Chapter 2174 - Frightening Stone Forest City

Chapter 2174 – Frightening Stone Forest City
Within the magnificent reception room, Shi Feng began to sign contracts with the various Guild representatives.
Any Guild that joined the Candlelight Chamber of Commerce would qualify to participate in the auction for the Crystal Light Sets, which would take place once every three days. Candlelight would offer three to five sets in each auction session, and the Guilds would only be allowed to win a single bid. In addition, the Candlelight Trading Firm would offer other precious items, such as Exotic Stamina Potions, Stamina Gemstones, Advanced Mana Armor Kits, rare Master Potions, and more. Each member of the Chamber could even earn the rights to purchase Miniature Ballistas, depending on their contributions to the Chamber.
With this revelation, every Guild representative was ecstatic, especially those from the various small Guilds. At this point, obtaining a temporary Residence in Stone Forest City didn’t matter much compared to the items Zero Wing was willing to sell.
After three short hours, the Candlelight Chamber of Commerce had nearly 200 members, and Zero Wing had secured a massive alliance. Among these Guilds, Shining Tiger and Unyielding Soul had instantly become advanced members; both Guilds had presented an offer that Shi Feng couldn’t refuse.
Not only had Shining Tiger offered to open two kingdoms’ markets to the Candlelight Chamber of Commerce, but it had also agreed to give Zero Wing the complete Refinement Realm Legacy and a large stock of special materials. In addition, Shining Tiger had promised to fight alongside Zero Wing to protect Stone Forest City.
Although Unyielding Soul had only given the Chamber access to a single kingdom’s market and a portion of the Dark Night Empire’s, it had offered to provide some of the training data it had gained from its Flowing Water Realm experts. Furthermore, it had agreed to supply training facilities and energy resources, in addition to 10 unlimited training slots for Refinement Realm experts in its training system, which would allow these players to earn the experience necessary to reach the Flowing Water Realm quickly.
The unlimited training slots Unyielding Soul had offered weren’t like those from the Secret Pavilion. Zero Wing’s members would be free to fight any Refinement Realm or Flowing Water Realm expert they desired, and they could do so without limit. On the other hand, Zero Wing’s members had to earn points in the Secret Pavilion’s training system, which they would have to spend to train against their desired experts.
Of course, the Secret Pavilion had chosen this approach because of the high cost of doing otherwise.
Not only was High-level Energy extremely rare, but it was also quite versatile, useful in many aspects. As a result, it was strictly regulated. Even international corporations could only acquire limited amounts of High-level Energy, and simulating expert players required a lot of it. The more powerful an expert was, the more energy a system would need to mimic them. Even the Secret Pavilion could only afford for a select few talented members to use the system.
If Unyielding Soul hadn’t been so desperate to secure a temporary Residence in Stone Forest City, it would never have offered 10 unlimited training slots to Zero Wing.
Of course, Unyielding Soul could only afford this offer because Zero Wing had too few experts that could actually use their training slots, especially when challenging Flowing Water and Void Realm experts. Zero Wing wasn’t even a match for ordinary superpowers in this regard.
Although Shi Feng knew that Unyielding Soul was taking advantage of him, he didn’t mind. Many of Zero Wing’s experts, including Aqua Rose, Gentle Snow, Fire Dance, Violet Cloud, Shadow Sword, Flying Shadow, Alluring Summer, and Cola, were stuck in the Refinement Realm. However, their failure to progress wasn’t due to a lack of talent, but a lack of combat experience. They weren’t like Shi Feng, who had accumulated an abundance of combat experience in God’s Domain. If Shi Feng hadn’t retained his memories from his previous life, he would never have been able to jump from the Refinement Realm to the Flowing Water Realm so smoothly.
If Aqua Rose and her companions trained with Unyielding Soul’s system, Shi Feng was confident that it wouldn’t be long before they became Flowing Water Realm experts. Then, they’d be able to help Zero Wing far more than ever before.
Overall, the 10 unlimited training slots Unyielding Soul had offered were even more valuable than Shining Tiger’s complete Refinement Realm Legacy.
