"Open a trade route?" Senior Steward Elke looked at the Black Iron token in Shi Feng's hands with surprise and couldn't help but warn him. "Lord Guardian, although you possess the Trade Caravan Guard Token and have the qualification to open a trade route for a town, I must remind you — opening a trade route is no small matter. The costs are enormous, and the fact that you've come to the Star Moon Royal City to open one means not only are the prices astronomical, but the risks are immense as well. If you fail midway, this Trade Caravan Guard Token will be voided."
"I understand, but I'm confident I can open a trade route to Silver Wing Town." Shi Feng nodded.
When it came to opening trade routes, there was nothing he knew better — he had done it many times in his previous life.
In the Divine Realm, if any guild town wanted to quickly attract NPC merchants and accelerate its development, it needed to open a trade route. And there was another enormous benefit to opening one — priority purchase rights and usage fees for the rare goods that NPC merchants brought in.
It might not seem like much, but this was the primary source of income for a neutral town before it graduated to city status — bar none.
The more famous a town became, the more NPC merchants would travel there. Even those who weren't merchants — just ordinary NPCs — still had to pay a usage fee when entering the town via the trade route. After all, the route was a safe passage with high-tier NPC escorts, so even players at level 100 wouldn't dare to rob it.
The usage fee wasn't high — just 80 copper per NPC — and the number of NPCs was far smaller than the player population. But if 100,000 NPCs traveled the route daily, that would bring in 800 gold per day. And that was just one trade route connecting a single city to the town. The more trade routes opened, the more the town earned.
However, trade routes only existed for neutral-map towns that had advanced to mid-tier — they couldn't be found within kingdoms or empires.
Additionally, the number of NPCs traveling to and from the town was closely tied to the NPC city connected by the trade route. The more prosperous the NPC city, the more NPCs would pass through. Opening a trade route to a royal capital could guarantee a daily traffic of 100,000 to 200,000 NPCs, while a regular NPC city would bring in 20,000 to 50,000. However, the more prosperous the NPC city, the harder it was to open the trade route.
Besides earning money, opening a trade route was also one of the ways to obtain rare resources.
Not all the goods NPC merchants brought were available for sale to players — a considerable portion was meant exclusively for NPC buyers, and ordinary players couldn't purchase them at all. But with priority purchase rights, one could not only buy player-available goods ahead of others, but also acquire items sold only to NPCs.
Among the items sold only to NPCs, there were materials that were extremely difficult to obtain on the open market — and one could even purchase Magic Crystals, though the price was higher than the player-to-player rate: forty silver coins per crystal. Still, this was invaluable for a guild, since converting Magic Crystals to gold coins was easy, but the reverse — converting gold into large quantities of Magic Crystals — was incredibly difficult.
NPCs were different from players in that they could acquire Magic Crystals far more easily, since the vast majority of crystal-producing mines within kingdoms and empires were controlled by NPCs. An NPC merchant selling Magic Crystals would routinely have five to ten thousand on hand — but buying the same quantity from players was nearly impossible.
Furthermore, these NPC merchants would occasionally sell rare, high-tier blueprints. Their prices were considerably higher than player-to-player transactions, but the value lay in their rarity — players simply couldn't obtain them easily. They would even, at times, sell clues to Legendary item fragments and the fragments themselves.
While such occurrences were rare across the entire Divine Realm, statistics showed that the more NPC merchants visited a town, the higher the chance of obtaining Legendary item fragments and clues about them.
Legendary item fragments — even just a clue to one — were extraordinarily valuable.
Since there was a chance to obtain them, Shi Feng naturally wasn't going to pass it up. After all, he knew of only a few ways to get Legendary item fragments. Most players who obtained them never spoke of how they'd gotten them, and some didn't even want to reveal they had one. The fragments he knew about were all from famous Legendary items, and their acquisition methods were extremely harsh — most of them were impossible to obtain at this stage.
"Since the Lord Guardian understands, that's for the best. If you wish to open the trade route to Silver Wing Town, the base cost based on this distance is ten thousand gold and five thousand Magic Crystals. Since you hold an ordinary Trade Caravan Guard Token, you are limited to assembling a squad of no more than a hundred. The team must also include at least one High-level Mage to inscribe special magic arrays along the road to drive off monsters." Senior Steward Elke paused. "Would the Lord Guardian like me to introduce some mercenaries to accompany you?"
"Of course." Shi Feng nodded.
The Trade Caravan Guard Token itself functioned like a special quest for opening a trade route. This quest could be completed entirely by players, or by hiring mercenaries from the Adventurer's Association.
At the current stage, mercenaries were undoubtedly stronger than players, so token holders preferred to hire mercenaries for the quest — though the price was steep. Some guilds, trying to save money and confident in their own strength, would use their own players instead.
Although Zero Wing's main party was powerful, the trade route to the Beastman Empire was high-level. The monsters along the way were generally more than fifteen levels above the map's base level. In many areas of the Beastman Empire, monsters were level 60 or above, and the ones that would interfere were at least level 75. For Zero Wing's current main party, the levels were too high — it wasn't suitable for this mission.
"Very well. Here is the list of mercenaries willing to accompany the Lord Guardian." Elke produced a roster and handed it to Shi Feng.
Opening a trade route was a special and dangerous quest, and you couldn't just hire any mercenaries you wanted. It depended on the player's own standing with the Adventurer's Association — the higher one's rank, the more and better mercenaries willing to join the expedition.
"Impressive. Vice president-level privileges really do make an enormous difference for opening trade routes." Shi Feng clicked his tongue in admiration as he scanned the mercenary list.
In his previous life, when he opened trade routes, the strongest mercenaries he could hire were 3-star, 2nd-tier NPCs at best. Opening trade routes had been an extremely difficult endeavor. But on this roster, forget the 3-star second-tier NPCs — even 2-star, 3rd-tier NPCs had signed up. It had to be said that holding a high-tier title provided tremendous assistance to a player.
Shi Feng spent over fifteen thousand gold in one go, using up most of his available funds, and hired ninety-seven mercenaries. The weakest among them was a level 80, 3-star, 2nd-tier NPC, while the strongest was a level 83, 2-star, 3rd-tier NPC. The entire squad included a full fifteen 3rd-tier NPCs — an overwhelmingly powerful force.
After completing all the formalities and learning to inscribe the special advanced magic arrays, Shi Feng summoned level-85 Anna and level-83 Cait. Together, they drove Mythril Rank transport wagons, leading the other ninety-seven NPCs in a grand procession toward Silver Wing Town.
The Mythril Rank transport wagons traveling down the main streets were incredibly conspicuous. The mounts pulling them were Thunderhorn Earth Dragons standing over five meters tall, which possessed Great Lord-level strength in their own right — walking down the street, they looked like colossal beasts. A full ten transport wagons in the procession made for an absolutely spectacular sight.
"What's going on? Is something big about to happen in the city?"
"Wait, no! Look — the person driving the wagon seems to be a player. Did some player trigger an event?"
"The guild badge that player is wearing — isn't that the Six-Winged emblem of Zero Wing?!"
"Zero Wing is absolutely insane! They actually got their hands on transport wagons like these — damn, there are even over ten 3rd-tier NPCs! That's literally defying the heavens!"