THE STRONGEST THUNDER SWORD, VOLUME 5 - Season 8 Episode 70

Star-Moon Kingdom, White River City, Candlelight Trading Firm:

Upon arriving at the trading firm with Fire Dance, Shi Feng noticed a significant decrease in the Shop’s customers.

We’ve reached our limit already? Shi Feng glanced at the players on the streets before taking another look at the situation inside the Shop.

Despite the Candlelight Trading Firm’s location in the Trade Area, a high-traffic area, and the fact that this area enjoyed a growing player population, the trading firm was losing customers. This situation illustrated a lot of problems.

Glancing at the street again, Shi Feng noticed that several large Guilds and Merchant players had set up Shop near the street corners.

With more shops, the competition grew more intense. Although the Candlelight Trading Firm’s position in White River City was still unshakable, the trading firm was losing profits.

Initially, the firm could bring in over 1,000 Gold every day from each shop. Now, including the Shops in major cities throughout Star-Moon Kingdom and other countries, the Trading Firm was just barely making a total profit of 1,000 Gold per day.

Currently, fewer and fewer hot-selling items such as Whetstones and Advanced Whetstones, as well as various other necessities such as Recovery Potions and Mana Regeneration Potions, sold each day. This was all due to the new competition.

Most of these new Shops had powerful backers. Furthermore, the designs for hot-selling items were becoming more common. One could easily farm them or purchase them from the Auction House. As long as these Shops hired some Lifestyle players to produce these items and sold them at a lower price than the Candlelight Trading Firm, with a profitable location, they could easily steal plenty of the Candlelight Trading Firm’s customers.

Fortunately, Light Stones and Basic Strengthened Armor Kits still sold like hotcakes.

However, Shi Feng knew that this situation would not last. Neither the Light Stones nor the Basic Strengthening Armor Kits were unique items like the Mana Armor Kit. As more time passed and players reached higher levels, it would become easier to obtain these items’ designs.

As a matter of fact, after just being away from the city for three days, other Shops had already begun selling Basic Strengthened Armor Kits. Only, they demanded slightly higher prices than the Candlelight Trading Firm. It wouldn’t be long before Light Stones would appear in other Shops as well. At that time, the Candlelight Trading Firm would lose some of its advantages.

“Guild Leader, why have you called for me?” Melancholic Smile asked with a tired expression as she entered the firm’s reception room.

Melancholic Smile was feeling the pressure of the lost profits. Although she had thought of many solutions, none were effective enough to save them from this predicament.

“How is the production of the Strengthening Devices coming along?” Shi Feng asked.

With the Candlelight Trading Firm’s current income, they could never earn 150,000 Gold in the next twenty-some days. They needed to increase their profits.

The Strengthening Devices were their only hope.

More players flocked to White River City. Among them, there was no lack of elite and expert players. These players often ventured to high-level maps to grind. The burden on their equipment was much higher than ordinary players. Hence, they also had a much greater need for an item like the Strengthening Device, so that they could grind and adventure for longer periods.

“So far, I’ve produced 400 Strengthening Devices. My success rate is roughly 40%. Unfortunately, our stockpile is still too small to begin selling them. We will sell out before we even begin attracting customers. I intend to put them up for sale in the trading firm once we have a stockpile of 1,000 units,” Melancholic Smile was optimistic about the Strengthening Devices.

When they began to offer the Strengthening Devices, the Candlelight Trading Firm would regain its popularity, increasing their daily sales tremendously.

A success rate of 40%? Shi Feng was slightly surprised. He had not expected Melancholic Smile to have such a high success rate. If Shi Feng produced the Strengthening Devices himself, he’d have a 30% success rate at most. He then revealed a stack of designs and passed them to Melancholic Smile, saying, “Let Cocoa and the others learn these designs. If the firm has anyone with potential, you can allow them to learn one as well. Produce as many of these as you can. I have something important I need them for.”

Melancholic Smile was dumbfounded as she accepted the stack of designs.

Strengthening Device!

Basic Fire Resistance Armor Kit!

Melancholic Smile already knew how important the Strengthening Device was. Obtaining even a single design was already an amazing feat, yet Shi Feng had five more…

If they had five more people producing the Strengthening Devices, they could satisfy the demands of one or two city’s worth of players. After all, the cost of forging for the Strengthening Device was relatively high, and the forging success rate was low. Hence, they could not offer the Devices for too low a price.

However, the other item, the Basic Fire Resistance Armor Kit, confused her slightly.

[Basic Fire Resistance Armor Kit]

Defense +120

Endurance +5, Agility +3

Fire Resistance +7

Maximum binding limit per character: 3

Can only be bound to Level 30 equipment or above.

In terms of Basic Attributes, it was only slightly stronger than the Basic Strengthened Armor Kit. However, the materials it required were much rarer. The Basic Fire Resistance Armor Kit would cost twice as much to produce as the Basic Strengthening Armor Kit. Would anyone really be willing to buy these?

Although the Fire Resistance Armor Kit provided quite an amount of Fire Resistance, there were many areas in God’s Domain that didn’t offer the danger of fire. Players didn’t need to head to leveling maps or Dungeons that required high Fire Resistance. One could say that the Fire Resistance Armor Kit was not a necessity. Even if they produced this item, not many players would be willing to purchase it.

However, the fact that Shi Feng viewed the Basic Fire Resistance Armor Kit and the Strengthening Device as equally important showed that the former was just as precious.

“From now on, focus on forging Strengthening Devices and Basic Fire Resistance Armor Kits. Set everything else aside.” Shi Feng was aware of Melancholic Smile’s concerns.

However, the Basic Fire Resistance Armor Kit was no less valuable than the Strengthening Device.

Although the Armor Kits were not useful right now, once the Eclipse Gate opened, items that provided Fire and Ice Resistance would skyrocket in price. Only then would the Fire Resistance Armor Kits shine.

With these three Armor Kits, one could gain 21 points of Fire Resistance. This way, players could equip fewer pieces of Fire Resistance equipment. Although Fire Resistance equipment could increase one’s Fire Resistance, they would have to sacrifice Basic Attributes. Having too much of that equipment would wound a player’s combat power, making it more difficult to kill monsters in the Eclipse Gate.

Hence, after the various large Guilds discovered the Basic Fire Resistance Armor Kit, they would rush towards Campbell Volcano to farm for the design. Unfortunately, the design’s drop-rate was incredibly low. Moreover, they only dropped from the volcano’s Field Bosses.

Throughout these past three days, Shi Feng had killed plenty of Field Bosses at Campbell Volcano with Zero Wing’s main force. After three days of hard work, with the help of Divine Providence, they had obtained a total of nine copies. Anyone else would thank their stars to obtain just one.

“Right, how many materials have we collected for the Stable so far?” Shi Feng made it clear that the Guild Stable was also a priority.

The various large Guilds were closing in on Level 40. It would be a huge waste if he had the Stable Design but could not construct it.