Chapter 88: Welcome To Scarlet Moon Mountain
The blazing sun hung high in the sky.
Crimson Moon Mountain, which usually had hardly any people, was now filled with large numbers of players drenched in sweat, each of them excitedly shuttling through the mine as if they were tireless robots, leaving the unregistered nomads who had come to Crimson Moon Mountain to deliver building materials staring in disbelief.
“These people from Obsidian Martial Arts Hall really are a bunch of lunatics. How can they be this addicted to mining?”
“Damn! I think I just saw several advanced apprentices mining too!”
“No way, those are advanced apprentices. In major wilderness gangs, they are senior officials. Obsidian Martial Arts Hall actually lets them mine?”
“Could it be that Obsidian Martial Arts Hall is so short on people that they have to send them to mine?”
“But don’t normal gangs hire vagrants to mine? Why would they need to do it themselves?”
“Good point. You don’t think Obsidian Martial Arts Hall plans to use delivering these building materials as an excuse to keep all of us here mining, do you?”
Dozens of three-eyed tribe vagrants, who had driven tricycles over to transport building materials and professional equipment, looked at the apprentice-level players constantly running out from the mine with energy ore on their backs, and for a moment they all became a little nervous, not daring to approach Obsidian Martial Arts Hall’s warehouse.
A major wilderness gang ranked forty-second was not hiring unregistered nomads to mine, but actually letting a group of apprentice-level experts dig. It was simply unimaginable what such a gang would have unregistered nomads do.
The discussion and nervous atmosphere among these three-eyed tribe vagrants soon drew the attention of the newcomer players carrying ore.
“Brother Twilight of the Gods, what do you think those three-eyed NPCs are talking about? They all look so nervous,” a total newbie who had just entered High Martial Arts Descend asked curiously while carrying a large sack filled with energy ore, glancing toward the tense three-eyed tribe vagrants standing by the tricycles.
“They’re probably speaking their racial language. I don’t understand it either.” Twilight of the Gods, who was also carrying a large sack, took a look and shook his head, then quickly cast a wary gaze at the three-eyed tribe vagrants. “But seeing how nervous they are, especially when they see us carrying energy ore, it’s very likely they think we are stealing their business.”
“Stealing their business?” Saiwai Qiangke beside him asked in confusion. “What business are we stealing?”
“Saiwai, you don’t know. When I came to Crimson Moon Mountain two days ago, I deliberately scouted the whole place and saw a mine managed by the Green Sparrow Gang. That place was full of alien vagrants mining,” Twilight of the Gods explained. “I heard those alien vagrants were hired by the Green Sparrow Gang. These three-eyed tribe vagrants probably came because the Master of the Pavilion hired them to mine. When they see us digging up so much ore, of course they get nervous. There’s only so much energy ore. Every bit dug is less left. Once it’s gone, there’s nothing left to dig.”
“Damn! You’re right. Then we need to speed up. If those NPCs come over to snatch the ore, we’ll be able to mine even less.” Saiwai Qiangke immediately looked warily at the three-eyed tribe vagrants, and his carrying speed also quickened.
Over these two days, the three teams had been going all out in order to gain a foothold in Crimson Moon Mountain and have their own residences, even slowing down their strategy guide progress in the maze tunnels.
After Saiwai Qiangke and the others swept their sharp gazes over the three-eyed tribe vagrants, the three-eyed tribe vagrants were close to tears, increasingly convinced that Obsidian Martial Arts Hall had brought them here to deliver goods with ill intentions.
Lin Qi walked out of the warehouse and looked at the three-eyed tribe vagrants who had not moved for a long time. He had no idea why these vagrants were staring so intently at the players mining.
“Carry all the goods inside,” Lin Qi said in the High Martial Arts World’s common language.
“Understood, respected sir!” The three-eyed tribe vagrants were instantly as if granted amnesty, quickly moving the building materials and mechanical equipment from the tricycles into the warehouse.
