Translated and Edited by Catato Patch
After having dinner, Lin Huang returned to his hotel room.
He spent some time organizing a shopping list for the next day and then began searching for information about the surrounding One-Star Hinterlands.
7D121 stronghold, also known as Snowy Mountain County, was a stronghold which had its back facing the Snowy Mountains. The mountain range encircled half the stronghold and formed a natural barrier on its western side. To the east of this stronghold is a giant canyon range which looked like a semicircle from the air. The widest part of the canyon spanned 100 metres. 5 km to east, outside of the canyon are vast grasslands.
The stronghold’s surrounding mountain ranges had a maximum altitude of 3,000 metres and were mostly considered One-star Hinterlands.
The canyon covered a huge area and was also considered a One-Star Hinterlands. However due to the frequent human traffic, the monsters were regularly hunted resulting in a low monster population.
The grasslands east of the canyon covered a wide expanse and contained a vast amount of monsters but they were sparsely populated.
'The Hinterlands in the snowy mountains contains a lot of bird type monsters but aren’t easy to kill, and the amount of flat land is minimum. It’s not a good practice area for my blade skills.'
'The monsters in the canyon mostly come from the grasslands and the mountains. The human traffics has greatly reduced their numbers so this area isn’t is a good farming spot for fragments.'
'Looks like the most suitable area is the grasslands to the east.'
'Battle Wolves are a pretty decent prey to hunt. They stay in packs which makes for efficient hunting, and make a much better mount than Sand Ogres. They look cooler and are a lot gentler on the butt. I heard there are Demonic Lions too. They definitely make for an epic looking mount. Minotaurs aren’t a bad familiar, with their gigantic muscled body, just standing there is enough to deter people…'
'As for skills, Battle wolves have blood feud, demonic lions have Dread Pupil while minotaurs possess Giant’s Power, all pretty decent choices…'
After a round of analysis, Lin Huang finally settled on a destination.
The next morning, after his breakfast, he took a leisure stroll to the Credit Bureau.
The Credit Bureau was a government agency which only opened at 9 am so Lin Huang was in no hurry to get there.
He took a stroll around the Bureau’s garden as he waited for it to open. Seeing the bureau open, he walked in.
He spent 10 minutes exchanging his Life Crystal fragments into credits which in total gave him 3.5 million credits. These fragments were the “donation” he got from Xue Jie.
After exchanging these, he headed off to the flea market to resupply.
The county’s flea market was located in the center of the stronghold. It was a small district but had a large number of stores. There were over 1,000 stores which sold anything ranging from food, household goods , gunpowder, knives, spears, swords and halberds, whatever you wanted they had it.
Perhaps it was due to their proximity to the Hinterlands since there was an astonishing 23 stores that specialized in combat gear. Lin Huang’s stronghold only had 3 such stores despite being a similar D ranked stronghold.
His aim here was to purchase more armor piercing and normal bullets for his Gray Eagle 17 along with other basic necessities. He planned on spending a week in the wilds.
Translated and Edited by Catato Patch
However, after asking around in 7 stores, he found out that this type of ammo was rare even in this market. This sort of new “luxury” firearms weren’t widely available for the masses. A small stronghold like this wouldn’t normally stock up on such ammo, especially armor piercing bullets which cost a lot.
“There’s no point asking around for these bullets. In a small stronghold like ours , we barely see a single Gray Eagle 17 customer in a year so we basically don’t stock these bullets. If you wish to try your luck, you can visit Old Zhang’s minimart. That fellow loves to stock up on all kinds of baubles and oddities. If he doesn’t have any, then you are out of luck. However you should watch out, he loves to rip off customers, his prices are 2-3 times the value of the item.” The store owner kindly warned him. To him, people who could afford to owned a Gray Eagle 17 were all rich and he did not want to offend such people.
After making another round in the flea market, he finally gave up and bought his other necessities.
He hesitated for awhile but finally decided to head to Old Zhang’s located in the western portion of the flea market.
