âHehe, you gave me a lot of good advice, which helped me greatly. Selling to you first was only natural. Yet, I didnât fully understand that high-rank apostles like you have come far in your career paths. You shouldnât be interested in these things, right?â Qin Lun asked with a smile.
âYouâre pretending not to know for sure. Men are so slyâyou think Iâm helping someone else shop, donât you!?â Kelly sighed, saying honestly, âHelping someone else shop is partly true, but you only guessed half right. Among the three items you showed, there really is something I want!â
âAre you a martial artist?â Qin Lun raised his eyebrows and asked without thinking. When he saw Kelly looking at him with a half-smile, he bashfully rubbed his nose.
âQuit that fake act! I know youâre very tricky. Youâre pretending to be an innocent kid, and youâre doing it poorly!â Kelly folded her arms, looking at him with scorn.
âCough, cough, cough!â Qin Lun coughed repeatedly. This was the first time he felt the fierceness of this strong woman in their conversations.
The longbow and bow dance technique he showed were core items for an archer class. With Kellyâs strength, she had core items long ago and naturally didnât need those. The only one left was that B-rank martial skill âFlamingo,â which might be what she needed.
Qin Lun originally wanted to learn âFlamingoâ himself, but this B-rank martial skill was very special. To use it, one must have deep combat energy training. Back then, the martial artist Kael had already taken half a step into second-order class change, yet using this B-rank skill still caused backlash. That showed how high the requirements were.
âAh, the Flamingo of Phoenix Soaring Fists!â A hint of nostalgia flashed in Kellyâs eyes as she murmured, âI donât know where you got that skill. If itâs a loot from killing some apostle, then your strength must be way above a newbie. Any martial artist who can skillfully use combat energy wings is at least second-order level!â
Qin Lun was startled upon hearing this. He hadnât realized that martial artist was so strong. Kael had put up almost no fight during âTree World Descent,â so Qin Lun treated him like just another passerby. If he had come earlier and seen Kael instantly kill the Ghost Owl, he probably would have remembered it strongly.
âName a price! Beast Kingâs Hunting Bow, Bow Dance Technique, and⊠FlamingoâI want them all!â Kelly snapped out of it, waved her hand, and spoke with authority.
âWell⊠you know Iâm building my own career system. I planned to trade these three items for other thingsâŠâ Qin Lun said with a smile, âOh, what do you think about the other three things I consigned?â
âThe other three?â Kelly raised her fine brows and glanced at the screen. âThat skull coin is likely a token from some quest race, but coins come in many copies, so about ten thousand shattered crystals is fair. The blue combat gauge has low quality, but for newbie apostles, it still has a market, so thirty thousand shattered crystals is reasonable.
As for that purple leather armorâno, it should have been dark gold equipment! The shattered laws faded a bit, but after repairing it, it should at least become bright gold quality. You only set a fifteen thousand shattered crystal base price? What a wasteful foolâŠâ
Listening to Kelly scold him bluntly, Qin Lun could only force an awkward smile and stand by.
Halfway through, Kelly suddenly narrowed her lovely eyes and raised her brows thoughtfully. âThat bright gold leather armor⊠it couldnât be from the same archer apostle as the longbow and bow dance technique, could it?â
âOh, yes!â Qin Lun nodded honestly.
âSo it is! You idiot, since that archer class apostle paired the leather armor and longbow, their attribute skills must favor archers too. And youâre selling them separately⊠hahaha, big sis here will take it all! Three hundred fifty thousand shattered crystalsâdeal or not?â
Kelly licked her lips, smiling as she said, âYouâre a grown manâbe decisive!â
Qin Lunâs mouth twitched. Ignoring the gladiatorâs leather armorâs fifty thousand shattered crystals, the other three items in his mind were worth about three hundred thousand shattered crystals total.
His mispricing of the skull coin and combat gauge had some accidental factors. His misprice of the gladiatorâs leather armor was just careless. He knew its shattered laws had faded and its quality would rise after repair, but he never expected it to jump from purple quality to bright gold.
In comparison, his pricing for dark gold equipment like Beast Kingâs Hunting Bow, Bow Dance Technique, and the Flamingo skill scroll wouldnât vary much. Even with fading shattered laws, Beast Kingâs Hunting Bow remained dark gold equipment, hinting it must have been violet gold quality before.
Qin Lun had only seen two violet gold weapons. Due to high consumption, the owner of âBurial of Light and Darknessâ had listed it at a hundred thousand shattered crystals. Without the mold flaw, its real value would be one hundred fifty to two hundred thousand. As for the holy ice crystal sword he once saw, that was just baitâworth over two hundred thousand shattered crystals.
