Chapter 501 - Grand Duke Hartfield

Chapter 501 - Grand Duke Hartfield
The lights shone brightly outside of Star-Moon City’s Palace. At this moment, the street adjacent to the Palace looked as if it held a large-scale celebration; a crowd of players exploded with excitement. Players filled both sides of the street, shouting and selling their wares.
Star-Moon City was different from the other ordinary cities in Star-Moon Kingdom. The traffic here was constant, with players coming and going from other kingdoms and empires. Hence, unlike in other cities where players could only set up their Stalls once every three or four days in specified areas, players could set up their Stalls in Star-Moon City every day. Only, a fee was required to set up a Stall; it was not free.
Even with the fee, a large number of players were still willing to set up their Stalls to sell items rather than using the Auction House and paying a heavier fee. Even if they sold their items at a lower price here, they could still make a higher profit.
Normally, players would only choose to sell their items through the Auction House if they were in a hurry for money or they wished to obtain a better price for rare and precious items.
As the items sold at Stalls were much cheaper, many independent players and large Guilds would come here to purchase the materials and items they needed.
Shi Feng had come to this place precisely to purchase some supplies.
The method of exchanging Coins for Reputation Points was, in reality, a Special Quest found in Star-Moon City. To players who focused on raiding Dungeons and grinding monsters to level up, they might never discover this Special Quest. However, to players who leveled up slowly and focused more on enjoying the game itself, it was not particularly difficult to find the quest. As long as they listened for information in the capital city, they could obtain some clues leading to the quest.
Meanwhile, this clue was that Grand Duke Hartfield’s daughter had fallen ill and was in urgent need of a large amount of Herbs.
The quest only required one stack of Ordinary Herbs. Upon completing this quest, players would receive a certain amount of money and EXP. Meanwhile, players could accept this quest indefinitely. Unfortunately, the amount of money and EXP wasn’t quite worth the value of the Herbs. In the past, wealthy players who wished to level up quickly had spent money to increase their EXP through such quests. Even so, they did not invest a lot of money in this method of leveling. After all, Coins were very valuable during the initial stages of the game. Nobody would spend them foolishly.
In the past, as everyone had been convinced that this Special Quest was merely a method that allowed one to exchange money for EXP, a few insane individuals, who had not wanted to level up in the fields, began to purchase Herbs in bulk, turning them in to complete the Special Quest.
In such a way, these individuals each traded in 1,500 stacks of Herbs, reaching a critical point of this quest.
When a player traded in 1,500 stacks of Herbs, Grand Duke Hartfield would no longer reward said player with money and EXP. Instead, the Grand Duke rewarded the player with a Thank You Gift.
One could obtain a variety of items from this Gift. Among them, there was a 10% chance to obtain a Reputation Book. When used, the Reputation Book would give the user a certain amount of Star-Moon City Reputation Points.
This was why Shi Feng had come to this bazaar to purchase Herbs in bulk, either Ordinary Herbs or Rare Herbs.
After making a round through the bazaar and investigating the general prices of Herbs, Shi Feng began shouting through the trade channel, “Buying Ordinary Herbs, 40 Copper per stack; Rare Herbs, three Silver per stack! Will buy as many as you have!”
The trade channel was a unique channel only available in bazaars. Any players in the bazaar could receive the messages sent through this channel. However, players who wished to shout their messages needed to pay a fee of 1 Silver per message. Though the length of each message was limited to 100 words, it was a valuable promotion tool.
With this, Shi Feng could save himself a lot of trouble.
The amount and prices of Herbs at each Stall varied greatly. If Shi Feng had to visit every Stall in the bazaar, even if he exhausted himself to death, he would only acquire a small amount. Hence, rather than haggling with every Stall owner, he might as well offer to purchase Herbs at an average price. Naturally, interested players would hunt him down to sell their goods.
Shortly after Shi Feng’s announcement, a large number of players rushed towards him.
“Boss, how many Herbs do you want to buy?”
