Close Combat Mage
chapter-320

Chapter 320 – Encountering Robbers Pt. 1

Originally, Suo Jia had planned on using the interspatial rings to store the 1000 bags of Xiangshui rice. However, once the store manager had led Suo Jia to a warehouse and allowed him to personally see the mountains-like pile of rice, Suo Jia was completely dumbfounded.

Originally, Suo Jia had thought that the rice bags would only be small bags of 10-15kg. However, after witnessing it himself, Suo Jia suddenly realized how wrong his thoughts had been. One bag of rice was a burlap sack of 150kg!

Suo Jia could make many interspatial rings, but they had to be worn on his hands, as they relied on spirit power to maintain their states. Once taken off, they would lose the support of the spirit power, and everything within the interspatial rings would be pushed out onto the ground. In other words, Suo Jia could only wear 10 rings at most.

Suo Jia’s peak grade interspatial ring could only hold 100 cubic meters of space; it couldn’t even store 100 bags of rice. As for the other interspatial rings, they could only hold 10 cubic meters. Thus, even if Suo Jia emptied out all his interspatial rings and stored them with rice, he still wouldn’t be able to fit in even 200 bags.

By rough calculations, going one way from here to Enchanting Village required a month. If he wanted to store these 1000 bags of rice into interspatial rings and bring them back, it would require at least 5 round trips, which would be an entire 10 months of time. This was too slow; Suo Jia didn’t want to waste so much effort and become a porter.

But unfortunately, Suo Jia recalled the rank 10 Toughening Fruit that the village chief had promised him. That kind of thing was extremely hard to get. Even after scouting out the area, there would only be one at Enchanting Village within this 1000 kilometer circumference.

Of course, there couldn’t just be one rank 10 Toughening Fruit. However…if existences like this rank 10 Toughening Fruit grew in ordinary places, they’d all be plucked by people at rank 5 or 6, before they even grew to rank 10. These could only continue growing if they were in a hidden or harsh location, obviously outside the area at which people would be able to locate it.

When Suo Jia saw the rice piled like mountains in front of him, he blanked out. What could he do? What was he supposed to do now? Giving up wasn’t acceptable, not giving up was also unacceptable. When he looked at the large pile of rice currently under his possession, Suo Jia felt so much agony that he almost lost his mind.

Perhaps he could employ some of the villagers to wear the rings and help Suo Jia ship the goods. But if these were really so easily shipped, Suo Jia wouldn’t have needed to be the one to purchase them. There were many magical beasts that appeared along the way, enough to swallow normal citizens whole without a single bone remaining..

Of course, Suo Jia had also considered asking outside adventurers, like mercenaries, to help bring the goods over. However, Suo Jia knew that looking for an adventurer that had entered as a mercenary group wasn’t any easier than searching for a merchant group. In short, this question didn’t even need to be considered.

After thinking for a long time, Suo Jia finally chose to temporarily give up on this transaction. After all…Suo Jia couldn’t waste 10 months of time to complete it. However, Suo Jia wouldn’t dumbly drop it either. For now, he could only use a storage car to hold the 1000 bags, and keep it there until he had the ability to finish the transaction. Either way, the village chief hadn’t given a time limit. Waiting a bit longer would, on the contrary, allow the villagers to gather more Golden Raccoon Dog furs.

Most importantly, according to Suo Jia’s current state, he didn’t need such a high level Toughening Fruit. Even if the rank 10 Illusion Toughening Fruit was gifted to Suo Jia, it would be completely wasted. Although it would’ve been given for free, Suo Jia wouldn’t dare eat it, as it that would be equivalent to committing suicide.

After giving up on this transaction, Suo Jia rushed to the local Adventurer Union to inquire some information. After grasping Tide City’s commerce needs, Suo Jia needed to make rational decisions about how to perform business that would earn the most money while also allowing him to greatly boost his own strength.

After reaching the Adventurer Union, Suo Jia paid 1000 Trade Route coins to request the gathering of information. This meant that he’d be able to receive the information he wanted from the Adventurer Union.

The reason Suo Jia was so obsessed with doing the business right now was actually because he didn’t want to waste any time. While running around doing business, he could also increase his strength with battles. The money used for business could also allow him to purchase various magic fruits, which really let him kill many birds with one stone.

