Shi Feng's eyes locked onto a restaurant named Forest Traveler on the list, his gaze a mixture of surprise and elation.
Forest Traveler was, by all appearances, an unremarkable little restaurant in the current Sea Forest — located in the outer zone, no less. The entire place was just two modest stories: the ground floor for dining, the second for resting. Ordinary in every way, with nothing special about it.
However, when the Sea Forest opened its third wave of unlocks, players had already discovered the restaurant's unique value. By that point, the number of players pouring into the Sea Forest was enormous, and many — especially merchant-type players looking to do business — would stay for several days. As a result, every inn and restaurant in the Sea Forest was packed to capacity, let alone a budget-friendly eatery like Forest Traveler.
After the third unlock, Forest Traveler suddenly introduced a package deal: lodging bundled with meals, exclusively tied to the handful of premium rooms it offered. Players who wanted to stay in the Sea Forest had no choice but to purchase it.
But once players actually tasted the meals Forest Traveler served, the restaurant became famous throughout the Sea Forest practically overnight.
That was because eating the restaurant's meals granted players a buff — a special status called Forest Blessing.
Forest Blessing raised a player's Luck by anywhere from 5 to 20 points, lasting for eighteen hours, with a cooldown of two natural days.
Luck was one of those intangible yet omnipresent stats in the Divine Realm — always quietly influencing players behind the scenes, affecting everything from opening treasure chests to monster drops to crafting success rates. On the open market, accessories that granted even 3 to 5 points of Luck were worth a fortune, and they were the kind of item a player could use forever without them ever truly becoming obsolete, the effects merely diminishing over time.
Major guilds would fight tooth and nail to stockpile these kinds of items, because even a tiny boost in Luck might mean the difference between a common drop and an epic-grade one. Because of this, both individual players and guilds hoarded Luck-boosting gear, and such items almost never appeared on the market.
A restaurant where simply eating a meal could raise your Luck — what that meant for independent players and major powers alike was self-evident. Even Shi Feng himself had visited Forest Traveler many times, especially before attempting a large-scale team raid, where stopping by for a meal beforehand was practically mandatory. The only drawback was the absurd queue — even after Forest Traveler expanded its premises, waits typically started at seven or eight hours. That alone spoke volumes about its popularity.
It was hailed as one of the top one hundred epic-grade establishments in the Divine Realm.
This ranking was compiled by the Heavenly Secret Pavilion based on demand and rarity, and carried exceptional credibility.
Now this very restaurant was sitting right in front of him on the rental list. How could Shi Feng not feel both thrilled and stunned?
But when his eyes moved to the listed rental price, the corner of his eye twitched.
"Are they robbing me blind?" The thought sprang unbidden into his mind.
Normally, when renting an inn or restaurant in the Sea Forest, options included weekly or monthly leases. Forest Traveler, however, offered no monthly plan — only an annual lease, and the yearly rent was sixty thousand gold.
For context, leasing a large, high-end restaurant in the inner zone cost only four thousand gold a month. Forest Traveler, by comparison, came out to five thousand gold per month — and required a lump sum payment of sixty thousand gold, which would consume fully half of his available liquid capital.
Sixty thousand gold was enough to lease more than a dozen inns and restaurants.
"Should I hold off and come back next time?" Shi Feng stared at Forest Traveler, weighing his options.
The first month after the Sea Forest opened was by far the most competitive, but also the period of greatest advantage. Once you secured a lease, you were granted priority renewal rights — other players couldn't wrest it from you unless you voluntarily gave it up.
But if he waited until the next time the Sea Forest opened, the three major guilds might have already realized the importance of inns and restaurants by then. Snatching up leases en masse would become far more difficult. Forest Traveler, on the other hand, wasn't something he needed to worry as much about — after all, that sixty-thousand-gold price tag was a hefty expenditure even for a superpower.