Beast Kingâs Hunting Bow couldnât beat that swordâs holy ice crystal material. But adding the matching Bow Dance Technique, its value was definitely above two hundred thousand. As for the âFlamingoâ skill scroll, its rank was high, so Qin Lun allowed minor price changes.
However, by looking at the scroll, he knew it had short-term hover abilities. For melee users, that was rare. With B-rank level, it was worth double a normal skillâat least a hundred thousand shattered crystals.
Kelly offered exactly Qin Lunâs bottom-line price, maybe even shorting him by several thousand. But that strong woman gave him free advice on career paths beforeâa favor not to overlook. So this deal felt fair.
Sure, Qin Lun could ignore that favor and haggle with Kelly again. But that wasnât his style at all.
He got elven race and demon clan sponsorship simultaneously in Devilâs Horn partly due to his image valuing favors. Whether it was genuine or fake, he wouldnât ruin it just to grab more shattered crystals.
Qin Lun lowered his head, thought a moment, then looked up smiling. âYou once helped me immensely. Maybe your views on career paths were common sense to you. But for me, they let me make a big choice in my fighting path.â
The young man paused and met Kellyâs eyes directly. âSo hereâs my plan: If you need âFlamingoâ⊠then this skill scroll is yours! Tomorrow Iâll give your contact info to the auction houseâyou can pick it up directly! For Beast Kingâs Hunting Bow and Bow Dance Technique, youâre just buying them for someone else⊠get him to come find me himself!â
Kelly shuddered, her pupils narrowing to pinpoints. After a long moment, she nodded with a light laugh. âAll right, I wonât stand on ceremony then!â
After the call ended, Qin Lun sighed in relief and went upstairs to rest.
The next day, when he reached the auction house, the Flamingo skill scroll was already gone. Qin Lun quickly closed deals for the combat gauge and skull coin. He only took back the gladiatorâs leather armor along with the other two displayed items, waiting for Kelly to send someone to contact him again.
To Qin Lunâs surprise, Kelly didnât reach out in the next few days. But he didnât mindâhe had time before his next entry into a quest world. At worst, he could seek new trades later.
Over those days, Qin Lun hung out in bars and entertainment spots, asking other apostles about the âreal trading placeâ Kelly mentioned.
Heâd never realized before that professional apostlesâ true market wasnât in Devilâs Horn. Or rather, it wasnât on the same plane.
The top large apostle teams in Apostle City had loose alliances and rivalries. Taking âLostâ as an example, they joined forces with several other big teams to form an âOrder Frontâ alliance.
Devilâs Horn had three apostle alliances: besides âOrder Front,â there were âChaos Allianceâ and âApostle Monument.â
The apostle alliances were very loosely structured, basically groups in name only. Qin Lun couldnât find out if senior members of big teams had deeper agreements. He only knew each league pooled many resources to open plane-based market squares for trading by league members.
The three apostle leagues gathered nearly all professional apostlesâabout six thousand out of a total of over ten thousand apostles in Apostle City. The rest ten thousand plus were basically apostles who hadnât class changed.
This info wasnât a secret in Devilâs Horn. Most professional apostles knew it, and even some new apostles had heard.
However, for those not class changed, whether they knew about the plane market or not, the auction house met their needs. Most new apostles lacked formal teams, so they saw no need to join an apostle league. Only professional apostles who couldnât fulfill their needs at the auction house sought the plane market.
Learning this, Qin Lun couldnât help a bitter smileâKelly was right; he was ignorant. He and the serial killers like Hill were wrapped up in their own worlds. With quest gaps being short, his two months in Devilâs Horn wasted chances to learn such basic facts.
Apostle league plane markets werenât open to outsiders like Qin Lun. But he could just join a black iron team or start one, then register under a large team.
For instance, Hillâs âYD1255 Black Iron Teamâ could sign an affiliate pact with apostates at âLostâsâ base. Paying ten to twenty thousand shattered crystals per person monthly let them register under âLost.â
Those big teams didnât demand protection moneyâthe fees mainly maintained the market plane. Of course, it also gave their league more grassroots support.
Donât underestimate the name! With that base, the big teams often influenced Apostle City in many ways. Most actual new members of big teams came from these registered groups too.
As Kelly said, many small teams eventually failed. Once they realized the quest worldsâ cruelty after their team broke, they chose to join big teams. Their past registrations then affected that final choice.
Just as Qin Lun pondered whether to discuss this with Hill and others, Shepherd contacted him first!