Old Zhang’s minimart was located in a deserted alley in the western area of the flea market. Normally, opening a store in the flea market was an expensive endeavor even in a small stronghold. Therefore opening a store in such a deserted spot spoke volumes about its owner being an eccentric person.
Lin Huang had to ask for directions several times before he finally found the minimart.
Looking at the the two words “Sky High” written in bold letters on the store sign, Lin Huang couldn’t help but chuckle. 'Such a haughty old man.'
His first impression of the minimart as he stepped in was that its orderly, and completely different from the cluttered unorganized store he had in mind. Each item was neatly organized and displayed on their respective shelves. The interior was well decorated and looked completely out of place in such a deserted alley.
“Is the owner here?” Lin Huang did not directly call out the owner’s name as a form of respect. Calling a senior by his given name was disrespectful and Lin Huang was, at least in his mind, anything but disrespectful.
“Take a look around yourself , when you’ve found what you want, you can call me over to settle the bill.” The owner didn’t come out to meet Lin Huang but merely raised his voice from across the store. Judging by the voice, Old Zhang didn’t seem like an old man but rather a middle aged man.
'This reminds me of the supermarkets from Earth.'
Seeing that Old Zhang didn’t want to be disturbed, he didn’t ask for assistance but instead headed off to the gun section of the store.
As he looked through the selection on display, his eyes opened wide in shock. The shelf was stocked with Equipment ranging from BlackIron all the way to Gold. Furthermore, these were all limited editions!
'Looks like he’s pretty rich...'
After a round of window shopping, Lin Huang finally started looking for his bullets. He quickly found them but only saw a box on display. He took a box for each ammo type and went to the counter, “Owner, I’m done choosing however I require more of these.”
“Let me see.”
The owner walked out as he said this. It was bald, bearded, middle aged man with a dark tan. He looked to be about 40 years of age, however it could just be the beard making him look older.
He didn’t doubt that this was Old Zhang, while he looked plain, the impression he gave off was similar to this store. However, he was curious why this man was known as Old Zhang despite not being old.
Old Zhang sized up Lin Huang before looking at the bullets. He raised his brows as he said, “ So it’s a rich young master, how many bullets do you need?”
“I’m not a rich young master. This gun was a gift.” Lin Huang definitely did not want to be ripped off for such a misunderstanding. “What’s the price for these bullets”
“Same as the HeartNet’s price.” Old Zhang replied in a light tone.
Lin Huang was taken aback by this reply. According to rumors, this owner liked to raise the price of his goods by at least 2-3 times however he was now selling it to him at the original price. Lin Huang started to doubt the quality of these bullets.
“These bullets are okay right?”
“What’s the matter, did you hear that I, Old Zhang, liked to rip off my customers and jack the prices up by 2-3 times?” He laughed as he replied.
Another such a stunning reply Lin Huang candidly responded “I did hear of such rumors.”
“It doesn’t matter where you heard this rumor from, it’s true. I do enjoy ripping off my customers however that also depends on the person. If I like you, I’ll sell it at the original price. That’s all.” Old Zhang continued, “The goods are genuine, whether to buy or not, it’s up to you.”
Lin Huang stared into the owner’s eyes and after a short while, came to the conclusion that he was most likely telling the truth, “Alright I’ll believe you, I want 3,000 normal bullets and 300 armor piercing bullets.”
“Are you planning a massacre?” Old Zhang was stunned for a moment but reported his price, “ The total is 165,000 credits.”
“You have enough in stock?” Lin Huang couldn’t help but ask.
“Don’t worry there’s enough! No matter what you want and no matter how many you need, I have it. As long as you can pay for it, I can even procure a Relic for you.” Old Zhang grinned as he said this.
If it was anyone else who said this he might have thought the owner was merely bragging, but after seeing Old Zhang’s collection, he really believed Old Zhang could find a Relic for him. It still sounded like bragging though.
“Alright, when I need a Relic, I’ll come look for you!”
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