Chapter 39. Raking Gold (2)

Perhaps this was what it felt like to sell cans of air. Sanghyuk kept raking in gold to the point that he wondered if this was alright.

Enhanced synthesized skill books were being sold too well thanks to the low supply. It did halt for a little, but once he lowered the price a little, they would sell out like fire again.

On top of that, Sanghyuk wiped out some of the famous hunting fields in Hellfire Desert to gather enhancement stones and sold a few popular items after upgrading them to +3.

This also exploded in the users’ faces.

Even though enhanced synthesized skill books were definitely good items, +3 weapons and armor was beyond that, and they would be left behind in the competition if they didn’t buy them.

With that being the case, even the users of the guildline ‘Sky’ who were just observing when it came to skillbooks, jumped into the +3 items.

The items were sold well no matter how expensive he put them on.

The fact that the users could buy those items at 1/1,000 of the price when they went to the new continent…… they didn’t notice at all.

Sanghyuk kept raking in an unimaginable amount of gold for that one month.

He now had as much money as if the members of the five main guildlines in EL had saved up on money without spending at all for a few months.

Normally, the five major guildlines had 10 to 20 big and small guilds. The number of users in those guilds would total around 2,000.

That meant that Sanghyuk had gained as much money as 10,000 people saving up for a few months, within just one month.

This was how frightful monopoly was.

However, what was even more frightening was that it was still ongoing and that Sanghyuk was slowly making preparations for another business.

Sanghyuk arrived at ‘Tune’, the city that could be considered the largest in Hellfire Desert after Blue Oasis. This was the last part. Sanghyuk inputted the data using his basic skill ‘map creation’, and now possessed the map of the Hellfire Desert.

The map of Hellfire Desert was completed.

The proficiency of the map creation skill has increased.

A map was in Sanghyuk’s hands……. He had even learned map creation to make this.

‘I can erase it now.’

As soon as the map was done, Sanghyuk used a bit of karma to erase the map creation skill.

Actually, he had learned that skill temporarily. Since his level was now 48, he had four basic skill slots.

Sanghyuk had already planned out which skills he would slot into those four.

You have deleted the basic skill ‘map creation’, using karma.

You have 1 empty basic skill slot.

After erasing map creation, he put the +5 enhanced synthesized skill ‘+5 emergency treatment’.

You have learned the basic skill ‘+5 emergency treatment’

You have no empty basic skill slots.

Having learned emergency treatment, Sanghyuk checked on the four basic skill he possessed.

[Skill] +6 High-speed swimming (Synthesized / Basic)

– A synthesized basic skill that could be created by synthesizing the basic skills ‘swimming’ and ‘sprinting’. Allows for very high-speed swimming. Free swimming is allowed the more the proficiency increases.

Enhance bonus : (+2 bonus : Swimming speed increases by 10%.) (+3 bonus : Submerged swimming becomes possible.) (+4 bonus : halves the endurance consumed under water.) (+5 bonus : Swimming speed increases by 30%.) (+6 bonus : HP does not fall as long as the user falls into water no matter how high the user fell from.)

Cooldown time: N/A (Passive)

[Proficiency : 21]

[Skill] +5 Emergency treatment (Synthesized / Basic)

– A synthesized basic skill that could be created by synthesizing the basic skills ‘first aid’, and ‘herbalism’. Can recover quickly through a simple surgery in a non-battle state. The treatment becomes faster as proficiency increases.

Skill effects : Recover 30% of HP through 5 minutes of simple surgery. (However, non-combat must be sustained for 5 minutes, and 10% of HP will be taken instead once the battle is initiated mid-way.)

Enhance bonus : (+2 bonus: Treatment failure penalty decreases to 5%.) (+3 bonus : HP recovered when successful increases to 40%.) (+4 bonus : Treatment failure penalty disappears.) (+5 bonus : ‘Operation Successful’ buff is given; this buff increases HP recovery rate by 100% for 10 minutes if the treatment is successful.)

Cooldown time : 10 minutes

[Proficiency : 4]

[Skill] +8 Chained Evasion (Synthesized / Basic)

– A synthesized basic skill that could be created by synthesizing the basic skills ‘evasion’, ‘roll’, ‘escape’, and ‘dynamic vision’. Evasion rate increases drastically for a short period of time. Cooldown time decreases as proficiency increases.

Skill effects : 20% increase in evasion rate for 4 seconds.

Enhance bonus : (+2 bonus : Skill duration increases to 5 seconds.) (+3 bonus : Evasion rate increases to 25%.) (+4 bonus : Skill duration increases to 6 seconds.) (+6 bonus : Evasion rate increases to 40%.) (+7 bonus : Skill duration increases to 8 seconds.) (+8 bonus : Skill duration increases to 10 seconds and evasion rate increases to 50%.)

Cooldown time : 1 minutes 59 seconds.

