Chapter 1984 – White River City Promoted Star-Moon Kingdom, White River City:
When Shi Feng returned to White River City’s Teleportation Hall once again, he discovered that the hall was quite busy. The Teleportation Hall had recently transformed, becoming even more magnificent than before.
What?! The city has been promoted?! Shi Feng was slightly surprised as he gazed around the building’s interior.
Originally, only the first-floor hall had teleportation arrays, but now the second and third floors of the open-air hall had their own arrays, as well. The higher a teleportation array was located, the farther it could transfer players. Moreover, multiple platforms now floated around the main hall. These floating platforms could transport players to the second and third floors, and if players wished to, they could pay a small fee to teleport to White River City’s airport, central plaza, or business district.
The floating platforms moved even faster than Dark-Gold Mounts, becoming the fastest mode of transportation in White River City. By using these platforms, players could save plenty of time while moving around the city.
While this new function might not seem like much, NPC cities would grow larger as they were promoted, accommodating more players. After a certain rank, running from one end of the city to the other would require a considerable amount of time. Although floating platforms had fixed destinations, they could save players half the travel time.
Normally, NPC cities only activated the floating platform function once they had become a Main City with a certain level of prosperity. However, this prosperity wasn’t the equivalent to the city’s player population. Rather, it referred to economic interactions between players and NPCs, as well as the Shops’ quantity and quality within the city walls.
Thus far, only the various empire’s imperial capitals had unlocked the floating platform function, and they had only done so recently. Kingdom’s capital cities were still some time away from the upgrade, yet White River City had achieved the feat.
As Shi Feng walked through the city streets, he discovered that White River City was far livelier than it had been before the latest promotion. The number of merchant players in the city, in particular, had increased drastically. Moreover, more Shops lined the streets now that the city streets had been broadened.
“Selling Level 50 Secret-Silver leather armor! Price is open for negotiation!”
“Selling various types of Level 50 equipment with Magic Resistance! Welcoming long-term partnerships with adventurer teams!”
“Purchasing Energy Essence and Primordial Crystals in bulk! Offer available long-term!”
Idle and merchant players fervently hawked their wares, all selling much higher-quality products than during Shi Feng’s last visit to White River City. During his last visit, only the Guild-operated Shops had sold Level 50 Secret-Silver Equipment, but now even idle and merchant players announced that such items were for sale.
The city’s various Shops had even put up Level 50 Dark-Gold Equipment on display, although their prices were ridiculously high. Not even Guild experts could afford these equipment pieces.
Once Shi Feng had seen enough, he rented a floating platform and made his way to White River City’s business district.
Due to the recent promotion, the main street had changed significantly. Rather than a street, it looked like a commercial plaza. Not only had it tripled in size, but it was now home to a building that was over 70-stories-tall. This building was none other than White River City’s Auction House.
When the Auction House had been upgraded, it had gained new functions. Players weren’t the only ones who could consign items for auction anymore; even NPCs held Basic and Intermediate Auctions a few times a week. In addition, players could browse and purchase items that players sold from one-fourth of Star-Moon Kingdom’s towns and cities. Previously, players had only been able to view and buy items from White River City and its neighboring NPC cities.
If players wished to find and purchase specific items, doing so at White River City’s Auction House was now the best option. Meanwhile, the most valuable of the Auction House’s new functions was the Auction Arena.
Might was right in God’s Domain, and the game’s Auction Houses were no exception to this rule. Once the Auction Arena activated, the Auction House would hold a competition each day. The Auction House would offer various rare items as prices during these competitions, and players only needed to pay the entry fee to take part. The competition had two phases. The first phase was a test the system decided, and the second involved a battle between players. However, equipment wouldn’t help players in this battle. The competition focused on testing players’ financial strength and resources. While combat standards were also tested, they were insignificant in comparison.
When the Auction Arena had been introduced in the past, it had caused quite the stir in God’s Domain. Merchant players that hadn’t been suited for combat had gone mad over the arena, and while many of them had taken part in the competition themselves, some had also hired experts to fight in their place. Countless merchant players had made their fortunes through the Auction Arena, and some experts had obtained top-tier weapons, equipment, and tools with their success in the arena.
Of course, due to the Auction Arena, God’s Domain’s influence in the real world had expanded.
However, the Auction Arena’s appearance had also been responsible for the various superpowers’ violent frenzy that had followed…
It’s finally time to wrestle over the city’s management rights. Shi Fen took a deep breath as he gazed up at the towering White River City Auction House.
NPC cities were different from Guild Cities. During the game’s early stages, the various powers had to rely on player-count and Shop economy to spread their influence in an NPC city. These powers also used physical and economic oppression on those who moved against them. Even so, they couldn’t gain any substantial authority in an NPC city.
But once the Auction Arena activated, players could secure the Auction House’s management rights.
While this change might not seem like much, a city’s Auction House was extremely important to players’ daily lives. Taking control of an Auction House was akin to controlling the NPC city’s lifeblood, indirectly controlling the player economy.
If someone obtained an Auction House’s management rights, they could bar certain players from the Auction House, for example. This would be a fatal blow to the city’s independent players and various major powers. Both relied on the Auction House as their main source of income, and without it, independent players couldn’t sell their items, and Guilds couldn’t purchase materials.
One could easily imagine the consequences of losing access to an Auction House.
The competition for an Auction House’s management rights would be held once a month on a fixed date. All NPC cities with Auction Arenas would hold the competition at the same time, preventing the various superpowers, who had an absolute advantage in terms of resources and experts, from monopolizing every NPC city in the game. Unfortunately, this arrangement also restricted the various large Guilds’ development
Guild’s only had a limited number of resources and expert players, and the more NPC cities they controlled, the fewer resources and experts they could allocate to each location. Occupying a large number of NPC cities would be impossible for Guilds that lacked sturdy foundations.
Of course, only Shi Feng knew about this right now. The Auction Arena function wouldn’t activate the moment the Auction House had been promoted. It would only activate once a certain number of Auction Houses in God’s Domain had risen to the appropriate rank.
Although the Auction Arena hadn’t activated yet, this did remind Shi Feng that he had to prepare funds and resources for the inevitability. Currently, Zero Wing’s foundations were slightly stronger than an ordinary first-rate Guild, and it would be some time before the Manatite vein affected the Guild’s development in a significant way.
Following which, Shi Feng entered the Candlelight Trading Firm and notified Melancholic Smile, instructing her to bring him the Tier 1 Mysterious Flames the Guild had collected so far.
He then took his Fire Spirit to the warehouse that housed the Holy Grail. He intended to increase his strength before he left to activate a super-large-scale neutral city. The quest to do so was even more difficult than an ordinary Epic Quest after all, and he’d only get himself killed if he didn’t prepare.
