Chapter 49- How to Negotiate With a Merchant
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However, even if Adori was young, she didn't act like most people her age. She didn't like to play around in general so she didn't spend her free time on the 2nd floor.
She also dislike swimming in the poolside since it was a public area since she didn't like to expose her skin. That was the reason why she always put on either a long robe or dress.
However, the point was, she had matured beyond her age and didn't want to waste her time playing around as most people did in their youth. That was one of the reasons she could achieve her current power and achievement.
Yes, Adori was talented and was granted the king's power but they didn't mean that much. Just look in the history how many Zahard princesses died before they even managed to become Rankers, it was a lot. And one of the biggest reasons was that they became reckless and presumptuous.
They thought nobody was going to target them since they were princesses or they thought they were invincible among the regulars, which might be true for most of the parts. Being confident was okay as long as one kept improving.
The problem was, once they thought they were unparalleled, they stopped improving.
Adori knew that she was nothing compared to the ancient beings like King Zahard so she trained her swordsmanship a lot since she liked swords. Although she wasn't as motivated as of now since she had a rival and a new purpose.
Liu Guanyi took out two iron bracelets and put them down on the counter. "Shopkeeper, can you make these items?"
A man with googles approached and looked at them. He had dirty and messy hair as even his white coat looked gray stained with dirt.
"Hmm…" He looked unsure until he tried to raise it up. "I see, these two are some fine trinkets. Well, I can make similar items of course but they won't come cheap."
"Custom-made items are much harder to make you see, and I need to craft them on my own so they are expensive. What do you say?" The merchant raised his head to look at him.
"How much each of them will be around?" Liu Guanyi tried to probe more.
"With the same level of specifications, it will be three hundred thousand points each." He said concisely with a calm look as if he had simply stated the absolute fact.
"Isn't that too much don't you think, what about fifty thousand each?" Liu Guanyi had a polite smile on his face as he dropped the price very hard to determine the exact cost to make them. He couldn't exactly ask Locke about that, after all.
"Are you joking, dear customer? The materials might be cheap but to compress them and to make the alloy with Suspendium costs a lot."
"It must be two hundred eighty at worst." The merchant almost dropped his jaw and his kind-looking façade when he heard the price.
"You said that you produce them yourselves, without a middleman the price should be much cheaper. I'll be honest, I think seventy-five thousand is a fair deal." Liu Guanyi said with a serious, straight face.
"No way! I'm not making any gains out of this deal. Making those alloys are hard, plus I still have to compress them."
"At least two hundred fifty thousand to cover my efforts and expenses." He strongly argued, it looked like the customer this time was a witty and shameless one.
"Hmm, I thought pure Suspendium is much more expensive than its alloys? Why I can find the alloy everywhere inside any items on the market? Are you intentionally jacking up the prices for inexperienced customers?"
"If you are sincere then one hundred thousand should be more than enough." Liu Guanyi said as he stared at his eyes intensely.
As Adori was looking from the side, she didn't expect him to have such a good skill to bargain with the shopkeeper, he was truly experienced from all sides.
Other than a few things, she could hardly find anything that he didn't have experience in it.
"W-well, they are indeed cheap but the process to maintain them after compression is hard! I can't sell it lower than two hundred thousand points, dear customer." The merchant nervously answered.
He had lost a bit of his cool as he instantly decreased the price by fifty thousand.
"I see, you are playing innocent, huh? Let's go, princess, this shop is trying to scam us. Let's not waste your precious time with this shady inventor and just visit another shop who can see the risk of scamming a princess." Liu Guanyi said to Adori at the side and walked away.
The merchant's thoughts collided extremely fast as he processed what he had just heard. 'Wait… did he just say a princess!?'
He looked at where Liu Guanyi spoke to and saw the beautiful white-haired girl on the side and the red hairpin with three eyes on her hair.
"W-wait, dear customers! I'm truly sorry for trying to deceive your highness! Please give me a chance to rectify my mistake!" He called out to them desperately as he admitted his "crime" quickly.
He had to fix the situation before it fully blew up into something he couldn't control anymore.
Liu Guanyi's mouth curled up into a smirk. "Now, shouldn't you have done this before, o dear seller?"
After he said that, the merchant turned to the white-haired girl on the side. Seeing that the princess didn't say anything and only nodded at Liu Guanyi's words, the merchant wailed and felt resentment in his heart.
'Damn it! Why I didn't pay attention to the side? I wouldn't have been driven to the corner like this if I did!' He cursed inwardly. He was f*cked up, at least his chance to profit from them.
"Now, how much do you think each one of these will be?" Liu Guanyi walked back and asked him once again.
"Umm, one hundred thousand?" The merchant spoke nervously as he looked at Liu Guanyi's face to see his reactions.
Liu Guanyi continued to stare at him coldly. "O-okay, fifty thousand each!" The merchant finally gave in to the pressure.
Hearing this, Liu Guanyi's mouth curled up into a smile. "If you did it from the beginning wouldn't it have made the deal much easier for both of us?"