Big Clearance Sale

“I’ll mail you some gear. Help me list it on the auction house, will you? Same as usual—ninety-ten split.”

“No problem!”

Knowing that Liu Xuan wasn’t the sort to haggle over every little thing—and having experienced firsthand how useful armor, or rather money, could be—Zhang Meng didn’t hold back.

Besides, he was already out grinding monsters. Running back to sell Liu Xuan’s items for him and taking a small delivery fee was perfectly reasonable, right?

Then Zhang Meng saw the more than seventy pieces of equipment Liu Xuan had mailed over, and his eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.

Especially the dozen or so pieces of [Beasthide Armor].

“Fuck!”

Zhang Meng couldn’t help shouting. His companions looked at him in confusion.

“What’s wrong, Big Brother Zhang?”

“Nothing, nothing.” Zhang Meng waved them off.

He continued staring at those dozen-plus pieces of [Beasthide Armor]. Each one provided 10 points of armor. With even one of these, what was a [Bouncing Rabbit] supposed to be? Nothing.

He could just stand there and tank it!

Not to mention that they also gave 1 point of Strength.

The only downside was that the level requirement was a little high. They couldn’t be equipped until level six.

But even at level six, this was still an incredibly good piece of equipment.

After all, most of the gear crafted by NPCs was plain white equipment that only provided armor.

“Brother Liu, how are you planning to sell these?” Zhang Meng asked after collecting himself.

“What are equipment prices like on the auction house right now?”

“Uh… there isn’t any equipment on the auction house right now…”

That was because practically every piece of equipment—even the crappiest level-one [Rough] gear—provided at least 1 point of armor.

And armor was incredibly useful at low levels. Every monster they had encountered so far dealt physical damage.

Besides, most people were currently leveling in groups. A piece of equipment would usually be worn by the team’s main tank first. Once they found something better, they would pass the old item on to another member of the team.

It was just like how poor families in the old days took turns wearing the same set of clothes.

Who would sell equipment for money? Money wasn’t worth more than your life.

This wasn’t an ordinary game where the copper coins you earned could be traded to other players for real-world currency. Everyone was currently trapped inside the battlefield, with no way out.

No matter how many copper coins you earned, you would ultimately have to spend them inside the battlefield on equipment and potions. So why go through the trouble of selling equipment?

That was why there wasn’t a single piece of equipment on the auction house.

After hearing this, Liu Xuan thought for a moment before asking, “Then how many copper coins does it cost to have an NPC craft a piece of equipment with 1 point of armor?”

“Because you listed so many materials at such low prices, materials in our battlefield are pretty cheap. So it costs roughly twenty-five copper coins to craft a piece of gear with 1 armor.”

“Then sell all the equipment at an average price of twenty-five copper coins per point of armor, and one silver coin per point of Strength.”

“Huh?”

Zhang Meng froze—not because the prices were too high, but because they were far too low.

Most of Liu Xuan’s equipment was level three or higher, and much of it provided several points of armor.

In a normal game, if 1 point of armor sold for twenty-five copper coins, then 2 points of armor couldn’t possibly sell for just fifty. The price might shoot straight up to seventy or eighty.

In almost every case, the higher the stats, the more heavily the price inflated.

A piece with 3 points of armor would probably sell for one or two silver coins.

After all, each person had only a limited number of equipment slots. The difference between a bracer with 2 armor and one with 1 armor wasn’t simply “one extra point of armor.” It was “one extra point of armor without taking up an additional equipment slot.”

That might be difficult to understand, so perhaps another example would make it clearer.

Option A: A bracer with 2 points of armor.

Option B: A bracer with 1 point of armor, plus a pair of boots with 1 point of armor.

Which would you choose?

Obviously, Option A.

Leaving aside the fact that those two 1-armor items had such low stats that they would easily be replaced later, the moment you obtained another pair of boots—regardless of how much armor they had—the person who chose Option A would end up with 1 more point of armor than you.

Liu Xuan didn’t find anything strange about Zhang Meng’s confusion.

Although it wasn’t apparent yet, he had a feeling that since this place was called the “Ascension Battle” and was named after war, it definitely wasn’t something that concerned only one person.

So, if the other people in the battlefield became a little stronger, that might not be a bad thing for him.

As for skill books, there wasn’t a single one on the auction house either. After thinking it over, Liu Xuan decided not to sell [Pig Charge] for now.

Skill books were different from materials and equipment.

There were only so many people in this battlefield, and the money they earned could only be spent inside the battlefield. In other words, there were no gold farmers here like in ordinary games.

Everyone fought monsters and earned money so they could buy better equipment. Liu Xuan selling large quantities of materials at low prices wouldn’t damage the market. Instead, everyone would benefit from it.

But there was only one copy of a skill book, and only one person could learn it. If he listed one at a low price, some greedy merchant would snap it up and resell it at a ridiculous markup.

Besides, no one could afford it for the time being. He might as well hold on to it.

He could sell it once everyone had more money.

Just as everything was developing in a positive direction for Liu Xuan and the others, the outside world was once again rocked by turmoil.

More than six hours had passed since the light barrier appeared and one hundred million people were pulled into the Ascension Battlefield.

Six hours was more than enough time for many of those who had entered to become hungry and exhausted.

However, aside from Huaxia, which received an experience bonus and had officially dispatched troops to provide support, most other countries had no intention of sending anyone inside.

As a result, the number of survivors in their battlefields continued to decline.

Without reinforcements, the people inside kept dying, while their condition grew worse and worse. Trapped by exhaustion, desperation, and fear, they had no choice but to force their way toward the Novice Villages.

Some managed to capture the villages by relying on enormous sacrifices and sheer luck.

But more often than not, their entire forces were wiped out.

Under these circumstances, the survival rates of these countries rapidly approached the dangerous threshold of thirty percent.

What no one outside had expected was that they had assumed falling below thirty percent would merely trigger a refill back to thirty percent. The odds of being randomly selected in the short term shouldn’t have been very high.

Instead, the battlefield directly replenished their numbers all the way back to one hundred percent!

Although the newly added recruits allowed the various countries to gradually capture their Novice Villages, the people outside were panicking.

“Fuck! This is only the first stage. If people die during the later stages, are they going to forcibly draft more people again?”

“My wife disappeared six hours ago! I just drove to my mistress’s place to celebrate. We were really getting into the mood when she said she was going to take a shower and told me to wait. After sitting there for ages, I discovered she’d vanished from the bathroom!”

“The police station here actually said that my daughter, who’s been missing for ten years, was pulled into the battlefield! I told them the timing didn’t match, and they told me she’d entered during the closed beta test.”

“Heh. A lot of places are using this opportunity to ‘balance the books,’ aren’t they?”

“We have to protest! The government should send people in as reinforcements instead of randomly selecting ordinary civilians!”

“If those damn politicians were going to send people, they would have done it already. Look at Huaxia—they directly issued a notice telling ordinary people not to enter if possible, while the military would move in as needed.”

“They’re doing just fine over there. They’re already in the second stage.”

“Have you seen the latest news? The second stage is already at twenty-five percent!”

“Shit! Is our glorious Europe really going to submit to Huaxia in the future?”

“Well… is that necessarily a bad thing?”

“As long as you don’t make me go in there to die, I don’t care who’s in charge.”

“Being China’s dog is the greatest honor!”