In the end, they decided to focus on erecting a wall around Zac’s camp. The radius of the wall was to be five hundred meters, giving Zac a huge personal area to build a proper home in the future. Medium-scale arrays would also fit properly inside a fortification of that size.
Parts of the wall were only temporary, since the main plan was for the walls to go all the way down to the water in the future. For specific arrays, they held off for the moment, since they didn’t know the amount of Nexus coins they’d be able to scrounge together before the first wave appeared.
Content with the results, Ogras dismissed the others to speak to Zac privately. They decided that Ogras would travel between demon town and Port Atwood to keep both the mining efforts going and oversee the construction of the wall. Zac would head to the mines to try to restore his pathways and excavate as many crystals as possible.
Before they left, Zac showed Ogras the screen for the Forester’s Constitution skill after some hesitation. It was still stuck on (8/30), and Zac explained the situation.
Forester’s Constitution (Class): Fight in the forests, be one with nature. Reward: Forester’s Constitution Skill. (8/30).
Yesterday, Ogras had told him how he’d managed to speak to Zac on the mountaintop. He also explained how Zac had finished the quest, even though Ogras as the general was still alive. Before the completion of the incursion quest, Ogras wouldn’t be able to speak to Zac, even if he had the translation skill. The System wouldn’t let communication happen between natives and invaders until one side was defeated, as it didn’t want to see any peaceful solution. Therefore, the completion of the quest was necessary.
It was the first pill the demon had swallowed right after killing Rydel that made it happen. The pill was actually called [The Coward’s Escape] and truly killed the user for a short duration. It was a tool for escaping various situations that would only end with either death or success, such as inheritance sites or being the target of a quest.
It would complete any quests that demanded his death and often even teleport him, the “corpse,” out of the inheritance site. The downside of the pill was that all active quests were considered forfeited upon death, so using it could be extremely detrimental if you had an important quest active. It was also the reason Zac didn’t get 100% contribution upon finishing his quest, as the last target had killed himself.
Obviously, Ogras had some experience in exploiting the rigid system, and Zac needed some of that ingenuity. He was strapped for time but wanted to complete his constitution quest before the beast horde arrived. But he also needed to stay in the mines with its high concentration of energy in order to heal his body broken by the Cosmic Water.
He would have used the mountain valley for both purposes if it hadn’t been turned into a poisoned hellhole after the forest fires and poison clouds made it uninhabitable. Ogras had explained with some embarrassment that it could take months before it was possible to get back up there.
“From the description, it is either a Seed-quest that gives you a vision for a Dao Seed, or it requires a Dao Seed connected to nature. Perhaps Seed of Grass or Seed of Trees.”
“Not Seed of Nature or Seed of Earth?” Zac asked skeptically. Seed of Trees did not seem very impressive.
“The Dao of Nature and Earth are high-tiered Daos, and not something you can touch,” Ogras sneered derisively. “I’ve never heard of this skill. What class did you say you had?”
Zac ignored him and waited for the demon to provide some solution instead.
Seeing that Zac didn’t intend to answer, Ogras could only mutter something and continue. “Fight in the forest is very vague, and you can probably exploit it. What constitutes a forest, and what constitutes a fight? If you want to complete it without wasting too much time, we need to do two things. First, find the spot closest to the mines that the Ruthless Heavens considers forest. Second, find out how often you need to kill something to be considered in battle,” he said as he was tapping the table with his hand.
“You said you were steadily gaining progression when you fought the barghest even though you instantly killed them, so there is an allowed downtime. Find out how long it is, and if it is long enough, you can easily exploit it. Simply have someone drag a barghest to the forest spot and run out of the mine and kill it. Then run back in and continue mining. If you’re lucky, you will only need something like five to ten minutes of travel time per kill and can spend the rest on mining and focusing on recuperation.”
Zac was stunned. He would never have thought of that method and was glad he’d confided in the demon. He was a shady character but could also be very useful. And Ogras didn’t know it, but his solution would also help him progress his other class skill for [Loamwalker] through all the running.
There was only one thing more to do before he headed toward the caves, and that was to buy the [Thayer Consortium Headquarters] and have them start buying his crystals. It was obvious that they were desperate to be bought, as they cost a fraction compared to most others for buying the building in the Town Shop, and Zac didn’t want anyone else snatching the building up before he did.
Zac and Ogras moved toward where the large merchant compound was to be located. It was quite far from both his camp and the shipyard, with only trees and stones around. After a double-check, Zac opened up the Town Shop and bought the headquarters.
Soon changes to the area started appearing just as with the creation of the shipyard. Trees and rocks disappeared, and replacing them were gravel and cobblestones. Soon structures appeared as well, one by one sprouting up like mushrooms out of the ground. But that was where the similarities with the shipyard ended.
The Creator structures were crafted with meticulous care, looking pristine with mighty fractals covering every inch. But what appeared in front of the duo could almost be called a ghetto. The buildings were a mix of stone and wood structures that once might have been proper structures. But the houses looked like they had been abandoned and then put through decades of harsh weather.
