Chapter 55: Trading Artifacts
Translator: Strivon / Ash Editor: Geoffrey / Lancent
Trading Artifacts
“There’s someone with this kind of gift for artificing among today’s high school students? How extremely rare! Deep Sea University must desire this sort of genius, right?”
“Why did he assemble three completely different artifacts? The techniques required to use the Chainsword, the Thunderblade, and the Heat-axe are completely different. Can it be that he’s proficient in all three types of artifacts? He would simply be a monster then!”
“Even if he’s proficient in all of them, there’s no need to make all of them. These three artifacts are all heavy weapons. If he were to carry them all on his body, his speed would greatly reduce. This is of no benefit when fighting in the jungle; instead, it becomes a burden.”
While every cultivator discussed amongst themselves, a second competitor had arrived at the supply point.
This youth was tall and his temperament was completely vicious. Beneath his chin grew stubble all around, giving him a mature appearance.
When he saw Li Yao resting and sitting to the side, he clearly became distracted for a moment.
But as soon as he saw that there were actually three artifacts displayed on the ground, he became immediately overjoyed. He walked up to them in all smiles and grabbed the Burning Sky Battleaxe in his hand. He swung it vigorously a few times and continued to shout with excitement.
“Today is my lucky day. I never thought that there would be preassembled artifacts in the supply points. With this Burning Sky Battleaxe, I can kill a hundred Demon Beasts in a day!”
The vicious youth hefted the battle-axe. But right when he was about to leave, a voice rang out unexpectedly from behind him.
Li Yao called lazily, fixing him in place: “Hey, fellow student. I just assembled this battle-axe a moment ago. I’ll sell it to you for 200 points. Since you’re my first customer, I’ll give you a 5 percent discount for a price of 190 then.”
The vicious youth went blank, following immediately with a laugh. “So it was you who crafted these. Then I truly need to give you my thanks. I’ll treat you to dinner when I have time!”
With absolutely no intentions of trading, he hefted the battle-axe and turned around to leave.
Li Yao had foreseen this happening early on. He shouted after the youth without a change in expression “Fellow student, hold on. Please take a look at this!”
Upon speaking, Li Yao gently unfolded his arm, ferociously tossing the first crystal cell bomb he assembled far into the forest.
“BOOM!”
A large sound suddenly rang out from within the forest. A ball of smoke rose gradually into the air. Flickers of a malevolent flame were mixed within the smoke. A surging wave of heat assaulted their faces.
The vicious youth was frightened by the large sound. The color of his face changed as he turned around to stare fixed at Li Yao. “What do you mean by this?”
Li Yao held a large bomb comprised of over 20 crystal cells connected in series. He giggled while saying, “I don’t mean nothing. It was only the powerful explosion of a crystal cell bomb just now. You saw it~~~ I still have over twenty crystal cells hooked in series in my hands. If you’re not willing to trade and you want to walk away with my Burning Sky Battleaxe for nothing, then you leave me no choice but to activate the glyph array, ignite the crystal cells, and blow the both of us out of the competition then~”
“You…”
The vicious youth was suddenly struck dumb. He never expected that Li Yao would play this hand.
Li Yao chuckled, saying, “If you don't want to buy, that’s okay too. There are quite a few ordinary swords over there. You can take any you please. It doesn’t matter if you take all of them away, but please relinquish my Burning Sky Battleaxe.”
The vicious youth squinted his eyes and saw the ordinary swords scattered all around the ground. A color of disdain was revealed in his irises.
Had he not tried out the Burning Sky Battleaxe, using ordinary swords may have been fine for killing Demon Beasts.
But he already had a taste of the Burning Sky Battleaxe with its truly ecstatic feeling of being of the highest quality. He was somewhat unwilling to return and choose an ordinary sword.
Li Yao continued speaking, “Killing one low-level Demon Beast will net you approximately a dozen points. If you purchase this Sky Burning Battleaxe for 200 points, you can increase your Demon Beast killing efficiency greatly. How many dozens of Demon Beasts can you kill within three days? You can probably make back the points in half a day!”
The color of the vicious youth’s face was dark and unclear. He was in complete hesitation.
After all, the competition had only just begun. None of the competitors had many points; 190 points seemed to be all he had in his possession.