Although the little Frosty Wyrm was also eating the Toughening Fruits, Suo Jia knew that the Frost Wyrm should really be eating Freezing Fruits. Once the little Frost Wyrm’s Glacial Armor made a breakthrough, any Toughening Fruit, no matter how high level, would be to no avail. The Toughening Fruit’s highest realm still couldn’t be compared to the Diamond Dragon’s final form.

Although the Toughening Fruit at its greatest realm was basically unrivalled, a powerful attack was still enough to consume its energy. However, the Diamond Dragon’s Glacial Armor was different. That was basically something that was immune to both physical and magical attacks. No matter how one attacked, it’d be useless. The Diamond Dragon’s Glacial Armor was something even stronger than steel. The Glacial Armor at absolute zero was particularly unbreakable to any force.

Giving all the gathered Freezing Fruits to the Diamond Dragon was to lower its temperature even more. With the dragon’s originally low temperature as a foundation, the Glacial Armor and the Diamond Dragon’s attacks could be cooled further, reaching a terrifying level.

The Freezing Fruits could count as a supernatural power, while the Diamond Dragon’s Glacial Armor counted as a magic. Once the supernatural power and magic were overlaid upon each other, it would reach a frightening level that no typical person could even imagine. It was precisely due to this reason that the most powerful experts in the outside world became tiny shrimps on the Greater Trade Routes.

The information Suo Jia was looking for were the locations of these Freezing Fruits. The Freezing Fruits were a type of rare and precious fruit with extremely high prices; a rank 1 Freezing Fruit already costed a crazy amount of 100,000 for one. But fortunately, because of its preciousness, their source locations were very easy to find.

There were already various fruits recorded on the Greater Trade Routes, with a total of no less than 100 types. Each type of fruit represented a different type of energy, and a person would at most be able to utilize two types. The first was a human’s tenaciousness, a force compatible with all magic fruits, and the second was one’s main ability. The choice of main ability represented the person’s true level.

From the information he received, Suo Jia came to know the location of the Freezing Fruits— Freezing Plains. Although this place only had a few rank 1-3 Freezing Fruits, this was already enough for Suo Jia. Even if there were higher ranked fruits, they weren’t things that Suo Jia could afford at the moment.

A rank 1 Freezing Fruits costed 100,000, a rank 2 costed 500,000, and a rank 3 reached a frightening price of a million. These Freezing Fruits’ freezing abilities were Heaven grade in terms of energy. It was precisely due to this reason that their prices were so excessive.

According to different energies, and the level of their might, the magic fruits’ ranks were further split into grades. The various energies had different levels of might, and the magic fruits were split into 8 ranks: Heaven, Earth, Black, Yellow, Cosmos, Universe, Great, and Desolate.* The Freezing Fruits were one of the highest grade fruits: Heaven grade. It was also one of the most highly demanded and most expensive fruits.

However, since Suo Jia had already decided on the Diamond’s Dragon direction of growth, he wouldn’t shrink back from the fruits no matter how expensive they were. Each amount of money equated to a commodity. The more expensive something was, the greater in might it was. This was something that countless predecessors had tested.

The Freezing Plains were located in an extremely cold place 1000 km away. The famous city there was Icebound City. Although Suo Jia wasn’t that familiar with its needs, he had been raised in a cold place, so he knew what the people there would want.

Tide City’s special product was the Xiangshui rice, but Suo Jia wouldn’t stupidly buy anything like he’d bought the Xiangshui rice. No matter what, the profits that food had were too low. True merchants would never sell foodstuff.

Icebound’s area was a place that always had good alcohol, especially distilled spirits. Its goods were so welcomed that its massive profits couldn’t even be measured. But although Suo Jia knew he was supposed to to ship the distilled spirits for business to get tons of money, where was he supposed to get the distilled spirits from?

After Suo Jia paid another 1000 coins, he finally found the location the Blazing Liquor was located—Prairie Fire City. Although going from Tide City to Prairie Fire City and then to Icebound City would require going in a huge arc rather than a straight line, Suo Jia still firmly made his decision to do so.

Once Suo Jia had pretty much cleared out all the items within his interspatial rings and placed them within a bank safe house in Tide City, Suo Jia put on the ten interspatial rings and then filled them all with Xiangshui rice. He then rushed towards Prairie Fire City.

TL Note: “天地玄黄，宇宙洪荒” is what the author uses as the 8 ranks. This is actually the first line of a classic, Thousand Character Classic, and I assume the author just took it because he couldn’t think of anything else, and this sounded fancy >.>