There were broken windows, mold, tiles missing, and they could even spot a few buildings where a wall had simply collapsed. No fractals covered anything, and Zac was actually loath to enter most of the buildings from safety concerns. The only building that looked to be in decent order was also the largest one. It was a three-story building where each floor should have an area of roughly a thousand square meters, and if Zac had to guess, it was the actual store for the Thayer Consortium. The other structures should be warehouses, support buildings, and homes for the employees.
“What is this shantytown?” Ogras asked in shock. “You may just have enlisted the worst merchants in the Multiverse. I can’t believe how poor they look.”
Zac was very much inclined to agree. The goal of merchants was to amass wealth, just like the goal of a cultivator was to get stronger. Judging by the state of disrepair of the structures, he could only assume the Thayer Consortium was really incompetent at their job.
But there was nothing to do, there was no refund button in the Town Shop, and they could only suppress their misgivings and enter the shop. The inside was slightly better than the outside, and at least everything was spotlessly clean. It was the store as Zac expected, but it reminded him of a struggling convenience store with mostly empty shelves.
There were a few pieces of equipment in various racks, but they looked worse compared to the ones the demons used. There also were a few information crystals behind glass displays, but the displays weren’t even a quarter full. In some corners, various materials were sold, and there also were some herbs and plants, though they all looked a bit dried out.
Manning the desk were a few humanoids that somewhat reminded Zac of gnomes. They were less than a meter tall but didn’t have the stockiness, or beardiness, of dwarves. Their skin was also light blue and they had deep sapphire-colored eyes, with pointed ears like elves. Perhaps they were genies?
Before Zac and Ogras could approach the clerks, another genie came running tow
ard the two. He looked much like the others, with the blue skin and no hair. He wore what looked like an old-fashioned suit and had an ascot tied around his neck.
“Greetings, honored customers, I am Calrin Thayer, chairman of the Thayer Consortium. Excuse the slight disarray; we are currently setting everything up. Can I presume one of you is the distinguished Lord?”
76
Business Tactics
Calrin looked over the reports and agreements strewn on his table, his feelings not much better compared to when he was holed up waiting for the Tsarun Clan to hunt him down. He had cried in relief when someone finally purchased their headquarters, the window with the teleportation prompt looking like a writ of amnesty.
He had thought that the Thayer Consortium would be able to slowly regroup and recover on this new world. The newly integrated planets and continents were filled with valuables that needed a buyer, and the natives seldom knew the worth of what they held in their hands. A single trade could result in a profit that would cover expenses for months.
But who would’ve expected that they got placed on a deserted island instead of some burgeoning town? Apart from a shipyard, there wasn’t a single building, and the Merchant’s Window showed that Port Atwood, as the presumptive town was called, only housed one solitary citizen, its Lord.
Worse yet was the Lord’s companion, the System-blasted demon. For a second, Calrin was ecstatic when he heard that the Lord controlled an actual Nexus Crystal mine. That meant there was a Nexus Vein on the island, and sooner or later, things like farms with valuable plants would pop up. Even cultivators would relocate here for the high density of energy, which would only help business further.
Until then, he would be able to turn a tidy profit buying the crystals and reselling them through the Mercantile System. A native had no idea of the value of things, and if they added a larger margin, who would know?
But that demon wasn’t actually a native, but a defected invader. He ruthlessly started to pressure down the profit margins to a razor’s edge, even threatening them with a trade embargo. He obviously had a general idea of the Thayer Consortium’s situation and knew that if they didn’t produce some profit and turnover, the System would rescind their business license.
Gone were the dreams of a mighty comeback, replaced with a nightmare of toiling under a demonic taskmaster for little to no profits.
Zac was quite happy with the result of the negotiations as he moved through the forest. Ogras kept proving his worth as a teammate. The little genie, whose race was actually called Sky Gnomes, made a big production of support and mutual cooperation after he heard about the Nexus Crystal mine. After almost wiping away a tear of self-sacrifice, he offered the most generous price of 35 Nexus Coins per crystal.
The price seemed to have awoken a dragon in Ogras, and he started making a scene. It turned out that the value of a crystal was actually closer to 50 Nexus Coins, and after subtracting transaction costs for using the Mercantile System and some profit for the merchant, the crystals were generally bought for 44 to 46 coins at most merchant shops. The price-gouging System-run stores only gave 35 coins, though, and it seemed that the gnome had planned on offering the same price and pocketing the difference.
What followed was an almost surreal exchange between the gnome and the demon, where the demon initially wanted to get 54 coins per crystal, forcing the trading firm to eat a loss for each trade.
The gnome tried every trick in the book to keep the prices reasonable in order to make some profit. At one point, he had even tearfully ordered one of the clerks to fetch a noose, as he said he would “rather hang himself than keep suffering this kind of injustice.” Not long after, the noose was long forgotten, and instead, the chairman paraded two little gnome children in front of Zac and the Ogras.
