“What?”
“Stone Forest Town allows outsiders in? And the blacksmith shop there can repair gear!”
The various teams resting outside the Stone Claw Mountain Range felt like they’d heard heavenly music upon receiving this news.
Stone Forest Town was only an hour’s journey from the Stone Claw Mountains. Even a round trip was just two hours—a pittance compared to the ten-plus hour wait for a supply squad.
“Let’s go! Stone Forest Town!”
The leaders of each team issued their commands immediately, striding toward Stone Forest Town.
Of course, visiting the town wasn’t just for equipment repairs. It also sped up the recovery of stamina and mental strength. Relying solely on camping tents wasn’t nearly sufficient.
Within just a few hours, Stone Forest Town, once sparsely populated by players, became bustling and lively.
“Guild Master, letting Snake of the Body enter Stone Forest Town was one thing, but now allowing everyone to enter for rest and resupply… isn’t that giving them too easy a time?” Shuisè Qiangwei stood on the observation deck of the guild hall, watching the members of various guilds below celebrate as if it were a festival, a hint of confusion in her voice.
Although more and more guilds were gathering now, making complete monopolization unlikely, if only Snake of the Body and
Now, after they’d gone through the trouble of establishing Stone Forest Town, they were letting members of various guilds casually use it for rest and resupply. How could they possibly widen the gap?
“You’re focusing too much on immediate gains,”
“Make money?” Shuisè Qiangwei was even more puzzled. “Although Stone Forest Town has a unique advantage, the major guilds probably won’t buy anything from our
“Look at the blacksmith shop,” Shi Feng pointed to the long queue snaking away from a building in the distance. “That’s where we’ll make the big money.”
Right now, hundreds of players were lined up outside the blacksmith shop. Each had a team’s worth of equipment in their bags. Hundreds of players added up to hundreds of teams. The volume of repairs was clearly staggering.
“But we don’t directly receive the equipment repair fees from the blacksmith shop, do we? We only collect taxes,” Shuisè Qiangwei said, still confused.
“That’s true—the tax we collect is fixed. However, you’re forgetting that we control all the properties within the town. I simply hired an NPC to handle the repairs. As for the price… well, that’s up to me to decide,” Shi Feng replied with a smug smile. “So, I’ve tripled the blacksmith shop’s repair fees. Whether they want to repair their gear is up to them.”
Shuisè Qiangwei gasped. “Triple? Why would they agree to that?”
Repairing equipment was already expensive. In fact, repair costs were one of the largest expenditures for any guild. Tripling them would be enough to cripple the finances of most major guilds.
“Exactly. I don’t actually want them to spend Credits on repairs. Because besides the triple fee, there’s another payment method available. This is something only possible in a guild town: equal-value exchange. They can pay not just with Credit Points, but also with certain items, such as Magic Crystals,” Shi Feng explained calmly. “If they pay the repair fee using Magic Crystals at market price, the cost is only 1.5 times the normal repair rate. And the Magic Crystals the blacksmith shop receives? Those become ours. We only need to pay out a few gold coins in return.”
Shi Feng had already learned the approximate earnings of the various teams from intelligence provided by Snake of the Body, allowing him to calculate the repair fee price accordingly.
A normal price was too cheap for the major guilds. Setting it at five times the usual cost would push them to their limits.
That was why every guild member currently gritted their teeth while lining up for repairs at the blacksmith shop.
Over a hundred thousand pieces of equipment at these rates—how many Magic Crystals would that amount to?
“Doesn’t that mean all the major guilds are earning Magic Crystals for our Zero Wing?” Shuisè Qiangwei finally understood everything. No wonder Shi Feng had been so generous in allowing free access to Stone Forest Town for all guilds.
Compared to Zero Wing farming Magic Crystals in the Stone Claw Mountains themselves, letting other teams do it was not only more profitable, but also saved time and effort.
“That’s not even the main part. They’ll realize soon enough that once they come to Stone Forest Town, the Magic Crystals in their possession will no longer be theirs,” Shi Feng said calmly. He had never intended to spend the effort to monopolize the Stone Claw Mountains. With so many free laborers around, why would he waste the time of Zero Wing’s core members?
In fact, besides the blacksmith shop, the inn prices were also doubled. Paying with Magic Crystals reduced the cost to normal rates. Additionally, the newly built recreational facilities also charged double prices, again with normal rates for Magic Crystal payments. Essentially, Stone Forest Town had become a treasure trove for gathering Magic Crystals.
A preliminary estimate suggested Stone Forest Town could earn over two thousand Magic Crystals per day, a number that would only grow as more players flooded in over time.
If Zero Wing sent its main team and the Black God Legion into the Stone Claw Mountains, even a full day’s effort couldn’t possibly net them a thousand Magic Crystals, let alone over two thousand.
With a daily income of two thousand Magic Crystals, combined with the usual earnings from guild dungeon runs, Zero Wing would have sufficient resources to support its massive daily expenditure. Otherwise, the Magic Crystals painstakingly accumulated earlier would have dried up in no time.
Meanwhile, the various guilds based in Stone Forest Town were full of complaints, cursing Zero Wing through gritted teeth, but utterly powerless to change the situation. The town was under Zero Wing’s control, and launching an attack to seize it right now was impossible. All they could do was swallow their pride and part with a portion of their Magic Crystals. After all, saving this much travel time allowed them to acquire even more Magic Crystals overall, meaning their net profit was still higher.
After finalizing matters in Stone Forest Town, Shi Feng returned to
As a hundred-player team dungeon, its difficulty was immense.
Even now, only a handful of guilds worldwide had managed to claim a hundred-player dungeon First Clear. In the entire region around the Star Moon Kingdom, not a single guild had succeeded.
It wasn’t a matter of equipment being insufficient; the players’ combat techniques simply weren’t up to par. Even top-tier guilds like Heaven’s Burial and Smile of the Sunflower fell short by a significant margin, which was why everyone was stuck before the final boss, unable to advance.
This was precisely why Shi Feng hadn’t led a team to challenge the Ice-bound Cage dungeon until now.
But things were different now. To elevate the strength of his main team, Shi Feng had invested a large amount of Magic Crystals, having everyone continuously train their combat skills. He had even produced the Hundred Fruit Fine Wine, allowing each member to sample it. After this period of improvement, the entire team could, based on their own strength, basically reach the fifth floor of the