Chapter 26: The Marketplace

In the early morning, mild sunlight streamed through the window and fell on Jiang Ming, who was having sweet dreams on the bed.

The dazzling sunlight awakened Jiang Ming from his sleep.

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Jiang Ming sat up slowly. When he saw the quilt slipping down his body, he was taken aback a little. Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind and a sense of mild warmth rose in his heart. 'I didn't expect Chikage to be so warm-hearted.'

Thinking of Chikage, he tried looking for it in the messy room, but he didn't find it anywhere. He wondered, 'Where did Chikage go so early in the morning?'

"Squeak~"

Just as he finished speaking, he saw the door of the room being pushed open. Chikage was carrying a plastic bag in its mouth that held three fresh buns inside.

While Jiang Ming was still dumbstruck, Chikage threw the buns to him. Then, it curled up on the bed with fatigue and said to Jiang Ming, "Boss, I'll take a brief nap."

'Did it go out stealing at night? Why so tired?' Jiang Ming looked at Chikage who was already asleep and couldn't help but wonder. Looking at the three fresh buns in his hands, there was a warm smile on his face. 'This guy really went out stealing last night.'

Chikage had no money. Besides, even if it had money, would it be normal for a cat to go shopping? Thus, it was clear that these three buns should have been obtained by special means.

But no matter what, Chikage covered him with a quilt and brought him breakfast. This made Jiang Ming feel deeply moved.

After washing up and eating breakfast, Jiang Ming closed the door and lay on the bed, leaning against Chikage. Then, he put the pendant on his chest and entered the game.

　　...

Upon entering the game, Jiang Ming appeared in the Demon Wolf Valley where he went offline last time. Just as he appeared in the Demon Wolf Valley, he saw a giant demon wolf sleeping soundly beside him, and this demon wolf was his contracted ally Demon Wolf King.

After he appeared, the Demon Wolf King slowly opened its eyes, and after seeing who it was, it nodded to Jiang Ming.

"Demon Wolf King, your body size seemed to not have changed much, what level are you now?" Jiang Ming looked at the Demon Wolf King whose body shape had not changed and passed his voice through the contract.

"Demon Spiritual Beast," Demon Wolf King replied.

"Congratulations." Jiang Ming looked at the Demon Wolf King and said with a smile, "By the way, you haven't forgotten the three things you promised me, have you?"

Seeing the Demon Wolf King shake its head, he continued, "It's good that you haven't forgotten. I am a member of the demon faction now, and I cannot enter the Novice Village anymore. Can you send me to the Demon Clan's city later?"

He was now a player of the demon faction. The quests he originally received from the Novice Village had all been cancelled by the system, and he could no longer enter the Novice Village of the sacred faction anymore. He had no other way but to ask the Demon Wolf King to send him to a nearby city of the demon faction.

"I'm not capable of sending you there. Besides, everyone who has chosen a faction has a 'Return to City' skill. You can choose a city and set it as the return point, then you can transfer yourself there. Why do you need me to send you there?" The Demon Wolf King looked at Jiang Ming in confusion.

"'Return to City' skill?"

Jiang Ming was surprised, and he quickly opened the skill bar and looked at it. Sure enough, there was an extra 'Return to City' skill in the skill bar.

Return to City skill: You can return to the main city you have set when using this skill in non-combat and non-special situations, with a cooling time of 1 hour.

It seemed that after the system update, not only the items mentioned on the forum were updated, but also the small functions in the game.

For example, when he closed the skill bar, he saw that there were two more functions on the left side of his main menu, namely the two functions of 'Marketplace' and 'Chat Channel'.

As soon as he touched on the word "Marketplace" with his finger, his eyes turned dark and the scene changed drastically. He appeared on a very spacious street, with many players walking around some shops. A mask appeared on his face while a description floated in front of him.

Marketplace: A place for players to trade. Players from whichever faction can enter the Marketplace for trading. For the safety of players, you can choose whether to wear a mask after entering the Marketplace. Masks can block all investigation skills...

Reading the description, he understood the function of the Marketplace.

The Marketplace was a virtual trading venue that was common to both the demon faction and the sacred faction. Of course, this function was very convenient, but the tax rate for transactions here was very high, as high as 20%.

Though the tax rate at Marketplace was very high, the description also mentioned that players could buy their own shops in the Marketplace, and the tax rate for items traded in their own shops was only 5%, which was comparatively less. He guessed that many stimulator players must now be saving up money to buy their own shop at the Marketplace.

"The game currency exchange system has not yet been opened. Though shop prices are very low, the players don't have enough gold coins. I guess there are not many who can afford a shop here. I currently have about 6,000 gold coins in my hand. If I bought one or two shops now and sold them after the currency exchange system was opened, I would be able to make a lot of money!"

Jiang Ming stood on the spacious street, looking at the shops beside the avenue in front of him as this thought suddenly crossed his mind.

Thinking of this, he clicked the 'buy shop' button in the upper left corner. The next moment, the location, area and price of shops in the Marketplace appeared in front of Jiang Ming.

Looking at the prices of shops, Jiang Ming was delighted. As he expected, the prices of shops were very cheap. The price of ordinary shops was around 1000-2000 gold coins; the price of high-end shops was around 2000-4000; however, the price of premium shops was rather expensive, more than 5000 gold coins.

After checking the location and prices of the shops, he walked to the warehouse manager who would appear every 100 meters by the side of streets and took out the nearly 6,000 gold coins he had deposited.

Then, he spent 5010 gold coins to buy a premium shop in a good location, and another 1030 gold coins to buy two ordinary shops with very small shop areas.

After buying the shops, he had only about 1 gold left in his backpack.

He left the Marketplace and reappeared next to the Demon Wolf King.

After learning about the Marketplace, he clicked on the "Chat Channel".

Clicking on it, a chat box popped up in front of him, with an extension bar above it which listed the six chat channels - public, faction, guild, private, friends and system.

Clicking open the public chat box, the messages in it were constantly moving upward as many players were communicating and chatting, seeming to be involved in a heated discussion.

Jiang Ming studied the function for a while and found that in chat channels, voice messages and videos were not allowed, but it was possible to chat anonymously.

What was a rip-off was that it charged money to chat in these six chat channels, and the prices in each channel were different. The public channel had the lowest price, where one message would only cost 1 bronze coin. The most expensive one was private chat, where one message would cost 20 bronze coins.

Jiang Ming shook his head and closed the chat channel. He told the Demon Wolf King where he was going, left the Demon Wolf Valley and walked towards the mine.

After all, the tattered Reaper suit in the mine was still waiting for him to deconstruct.