Chapter 27: As Expected, Educated People Are Different (1)
‘The World’s Greatest Merchant’, the number one player merchant ranker.
His hobby was frequently browsing the auction house.
Although his trading company was still insignificant compared to other merchant NPCs, he was always at the forefront among players.
For him, frequently checking the auction house was very important in many ways.
Sometimes, he could find items listed at bargain prices due to the seller’s impatience, and even if not, it was a natural virtue for a merchant to always be aware of market prices.
“An item I’ve never seen before?”
He saw an item he had never seen before in the auction house.
[Deep Mana Infused Soft Bread]
▶Starting Bid: 940,000 Liyan
It was categorized as ordinary food, but the prefix attached to it was very unusual.
Deep Mana Infused, was it made with some special ingredient?
First, he wanted to check what kind of item it was.
“Huh. T, This is…….”
The World’s Greatest Merchant, who checked the bread’s stats, held his breath.
He was too surprised.
“The bread’s grade is Unique? And it has a Mana buff, a percentage-based continuous recovery effect… W, What? It even has permanent Mana increase?!”
He couldn’t hide his surprise at the Mana buff and continuous recovery effect alone, but it even permanently increased Mana stats.
An item with such abilities could not be found anywhere else.
The closest comparison would be the Mana Elixir, which instantly restores 50% of MP, and the Griffin’s Tear Potion, which permanently increases Mana stat by 5.
However, even combining these two items was not as good as this bread.
The bread provided continuous recovery instead of instant recovery, and it lasted for an hour.
This meant that it recovered 1,800% of Mana in one hour.
Moreover, while the Griffin’s Tear Potion had a one-time limit, this bread had a 10-time limit.
Unlike the Griffin’s Tear Potion, which could increase Mana stat by 5 with one use, this bread could permanently increase Mana stat by 10 with a total of 10 uses.
It was incomparable.
“Even our company’s alchemist can’t make a potion like this…… No, even getting the ingredients in the first place is a problem.”
First of all, to make the Griffin’s Tear Potion, which permanently increases Mana, you needed Griffin’s Tears.
Griffins were blue, white-tailed creatures that only lived in the Nine Mountains.
They were monsters that could only be caught by rankers who were currently around level 200.
The Mana continuous recovery effect could be achieved using Elixir Flowers, which were used to make Mana Elixirs.
He had heard from the company’s alchemist that by diluting it instead of concentrating it like when making Mana Elixir, a continuous recovery effect for a considerably long time could be implemented.
‘Whether these two ingredients can be alchemized simultaneously ultimately depends on the alchemist’s skill level…… No, even if it’s actually implemented, it won’t have the same effect as that bread.’
It was a very difficult task to properly handle even one special ingredient, but to mix two at the same time?
It was an impossible task with the current alchemist’s skills.
To begin with, it was said that there were no players who had succeeded in directly making Unique items.
“……Who on earth made and listed this?”
Judging from the fact that it was listed on the player auction house, it was definitely not an NPC.
The immediate guess was that it would be impossible without a player who had reached the Unique level in either cooking or alchemy skills.
“Is it one of the chef or alchemist rankers? No, it’s also possible that two rankers worked together.”
The World’s Greatest Merchant felt the need to organize his thoughts.
He needed someone to discuss this with.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: You available for a whisper right now?
▶PhantomSherlock: Yeah, just about to head out for a hunt.
▶PhantomSherlock: What’s up?
PhantomSherlock.
He was an assassin ranker belonging to The World’s Greatest Merchant’s trading company, World’s Best’.
His main job was gathering information and all sorts of behind-the-scenes work.
It could be said that World’s Best’s rise to the top of the player trading companies was possible thanks to PhantomSherlock.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: Search for ‘Deep Mana Infused Soft Bread’ in the auction house.
▶PhantomSherlock: What bread? Anyway, yeah, hold on.
▶PhantomSherlock: Whoa, what the heck is this? Is this from our company?
It was a very simple reaction, but he could tell that PhantomSherlock was very surprised.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: No.
▶PhantomSherlock: Then you want me to find out who listed it?
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: Yes.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: I’d like to bring them to our company if possible.
▶PhantomSherlock: Got it, I’ll bring them in by any means necessary if I find them. Seeing how they set the price, they don’t seem like a pushover either.