“Big Brother Swordsman, look! I have excellent quality Herbs! I can even lower the price if you buy them in bulk!”
The players that had hurried over all looked at Shi Feng like hungry wolves. They crowded around him, rushing to sell their Herbs. Their intensity far exceeded Shi Feng’s initial expectations.
“Alright, alright, no need to rush. All of you, line up and trade with me.” Shi Feng smiled as he motioned for the crowd to calm down.
Sure enough, players’ enthusiasm in the capital city is a lot more intense.
However, after giving it some thought, their enthusiasm was only natural. Players were currently busy with leveling and were not particularly enthusiastic about Lifestyle classes. Although Guilds nurtured their own alchemists, the Guilds could easily supply the amount of Herbs their alchemists needed. They didn’t need to purchase any.
More importantly, the crowd was so excited because the demand for Herbs was usually quite low. As useful potion recipes were extremely rare, demand for Herbs had dropped even further. In addition, Star-Moon Kingdom was not a Herb-poor kingdom, resulting in the prices of Herbs remaining relatively low.
Despite there being 20 Herbs in each stack, Ordinary Herbs only sold for 40 Copper per stack. Even Rare Herbs only sold for three Silver per stack. One could imagine just how worthless Herbs were.
Yet, even with such low prices, few people were willing to purchase Herbs, which explained why everyone was so excited to see Shi Feng.
Players would frequently encounter Herbs while adventuring, and they would usually collect these Herbs to sell in bulk at a later time.
Now, these players’ actions benefited Shi Feng.
In a short moment, Shi Feng had purchased 2,000 stacks of Ordinary Herbs and 200 stacks of Rare Herbs, spending 14 Gold in total. To other players, this might be an astronomical sum, but to Shi Feng, this was only a drop in the bucket.
“Sorry, but my bag’s full. Everyone, please wait here for a while. I’ll come back to purchase more in just a moment.” Shi Feng hurriedly turned and ran towards the Grand Duke’s mansion.
Reluctance filled the crowd’s eyes as they watched Shi Feng’s departing figure. However, when they heard that he would return to purchase more later, they all chose to remain there, quietly awaiting his return.
At this time of year, there were simply too few players willing to purchase Herbs. Now that one such player had emerged, how could they easily give up on this opportunity? They would wait a few hours if they had to, not to mention a few minutes.
The Grand Duke’s mansion was only a short distance from the Palace; the journey there only took Shi Feng a dozen minutes or so.
After entering the Grand Duke’s mansion, after the Level 150 Great Steward’s introduction, Shi Feng arrived before the Level 200 Grand Duke Hartfield. After a brief conversation, Grand Duke Hartfield began telling Shi Feng the problem burdening his daughter.
After which, Shi Feng received the Special Quest to acquire Herbs. He then retrieved the Herbs from his bag, one stack after another.
For every stack of Herbs Shi Feng turned in, he received 20 Copper and 2,000 EXP in return. Though Shi Feng took a loss of 20 Copper with each exchange, he did not pay it any mind.
Compared to forging, his leveling speed from handing in the Herbs was several times faster. As soon as he gave the Grand Duke the Herbs, he immediately received EXP. The process was very fast and convenient.
In mere moments, Shi Feng had turned in 1,500 stacks of Ordinary Herbs, earning a total of 3 Gold Coins and 3,000,000 EXP. In less than half an hour, Shi Feng’s experience bar rose significantly.
Earning 3,000,000 EXP in half an hour was an incredibly efficient way to level up. Unfortunately, after turning in the 1,500th stack of Herbs, he only received a Thank You Gift for every subsequent stack of Herbs he turned in.
As there were still a large number of players waiting for him to purchase their goods, Shi Feng wasted no time as he turned in all of the Herbs in his possession. Unlike Ordinary Herbs, he would receive ten Thank You Gifts for each stack of Rare Herbs. In terms of money, it was much more worthwhile to trade Rare herbs for the Gifts instead. Unfortunately, Rare Herbs were too scarce.