Chapter 1 The City Lord's Mansion

The City Lord's Mansion of Zero Wing City stood tall in the center of the entire city, like a mountain, surrounded by high walls. The City Lord's Mansion itself was also protected by a magic array, and no outsiders could enter except through the main gate.

The NPCs guarding the entrance to the City Lord's Mansion were all Tier 2 guards of Level 150, and they were also blessed by the magic array. No matter how many players came now, they would only die.

Shi Feng led Youlan into the first floor of the City Lord's Mansion, and saw that the hall was full of NPC merchants, numbering as many as several hundred.

Youlan, who walked into the hall, couldn't help but be stunned by this scene.

Although she didn't know much about NPC merchants, she also knew that these NPC merchants were like wandering merchants in small towns, but they were much more stable than those wandering merchants, and would not disappear tomorrow after appearing today. They could bring stable rare items to players.

Generally, a small town would be very impressive to have twenty or thirty wandering merchants, and the small towns mainly developed by Underworld only had forty or so wandering merchants.

But there were actually hundreds of them in front of her…

However, Youlan didn't know that there were actually very few NPC merchants now. The one-star NPC merchants had already been rejected and left by Aqua Rose, and now only two-star and three-star NPC merchants remained in the hall.

"Guild Leader, you've finally arrived." Aqua Rose breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Shi Feng walking into the hall. "If you hadn't come, these two three-star NPC merchants would have left."

"What are their conditions for moving in?" Shi Feng asked directly.

All NPC merchants who wanted to move into a guild city had their own conditions, and it wasn't something that players could simply agree to. It also depended on whether they had the ability to take it on.

"One requires a full tax exemption, and the store must be on the street where the City Lord's Mansion is located. The other requires a large warehouse, and the store must also be on the street where the City Lord's Mansion is located," Aqua Rose explained.

"Their asking price is really ruthless enough," Shi Feng frowned slightly.

The City Lord's Mansion was the absolute center of the city, and the land area was very limited. The shops of NPC merchants generally occupied a large area, and the land sold to NPC merchants could not be recovered at all. This meant that the land would be abandoned forever without getting a single copper.

And a full tax exemption was the monthly fee that these NPC merchants had to pay, which was determined according to the level of the store. This could be said to be one of the sources of income for a city.

Needless to say, warehouses. It cost three thousand gold to build a small warehouse, and large warehouses started at ten thousand gold. The warehouse itself was not a problem, the key was the large area it occupied, and as a warehouse, it could not be too far away from the store, which was a great waste of land.

It had to be said that the asking price of the two three-star NPC merchants was very black.

"Is there no room for negotiation?" Shi Feng couldn't help but ask Aqua Rose.

The higher the status of NPCs in God's Domain, the higher their intelligence. The conditions offered by NPC merchants were not unchangeable.

"I've said a lot, but these two NPC merchants are sticking to these two conditions," Aqua Rose said with a helpless expression. She had said everything she could, but the two NPC merchants were very determined and could not be moved at all.

"Can you let me try?" Youlan asked softly from the side.

"You?" Aqua Rose glanced at Youlan, who was wearing a black cloak. She felt that she looked familiar before, but now that she looked closely, she immediately remembered Youlan's identity, and asked curiously, "Aren't you the manager of Underworld's Merchant Association? Why are you here?"

She still had some impression of Youlan. She was definitely a strong woman, and she managed the Merchant Association of Alluring Smile to be second only to Candlelight Trading Firm. Her own combat power was also very good.

"I invited her. Youlan is already a member of our guild," Shi Feng explained.

When Aqua Rose heard Shi Feng say this, the corners of her mouth twitched slightly, and she looked at Shi Feng in disbelief.

Who was Youlan?

As far as she knew, she was almost a high-level figure in Underworld, and the power of Underworld, an organization hidden in the dark, was extraordinary. In terms of strength and potential, it was much stronger than ordinary first-rate guilds, and it had ample funds behind it. As long as it cultivated enough experts, it was a certainty that it would develop into a super-first-rate guild in the future.

Why would she not be a high-level member of such a future super-first-rate guild, and instead run to the Zero Wing Guild, which was surrounded by enemies?

