97 Chapter 92 - Merchant City - Part 1 Merchant

Jack stops cultivating. There's a knocking sound at his door, Xueli emits a yawn over in his mind as she wakes up too.

"Good morning... What an exciting night." Xueli says.

Jack stands up as his joints crack into alignment. "That was exciting? There was not enough happening. Why did we come here early?"

"Well, aren't we about to find out?" Xueli says just in time, matching her words with the knocking on the door. Jack wants to press her for what she means, he inspects his body and cannot feel anything different...

"Lord, Sir Albert wishes to speak with you. He says that you must hurry."

Jack lets out a sigh, "Oh yeah, that..." he mutters under his breath.

"Want to blow it all off?" Xueli snickers as her little snake form appears around his arm, her cute little white-scaled face flickers its tongue.

"No" Jack says as he flicks her head.

Xueli shakes her snakehead and gives Jack a menacing glare, he gives her a little rub causing her to disappear back into the tattoo around his arm.

"Oh I'll uhh inform Sir Albert that you don't wish to see him, Lord if you'll excuse me."

"No, sorry. I was just talking to someone else." Jack opens the door and informs the person on the other side. A random bunny assassin with grey ears and hair. Jack cannot even tell its gender as he briefly looks at it. That's unimportant, as he can hear the bustle going on behind them, the assassins are moving steadfastly, like they're dedicated to their role of administrative duties.

"Please inform Albert that I will see him shortly." Jack cuts to the chase as his eyes turn away from the background back to the assassin before him.

"Ok, my Lord." The bunny assassin salutes Jack, and walks back away from the doorway. Jack peeks out the door for a moment, several of them are looking at his direction, but they have a reverent gaze, he feels some strangeness about it as he closes the door again.

The sunlight brightly shines through the blinds, that can no longer darken the room. Their white color betraying their purpose. The room has nothing of his in it but who knows, perhaps this will slowly transform into his very own room.

Jack quickly gets himself ready for the day, as there's many important tasks ahead of him. But upon thinking about it, they're also rather boring. Meeting and greeting the various business contacts that Albert had acquired him in his day's time here. The merchant resident hasn't been around here for very long, so there is no way that he could have acquired more than a few business contacts. Plus, he was just a normal spawn, not some bigshot from the two empires.... There's no way that he could have done that much... right?

Jack tries to push that out of his mind, there's nothing that can be done about the things that need to be dealt with Albert. The bigger concern is Amber, they were scheduled to meet before the auction, but he has no idea how they're going to meet. Jack fixes up his clothing in the mirror, ensuring that he looks pristine for the long day ahead.

"The village should be fine right?"

"Probably..." Xueli mutters.

Jack sighs to himself, slapping his face once before remembering that his strength is enhanced in this world.

"Ow" He says with a dull tone and nurses his cheek slightly. Xueli is snickering in his mind while Jack leaves the room, the bunny assassins notice him almost immediately as they stop working; Then quickly get back to work again. Jack rolls his eyes as he walks out the narrow hallway into the dining room, looking for Albert. There's a table filled with paperwork here and at least 20 people whizzing around.

It's absolute chaos. That's all it can be called.

There's a system to the chaos though. But Jack cannot make it out just on his time walking through the messy room towards the meeting room in the back. The bunny assassins each create a wide berth for their leader as he walks through. Jack gives them a half-hearted salute before walking into the meeting room. He slams the door shut feeling like he'll never stop saluting people.

Albert and the other people in the room are left standing in silence on the other side of the table, they're standing before many documents and maps. They wait for Jack to turn around, when he finally does they ignore his expression and the sweat rolling over his temple.

"Lord!" they all greet Jack in unison, as if they'd agreed in private to do this.

Jack smiles and inwardly shakes his head, "Calm down, so what's the day's orders?"

"Lord, many incidents have taken place overnight in relationship to both items surrounding the auction and the marketplace before it. We have acquired some information in regards to it but are still lacking a lot. We would like to request some operations to procure some of the more important items, as outlined by General Bane."

"We're trying to acquire some items? Aren't they handled by the auction house...? Hmm..." Jack thinks for a moment. He's reminded of the incident last night. They were certainly doing things with the items up for the auction, so perhaps they could maybe try...

"Lord does not need to worry. We even suggest that Lord might join us in one of them, given his skills."

"Hmm, give me the information and I'll look it over." Jack smiles as he looks towards the bunny assassin that was talking. The bunny assassin looks pleased and softly exhales as he collects together some papers.

"Lord, I don't think that's a wise idea. We have a full morning of meeting the merchants that I have only recently gained connections with. If we do not placate them, then how will I be able to deal with them in the future? I have a reputation to uphold. I do not want to be outshined by Bane..."

"Bane? Why would you worry about him?"

"No reason...." Albert doesn't respond further while Jack is handed a piece of paper.

