth rate, it could conservatively produce 100 Common Zombie Soul Essences per day. Even if only 50 were successfully recovered, it would take less than two days.

Zombie Soul Essences had low costs.

There would definitely be no shortage of them in the future.

It seemed that establishing a "Zombie Export" business would become an important pillar of foreign trade and core competitive advantage for Miracle City in the coming period!

Thinking of this,

Qi Ji grew even more energized.

He wished he could let the adventurers in immediately.

Let these workhorses properly farm the Secret Realm for him and drop Soul Essences.

At this moment, the Chaos Tide had returned. There were still fifteen minutes until Miracle City opened its gates. He wondered how much amusement and how many surprises these adventurers would bring him today.

And a new batch of workhorses, fat sheep, and chives

were ready to go.

They were rushing over at full speed!