She really didn't understand what methods Shi Feng used to accomplish this.

"Okay, then I'll leave this matter to you for now," Shi Feng agreed to Youlan's suggestion.

Anyway, it wouldn't hurt to try.

Currently, the foundation of Zero Wing City was too weak. It was already surprising that it could attract three-star NPC merchants, so naturally the conditions offered by these two three-star NPC merchants would not be low.

"Okay, I'll do my best." Youlan nodded and looked at Aqua Rose, "Can I borrow Zero Wing City's information?"

"This…" Aqua Rose hesitated.

Zero Wing City's information was a core secret and could not be easily viewed by others.

"It's okay, let her see it. Anyway, she's already a core member of the guild, and this information won't be kept secret forever," Shi Feng said.

Zero Wing City had just been built and there were no secrets at all. It didn't matter if she looked at it.

Aqua Rose saw that Shi Feng had agreed, so she immediately called up the existing information of Zero Wing City for Youlan to review.

Before long, Youlan closed the displayed information, took a deep breath, and entered the reception room to negotiate with the two three-star NPC merchants.

Shi Feng then began to select some needed two-star NPC merchants.

Although NPC merchants sold a wide variety of items, with so many NPC merchants, there would always be some who sold the same items. Since they were selling the same items, they naturally had to choose the NPC merchants with lower conditions. As for the high-condition NPC merchants who sold duplicate items, they were naturally not needed. After all, Zero Wing City had limited space and needed a lot of land to build other advanced buildings, so it was impossible to waste it on this.

In less than ten minutes, Shi Feng had selected sixty-three two-star NPC merchants. The unique items sold by these NPC merchants were not duplicated, and the requirements were relatively low. They could be distributed throughout Zero Wing City, so there was no need to worry that the players who came would only concentrate in the central area. They would also go to other remote areas because of the shops opened by these NPC merchants.

Just as Shi Feng and Aqua Rose decided on the locations of all the two-star NPC merchants' shops, Youlan also came out of the reception room.

"Guild Leader, these are the conditions of the two NPC merchants." Youlan then took out two contracts and handed them to Shi Feng.

"No way, they…" Aqua Rose, who was on the side, looked at the contracts taken out by Youlan, a trace of surprise flashing in her beautiful eyes.

The two NPCs whom she couldn't persuade to budge had actually relented.

The conditions were much easier than before. Although they still had to open shops in the City Lord's Mansion, the tax was no longer fully exempted but only halved, and the required large warehouse had also been changed to a small warehouse.

"I have tried my best to lower the conditions, but these two NPC merchants believe that the current Zero Wing City has no competitiveness and cannot completely exempt their additional conditions," Youlan said somewhat apologetically.

"Youlan, is your secondary profession a merchant?" Aqua Rose thought about it and concluded that the only possibility was that the merchant profession had this ability, but she had also asked the merchant players in the guild to try, but it didn't work.

"Yes, I just became a three-star merchant." Youlan nodded.

"Three-star merchant?" Aqua Rose was speechless when she heard Youlan say this. She really didn't know how Shi Feng managed to pull Youlan into the Zero Wing Guild.

Currently, the strongest merchant in the guild was still a little short of becoming a two-star merchant. It was estimated that only those super guilds had two-star merchants. The higher the star rating, the stronger the ability to negotiate with NPCs, such as reducing the monthly system management fees, etc., which would be of considerable help to the development of both the guild and the shops.

"Guild Leader, you are really amazing. You even dug up Underworld's three-star merchant. If Underworld finds out, they will definitely fight Zero Wing to the death," Aqua Rose said softly to Shi Feng, looking at Shi Feng.

What Aqua Rose didn't know was that not only Underworld was going to fight to the death, but the Blackwater Consortium behind Underworld was also furious about this.

Just as Shi Feng signed the two three-star NPC merchants, a system notification sounded in his ear.

Star-Moon Kingdom Regional System Announcement: Congratulations to Heavenly Burial Guild for capturing the Ancient Rock City of the Orc Empire, rewarding the guild with 50,000 points of fame, 100,000 points of guild honor contribution, and increasing the guild's influence in the Star-Moon Kingdom by 150 points!