The World’s Greatest Merchant smirked, surprised by PhantomSherlock’s words.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: Why do you think so?
▶PhantomSherlock: Trying to test me again, huh? Haha.
The World’s Greatest Merchant often tested his friend PhantomSherlock this way.
▶PhantomSherlock: Griffin’s Tear Potion goes for about 2 million Liyan, and this bread is like 1/5th of a Griffin, so that’s 400,000 Liyan.
▶PhantomSherlock: And if you want to replace the recovery amount with Mana Elixirs, you need 36 of them, so that’s 30,000 Liyan each, totaling 1.08 million Liyan.
▶PhantomSherlock: But considering the difference between instant recovery and continuous recovery, if you halve it, it’s 540,000. Add the initial 400,000 for Griffin, and that’s 940,000 Liyan.
▶PhantomSherlock: Seems like they set the starting bid this way, right? Or am I wrong?
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: Excellent. I’m impressed.
▶PhantomSherlock: As if playing merchant with you in the game is a one-time thing, haha.
PhantomSherlock’s deduction was accurate.
Currently, the starting bid for ‘Deep Mana Infused Soft Bread’ was 940,000 Liyan.
Even if The World’s Greatest Merchant were to sell this bread himself, he would have sold it for at least this price.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: Moreover, this guy didn’t set a buyout price.
▶PhantomSherlock: ??? There was a buyout option, wasn’t there?
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: Check again.
▶PhantomSherlock: ㅇㅋ ㄱㄷ
▶PhantomSherlock: 999,999,999 Liyan? Is this a joke?
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: Exactly. It’s practically the same as not setting one. The seller knows. That this item has no set value yet.
It wouldn’t be surprising if it was an item sold by NPCs, but it was an item that had never appeared on the player auction house before.
Therefore, there was no way it could have a set value.
The user who listed this bread also seemed to be just putting it up for auction to see how high the price would go.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: In addition, if the bid is not approved, it is set to automatically be rejected. Even if you want to buy it, they won’t sell it unless it’s a price they like.
▶PhantomSherlock: So it’s like, ‘Don’t buy it if you don’t like it,’ huh? Haha.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: That’s right. This guy knows how to do business.
The World’s Greatest Merchant felt a surge of excitement he hadn’t felt recently.
He was not satisfied with the current title of ‘Number One Player’ Trading Company.
His goal was to create the best trading company that transcended player companies and influenced the entire world.
In fact, he had even established a corporation in reality called 『World’s Best』 with that intention.
There was still a lot to be desired, but he planned to fill it up gradually.
In that process, the bread maker he had just discovered was an indispensable talent.
▶The World’s Greatest Merchant: Use as much company funds and manpower as you need. But first, find that bread maker.
▶PhantomSherlock: I was going to focus on hunting for a while, but damn it……
▶PhantomSherlock: Anyway, okay. I’ll start by looking into chef and alchemist rankers.
▶PhantomSherlock: By the way, calling him a bread maker is hilarious, haha.
And so, Kyung-joon, the bread maker, unknowingly caught the attention of World’s Best,’ the Number One Player trading company.
However, no one knew yet that this was just the tip of the iceberg compared to the attention he would receive later.
🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷🔷
[『Deep Mana Infused Soft Bread』 has been bid on for 2.34 million Liyan.]
[Do you accept this bid?]
“No.”
[The bid has been rejected.]
[The auction listing time has expired, and 『Deep Mana Infused Soft Bread』 has been unsold.]
The bread listed on the auction house was unsold and returned to Kyung-joon’s inventory.
This had already happened dozens of times.
No matter how high the bid, Kyung-joon had never once accepted a bid.
<Master, how much are you planning to sell the bread for? 2.34 million Liyan was the highest bid so far.>
“Well, I don’t have a specific price in mind.”
<-_-a?>
<What do you mean?>
Teemo couldn’t understand Kyung-joon’s strange behavior and his current words.
Kyung-joon wrote down the recent bid of 2.34 million Liyan in his notebook and continued speaking.
“I don’t set the market price. They do. I’m just collecting data right now.”
