59. Anecdotes from the township market (5)
The town's free market is built on the cross-shaped street where the town's two main streets meet, and is the centre of the town. It was originally intended to be a square, but as the town continued to grow, more and more free traders came to the town, setting up stalls everywhere and selling their wares. At first, some of the bigwigs in the shops in the town feared that these peddlers would steal their business and wanted to expel them. Many people travelled dozens of miles across the wilderness to buy the grain and salt they normally needed, as well as bringing in dried animal skins and meat to sell. Later on, the people of the town gave up the square to form the free market that we have today.
My ears had become so sharp that I could hear Master Leipas say to his attendants from a few dozen metres away, "What, the biggest grain merchant here has never heard of vermicelli?"
"They do say they have never seen the vermicelli I have described, or even heard of it." A squire replied from the side.
"Oh, go on and ask around, ask lots of questions, you don't have to find out where it's made, as long as they can get it and sell it to us, and tell them we'll take fine wrought iron ingots for it!"
"Yes, my lord."
"Tell old Kuru that we want to buy some vermicelli and send it back to the empire on a fast horse to warm up the market a bit. The secret of this stuff seems to be in the hands of the Gurudin tribal orcs in all probability, and if that's the case, it's not going to be easy! We have to let the word out that we want to pay a high price for it, and then let them fight for it themselves, as long as other orc tribes have it, the price won't be what they want."
The sound of their group talking got quieter and quieter, and the people walked further and further away. I thought to myself, "This Master Leipas is really tight-lipped. He never showed how much he valued the vermicelli during the caravan, but as soon as he arrived in the orc territory, he was spreading his net around to find out about the vermicelli. The only reason he didn't reveal his thoughts was because he was worried that old Kulu would see what he was thinking and deliberately hoard the vermicelli to raise the price.
The magic potion shop is not really that big, it's just to the left of the Beef and Ale Inn in the northwest corner of the free market, it's a small shop with only a dozen square metres. This simple arrangement alone will make some herbalists think twice about whether there are any fake herbs in their baskets that can be used to fool them, and if the shopkeeper mistakes them for frauds, will they still be able to do business in the future?
When I walked into the magic potion shop, I saw that the entire ground floor was occupied by a long wooden counter, and behind the counter were rows and rows of shelves against the wall, on which there were not only various herbs, but also various ores and some materials of magical beasts. on the shelves. On top of the wooden counter was a copper balance, and the green patina on the base of the balance told me that it was old. The scales, however, are worn like two mirrors from being used so often, and are attached to the bar by three fine chains. A wooden box next to the scales held a row of weights made of silver, each one exquisitely made. A middle-aged orc was standing behind the counter, carefully grinding a few clover plants with three golden leaves, and when he looked up to see a few of us walk in, he stopped the work in his hands and asked us calmly, "What would you like to buy?"
I was actually trying to sell the wound medicine I was holding, but Kiger had already stepped forward and said to the middle-aged orc uncle in all his robes with a smile, "Do you have any yellow crystal powder and grist and lava hound saliva here?"
"You are trying to refine royal amethyst?" The middle-aged orc apothecary's voice came out of his throat, hoarse from over-excitement, like a traveler in the desert who hadn't drunk water in a long time. His hands also pressed down on the wooden counter, making a loud noise from overexertion, startling us all.
Kiger's calm eyes, her lake-like eyes always conveyed her thoughts, like the way she was looking at the middle-aged orc uncle in front of her at the moment, as if to say: what are you thinking old man, if I had the royal amethyst would I dare to take it out here? The old orc seemed to read Kiger's expression and withdrew his blazing gaze in disappointment. "
Kiger smiled and reached into Katrina's backpack, fished out a piece of raw whetstone from it, placed it on the wooden table and said, "These whetstones are all companion ores from the ruby mine, and looking at the colour of these raw whetstones and the traces of purple grit on the surface, I feel ... "
The middle-aged orc took the whetstone, pulled out a magnifying glass from his pocket, and examined the pieces of whetstone carefully. After hearing what Kiger said, he looked even closer. Before Kiger could finish, he followed her words with some excitement, "Those ruby mines are producing royal amethysts, they must be! This stone that was dug up in which mine?"
Kig stood proudly in front of the middle-aged orc and said, "I bought these stones at a market stall. I thought I would grind the ore into ore powder and dissolve it with topaz powder and hellhound saliva. ..."
"Purple yellow crystal powder!"
