In the Mercenary City, the main branch of the Mercenary Association was as bustling as ever. The disciples were all discussing the most trending news on the continent.
That included the news of Li Shen’s hidden talents and death, as well as the upcoming Chosen Tournament in a few days.
Also, numerous geniuses on the Chosen Rankings started to challenge each other. They wanted to enter the tournament with a higher-ranked position.
One major piece of news from this was, that the once mysterious Poison Progenitor of the Poison Demonic Cult, whose name was now known to be Tongguo Xian, suddenly revealed himself and openly challenged the person at the third position of the rankings, Ling Yichen the Handsome Alchemist.
Ling Yichen was the number one genius of the younger generation from the Heaven Pillar Sect, a Holy Land for alchemists. on the Star Bound Continent. Despite the saying that alchemists weren’t battle oriented, this Ling Yichen had managed to showcase his talent in not only pill refinement, but martial arts and cultivation.
Using the Heaven Pillar Sect’s Legacy Cultivation Method, Grand Refinement of the Nine Heavens, he rose to the third rank position on the Chosen Rankings. However, now he had been knockdown to the fourth spot after battling Xian.
The leaderboards of the Chosen Rankings inside the Mercenary Association were crowded with people as they watch the rankings change in real-time.
This was the best they could do since they couldn’t personally see these fights. Which caused many grievances. However, that was about to change.
“No way! Monk Zimo is challenging sword genius, Lu Shin the sis-con, for the number one spot on the rankings!!”
A youth in the Mercenary Hall raise his head from a jade slip and cried out in shock and glee.
“What?!”
The immediate response was numerous cries of astonishment.
The strangely barefooted youth who cried out rushed towards the front of the crowd before taking out a weird-looking tablet. He fiddled with this tablet and soon runes lit up on it before a projection of a large stadium with two youths, one burly and one normal-looking standing facing each other.
“Wow! What is this device?”
The crowd momentarily took their attention away from the two youths, Zimo and Lu Shin, to marvel at this tech. If they weren’t wrong, this was the Mercenary Association’s stadium battle area on the Star Bound continent.
It was surreal for these disciples to be here on the Maple Continent while watching something live that was happening millions of kilometers away.
The barefooted youth smirked and introduced himself with cupped fists.
“Ladies and gentlemen! My name is Meng Haoran, but you can call me brother Haoran or brother Hao for short. This here device is an invention of mine that I have sold to the Mercenary Association. For those who won’t be able to attend the Chosen Tournament on the Star Bound Continent, you will still be able to watch it live from here!”
A small uproar of excitement ran through the crowd upon hearing that.
They didn’t know who this Haoran was, but to create something like this that even the Mercenary Association took interest in, he mustn’t be so simple.
Seeing the reaction of the crowd, Haoran’s excitement in his heart grew. This was his chance, he wasn't going to mess up his debut. His name was going to resound in the business world for decades, no, for centuries to come!
“Haha, I won’t waste fellow brother’s and sister’s time anymore, but know if you like this invention then you’ll definitely like this!”
Haoran said as he pulled out a plain-looking jade slip.
“Don’t be fooled by its appearance, this is a one-of-a-kind communication jade slip I’ve been working on for months! The enigmatic runes I inscribe on them are of my own creation and are top-tier! The range of it compared to other communication jade slips is over ten times, with even a mechanism that makes it so that only you alone can use this. Even Nascent Soul Realm cultivators won’t be able to forcefully use his when you have branded your soul imprint on it.”
As Haoran rattled off the features of his invention, someone suddenly yelled.
“Why don’t you sell me it? I’ll give you a thousand low-grade spirit stones.”
A rich-looking youth said that from the crowd and all eyes turned to him. If one wasn't convinced he was filthy rich, then they could look no further from the several rings he had that were made from precious high-grade spirit stones.
However, after all the praises Haoran had said about this communication jade slip, this person actually wanted to buy it for only one thousand low-grade spirit stones.
Haoran was a businessman so he didn’t mind the insulting offer. Instead, he smile respectfully and said in a professional manner.
“I’m sorry, but this is only a prototype and it isn’t for sale currently.”
The rich-looking youth frowned upon hearing Haoran’s words, but he suddenly raised his price to ten thousand low-grade spirit stones.
With the smile still on his face, Haoran shook his head.
The rich-looking youth made a few more offers that Haoran rejected, and the crowd just watch on silently not knowing what was going on.
They thought this was a joke at first, but the rich-looking youth actually raised the price to two million low-grade spirit stones. Despite being the lowest-grade spirit stones, not many people could fork out that much.
