Chapter 130: One Small Step For Players, One Giant Leap For Obsidian
“Do they want to join?”
Lin Qi was quite surprised when he heard this. He had not expected that Flo and the others would actually give up even the Green Sparrow Gang and think about joining the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
Was the treatment in the Green Sparrow Gang really that bad?
A vice gang leader position, and they just gave it up?
“They already applied to join yesterday, but you were away the whole time, so this matter was temporarily put on hold,” Zhang Qing Wei explained. “Right now they are all helping manage the vagrants’ house construction issues, and helping maintain public order in the trading area. There are too many vagrants coming over to set up stalls now. Just yesterday alone, two thousand stalls were set up. Today it increased to three thousand and it is still not enough. Our numbers are limited and we really cannot manage it all, so we could only have Vice Gang Leader Flo help with management.”
“Three thousand stalls and that is still not enough?” Meng Wei could not help but suck in a cold breath beside them.
Their Iron Heart Gang had fought desperately to compete for the management fees of those thousand or so shops on Nanxing Street, even gambling the rise and fall of the gang itself on a battle with the Two-Headed Gang.
Three thousand stalls, this scale already rivaled some small wilderness towns.
And the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall did not need to do anything. Just collecting stall fees from three thousand stalls every day was enough to make their hands go numb from taking money.
Even if the stall fee for a single stall was calculated a bit lower, at two hundred bits a day, three thousand stalls would mean six hundred thousand bits per day, and eighteen million bits a month, which was already comparable to Nanxing Street.
And these were only stall fees. The main profits of the transit market had always come from shop goods reselling, with amounts generally five to six times those of the stalls. After all, most wilderness nomads came to sell the items in their hands to the management factions in exchange for living supplies, and those willing to set up stalls were actually the minority.
That meant the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall’s monthly income could reach one hundred million bits, with monthly profit several times higher than that of the entire Iron Heart Gang.
“Alright, let them join,” Lin Qi thought for a moment and felt that Flo was indeed a management talent. Especially since players only understood the human race language, unlike Flo who knew several languages, it was indeed much more convenient for him to manage the stalls at Crimson Moon Mountain. “From now on, let them manage the stalls in this trading area. As for their treatment, let it match what they had in the Green Sparrow Gang for now.”
“I understand,” Zhang Qing Wei nodded, then pointed to an open-air stall not far away and said, “The hall master has also arrived early. Do you want to go over and have a meal? That stall is a restaurant we set up. It is currently very popular with some passing caravans.”
“Alright, I will also try the food you made,” Lin Qi glanced at that stall. He had not expected the players had actually started this kind of business, and the stall was packed with people. He could even see quite a few quasi-martial artists eating there, so the taste should be good.
Although this was a high martial arts world with advanced technology, most ordinary people mainly ate synthetic food. Those with some money would eat fast food, and the more extravagant would eat blood essence rice and ridiculously expensive organic vegetables.
Although he now had quite a few bits on hand, at the martial arts hall he only ate instant noodles to improve the taste a little; most of the time he ate purely to replenish energy.
Then Zhang Qing Wei led Lin Qi and the other three to find a table inside the stall and sit down.
“Excuse me, what does this ‘points’ mean? How many bits is it worth?” Qiao Hanlan looked at the menu. The food was very simple, just roasted meat with blood essence rice, which counted as quite a common meal in wilderness camps and did not seem special. But the points on the menu left him confused.
A serving of roasted meat rice was priced at 100 points. What kind of ridiculous price was that?
“This is the currency we use in the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall,” Zhang Qing Wei explained. “You can consider one point equal to one bit.”
“One hundred bits? For one serving of roasted meat rice?” Qiao Hanlan was stunned.
He had eaten roasted meat rice before. Many restaurants in the suburbs had it, but it was only around thirty bits, which was already quite expensive.
Roasted meat rice for one hundred bits was something he had never seen, not even in restaurants in the city proper.
