nownovels Chapter 96 Encountering Difficulties and Taking a Sleep
Chapter 96 Encountering Difficulties and Taking a Sleep
There was no scale at home, but Zag roughly estimated that Herford's shaved hair weighed at least two pounds, which should be worth a lot of money.
According to the price offered by that black market merchant named Fox last time, it could be exchanged for more than two hundred gold pounds.
In addition, the money earned from healing the mucus was over three hundred gold pounds, which covered most of the year's tuition.
However, this income is not always available. Zag doesn't know how long it will take for the werewolf's fur to grow back, and the harvest cycle for healing slime is even longer, with not much in a year. The large amount last time was probably the tree spirits' stockpile. If he were to exchange it regularly, he probably wouldn't earn much money per month on average.
The alchemy I just learned can't be converted into cash, but I can put my enchanting skills to use. However, finding a buyer is a difficult task.
This era lacks the convenience of modern information society, where any product can be listed online and people will always see it. Whether or not someone buys it depends entirely on the product's competitiveness.
At this point, if such a high-value niche product cannot find a buyer, it means that the funds will be tied up for a long time, or even the product will simply be stuck in the hands of the buyer, resulting in a pure loss.
Of course, if he were a true enchanter, he could simply go to various merchant guilds and ask if any big customers were willing to buy the entire batch of goods. But the problem is that he doesn't have the Golden Palace's certification—this requires an evaluation exam, and with Zag's current shallow knowledge of mysticism and magic, he certainly wouldn't be able to pass it. Therefore, all production and sales of magical items, including enchanted items, are illegal, punishable by fines at best and imprisonment at worst. This path is simply not viable!
Just like back then, if Ms. Rowan hadn't said she could completely consume all the healing slime and launder the goods, Zag would have had no market and could only sell at a low price on the black market.
In short, the idea of making money through enchanting, which I had just come up with, has now reached a dead end because there are no buyers.
You can't exactly go around knocking on doors in Xicheng District to sell yourself, can you?
There aren't enough people to report them yet!
"well……"
Zhage sighed deeply, feeling like a useless piece of trash trapped in the Eastern Port.
Sometimes he really wanted to just grab the [Fireball] spell, rob a few caravans on the trade route outside the city, take the money, and go straight to the Golden Palace to learn magic, and then rise to the top and become a powerful figure... If he were playing a game, he would definitely do that. Even if he didn't rob, he wouldn't feel much guilt about stealing some money. It's a game, after all, who hasn't killed chickens and stolen money in a game?
Of course, ever since he was chased and beaten up by everyone in a certain game for killing a chicken, to the point that he couldn't play the game anymore and had to start a new save, Zag hasn't been stealing chickens or doing anything like that in games.
In reality, it would be even less likely.
"If all else fails, you can make more of those mushrooms, and I'll help you sell them to other fairies. Hmm, even at 1 gold pound, there will definitely be plenty of fairies willing to buy them!"
The kitten's paw pressed against Zag's arm, and Snowball's tone was full of comfort.
The "mushroom" it mentioned was actually a claw sharpening post that Zag had been making for it recently when it had nothing else to do.
The old sharpening post, made of newspaper, was worn out and unusable. While cleaning out old furniture, a table leg had been left in the garden. Zag had intended to chop it up for firewood, but lacking an axe, he simply stuffed it into the backyard shed. Later, he happened to see it again and suddenly remembered Snowball's sharpening post was about to break, so he decided to use it to make a new mushroom-shaped sharpening post.
He even went to the market to find a carpenter to help him polish and customize the mushroom top, and the mushroom stem was made by wrapping several layers of hemp rope around this table leg.
It's sturdy and durable, much more reliable than the claw post made from old newspapers and discarded notices.
It looks much better too. At least Xueqiu is really looking forward to it. He examines it every day and then squats down next to it to supervise the process when Zag is making it.
If Zag doesn't start construction one day, it will even remind Zag in a very unhappy manner—
"Don't forget to offer the mushrooms to the great snowball!"
However, Zag was rather reluctant to accept Xueqiu's suggestion.
He tried to reason with Snowball: "Snowball, look, it takes me at least three or four days to make one claw-grinding pillar. Even if I worked all year round, I could only make about 100. Then I could sell each one for 1 gold pound, which is 100 gold pounds. And that doesn't even include the cost of materials and the cost of ordering the mushroom-shaped top fittings from the carpenter..."
There's no need to continue at this point.
So Snowball lay down on the bed, sighed sadly, and said, "Sigh, making money is so hard."
A little black cat was seriously worrying about making money, which was quite amusing. Zag smirked and couldn't resist teasing Snowball: "You've lived for over three thousand years, haven't you saved up any money?"
Snowball immediately sat up straight, glaring warily at Zag: "Don't even think about it!"
Zag shrugged, amused. "I was just asking."
Helford chimed in rather generously, "I've saved some, I can give it all to you, about 13 pounds, 9 shillings, and 12 pence... if I remember correctly, but I buried it in my father's coffin in Glasfield, which is a bit far from here..."
Hearing the exact amount, Zag's lips twitched: "You should keep it for yourself. This amount of money isn't even enough to buy a boat ticket."
While the ticket price certainly couldn't be that expensive, this amount of money was indeed a drop in the ocean compared to the huge shortfall in tuition fees for the Golden Palace.
According to the information that Zag had gathered, it would take at least five to eight years to master the skills at the Golden Palace. Even if Zag were highly intelligent and perfectly replicated the path that the royal chief mage had taken when he studied at the Golden Palace, it would still take three years, and the tuition alone would be 1500 gold pounds!
Rowan only agreed to fund the first year; the remaining 1000 gold pounds was a huge sum, not to mention the living expenses he and Mrs. Marsh needed to cover!
Oh, and Snowball and Helford too, those two eat a lot of money every year!
If Zag were alone, he would definitely take the 600 gold pounds Rowan had given him and head straight to the Golden Palace without hesitation—there's always a way out, right? Even if he's terrible at magic, after a year of study, he should be able to find a way to make money, right? He could always earn some money after a year of study and save enough to continue learning.
But he wasn't someone who only had to worry about himself. Mrs. Marsh couldn't afford to go hungry, and Snowball and Helford also needed a stable food source, otherwise one of them would end up stealing fish and the other fishing.
Not wasting all your savings is a basic responsibility of an adult, especially since Mrs. Marsh needs a bottle of "Healing Hands" every week.
"Things have come to this..."
Zag extinguished the kerosene lamp, then lay down on the bed and said, "Let's go to sleep!"
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[Snowball's Rant]: Making money is such a hassle! Why can't we just go to the Eternal Supreme Kingdom's treasury and take some? They can't possibly spend it all anyway!