“It really is a problem that we can’t communicate. Looks like I need to find someone proficient in the common language to handle Crimson Moon Mountain’s daily affairs,” Lin Qi thought, watching the three-eyed tribe vagrants work quickly. He immediately understood that they probably had not understood the player reception instructions and had been idle, simply watching the players mine.
Since the High Martial Arts World had too many races, many races had their own languages. And the City of Light Chasing was originally a human race city. Even though it was rebuilt a hundred years ago and has since been jointly managed by many alien races, human language was still one of the mainstream languages in the City of Light Chasing, and many aliens would learn it.
But it was different in the wilderness. Alien vagrants who frequently roamed the wilderness were not like those who lived in cities. It was not easy just to fill their stomachs, so they hardly had time to learn the languages of other races.
According to Qin Mu and Luo Qi, in several major cities in the surrounding area, human language was useless. If you wanted to get by in those cities, you had to learn the common language, or the languages of the High Martial Arts World’s several peak races.
Now that Obsidian Martial Arts Hall wanted to gain a foothold in the wilderness, while players could not properly communicate with wilderness nomads, it was quite inconvenient. And Lin Qi could not stay in Crimson Moon Mountain all the time, so managing the vagrants who came to Crimson Moon Mountain would become very troublesome.
Over the past two days exploring Crimson Moon Mountain, Lin Qi had discovered that this place was quite good.
Although Crimson Moon Mountain was not on any major transportation route, it was not far from several big cities. The farthest was just over three hundred kilometers away, and the nearest, besides the City of Light Chasing, was Wanxing City, a little over two hundred kilometers away.
The major cities in the High Martial Arts World all had some trade exchanges. A few hundred kilometers was not much, but considering monsters in the wilderness, transport convoys and smuggler vagrants would move very slowly, unlike players who could roam freely.
So Crimson Moon Mountain, where there were hardly any monster activities along the way, could become an excellent resting place. Whether it was selling goods from other cities or simply supplying and resting for a while, it was a good choice.
If Crimson Moon Mountain could be built into a transit market, it would be a major source of income for Obsidian Martial Arts Hall.
Lin Qi had a real headache about expanding the martial arts hall. The required funds, roughly calculated, came to tens of millions of bits, and energy ore could not be sold. If they relied only on Fang Zhen and the others killing one gold-devouring unicorn rat every few days for profit, who knew in what distant future they would ever finish expanding the hall.
But if a transit market between cities could be established, it would bring in a huge flow of money, no less than opening a trade market in the suburbs. He would only need to sit and collect fees.
Of course, creating a transit market between cities had a major premise: the business environment.
Without a good and safe business environment, transport convoys and smuggler vagrants would never come.
The first step in building this was accommodation, which required constructing many houses. Players alone were far from enough. They would need to hire wilderness vagrants to do most of the work, and that required someone to manage them.
As for safety in Crimson Moon Mountain, Lin Qi was not worried.
Over these two days, thanks to the introduction of the new Startling Spirit Breathing Technique, both veteran players and new players had been improving rapidly. Now, the number of advanced apprentices alone had broken through to ten, intermediate apprentices exceeded thirty, and there were seventy apprentices in total. Their overall strength placed among the major wilderness gangs would rank around seventieth or eightieth.
As for Lin Qi himself, he had finally become a quasi-martial artist, which made him a local overlord among wilderness nomads.
Just as Lin Qi was busy developing Crimson Moon Mountain, a convoy drove up to the foot of the mountain.
“Brother Flo, are you sure this is Crimson Moon Mountain?”
Inside a large transport vehicle, a burly man with four arms looked in astonishment at Crimson Moon Mountain, now completely enclosed by wooden stakes like a mountain stronghold, with two wooden gates more than five meters high. Over six intermediate apprentices stood there like city guards, exuding an intimidating presence. One unregistered nomad after another submitted to inspections before entering Crimson Moon Mountain.
Flo, inside the vehicle, stared at Crimson Moon Mountain, which had been empty just a few days ago, completely dumbfounded.
