Chapter 7: Markets and Dogs
Translator:ryangohsff
Editor:ryangohsff
After sending Zhao Dexian and the others off to work, Ouyang Shou did not sit idly. He was ready to go shopping in the Beginner Market to see if there was a chance to get some good things.
The Basic Market was located in the northwest corner of the village, close to the village’s entrance. The market covered a large area. Besides a small wood building used to make transactions, the west side had an open area to receive goods.
He headed into the small building, which was empty. On the left side of the hall was a display, much like a computer monitor. To the right was a teleportation formation, lit by magical lights with a touch of mystery to it.
The market in the game was far beyond the timeline of the game that it was set it. On the left side was a product of technology, while on the right was a product of magic. To achieve long-range transport of goods, these two things had to be achieved and combined.
The transaction area of the Basic Market was in the surrounding area of Dali City. The transportation crystal could not send a living body, and all transactions by the seller had to pay a 20% transaction tax.
Ouyang Shuo went to the left side of the display, discovering that the entire trading program was divided into four sections. They were the Material Trading Platform, the Special Items Trading Platform, and two greyed out areas that had not opened, the Limited Time Auction Platform and the Negotiation Cooperation Platform.
Opening up the Material Trading Platform, it had everything from food, wood, ores, clothes and even salt. The only thing was that weapons and armor and other military supplies were prohibited items and could not be sold.
Looking at the prices, a unit of grain was 10 copper, wood 20 coppers, and iron ore 100 coppers, definitely not cheap. In his territory the thing he needed most was wood resources, so he directly purchased 500 units, spending a gold coin.
He was really interested in the Special Items Platform. Opening the screen, he found that the special items were also divided into four areas. They were architectural blueprints, articles manufacturing, skill books, and others.
Needless to say, every building in the territory required building drawings to put up and there were basic, intermediate, advanced and special sets.
For territory construction, in addition to upgrading the necessary buildings, extra construction of other buildings was completely unrestricted, as long as you met the construction requirements.
As an example, as long as you had the brothel’s building blueprints, then you could build it in a village even though it was normally a grade three county building. As for whether you could run the brothel normally, that was a different matter.
Even so, most of the players would build up their infrastructure step by step, instead of leaping tiers. The main reason was that high-level building blueprints were too expensive.
A brothel building blueprints cost 1000 gold coins. Just ask any village head if they had so much money. Even if they had the money, no one would be stupid enough to waste it on one building like this at this point.
Ouyang Shuo first needed to buy construction blueprints for the dining hall, the public bathrooms, the courtyard residential buildings, the blacksmith shop, the grocery store, and the barracks. They each cost 2 gold coins, and so he spent a total of 12 gold.
Actually, doing this was kind of unusual, most players weren’t willing to go directly into the market to buy blueprints. Building blueprints were among the more commonly dropped items obtained by killing bandits. All human NPCs had a distinct chance of dropping such plans on death.
Ouyang Shuo was doing so to bring his 100 gold into rapid play, using his money early in exchange for rapid development of his village. He wanted to get one step ahead of everyone else.
In addition, he spent another 15 gold to buy three more special plans: ferry construction blueprints, dock construction blueprints, and shipyard construction blueprints.
These were water-related buildings, and could only be built close to the shoreline. Therefore, they would not be included in the territorial upgrades of essential buildings, as they were special.
After buying the blueprints, Ouyang Shuo pointed to the article manufacturing and technical manuals area. This area was about making specific items and starting an industry using special conditional manufacturing technology advances, not general skills for people to grasp a talent.
For example, a master class winemaker could, in theory, brew a variety of advanced drinks. But, in fact, he has no way to brew a specific advanced liquors from the “Heavy Earth Pub”. Why? Because the formulas were confidential. Without the technology, the skill was useless.