When Haoran refused his offer again, the rich-looking youth couldn’t take the constant rejection anymore so he pointed at Haoran and cursed.
“Bastard, I’m doing you a favor! There’s no way you’ll be able to sell that to the Mercenary Association. That device is way too expensive to make, and didn’t you say it took you several months to make it? Not to mention the communication jade slip market is already saturated. You won’t be able to break into it with that device since to make back the money spent creating these communication jade slips, the starting cost would have to be astronomical. Which fool would suffer a loss otherwise by making the starting price cheap? Who would want to buy such an expensive communication jade slip just for some slightly better features when it’s easier to buy a cheaper one that they're already used to?”
Haoran's eyes narrowed as he realized this youth wasn’t so simple. The crowd of disciples couldn't understand half of what the rich-looking youth said as well, but from his words, they could see his motives to get the communication jade slip isn’t what they thought it was.
Haoran with the same smile went to speak, but he was suddenly cut off by the rich-looking youth.
“Plus, there is a major flaw in your marketing. I bet those runes are unique only to that communication jade slip, meaning if you didn't have one of those, in order for you to send a message to someone they had to have one as well. It's a huge flaw considering all the jade slips manufactured are done so that any old or new ones are able to be compatible.”
Haoran only smiled slightly and said.
“Who do you think controls the largest market share of communication jade slips? I bet those noisy bastards were the ones who sent you here.”
Haoran only shook his head after saying that and decline to say anything further or explained what he meant.
The rich-looking youth’s eyes squinted but remained silent. He no longer made any offer to buy Haoran’s communication jade slip.
The rich-looking youth knew what Haoran's words meant.
The Mercenary Association was the one that had the largest share in the manufacturing of communication jade slips. If Haoran could convince the Mercenary Association to use his product, it wouldn’t be anything difficult for them to manipulate the market so it leaned heavily towards the usage of his own communication jade slips, making the rest obsolete.
Haoran ignored the rich-looking youth as he continued to take out more of his inventions to present them to the crowd he gathered.
The rich-looking youth slowly backed out of the crowd before swiftly leaving the Mercenary Hall.
Haoran watch him leave from the corner of his eyes, but he didn’t pause his actions.
One after another he took out his various inventions to wow the crowd. Though as much as the crowd love seeing these strange and bizarre gadgets, as well as how Haoran was pulling them out of his robes like a magic act, they were starting to get annoyed and impatient.
They gathered here to watch the battle between first place and second place on the Chosen Rankings, not to be bombarded by advertisements from Haoran.
However, none of them said anything nor didn’t anyone leave. It was Haoran's device so him doing his ads in exchange to allow them to watch the match-up was somewhat fair. They were willing to sit through all of Haoran's ad reads as much as it pains them since they were unavoidable.
“Interesting, they are all sorts of geniuses in this world. Franklin, I’m surprised by the amount and variety not only on this planet but in this sub-region.”
On the 31st floor of the Mercenary Association, Long Feng’s pupil-less eyes stared at a monitor showing Haoran's sales tactics of drawing the crowd's interest and making them stay. It was great crowd manipulation on his part, and Long Feng couldn't help but think he fit right in with this Mercenary Association.
Across from Long Feng was a veiled woman, who had her slender contours outlined by her elegant black robes. Her pale white hand held a teacup that she casually sipped under her thin black veil.
Even though her face was covered, one could immediately tell that under that veil was a really beautiful woman.
After taking a sip from her tea, the woman said humbly.
“This desolate sub-region indeed has some geniuses, but that’s mostly due to the Ancestral Clan’s Bloodlines. I’m sure compared to the Central Continent, these geniuses are only so-so.”
Long Feng had a small boy resting his head on one of his legs, and he ruffled his hair slightly. While looking at the monitor, Long Feng shook his head and said.
“That’s not entirely true Lady Ya. I’ve seen a few that had talents comparable to mine, and one that perhaps even surpasses mine. If he or these people were to cross the Heavenly Traversing Bridge and reach my Central Continent, all the top powers would be scrambling to take them in.”
Surprise flickered in the woman’s eyes but it wasn’t seen due to her veil. However, Long Feng suddenly said.
“Don’t be so surprised, it’s as you said, it’s because of the Ancient Clan bloodlines that were left behind here. But to be fair, I for one was completely shocked at first. I’ve never visited a sub-region like this. I wonder why the Ancient Clans would set up branches here only to abandon them later. They even created this Heavenly Traversing Bridge to prevent those above the Nascent Realm from leaving. Strange.”
A thoughtful expression made its way onto Long Feng’s face.
“Does Young Master Feng really not know?”
Lady Ya suddenly asked.
**
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