Versatile Mage (Web Novel)
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chapter-456
Translated by XephiZ
Edited by Aelryinth
"Many pieces of information are plain rumors, yet after filtering them out carefully, and selling the scrolls at a higher price, most of the Magicians will try their best to put in some accurate details. After all, if most of the information they provide is fake, they can only sell their scrolls at a very cheap price. When it reaches a certain threshold, the marketplace will forbid them from being a tipper. The minimum requirement to become a tipper is the Advanced Hunter rank, while most of the tippers are Hunter Masters. There are quite a few Senior Hunters, too," said Zhao Manyan.
Mo Fan had definitely learned something new.
If the news was from Hunter Masters or Senior Hunters, the information that the scrolls contained would be extremely valuable!Experts like Senior Hunters would normally carry out the highest-ranked quests, and they would discover the presence of Soul Seeds or demon beasts along the way. Even if they knew there was something valuable, they would not bother wasting their time on it, but it was a waste to simply hold onto the information. Therefore, it made more sense to write down the information on a Secret Tipping Scroll, and sell it to others for some extra cash. Meanwhile, it would also benefit the lower-ranked Hunters who were interested in the piece of information, resulting in a win-win situation.
Therefore, the Secret Tipping Scrolls were indeed quite meaningful!
"Why don't you go and buy a few of them? I'll have them give you a discount," offered Zhao Manyan.
Since Mo Fan was also a Hunter, instead of spending his time on the generic quests from the Hunter Union, he could try his luck through the Secret Tipping Scrolls instead.
"Alright, I'll buy a few, how much does one cost?" asked Mo Fan.
"The price varies, the expensive ones can go up to ten million, while the cheap ones can go all the way down to a few thousand. Tell me your range, and I'll get a few for you," said Zhao Manyan.
"Let's try a few with a price around ten thousand," Mo Fan was fairly rich for the time being, so he decided to try his luck."Not a problem."
After all, the marketplace was one of the Zhao Family's property, thus Zhao Manyan did have some special rights here. He quickly got a few Secret Tipping Scrolls for Mo Fan.
The Secret Tipping Scrolls were quite elegant, since their target audience was Magicians, who spent a lot of money on luxuries. After all, a commoner would prefer to spend a few tens of thousand on a branded bag, instead of a piece of information which was not guaranteed to be reliable.
"Open them up yourself," Zhao Manyan managed to get three Secret Tipping Scrolls. All of them were light blue in color, while those that were more costly were silver and gold!
The information provided by Senior Hunters was fairly reliable, so many people were willing to spend a huge sum of money on them.
Mo Fan opened the scrolls and read the contents.
"A Sword-Fin Ocean Demon has been spotted at Huangpu River. There is a higher chance to find it in April."
Zhao Manyan stuck his head closer and burst out laughing, "The Sword-Fin Ocean Demon is an infamous kind of demon beast living in the oceans. Their sword fins are sold with insane prices in the market. The sword fins are an important material to further improve the power of Deathstrike Magic Equipment… The problem is, can we actually find it in Huangpu River? I thought most of them were residing somewhere deep in the Pacific Ocean."
"Fishing? I'm not interested at all. Sigh, what a waste of money," said Mo Fan pitifully.
"It's fine, we still have two more," said Zhao Manyan.
Mo Fan nodded and opened another Secret Tipping Scroll, and subconsciously read it out.
"North Burning Valley, there are signs of a new Flame Belle being born."
"Damn, this is a valuable piece of information!" Zhao Manyan screamed before Mo Fan could react.
"How is that?" asked Mo Fan.
"The North Burning Valley is a very famous Fire Element region in our country, which is very close to Dunhuang. There, you can find a famous demon beast, a creature that is born with the fire of nature, an Elemental Beast... The Flame Belle is considered the rarest among all Elemental Beasts, its value is priceless on the market. However, if anyone were selling a Flame Belle's youngling at an auction, I bet that every famous renowned clan in Shanghai would attend it!" said Zhao Manyan with excitement.
"That serious?" asked Mo Fan in shock.
"Sigh, are you illiterate… well, it's hard to tell if the information is reliable or not," said Zhao Manyan.
"That's my Secret Tipping Scroll, what are you being so excited for?" said Mo Fan unpleasantly.
"F**k me, are you seriously unaware of how special a demon beast like the Flame Belle is? Its strength is more than a few times stronger than that of an ordinary beast… The Elemental Beasts have been the dream Contracted Beasts for Summoners, and this Flame Belle is one of the best Elemental Beasts you could ever find. Simply speaking, if you managed to get a Flame Belle as your Contracted Beast, you're going to be famous! You can easily get into the top ten with the Flame Belle!" said Zhao Manyan.
Mo Fan could tell that this Flame Belle was indeed very powerful judging from Zhao Manyan's reaction. The problem was, how did he know if the piece of information was reliable? Don't tell him that he had to pay a visit to the area around Dunhuang City?
"I'm quite interested in this Flame Belle. Do you have any way to obtain more information about it?" Mo Fan asked quickly.
Mo Fan had heard of Elemental Beasts before. If a Summoner could sign a contract with an Elemental Beast, they would obtain a boost for the respective Element too.
For example, since Mo Fan's primary Element was Fire, if he managed to get a Flame Belle as his Contracted Beast, his Fire Element would either become stronger, or have some special burning effect.
"Simple, spending lots of money... there are filtered Secret Tipping Scrolls that you can get, which are more expensive than the normal ones. If you bought all the ones related to the valley close to Dunhuang City, and if many of the tips are correlated to one another, the pieces of information might be stating the truth," said Zhao Manyan.
"How much money would I be spending? This is only to get the information!" said Mo Fan speechlessly.
"It's basically gambling. If you think the information is right, you should not just buy more of them, instead, you should buy all of them! Once you've proven that it's real, you will have fewer competitors compared to the quests that were submitted to the Hunter Union. All you have to worry about is how you're going to get it. In my opinion, this Flame Belle is perfect to be your Contracted Beast, since your Rose Flame is already extremely violent among the flames, and with the boost from your contract with the Flame Belle, your flame is going to be insane, pretty much unmatchable among flames that aren't Soul-graded!"
As a matter of fact, Mo Fan was fairly intrigued.
Many students in the school had Fire Soul Seeds, thus his Rose Flame alone no longer granted him an edge. If he could further improve his Fire Element with a Contracted Beast, it would be the perfect outcome!