However, Unyielding Soul and Shining Tiger’s offers weren’t the greatest harvest Zero Wing had obtained. The partnership with so many small Guilds was worth far more. With these small Guilds in the Candlelight Chamber of Commerce, Candlelight had gained access to the markets in 12 kingdoms and three empires. Although these small Guilds couldn’t offer quite as much access as Unyielding Soul and Shining Tiger, it was more than enough for the Candlelight Trading Firm for now.
Zero Wing even surpassed ordinary superpowers in terms of sales connections after this deal. The various superpowers would have to think twice before trying to assault Zero Wing’s financial prowess now.
Starlink’s economic hindrance had only been so successful due to Zero Wing’s limited range of influence. As a result, Zero Wing’s Shops had been easy targets. However, now that Zero Wing could reach across over a dozen kingdoms and empires, not even superpowers could hamper its financial development.
Moreover, Zero Wing would have a much easier time collecting materials now. With a single word, the Guild could acquire a stockpile of whatever material it needed, as long as it wasn’t a super-rare material. This would be a great help to the Candlelight Trading Firm.
Once Shi Feng had signed all of the contracts with these Guilds’ representatives, he left the rest to Aqua Rose and Gentle Snow. He then returned his focus to managing Stone Forest City’s construction and recruiting NPC soldiers.
Although Stone Forest City had been open for less than a day, more than 1,000,000 players had surged into the city. If not for the Bottomless Abyss’s harsh environment and the difficulty of traversing the Dungeon, the city’s player population would likely have been more than five times that.
However, the 1,000,000-plus visitors had earned Shi Feng a fortune.
It’s no wonder why the Guilds that had established cities in the Bottomless Abyss had developed so quickly in the past. Shi Feng was astonished when he saw the income Stone Forest City had generated thus far.
By charging each player 4 Silver per entry, Stone Forest City had netted 51,204 Gold in entry fees alone. There was also the income from the Battle Arena and Auction House to take into account. Even though players couldn’t yet shop at the Candlelight Trading Firm, the city would earn more than 100,000 Gold per day. Not even top-ranked first-rate Guilds saw so much profit in a day.
This was only the beginning. As more players visited Stone Forest City, Zero Wing could earn more than 200,000 Gold every day from the city, even after deducting the Secret Pavilion’s shares…
Ordinary superpowers would count their blessings if they had 200,000 Gold in liquid funds, but Stone Forest City had the potential to earn far more than that in the future. Any ordinary superpower that wanted to target Zero Wing in a war of attrition would only regret the decision.
Naturally, the Guild’s debts, such as that for Silverwing Town’s airport, were no longer a problem.
The sudden influx of so much money gave Shi Feng the freedom to consider plans he hadn’t been able to attempt due to a lack of funds. For example, he could finally retaliate against Starlink on the Dark Night Empire’s market, while also developing the Lost Town and Silverwing Town.
Usually, insufficient player populations and popularity were the greatest problems a Guild faced when developing its towns, but neither was an issue for Zero Wing. Rather, Zero Wing struggled with needing enough funding to develop its towns.
Shi Feng used the money Stone Forest City had earned so far to construct Shops, hotels, restaurants, bars, smithies, and private housing within the city. Recruiting NPC soldiers wasn’t an issue, either, and he was able to gear them all in sets of Fine-Gold Equipment. Now, even a random Tier 2 NPC soldier in the city could slay a Tier 2 expert. Even peak experts would have to think twice before committing a crime in Stone Forest City.
Shi Feng didn’t bother to gear his NPCs in Dark-Gold Equipment due to the whopping 1,500 Gold cost. He could only afford to give 10 Tier 2 NPCs with the highest Growth Potential Dark-Gold ranked items. In a one-on-one fight, even monster-level experts would have to flee from these NPCs. If three or four of these Tier 2 NPCs surrounded an offending monster-level expert, that expert would be doomed.
While Shi Feng focused on Stone Forest City’s development, news of the Candlelight Chamber of Commerce spread to God’s Domain’s various powers, causing a commotion throughout the game.