Ouyang Shuo chose the <Salt Water Technology Manual>, and the <South-pointing Chariot Technical Manual>. Two technical manuals, the first 20 gold, the second 10 gold. In reality, in ancient times, salt was sold by officials of the government. The game was not the same. Except for military goods, anything could be traded.
If the seaside Lords didn’t master the technology to get salt out of sea water, they were simply wasting their natural resources. As for the compass wagon, it was a key item to completing a certain task later. The reward would be comparable to getting a gold level Village Creation Token.
The third type of skill books contained all the professional skills, and some special ones on top of those. There were skill books for players only, NPC’s could only learn them through being mentored. Ouyang Shuo chose the Beginner books of riding, swordsmanship, archery, and scouting, spending a gold coin for each book.
The fourth category of items were varied, all kinds of strange items could appear. It was more about luck than anything else to find something.
Ouyang Shuo was disappointed, nothing was practical or affordable. As he was ready to close the screen, it suddenly refreshed with a new list.
A new item popped into his eyes: Mazu God Statue (Broken), priced at 20 gold. Looking at its properties, Ouyang Shuo didn’t hesitate to buy it.
Name: Mazu Idol (Broken)
Grade: Silver rank
Evaluation: This is a broken Mazu idol, with a weak trace of the Mazu god powers. A long period of veneration will be necessary to restore the statue.
Properties: Sea god’s blessing (Maritime navigation to survive storms increased by 40%)
In order to offer prayer to the Mazu gods, Ouyang Shuo also had to buy a village temple building plan. A village temple was a must for a level three village upgrade and would cost another 10 gold.
After these big purchases, Ouyang Shuo only had 11 gold left, he had really gone through his money like water. After completing his purchases, Ouyang Shuo headed over to the crystal on the right side of the hall.
The crystal flashed with a white glow, and like that, the ten building plans, two technical manuals, four skill books, and a statue were sent over.
As for the 500 units of wood, it was directly in front of the small building’s entryway. He put most of the items into his storage bag, but used the skill books straight away.
“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for mastering Basic riding.”
“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for mastering Basic swordsmanship.”
“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for mastering Basic archery.”
“System Notification: Congratulations to the player Qiyue Wuyi for mastering Basic law.”
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Outside the small building, Zhao Dexian and his seven man crew were in full swing building the fence. Ouyang Shuo couldn’t really do much other than manage them. A level-three village area covered a kilometer square. The whole fence would be 4 kilometers long, a big project.
In Ouyang Shuo’s plan, the fence in the middle of the north side would open a main door. At the same times, there would be side doors in the east and south sides for convenience. The logging field was being built in the west side of the territory, as well as subsequent quarries. Therefore, the west side’s role would be regulating the import and export of resources.
Similarly, the subsequent docks and shipyards would be built on the eastern side of the river, so the eastern door will connect the village and docks. Drawing a line between the side doors with the central axis divided the village into four parts.
The buildings along the central axis would form the most prosperous area of the village, while the territory will be divided into East and West. At the southernmost area of the axis was the Lord’s Manor already built. In front of the Lord’s House was an open area, reserved for use as the Town Square. To the north would be a street of commercial buildings. All shops, inns, training halls and other buildings will be distributed to the commercial street’s two sides.
West of there would be a residential area. The southwest area would be residences for the agricultural workers, such as farmers and lumberjacks. The northwest area would be arranged for industrial workers, such as the miners, blacksmiths, tailors, masons, businessmen, and other craftsmen. Northwest of the northern area was already occupied by the Beginner Market.
The Eastern District would be a military zone, science, and educational training area. The southeast area would be zoned for science and education, with the private school, hospital, ancestral hall and village temple located there. The northeast area would be the military zone, with weapon repair workshops, strategic granaries, and the upcoming barracks all to be located there.
Ouyang Shuo spent the afternoon near the fence, while going over the plans for his town. The fence was already a quarter built, with tomorrow bringing in more people, he should be able to get it all built in just one more day.