<In other words?>
“I’m going to keep listing and canceling the auction about 100 more times. Then the unsold prices will accumulate as data, right? I’m going to use the minimum, maximum, and average from that to list it in the future.”
<Ah, so you’re going to use the lowest unsold price as the starting bid and the highest unsold price as the buyout price?>
“Yes, exactly.”
Kyung-joon nodded and relisted ‘Deep Mana Infused Soft Bread’ on the auction house.
<Then what will you use the average for?>
“I’m going to reject bids that are too low compared to the average. There will always be people trying to manipulate the auction later on.”
<What kind of manipulation?>
“You know, when people collude and only raise the bid by 1 Won each time. If I reject all the bids below the average, even if they try that, they won’t be able to buy it for anything less than the average price. At least I won’t lose money that way.”
Teemo displayed an impressed emoticon at Kyung-joon’s cleverness.
<⊙.⊙!>
<That’s amazing. I’m curious how you came up with such an idea. As expected, educated people are different.>
“Well? I was just going to sell it casually, but it suddenly occurred to me. Maybe it’s because of the buff?”
Kyung-joon said so and opened his buff window.
[Currently Applied Buffs]
▶Deep Mana Infused Soft Bread: Tenacity +37%
▶Deep Mana Infused Sweet Honey Castella: Tenacity +22% (Cannot Stack) Calculation Ability +22%
▶Kyung-joon’s Quartz Glass Ceiling: Creativity +15%
▶Kyung-joon’s……
．
．
．
All sorts of buffs were applied, including Tenacity, Calculation Ability, Creativity, HP/MP continuous recovery, Mana increase, and Intelligence increase.
There were so many buff slots that it was hard to even see them all now.
“Roughly, Tenacity is from 40% to 90%, Creativity is fixed at 40%, and Calculation Ability is from 0 to 30%.”
Kyung-joon closed the window, satisfied with the variety of buffs.
<Are you satisfied with the newly acquired Calculation Ability?>
“Yeah. Honestly, I’m really satisfied. It’s amazing when I’m solving math problems. When my Calculation Ability was at 30% after eating the Castella, I could even do mental calculations that I couldn’t do before, as if I was on some kind of drug. It’s no joke.”
This was with only 30% Calculation Ability.
He couldn’t even imagine what would happen when his Calculation Ability, like his Tenacity, exceeded 100%.
“I felt it when Tenacity and Creativity were first unlocked, but I think the Infinite Knowledge Seeker class itself has truly infinite potential. I realized it after Calculation Ability was unlocked. What else could there be?”
<Well, considering the infinite possibilities, wouldn’t you be able to unlock anything related to studying?>
“Right? Then why don’t I try making something new this time? Like making a cake instead of Castella?”
<If the effects are too similar, the buffs may not stack. For example, if the cake’s Calculation Ability buff is better, the Castella’s buff will be ignored and only the cake’s will be applied.>
“Ah, I see. Like with the Soft Bread.”
Currently, the Tenacity from Soft Bread and the Tenacity from Castella did not stack.
Since the Soft Bread’s Tenacity stat was higher, it was simply replaced.
The Castella’s Tenacity buff was ignored, and only the non-overlapping Calculation Ability buff was applied.
“As expected, things can’t be too easy, right? Then I need to come up with a completely different idea. If something sweet increased Calculation Ability, then something salty would…… Hmm……”
Kyung-joon rested his chin on his hand and began to ponder what kind of bread to make this time.
Seeing this, Teemo asked.
<But the final exams are only a week away, are you sure you’re okay?>
“Ah, the final exams? I want to study more, but……”
Kyung-joon suddenly took something out of his inventory and placed it on the desk.
Thump!
A rather heavy sound accompanied the sight of a pile of papers and books.
They were all textbooks and notebooks that Kyung-joon had used.
The notebooks were completely blackened from being used so much, and the books were covered in fingerprints from being read countless times.
“It’s a week before the final exams, and I’ve already finished reviewing everything, including the midterm exam material, a total of five times. There’s nothing more I can do.”
That’s right.
Kyung-joon had already finished studying for the final exams a long time ago.
A whole week before the actual exams.
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Translation-(COMPLETED) – It’s an Academic Fact That Rankers Are Model Students𝐒𝐮𝐩𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥《⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐》!!
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