"Already done?"
Hearing
High-level transport carriages weren't easy to craft. Even with all the materials on hand, certain parts could fail quality checks, requiring replacements and reassembly—a time-consuming and labor-intensive process.
But once completed, they provided an enormous boost to a small town's development.
Stone Forest Town's renovation was finished, but without the crucial transport carriages, they couldn't unlock its true potential.
They had tried renting ordinary carriages from NPCs, but those could only carry three or four players at most, the rental fees were steep, and the time saved was negligible—their speed was roughly equivalent to a regular mount. If a player had to spend forty copper coins just to save five hours of walking, most ordinary players would probably choose to walk on their own. In the end, Shi Feng had set the price at thirty copper coins, breaking even without profit.
Now, with high-level transport carriages, many problems could be solved. First, they were fast enough to rival Iron Rank mounts. Second, they could carry twenty players—just ferrying players alone would generate decent income, to say nothing of the truly important cargo.
A high-level transport carriage could carry sixty items that couldn't fit in a player's backpack.
In player towns, the number of wandering merchants selling goods depended entirely on the town's cargo capacity. Wandering merchants traveled between towns, and most of the goods they transported couldn't be carried in a player's backpack.
The more non-backpack items a town could transport, the more rare goods the wandering merchants would bring to sell, and the number of wandering merchants would increase as well. This was essentially hidden information.
This hidden mechanic was something many guilds only gradually discovered after establishing their own advanced small towns or cities. They all regretted not having set up the transportation infrastructure earlier—otherwise, the rare items alone from the wandering merchants would have attracted countless players.
Moreover, once the number of wandering merchants in a town or city reached a certain threshold, a hidden effect could be triggered.
A Mystery Shop would appear in the town!
As the name suggested, the Mystery Shop was somewhat different from a black market. A black market sold a limited quantity of items that rotated periodically—whether you could get them depended on whether you had the money to grab them first, with the highest bidder winning. The Mystery Shop, on the other hand, had unlimited stock. Any player could go there to purchase items without worrying about competing with others.
However, the number of items each player could buy per day was limited and randomized, because what you purchased at the Mystery Shop wasn't a specific item but a Mystery Box. An ordinary player could buy at most five per day, each costing two silver coins, and they would randomly contain various items.
These random items included potions, weapons and equipment, magic scrolls, food and drink, and so on. With good luck, you could even pull Dark Gold-rank weapons, equipment, or items—making it extremely popular among players.
Furthermore, once a player purchased a certain number of Mystery Boxes, they could become a member. In addition to the daily purchase limit increasing to seven, they could access the Mystery Shop's second floor, where they could compete once a day for a rare weapon, equipment, or item. These contest items were typically at least Mythril Rank, often Gold-grade, and very rarely Dark Gold-rank.
In the Divine Realm, once players reached level 50, obtaining high-quality weapons and equipment became extremely difficult. The effort required to get Mythril Rank gear was comparable to what Dark Gold-rank equipment demanded at lower levels. So having a daily chance to compete for Gold-grade equipment was a significant opportunity for the vast majority of players.
And this opportunity required no exceptional combat skills—only enough gold coins to seize it.
That was why in the Divine Realm, wherever a Mystery Shop existed, hordes of ordinary players flocked to it. Some merchant players even made fortunes by traveling to various towns each day to compete for items and then reselling them—after all, Gold-grade weapons and equipment above level 50 were virtually impossible to find anywhere else.
Similarly, many players managed to equip themselves entirely with Gold-grade or higher gear through this method.
After arriving at the Candlefire Trading Company, Shi Feng immediately headed to Zhuo Yuan's workshop.
"Guild Leader, what do you think of this high-level transport carriage?" Melancholy Smile pointed to the exquisite carriage sitting in the workshop.