"Purple yellow crystal powder!"
Both men blurted out at the same time. Naturally, the Purple Yellow Crystal Powder could not be compared to the Purple Yellow Crystal at all, the former was just a crystal powder that stored magic power, but the latter was indeed a precious stone that could be set on a magic staff, but the Purple Yellow Crystal which was one of the main ingredients for making high grade magic ink, it was because the various materials for high grade magic ink were extremely valuable that this high grade ink was always scarce in the market, this was a hard to find item that had a market but no price. Some senior apothecaries have to make high grade magical ink for some special reasons, and even go so far as to pay a high price for the expensive royal amethyst directly, grinding the crystal directly into powder.
"Is this ore for sale?" The middle-aged orc uncle finally could no longer hold back his desire for the high-grade material and asked Kiger.
It was often the case that if one took the initiative to approach the shopkeeper about a sale, it would make the shopkeeper's first impression that the goods were all eager to sell and become emboldened. With such subjectivity, it was very difficult to sell any item for a high price, and sometimes things even got worse, and that was a situation where the shopkeeper would rather give up than press for a price. The way to reverse this situation is to increase the desire to buy, just like the middle-aged orc uncle in the magic potion shop at this moment, who only had eyes for the royal amethyst powder, even if the content in the ore was low, he wanted to buy it at this moment.
I'm not sure how much royal amethyst I'll be able to collect, but I'd rather melt one and see how much royal amethyst is in the stone? "
The middle-aged orc blinked his black bean-like eyes and was about to tell Kiger that we should melt a stone together to see how many grams of royal amethyst particles we could collect in one stone, so that we could talk about the price and so on. But Kiger didn't say whether to sell it or not, as if she was more worried about selling it cheaply, so she took the initiative to find out the content of the royal amethyst particles. In this way, it was the middle-aged orc uncle who was hesitant.
Things were relative, and the safer thing to do would be for everyone to melt a stone together to get a clear picture of the Royal Amethyst pellet content. In that case it would be the same as putting a price on it, I have almost this much Royal Amethyst particles in one stone, so fine! Let's calculate the price according to the market price, take away the cost of materials and labour used in refining, then the rest is the selling price of a sharpening stone, huh? No, okay! I was going to buy some solvent and abrasive to collect myself, so it doesn't matter if I buy it or not!
But if a stone like this never detects the content of royal amethyst grains either, then fine! Now this ore is a gamble, so we can all make a mental estimate of how many amethyst particles it can collect and how much it can bring in, based on our experience and guesses. Well! A magical potion shop can have one or two high grade magical materials as a shop treasure, sometimes far more than its own value.
After stewing for a while, the middle-aged orc uncle finally said to Kiger with a bitter face, "This customer, you see ..."
Oh, by that tone of voice alone I knew the middle-aged orc uncle he was a bear, thinking about the sad scene where Kurtz and I were just slaughtered in the weapon shop, at this point I felt a sense of shame to die, I had lived all these years in vain!
When Kiger smiles, her eyes are narrowed and she makes all sorts of expressions under her beautiful, delicate face, sometimes even more so than when she speaks, which makes it seem that Kiger is also torn between selling and not selling. But in the end, it was decided to sell it all.
From the beginning to the end, Kurtz and I stood by and watched the film without saying a word. And Katrina was a superb drag queen, constantly taking the ore out of her backpack and back again under Kiger's direction. In the end, it was agreed that the raw ore would be sold for twenty silver coins per kilo, yes, this time by the kilo, and naturally you can't calculate the price of such expensive raw ore by quantity because of the unevenness of the size.
If you don't connect the dots in this series of conversations, first discussing what's in the ore - to sell or not to sell - how much - to bet or not to bet - until finally betting, then this is a lot of talk. -until finally the bet is made, then how is the ore going to be sold? What if Kiger had just gone into the magic potion shop and just dumped the ore in front of the potion shop owner and said: hey, uncle, how much do you think these stones are worth to me? Or, "Hey, uncle, do you want to buy the raw ore for 20 silver dimes a kilo?
The middle-aged man would say, "Why don't you go rob? You're selling it as a gold mine?
And now, the truth was in front of us, Kiger had sold the entire 96 pieces of raw millstone to the owner of the magic potion shop for 20 silver per kilo, and after weighing the ore, the total amount was 106 kilograms, so it was sold for 21 gold coins. Ah! Knowledge is wealth.
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