Shi Feng had only put up ten stacks of Sturdy Stones for sale, which was barely a drop in the bucket compared to the demand across the entire White River City region.
Seeing how quickly they sold, Shi Feng listed another ten stacks.
This time, he set the reserve price at twelve silver coins with a buyout of fifteen silver, wanting to test just how much Sturdy Stones were really worth.
This time, nobody jumped on the buyout. Instead, a bidding war broke out.
Within a single minute, every one of the ten stacks had climbed to thirteen silver coins, and it finally stalled around thirteen silver and thirty copper. Nobody was willing to go any higher.
"So thirteen silver coins is where it maxes out. Still, that's beyond expectations. I can trickle them out gradually from now on." Shi Feng figured that was about the ceiling — push the price any further and players simply couldn't absorb it.
Besides, he'd been buying them for just over thirty copper per stack. Selling at thirteen silver meant the price had multiplied over thirty times. He was more than satisfied.
From there, Shi Feng continued to offload his stock in batches of twenty stacks each, with a ten-minute interval between batches. A thousand stacks per day was still a fraction of what the player base across White River City burned through daily, so it wouldn't trigger any price rebound.
A thousand stacks a day meant over a hundred gold coins in profit — and these were actual gold coins, not Credit Points. That kind of revenue was more than ten times what even a first-rate guild earned in a day. With that much capital flowing in, he wouldn't have to worry about the guild he planned to build falling behind.
After setting everything up, Shi Feng swiped his finger and pulled up the system communication panel, tapping on his friend Hei Zi to initiate a call.
"Hei Zi. Have you finished your reputation quest yet? If you have, gather at the teleportation gate. We're heading into a Dungeon." Shi Feng asked.
"We finished the quest. But it looks like we're stuck inside a sealed map. We can't get out unless we clear the trial here." Hei Zi's voice was practically crackling with excitement the moment he heard the word Dungeon. He'd been itching to show off his skills ever since he'd acquired Mephisto's Guard. He'd spent all his free time watching expert gameplay videos online and sparring with members of the team — his technique had improved by leaps and bounds, enough to give Shi Feng a genuine surprise. The problem was, he couldn't leave.
"A sealed map?"
Shi Feng's brow furrowed as he fell into thought. He couldn't understand how Hei Zi and the others had ended up in a sealed map — by all rights, that quest location had no such area.
But after listening to Hei Zi's explanation, Shi Feng immediately grasped their situation.
He had to admit — Hei Zi's group had incredible luck.
The Divine Realm was full of all manner of fortuitous encounters, and the most common of these were the Divine Trials. Players called them Hero Trials — tests designed by the gods to transform mortals into heroes. Any map of level ten or above had a chance of spawning one, and occasionally a player stumbled into one while grinding or running quests out in the field. But the odds of that were less than one in ten thousand.
The fact that Hei Zi's group had encountered one was pure, dumb luck.
Every Hero Trial was a tremendous opportunity. Clearing it brought rich rewards — equipment and experience points were the most basic of the lot. If a participant performed outstandingly, they could earn permanent stat bonuses, ultra-rare skills, enhanced skills, massive weapon mastery gains, and other exceedingly rare rewards.
Weapons and equipment were only good for a while. They were external — not part of one's own strength. But permanent stats and ultra-rare skills were a different matter entirely. Their value far surpassed any piece of gear, and they provided a huge boost to future development.
"What color was the trial gate you entered?" Shi Feng asked.
Hei Zi didn't quite understand the question, but when Shi Feng asked about the color, he thought back to the glow emanating from the gate they'd walked through and answered uncertainly, "I think… four colors?"