Jack raises an eyebrow at Albert while he looks over a piece of paper about the item to be traded, 'High Value item, Tier 6 Beast Blood - Unknown information. Possible Auction item, traded by Ygnis Group, links to Apricot Town. Level 2, District C.'.

"That's not a lot of information to go on... Is that really it?"

"Lord, we did not want to mislead you with incomplete information. We do not know the total size, but they are about 15 units from initial information gathering. A 90% success rate is achievable with Lord's assistance."

"Whatever, I'll see how it goes as I think there might be things planned at lunchtime."

"Of course, my Lord." The bunny assassin walks away from the table then disappears. Jack nods his head slightly when the assassin leaves into what seems like the thin air.

"So Albert, what is the plan for today?"

Jack turns to Albert with a slight expectation that maybe something interesting could be happening. His thoughts wander about as he talks in his mind 'it's a fantasy world and there's no interesting characters in this merchant city? This whole damn city is in some sort of natural cave that no one seems to care about... the damn ceiling is made of crystal that refracts the light of the sky somehow and no one even cares about it?'

"First we need to meet with the Artisans Bazaar as we have a major contract there that I cannot jeopardize. That should take no more than 20 minutes. After that we will meet with Keith, he runs the Riverside Ores chain. They have stores in each city of the region and are an important source of information, not that Bane would admit to that. They would like to meet with Lord before the Auction as they have met many other players and are unsatisfied."

Jack raises an eyebrow again at Albert, "Umm, alright I'll let you lead the way but I hope that we're going to some sort of scroll store."

"Of course my Lord." Albert bows towards Jack.

Jack gives a brief smile at this response, "Good. That's about all we need to sort out for now. Send me your word if Amber happens to send a message, I'm wondering where she is."

"Of course Lord!" The people in the room respond in unison, while Albert leads Jack out the door tugging on his arm.

Jack is being held as Albert rushes out of the room, the bustle of the dining area cannot interrupt Albert as he trudges through them and outside the apartment door. Jack attempts to walk beside him but Albert uses that as a cue to speed up, they're soon running down the stairs in unison and quickly making it down to the bottom floor of their hotel.

Albert finally lets go when they're on the street. He catches his breath for a moment then turns to Jack.

"Lord, we will not be able to walk the distance, I suggest we use a carriage."

Jack looks up to the sky as the strange sunlight beams onto his face, "Why wasn't one organised previously?" he asks.

"Lord, unfortunately they were all reserved by people with high status, and as Lord is not anything but a commoner, we cannot reserve anything specifically, we must rely on either our own transport or hire the street side transport" Albert explains with a frustrated look signalling down a carriage.

The carriages continually pass by the two of them. Jack frowns at this response as what he had thought would be rather simple, yet, is surprisingly complicated. It takes several minutes before a carriage finally stops and lets the two of them on. It's a simple carriage that smells rather foul, but it's a private carriage as opposed to a shared one.

Albert speaks to the driver for a moment before passing over the fare. A gold coin is handed, causing the driver's eyes to light up as he pulls away hurriedly.

"How long until we reach the destination?" Jack asks.

"Not long, most of the traffic is flowing to their waiting destination. We're just lucky we caught a driver going in our direction."

"Ah lucky we then. How long until we hit the scroll store?"

"Oh, uhh... not long." Albert chuckles while turning his head away.

Jack feels that Albert is being rather evasive about the topic but doesn't press on it. They have to take care of their duties, both of them, and it seems rather early so there should be plenty of time.

The carriage slowly proceeds down the narrow road, way past all the stores. Jack slowly wonders why this is a merchant city as it seems rather isolated in this cave system but he doesn't question it as the traffic is flowing about from literally everywhere. That's not a concern, as the drivers appear almost formless. The countless storefronts fly by, each one of them selling something more marvelous looking than the last, but not sparking him any interest in the slightest after just a few minutes.

Jack's eyes close as he watches everything that goes on around him, his awareness expands as he's able to listen to the city behind the street, the countless houses above the stores where the people live. They're trying to go about their business during the days but they're always struggling, they don't have a method to ensure their livelihood as they're at the behest of their overlords. Some people get ahead but many people get left behind as people right next door to each other don't even realise they have to sell what the other needs to live.

His mind takes all of this in as his spiritual awareness penetrates further, backed by his divine sense. He maintains this state until Albert speaks.

"Lord we are here. That was amazing."

"What?" Jack shakes his head and opens his eyes.

"You entered a meditative state even in such conditions, I have never seen such prowess."

"Oh uhh, thanks. I am far behind others like Leah... So who are we meeting?"

"We are meeting Carl."

Albert opens the carriage doorway and reveals a rather ridiculously decorated storefront, Artisans Bazaar is plastered on the front in brightly lit letters. Jack has a bad feeling about this as he steps outside the carriage after Albert.

"Carl... ok. What about?"

"Our latest trade."