Although construction is complete, there's still some time before the city opens. The territory's new "Trading Hall" offers a perfect opportunity to browse the market for valuable finds.
First, Jack opens the communication area. The thousand-member newbie group is lively as ever, though most of its content lacks substance. It's mainly complaints, grievances, and requests for help. Being a new Lord is no easy feat—juggling strategies against Adventurers and guarding against threats from Dark Kind and monsters. As a result, the group's daily 'misery tournament' has become a staple.
Jack still has 11 zombie soul essences left. In the Tidal Secret Realm of the Doomsday Frenzy, ordinary Zombies abound, and the soul essence drop rate is quite high. Deploying these monsters costs nothing, but extracting the soul essence consumes 1 point of Jack's mental power. This small expenditure is negligible. With high future production expected, there's no need to hoard this small amount of soul essence.
After some thought, Jack lists the 11 ordinary zombie soul essences on the trading area. These "ordinary zombie soul essences" are first-tier, gray quality soul essences, also known as common quality. However, soul essences of the same tier vary in quality, divided by star rating—one-star gray, two-star gray, three-star gray, and so on. The higher the star rating, the better the quality, generally up to five stars. Jack's zombie soul essence is one-star gray. Based on recent market data, this quality soul essence typically sells for 7-15 soul crystals.
Despite being the lowest-grade gray soul essence, Jack believes his has two major advantages. First, ordinary zombie soul essences offer numerous monster templates, including Anti-riot Zombies, worker Zombies, firefighter Zombies, and more. This variety allows for strategic selection during monster creation or mercenary building, making them practical among first-tier units. Second, as a new soul essence, it holds considerable value, making it a desirable purchase for Lords looking to entice Adventurers.
Jack lists them at 15 crystals each. Whether they sell or not, it's a market test and a sample for future large-scale shipments.
After listing, he browses the trading area. Despite being a new Lords' trading area, there's a variety of goods, especially monster soul essences:
- **Goblin Soldier Soul Essence**: one-star gray, priced at 9 soul crystals.
- **Skeleton Archer Soul Essence**: one-star gray, priced at 12 soul crystals.
- **Kobold Hunter Soul Essence**: two-star gray, priced at 20 soul crystals.
Jack isn't very interested in soul essences, so he shifts focus to other items—food, materials, recipes, equipment, and blueprints. Blueprints intrigue him the most:
- **Blueprint: Skeleton Barracks**: first-tier special blueprint, priced at 2400 soul crystals.
- **Blueprint: Mercenary Enhancement Camp**: first-tier special blueprint, priced at 2000 soul crystals.
- **Blueprint: Primary Barrier Tower**: first-tier special building, priced at 3200 soul crystals.
Expensive! Even the cheapest first-tier special building blueprints exceed a thousand soul crystals, while practical facilities, particularly those protecting the Underground City, start at three thousand. Jack's current finances can't cover these costs, so he can only admire them for now.
While browsing trading information and other Lords' complaints, a notification pops up:
**Ding, Lord 0340 purchased 11 "zombie soul essences," you have obtained 165 soul crystals!**
What's going on? They were all bought out! Jack wonders if the price was too low. He quickly retrieves the soul crystals from the market.
Soul crystals +162. Why three less? It's the trading market's handling fee!
The Lord trading market operates under rules to facilitate efficient transactions and prevent price gouging. All sold goods incur a 1% hourly fee. Jack's 11 zombie soul essences were listed for nearly 2 hours, incurring a 3 soul crystal fee.
"If they sell for 15 soul crystals each, I could get rich selling Zombies in the future!" Jack muses.
Just then, he receives a private message from the buyer who bought all the zombie soul essences.
Lord 0340: "Friend, do you have more of this zombie soul essence? I'd like to buy more."
Jack has no stock left but doesn't say so directly.
"My territory has plenty of this soul essence, but I don't need soul crystals right now, so I'm not selling."
Feigning disinterest!
Lord 0340: "I need to attack a fire-attributed alien stronghold and require basic combat units with high fire resistance. If you're willing to sell, I'm open to bartering!"
That's why. Among ordinary Zombies, some types have particularly high fire resistance, like firefighter Zombies and biohazard suit Zombies. This explains the high price.
Jack replies: "What can you offer? I'll decide after seeing it."
Lord 0340 displays several items, including good materials and equipment, indicating a high rank, but they're useless to Jack now. Finally, the other party offers a blueprint.
**Adventurer's Inn**: first-tier special building, construction cost: 300 soul crystals, 150 mental power, 150 first-tier material essence.
This is promising! An Adventurer's Inn is a common special building, instantly increasing territory capacity by 100. It also provides overnight service for Adventurers, allowing them to stay and recover energy. The inn offers two major benefits: Adventurers can stay overnight, avoiding city entry lines, and the Underground City can recruit them for activities. For instance, a mercenary team can quickly assemble if external threats arise. Building service facilities enhances Adventurer experience, recovers contribution points, and stabilizes their value.
Lord 0340 offers: "This blueprint can exchange for at least 120 zombie soul essences!"
At 15 crystals each, worth 1800 soul crystals. The blueprint is rightly valued.
Jack counters: "120 is too much; I'll offer 60 at most."
"What? 60!"
"Forget it if it doesn't work."
Confident, Jack knows his need for the inn isn't as great as the buyer's need for soul essence, so he maintains control.
Lord 0340 insists: "This blueprint's value won't drop below 100 one-star gray soul essences."
Finally, after negotiation, Jack agrees to exchange 85 zombie soul essences for the inn blueprint from Lord 0340, with a two-day completion time. The buyer accepts.
This deal is cost-effective. Clearing the Doomsday Frenzy novice instance isn't hard. Each clear has at least a 50% chance of dropping ordinary zombie soul essence. With the territory's scale and growth, it's estimated that 100 ordinary zombie soul essences can be produced daily. Even if only 50 are recovered, less than two days will suffice.
Zombie soul essence cost is low. Future shortages are unlikely. "Zombie export" could become a vital foreign trade pillar and core competitiveness for Miracle City!
Excited, Jack can't wait to let Adventurers in, eager for them to grind secret realms and drop soul essences.
With the Chaos Tide's return, fifteen minutes remain until Miracle City opens. Jack anticipates the fun and surprises today's Adventurers will bring, and the new batch of 'cattle, sheep, and leeks' are ready to go, arriving quickly!