They arrived outside a shop with the word "Books" hanging above it. Two heralds stood guard at the entrance, and there was even a red-name herald inside serving as a bodyguard.
But once they entered the shop, they understood why its security was so tight. Behind the shopkeeper stood an entire wall of manuals. There were only thirty or forty books when counted carefully, but manuals were consumable items that vanished after use. Overall, demand far exceeded supply. Even a military town could not possibly stock so many manuals.
"What kind of book would you like, honored customer?" the shopkeeper asked, stroking his rat-like whiskers. "If I don't have it here, then Changle City probably doesn't have it either."
"Do you have an Advancement Manual?" Yaoshi Yuan asked with a cold laugh.
"Well..." The shopkeeper smiled awkwardly. "It's not that I don't have one, but it needs to be reserved."
"If you don't have an Advancement Manual, then you must at least have the two Basic Saber Technique manuals and a Basic Footwork manual, right?"
Unexpectedly, the manuals here were not expensive. They were even slightly cheaper than the prices Yan Qing had listed on the Trading Board. After a moment's thought, he understood why. These manuals were certainly stolen state supplies that bureaucrats had embezzled and resold. Their costs were almost zero, while customers had already paid a tremendous price to come to Changle City. If they were sold at high prices too, why wouldn't the customers simply buy them through legitimate channels? Basic manuals could not be monopolized.
No wonder the saber manuals were so much cheaper. As long as customers were willing to pay a little more, they could buy manuals through the Trading Board in the safer main city. It would be strange if manuals from