As Meng Wei’s disciple, his status in the Iron Heart Gang was not low, and he received twenty thousand bits a month, making him one of the wealthier people in the suburbs. Most ordinary people only earned three to four thousand bits a month.
If he really ate one serving of roasted meat rice at one hundred bits every day, he could not afford to live.
“One point equals one bit?” Lin Qi was also taken aback when he heard this.
Back then, for convenience, he had set ten points equal to one bit. The main reason was that he simply did not have many supplies in his hands for players to redeem, so he used points, essentially an empty promise, to motivate players to work.
But unexpectedly, after coming to Crimson Moon Mountain, players had managed to raise one point to equal one bit. With so many wilderness nomads coming to eat, not a single person had any objection?
“Then let’s each have one serving,” Meng Wei glared at Qiao Hanlan, feeling he was making a fuss over nothing. Although it was a bit expensive, it was not unaffordable.
“Alright! Five servings of roasted meat rice!” Zhang Qing Wei immediately called out to the Heavenly Might members who were cooking.
In less than ten minutes, five servings of roasted meat rice were placed in front of Lin Qi and the others.
Lin Qi started eating without much concern. To him, game meat was all about the same; he just wanted to taste the meat. But after Meng Wei and the other two took a bite of the roasted meat, they suddenly froze on the spot, looking at each other with shock in their eyes.
“You… is this roasted meat made from monster meat?” Qiao Hanlan could not help asking Zhang Qing Wei.
Even from a single bite, the energy contained in the meat was extremely rich, almost identical to the monster meat he had eaten at the Iron Heart Gang’s celebration banquet, and perhaps even better.
Just by eating this monster meat, Qiao Hanlan could feel the cells in his body becoming more active. If he could eat it once a day, the improvement speed of his physical fitness and qi and blood would increase significantly.
However, almost all monster meat was obtained through hunting by martial artists and was basically all acquired by the major powers in the city proper. Very little monster meat circulated in the market, and even truly rich people found it difficult to buy.
The Iron Heart Gang’s monster meat was the result of the gang’s senior officials pooling their strength to hunt with great difficulty. They would lose many people during each hunt, and the high-ranking members did not receive much of it each time.
Although he was the disciple of the vice gang leader, being able to eat monster meat three or four times a month was already good. Other members of the gang would feel blessed to eat it once a month.
“Yes, the food at our Heavenly Might restaurant has always been excellent value. One hundred points is absolutely worth it,” Zhang Qing Wei said.
“Hall Master Lin, can you really let outsiders casually eat your monster meat here?” Meng Wei glanced over the stall filled with people, looking at Lin Qi in utter shock.
In the suburban gangs, monster meat could be said to be the foundation of a gang. It allowed them to cultivate more experts.
So gangs that obtained monster meat would never sell it externally.
It was hard to imagine that the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall would openly sell monster meat in the wilderness, even letting visiting nomads eat it freely. This was simply too crazy.
Although Meng Wei knew that it was not difficult for the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall to obtain monster meat—the two Crocodile Fang Rhinoceroses at the mountain gate were the best example—he still found it hard to imagine that Lin Qi would be so generous.
With so much monster meat, just cultivating their own faction could produce countless quasi-martial artists. Over time, all the suburban gangs would be nothing but jokes.
“Trade is free at Crimson Moon Mountain. As long as someone can afford it, of course we will sell,” Lin Qi looked at the shocked and astonished Meng Wei and suddenly felt that selling monster meat at Crimson Moon Mountain was also quite a good trade. It could even boost the reputation of Crimson Moon Mountain and attract more nomads.
With that money, he could quickly complete the martial arts hall’s expansion and further increase the number of players. Otherwise, with primary administrator authority, five hundred people were simply not enough.
“Hall Master Lin, with your word, I can represent the gang leader and agree to the previous cooperation,” Meng Wei took a deep breath when he heard this and looked at Lin Qi with utmost seriousness. “In addition, I also want the Iron Heart Gang to merge into the Obsidian Martial Arts Hall. I hope Hall Master Lin can agree.”
