nownovels Chapter 66 Black Market
Chapter 66 Black Market
Unfortunately, Nina seemed to be busy with something and declined Victor's invitation to accompany her.
Since that was the case, Viktor had no choice but to go alone. Fortunately, although Nina refused, she recommended an underground dealer active in the black market to Viktor... named "Yun". Compared to most of those unreliable black market dealers, this guy seemed to be an old hand who had been in the black market for many years, so doing business with him was relatively more reliable.
Victor memorized the name, went home and called Gar, and the two of them went to the black market together.
......
This was Victor's first trip to the southern district of Dawnstar City.
As mentioned before, the South District is the true 'industrial zone' of Morningstar City. Many magic energy ore processing plants and some small magic potion plantations are located here. At the same time, a considerable number of wizards also use this place as their laboratory location.
Therefore, the style here is very unique and completely different from Dongcheng District and Xicheng District.
They were all particularly large buildings, standing one after another, with thick smoke billowing from their chimneys, giving them a somewhat industrial feel.
However, the black market is not located in these factories.
It could even be said that it is not in Dawnstar City, because it is completely on the edge of Dawnstar City. Even the "Eye of the Stars" does not monitor this place. It used to be a factory site, but it was abandoned due to some accident. After that, it was occupied by these underground merchants and became the black market of Dawnstar City.
In reality, the black market was larger than Victor had anticipated.
Perhaps because the black market auctions are held only every so often, this black market looks very lively. At a glance, there are at least a thousand people, almost as many as the population of a mortal town.
The entrance was surrounded by a somewhat dilapidated fence, but there were no guards or anything like that.
Naturally, no one stopped Viktor, and he and Garr made it into the black market without any trouble.
Then, starting from the entrance, you see stalls set up by black market vendors, selling all sorts of random things... But what's noteworthy is that these vendors aren't like the vendors on the commercial streets of Dongcheng District; they're all wizards.
At first glance, most of the vendors here are ordinary people.
These people must have found something in some ruins or some back alley, and then came to this black market to try their luck and see if they could sell it. Even if they only sold a magic stone, the gold coins they could exchange for would be enough for an ordinary person to squander for a lifetime... No wonder there are so many people here!
"Let's just head straight in; those outside are just ordinary people trying their luck."
Victor shook his head as well.
I had absolutely no intention of finding any bargains at these stalls.
If he really wanted to buy something useful from these stalls, it wouldn't be like finding gold in the shit, it would be like scooping up shit from the ocean. He would have already bought what he needed by now.
So he quickened his pace, moving rapidly from the periphery of the black market toward the central area.
Sure enough, after walking for less than a minute, they came across a real black market auction. The organizer was a wizard apprentice whose clothes and appearance clearly did not belong to a local. He had a big beard, and about seven or eight wizard apprentices were gathered around his stall.
The items he auctioned were several alchemical materials extracted from the bodies of demonized monsters.
"The Heart of the Demonized Ape!!"
"Retrieved from a fresh corpse and sealed immediately—absolutely fresh!"
"Whether used for alchemy or potion-making, its effects are absolutely outstanding. The starting bid is ten magic stones, with each bid increasing by two magic stones, and a buyout price of sixty magic stones. The highest bidder wins!"
The bearded wizard called out loudly, seemingly possessing a natural talent for business.
Unfortunately, the wizards in front of his stall were no pushovers either; they watched his actions with indifference, and none of them showed any particular excitement.
There was a nearly ten-second silence before someone finally spoke up and gave their price:
"Twelve magic stones."
"Twelve magic stones!!"
The bearded wizard perked up and quickly repeated the number, his eyes sweeping over the others.
Unfortunately, all he received were indifferent glances. After hesitating for a long time, he could only reluctantly make a deal with the wizard.
Victor and Gar watched the excitement for a while, then went to other places to watch the auction twice more, and found that this black market auction was indeed quite interesting.
Regardless of the type of item, the transaction prices all seemed unusual.
Either the price is relatively low, or they compete with each other until they reach a relatively high price before stopping.
In general, regardless of the type of item being auctioned, there will be a maximum "buy it now" price. As long as you agree to this price, you can skip the auction process and directly buy the item.
It's not that there aren't stalls and auctions with fixed prices, but the sparse number of people in front of these stalls suggests that this is an unspoken rule in the black market... This indicates that although the black market doesn't explicitly state its rules, most wizards have tacitly established their own rules and abide by them.
This was much more orderly than Victor had anticipated.
However, it's not surprising. Although many of the things wizards study are somewhat chaotic and disorderly, wizards themselves are indeed the maintainers of order, and no wizard likes a messy scene.
Victor also began to trust the black market transactions a little more.
Instead of continuing to observe and investigate, they ventured deeper into the black market and soon arrived at a large red tent. There was no auction taking place there, but there seemed to be no shortage of customers; at least twenty people were surrounding the tent owner, either asking questions or making transactions.
In the center of the crowd, the owner of this red tent was a man who was only half the height of an average person—a half-man with brown hair and black eyes!
The halfling race... is not very numerous on this planet.
They were once targeted and massacred by humans, making them a truly minority race. If they hadn't later joined the wizards and become their servants, they might no longer exist on this planet.
Even those who survived mostly worked as miners for the wizards.
This was the first time Victor had seen living halflings in Dawnstar City. They didn't seem particularly unique, except that they were a bit shorter than humans.
Perhaps the only special thing is that this halfling is a rare halfling wizard.