"This…" the merchant who was about to sit on his chair abruptly stood up, in a move that was so close to letting him stumble to the ground if not for supporting himself at the last moment by holding the table.
His big body trembled while his thick fat layers kept rising up and down, as he was finding it hard to breathe. His eyes got stuck on the item William took out, and the latter was satisfied by such a response.
"I suppose you know the true value of this, right?" William didn't leave the core he took on the table. Instead, he kept it moving, rolling it on the table.
"This… This is the rumoured dark gold cores of the legendary scarlet bears monsters… Right?!!"
"That's correct," William threw the core in the air, as if he was playing with a worthless rubber ball, "do you know what the market price of this core is?"
"Ahem…" and when the merchant heard William's words, he couldn't help but try to control his excitement. He cleared his throat a couple of times, taking his time to think about what he should say to this kid in front of him.
"I heard a normal dark gold core is sold at market price of forty thousand crystals at least," William didn't wait for his answer, and instead he continued speaking, "and one of such unique and rare species, hard to come by, will be sold at least by sixty thousand crystals."
"This…" the merchant was shocked by how correct and precise William was by his words. It went without saying that this core valued even more than sixty thousand spirit crystals, especially if they got sold at the right outlets.
If he sold it to an artisan, or perhaps to those rare array grandmasters, then this price would skyrocket by at least twenty thousand spirit crystals, if not more.
And if he sold it at any big auction house, then the price would hit the one hundred thousand mark for sure.
The merchant didn't need to ask about the origin of this core. He already guessed how William got his hand over it.
William's intentions were clear by now. The latter asked to speak inside such a secluded place, took out this core for one purpose… He was here to sell it!
And while the merchant was thinking about how to maximise his gains out of this deal, even thinking beyond that and thought of the list of names he should seek to sell this core to to gain more, William took another core out as he slowly said:
"I can give you these cores, for only forty thousand spirit crystals in return."
"Only forty? And not only one, but you have more?!!!" The merchant by this point couldn't control his expressions at all, showing a funny one that was made of shock, disbelief, and greed.
Seeing that merchant look like this made William smile broadly. He knew he secured the first purpose of coming here without any hiccups.
"That's correct," William nodded, "so, is it a deal?"
"Gulp!" The merchant stood in his place for a few moments before he closed his opened agape mouth, swallowed his saliva, and sat down. He looked in a serious way towards William, opening and closing his mouth a few times, without saying a single word for an entire minute.
"How many of these do you have?"
"Enough to buy the things I want," William didn't give a direct answer, and instead he hinted about his true intentions from doing this trade.
"Buy things? What things that require tens of thousands of spirit crystals?!"
"Well… Do you have paper and a brush?" William didn't say anything about what he wanted. He wanted a lot of things, and just saying them to this merchant wasn't going to work.
He knew many of these weren't available here at this merchant's stall. But William intended to use this merchant's connections and bring everything he needed without even moving a single finger.
This was the power of wealth. "Here," the merchant hurriedly gave him a stack of paper, ink, and a brush. William started to write down lots of things, while getting focused so he wouldn't miss anything.
The merchant was curious to see what William wanted, so he peeked over the items William kept writing down.
"These… Weapons and such things aren't available at my stall… You do know that."
"I know," William nodded, "like before, find me the best quality at the best price, and you'll get a fee for such help."
"Good…" the merchant became excited as he started rubbing his hands. He wasn't going to pay tons of spirit crystals in return for these cores.
Even if he was going to order things from other stalls and merchants, he could postpone paying for now.
Doing such a thing was common between merchants. Not to mention the prices he'd get these things for were going to be much lower than their real selling prices.
The merchant didn't plan on giving William things by the prices he'd buy them with but would tell him the standard market prices and then give him a small discount. That would increase his profit by a good margin, and William wasn't oblivious to such plans.
But in return for saving him the trouble of moving around and looking for things he wanted, he decided to bat an eye over such extra wealth the merchant planned to get.
"I want all of these," William wrote even on the back of four papers, "and don't forget to give me a good discount for all this."
"Sure," the merchant didn't object to that. After all, the scale of such trade was going way beyond what he initially imagined, "but this… Two cores won't be sufficient to pay for the expenses."
"I told you," William crossed his arms, closed his eyes as if he was a venerable master or something, "I got enough to pay for everything. Go now, gather everything up, and store them in a good ring."
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