"Lend me two hundred thousand and pay back three hundred thousand?"
Feng Qianyu stared at Shi Feng on the screen with obvious surprise, as though she were seeing him for the first time.
A first-rate guild having sixty to seventy thousand Magic Crystals in reserve was already considered well-off.
Yet here was Shi Feng, casually asking to borrow two hundred thousand Magic Crystals—with fifty percent interest, no less. That was double the market rate.
Magic Crystals weren't like gold coins, which could be earned by selling items on the market. The major guilds simply didn't sell Magic Crystals publicly. You could only buy a small amount from workshops and adventurer parties, or slowly accumulate them by grinding mobs and bosses.
Sure, Zero Wing had the Stone Forest Town cash cow, and their Arena was booming—but earning three hundred thousand Magic Crystals in five days?
In Feng Qianyu's eyes, that was completely impossible. Yet Shi Feng's gaze remained calm and confident.
"Are you trying to bid for the Bronze Tablet?" Feng Qianyu couldn't help but ask.
"Exactly." Shi Feng didn't bother hiding it. It was something anyone could figure out with a moment's thought.
Feng Qianyu looked at his dead-serious expression and shook her head with a rueful smile. "I'd advise you to give it up. Even if I lent you two hundred thousand, you still couldn't outbid them."
Three hundred and fifty thousand was an astronomical sum for even the most elite first-rate guilds, but for well-prepared super guilds and top-tier guilds, that was nowhere near their limit.
As she saw it, Zero Wing had probably earned a fair bit from the Dark Arena previously, and combined with the guild's stockpiled Magic Crystals, they might have around one hundred and eighty or ninety thousand on hand. Even with her two hundred thousand loan, that would only bring them to three hundred and eighty or ninety thousand—nowhere near enough to compete.
Conservatively, they'd need at least four hundred and twenty thousand to stand a chance.
If things were different, Feng Qianyu would have wanted to borrow one hundred and eighty thousand from Shi Feng. Combined with the two hundred and fifty thousand she had, they might actually stand a chance against the other guilds. But she needed to prepare for Thunder Island and couldn't possibly repay that amount of Magic Crystals and interest within a short time.
"I've got two hundred and sixty thousand here. Combined with your two hundred thousand, that should be about enough." Shi Feng understood what Feng Qianyu was getting at and smiled. "If not, then I'll just have to accept my loss."
Four hundred thousand Magic Crystals was roughly the total reserves of the current major superpowers—even if more, not by much.
The Bronze Tablet might be somewhat inferior to the Silver Tablet in terms of the techniques it offered, but its entry requirements were far simpler.
The Silver-tier Legacy Tablet required players to be able to draw intermediate magic circles, while the Bronze-tier only required basic ones. As for the Gold-tier Legacy Tablets, judging by his guess, they would require advanced magic circles.
Advanced magic circles—even for someone relatively familiar with them like himself, he couldn't draw one. That meant even if he got a Gold Tablet, it would be nothing more than a display piece. The Bronze-tier Legacy Tablet, on the other hand, could be used by more guild members.
So having a Bronze-tier Legacy Tablet was crucial for Zero Wing at this point. Even if he couldn't guarantee a hundred percent success, he had to try.
"Two hundred and sixty thousand? You have that much?" Feng Qianyu drew a sharp breath. She hadn't expected Zero Wing to have even more Magic Crystals than she did. Then the corner of her lips curved upward. "Tell you what—I'll lend you two hundred and fifty thousand. No interest. Just pay me back two hundred and fifty thousand within five days. But I want ten spots to enter the Bronze Tablet, split across two months, five people at a time."
The Legacy Tablet could only be used once per month. Even if she obtained it, she would only go in once, because the Legacy Tablet gave the biggest boost on the first visit, with diminishing returns afterward. Its greatest value lay in its ongoing usability.
Right now, competing for the Bronze Tablet was mainly about boosting strength before the fight for Thunder Island. She didn't care much about the long-term benefits—after all, without the present, there was no future.
"Deal." Shi Feng agreed without a moment's hesitation.
The Spellcasting Legacy was mainly for magic-class players. There were only a handful of magic-class experts in all of Zero Wing qualified to use it, so five slots per month for the first two months was more than enough.
The two parties quickly signed a contract, and Feng Qianyu sent Qing Huang to deliver the Magic Crystals to Shi Feng.
Meanwhile, the price of the Spellcasting Legacy had soared to 394,000 Magic Crystals, leaving every major guild in the first-floor hall staring up in awe—shocked, and then shocked some more.
They had long known that their own guilds couldn't compare to top-tier guilds and super guilds, but they hadn't expected the gap to be this enormous.