They were some of the cutest things Zac had ever seen, but they were wearing frayed clothing and looked hungry with large puppy-dog eyes. Zac was tempted to stop the demon at this point, but Ogras waved him away and ruthlessly pushed forward. Zac did, however, spot the demon surreptitiously place candies in each of the kids’ hands, without pausing in his screaming contest with Calrin.
Ogras’ trade tactic was simpler, as it was just a long stream of threats, insults, and angry gestures. He tried everything from threatening to fill the area with competing businesses to enacting trade embargoes on the Sky Gnomes.
Finally, the price they agreed upon was 47 Nexus Coins per refined crystal, a rate that obviously was one of the best one could get without selling them directly to a customer who needed them. Both Ogras and Calrin were heaving and sweating at this point, looking like they had just finished an arduous battle. Zac quickly handed over 11,000 crystals and immediately received 517,000 Nexus Coins in return.
Next, Zac asked about a pill that could help with his situation with his pathways, but as expected, the little gnome had nothing of that quality in the store. He did, however, promise to acquire one through his channels, but it didn’t look like he even believed himself.
Content, Zac and Ogras left, as there wasn’t much else of value to buy in the shop. Besides, both of them were suffering from a lack of funds at the moment. Ogras told him that the System had confiscated all the demons’ Nexus Coins when they stayed on Earth, but Zac wasn’t convinced. After watching the previous display, he was more inclined to believe that he simply refused to expose any hidden wealth.
Not long after they were done at the consortium, they parted ways, with Ogras heading to the camp to start converting more raw crystals he had “found” in the town. Meanwhile, Zac headed toward the mines to start mining himself while staying in the energy-rich atmosphere of the tunnels. Ogras estimated the daily turnover from the mine to be roughly 5,000 crystals now that most of the demons were gone and they were short on manpower.
That meant that together with whatever Zac managed to excavate, the daily Nexus Coin gain would be roughly 250,000. It didn’t seem like too much compared to the prices of some of the structures in the Town Shop, but it was a steady source of wealth that could be increased as soon as more citizens arrived. And judging from the tunnels he had walked through before, the crystals would last for years.
That meant that before the horde arrived, he would be able to afford the [E-Grade Medium-Scale Town Defense Array] he had spotted earlier for 5 million Nexus Coins, and even add in some more fortifications.
After walking for half a day and killing a barghest every now and then, Zac finally reached the mines once again. Less than two days had actually passed since he last was here, but it felt like much longer for some reason.
After walking some distance into the tunnels, he felt the air had filled up to the density of Cosmic Energy that suffused the depths, and going any further wouldn’t make the environment any better. Unless he went to that cave he woke up in, but it was too far into the mountain for convenience.
Thus began Zac’s monotonous days down in the mines. On the first day, he only focused on recuperation and seeing whether staying here actually helped with his situation. He expended some Cosmic Energy by using the guidance system, and was ecstatic to notice that he actually recovered quicker here when compared to at his camp. It looked like the demon had told the truth. The difference was small, though, but it gave Zac some hope.
The following day, he retrieved Alyn, enlisting her as a private teacher to go through various subjects about the System, cultivation, and the Multiverse. Every time he paused after having furiously whacked at the mines for a few hours, they would go over some subject. Alyn also helped him recruit a few ranger demons who would lead a barghest to a patch of grass next to the mine entrance. It was the closest spot that the System considered a forest, and killing a beast there did advance his quest.
After two days of trials, he learned that he only needed to kill a monster every hour, and then that whole hour would be considered as “fighting in the forest.” After that, his daily life took on a very structured schedule.
He’d mine for
roughly forty-five minutes, then run out of the caves to kill a barghest. After running back to his mine shaft, he’d have a mini-lecture of five minutes with Alyn while he had a small break before starting mining again. He felt a bit bad for the demoness having to just fiddle around for fifty-five minutes an hour, but she seemed perfectly content taking out a book and reading on a comfortable couch. And Zac guessed it beat toiling to erect a wall.
On the fourth day, Zac got ten axes identical to the two he had from a scared-looking demon. It looked like it would take some time until they warmed up to him. He didn’t want to use other weapons even while mining, and instead used his weapon of choice. His mining wasn’t only for gaining wealth, but also to improve his proficiency with his axes.
Every time he hit the wall, no matter if it was with the edge, the spike, or the butt, he tried to remember the trajectories and methods that he’d learned from the guidance system. He had realized that while blindly following the paths had made him stronger, there was a limit. If he wanted to truly improve, he needed to internalize the teachings and understand why he swung like he did.
He realized that just some small differences in how he applied force, or a slight change in angle on impact, could have a huge difference in how much rock he managed to cut. As Zac progressed through the days, more and more rock started to gather at his feet. His furious assault on the mountain walls kept damaging the axes, and he was forced to keep circulating them and let the old ones rest.
Defiance of the Fall: A LitRPG Adventure Page 43