If he went ahead with the trade, his ranking would drop to the very bottom.
But what this fellow said was correct! If he had this Burning Sky Battleaxe, his Demon Beast killing efficiency would greatly increase. The rate of earning points would increase by at least two fold!
Li Yao was smiling from ear to ear. Like a business shark, he spoke with consideration for the customer out from the bottom of his heart, “Fellow student, think clearly. If you don’t buy this Burning Sky Battleaxe, later I will sell it to someone else. That person’s offensive strength will greatly increase over yours. He might rank higher in points than you later on. In this manner, you might suffer from not just a little bit of a loss.”
The vicious youth snorted coldly saying, “I admit what you say is true, but you’re not the only one who can assemble artifacts! I have taken the relevant courses in my school. I can also assemble a Sky Burning Battleaxe by spending a bit more time… What! How could you mix all the artifact components together? What a huge mess! You’re way too shameless, fellow student!”
Li Yao shrugged his shoulders, speaking indifferently: “Make up your mind already. Are you going to make the trade or what? If you’re not, then please relinquish the battleaxe. Thanks.”
“I don't believe you’ll set off the bomb!” the vicious youth stared dead fixed in Li Yao’s eyes, grinding his teeth as he spoke.
“Sure then. I’ll count down from three and we will all retire from the competition. Anyway, my actual strength differs a lot from yours. I only came here to broaden my world. I never expected to enter the finals. Three… Two…”
Li Yao laughed a devilish laugh unperturbed.
Before he could count down to “one”, the vicious youth collapsed completely and let out a crazed howl, “STOP! STOP! I’ll trade! I’ll buy this Burning Sky Battleaxe!”
The two’s Puji Critters bumped lightly into each other in the air with a “ding” sound. The 190 points that the vicious youth earned from painstakingly killing Demon Beasts were transferred completely all to Li Yao’s name!
A glistening bright name suddenly faded away from the rankings and Li Yao’s name appeared once more in the top 100… He blazed to the 88th spot in a flash!
Depression filled the vicious youth’s face. He glared ferociously at Li Yao, hefted the Burning Sky Battleaxe, and walked away with his head down dejected.
“So from the beginning, he wanted to act mainly as an ‘Artifact Peddler’. To use this sort of method to earn points!”
Numerous cultivators in the monitoring center suddenly came to an understanding. One by one, a feeling of not knowing whether to laugh or cry grew in everyone.
In the past, there were also dozens of competitions who went ahead and traded artifacts. But, they would do this occasionally in between primarily slaying Demon Beasts.
The main reason was because there were too many loopholes within the trading rules. They were quite disadvantageous towards the artifact crafter. If the crafter was even slightly off guard, their artifacts would be easily snatched by other people.
They never thought this evil little fellow would think of a “mutual destruction” method to seal the loopholes in trading!
After completing his first trade, Li Yao threw himself into assembling a new artifact.
He was just like an untiring essence golem; his hands continued to operate at high speeds without showing the slight bit of tremoring for the next few hours.
During this period of time, several hundred competitors had already arrived at the supply point.
The majority of competitors possessing sufficient points walked away with an artifact under the influence of Li Yao’s glib tongue.
In other words, Li Yao just waited comfortably in this incomparably safe supply point and earned the equivalent of killing several hundred Demon Beasts outside, if not a thousand Demon Beasts!
He was soaring up on the ranking board, managing to blitzkrieg into the top 10. There was only a one hundred point different between him and Helian Lie!
Every competitor can check the ranking board through using their Puji Critters.
Obviously, when Helian Lie saw Li Yao’s name, he was shocked, astonished, and stupefied!
“This mishmash was clearly a rotten piece of trash. Piece of Trash. PIECE OF TRASH! How the hell did he blitzkrieg his way into the top 10? To have such a small difference between us? This is completely impossible!”
Helian Lie’s eyes were bloodshot. His anger was exploding incomparably! No matter how he racked his head, he could not find an answer to what Li Yao did to reach here in the end!
Soon, all the artifact parts were consumed bare by Li Yao and all assembled artifacts were traded for points.
Li Yao chuckled and then whistled. He took the big explosive and put it in his military pack. He was setting out towards the next supply point!