At dusk, General Shi finally returned from his patrol. From the side of his horse hung pheasants, rabbits and other game, while on the other side, things were moving in the bag.
Ouyang Shuo stepped forward and saluted in greeting. “General, it seems you worked hard, and your harvest was not small?”
General Shi quickly dismounted, his hands cupped in salute as well. “I only encountered a few small thieves, not worth anything. I also brought sir a play thing, I hope sir enjoys it.”
“Oh, what is this? If my general saw it, I am naturally convinced it is a good thing.”
General Shi laughed, and turned back to the squirming bag on his horse. Opening it up, a pure black young wild dog became visible to Ouyang Shuo.
The little dog was obviously born very recently, still a puppy, with squinting dark green eyes, extremely cute.
“Is this a young wolf cub?” Ouyang Shuo asked uncertainly.
“Very good, the little guy should be a good hunting partner.”
Shi Wanshui was quite happy, “Haha, to be accurate, it’s the cub of a Black Wolf Dog. Although it looks like a wolf, it isn’t a wolf.”
“Black Wolf Dog? Not bad, not bad. He’ll be a great help in hunting in the future.”
Zhao Dexian and the others had also come around, looking curiously at the bag with the little pup. Despite trying to look complacent, they could not hide their interest.
Ouyang Shuo didn’t want to dampen their spirits, so he asked curiously, “General, you had such a good harvest while on patrol, there must be a story to go with it! Since everyone is here, tell us your tale, let us know what happened.” Ouyang Shuo quickly had the workers sit down on the floor, making a circle.
General Lui laughed, having no problem with stage fright. He also sat down, and began to narrate his experiences.
“According to lord’s command, I left the village at noon, and began to explore the territory. It was calm along the way, but there were pheasants and rabbits here and there, and it was simple to shoot them down. Occasionally, I would encounter one or two bandits, so poor that they did not even have mounts. I went up and killed them. On the way back, however, I met a group of wolves harassing a pack of wild goats. I said nothing more and burst forward into their midst, killing most of them before they could get away. Following them, I actually stumbled on their den. I surprisingly saw this little pup and thinking he might be of use to the lord, so I brought him.”
Hearing that the general had encountered wild goats, Ouyang Shuo was silent for a moment, already making a plan for tomorrow. It was too late to set out again today.
Before long, Zhao Youfang’s work crew came back, having set up a Basic logging camp. Starting tomorrow, the logging field can be officially opened and become operational. Taking this opportunity, Ouyang Shuo proposed to everyone that there would be a double dinner tonight which will be considered as a celebration of the formal establishment of Shanhai Village.
The only fly in the ointment was that it was a group of working men, and none of them could cook. Fortunately, there was a lot of wild game to add to the fun, or else they’d have little to celebrate with. Ouyang Shuo was really looking forward to tomorrow’s settlers coming in, hoping for a chef to help with the cooking.
Quarters for Shi Wanshui were arranged in the east wing while Ouyang Shuo went back to the hall of his own room, ready to rest.
Lying on the hard bed, his eyes closed, Ouyang Shuo sent out mentally, “Log out of the game!” When he opened his eyes, he had quit the game.
*[advantage]: by having their erection in contact with her
*[ cent bills]: China has cents in bills called jiao
*[Guoshu]: Guo here means country and shu means technique
*[ 190 centimeters]: Over 6ft tall
*[Lake Cui]: Cui Hu, also means Green Lake
*[hundred dyuan bills]: 100yuan is their biggest bill
*[Daoist Fierce Tiger]: The author of this novel
*[Noodles]: made of wheat
*[Rice Noodles]: made of rice
*[Zhang Tian Tian]: Tian means sweet
*[Bajiquan]: Also known as Eight Extremities Fist, but Bajiquan sounds nicer to me
*[Long Taos]: side characters in Chinese operas who perform acrobatics and fight scenes
*[12.47 to 13.07]: don’t ask me about the tree sap