[Proficiency : 12]

[Skill] +5 Telesight (Synthesized / Basic)

– A synthesized basic skill that could be created by synthesizing the basic skills ‘scout’, ‘observe’ and ‘vision enhancement’. Allows the user to see further. Distance seen increases along with proficiency.

Skill effect : Sight range increases by 38%.

Enhance bonus : (+2 bonus : sight range increases by 48%.) (+3 bonus : sight range increases by 58%.) (+4 bonus : sight range increases by 68%.) (+5 bonus : sight range increases by 88%.)

Cooldown time : N/A (Passive)

[Proficiency : 31]

The basic skills Sanghyuk had learned were commonly classified as the top-tier synthesized basic skills.

High-speed swimming was a must thanks to the various environment of EL such as lakes rivers or even seas, and emergency treatment was a very thankful recovery skill for solo players like Sanghyuk.

Even things like telesight was a must for Sanghyuk since he had to take care of everything alone.

Lastly, chained evasion was the most popular basic skill even in Sanghyuk’s previous life.

There were even rumors that one could not become a ranker without this skill. Actually, Sanghyuk didn’t sell this when he sold the enhanced synthesized skill books this time.

If he sold this, then he would have profited immensely, but there was no need to sell this right now. It required one more year for the formula for the chained evasion skill book to be announced so he didn’t need to sell this right now.

The ingredient skill books required for chained evasion all went into upgrading his own chained evasion skill. Thanks to that, he could enhance it up to a monstrous +8.

He destroyed around 20,000 skill books alone to create that +8 skill book, but he was still pretty satisfied.

He had consumed all the chained evasion skill books for himself, but he released some of the rest of the enhanced synthesized skills on the market. Of course, other than the ones he would use for himself, he only upgraded them to a safe +3.

‘The map is now complete, so should I get ready now?’

While raking in gold for one month, he had also walked around the entirety of Hellfire Desert to create a single map. The business he was trying to do through the map…… was naturally, monopoly of map selling.

***

“I wish to buy a summon ticket for an NPC Vendor.”

Sanghyuk spoke what he wished for in the NPC hiring center in Tune.

“The period?”

“Around four months.”

“Conditions?”

“An S-rank NPC vendor capable of evading monsters, malefactor stealing and automatic transactions while selling three items.”

“The cost of hiring an S-rank vendor that meets your requirement will be quite expensive though. Will you be fine with that?”

“The price does not matter. Oh! I do want it to be a beautiful female NPC if possible.”

“Understood.”

The NPC at the hiring center nodded after hearing Sanghyuk’s requirements and wrote something. Then, he immediately handed Sanghyuk a paper.

“Please check the cost and sign here.”

The price on the paper was incredibly expensive. Hiring NPC vendors was just expensive as a whole so hiring an S-rank NPC capable of all the conditions that Sanghyuk listed was only going to be more expensive.

However, Sanghyuk signed the paper without hesitation>

Then, the NPC in front of him gave him a summoning ticket to Sanghyuk.

“You need to summon the vendor at a place you want. It does not matter where you summon, but summoning is impossible inside a dungeon, and the location cannot be changed once summoned.”

Having acquired what he wanted, Sanghyuk immediately left Tune. Then, he opened his Marking Book and placed a lowest-ranking mana stone on the page written ‘Lake Genesis’.

*Shhhh, flash!*

Having instantly moved to Lake Genesis through the Marking Book, Sanghyuk looked around and looked at the conditions again.

‘The Cave of Giants can be broken through in around one to two weeks.’

Sanghyuk looked around the forum posts in the community recently, and could see how far the top ranking users have come.

‘Is it because I released some of the items that didn’t exist in my previous life at this point……? The conquer rate is definitely quicker by 2 to 3 weeks.’

Actually, it was obvious that his doing has changed the future. He released so many enhanced synthesized skill books and enhanced items, so it would be strange if they didn’t conquer faster.

‘Let’s just install the vendor today just in case.’

NPC vendors were just street vendors. Users could become vendors themselves to sell things, but they could also hire NPCs to do it for them.

Of course, there was the cost of hiring vendors so one would lose money instead if they weren’t careful.

‘That place looks like a good choice. It was also the best place in my previous life as well. And the items that shall be sold in the store shall be…….’

Sanghyuk had a look at the items piled inside his spatial expansion bag.

‘Drinks, cloaks and…… the maps!’

‘Palsung cider’, that maintains its cold for 38 hours and could cool off the blazing heat of the desert as well as the cloaks that clearly had the mark of ‘East Face’, that could shield the wind and the sand, were actually just things he put them up in aim for one thing while making the vendor look like a proper one.

What Sanghyuk actually wanted to sell was the map. To be exact, it was the ‘map of Hellfire Desert’. Sanghyuk had even put that under his copyright so only he could copy it as well. In other words, only the buyers themselves could use that map.

This may sound strange at first. What if users just took a screenshot or a video recording of the map and posted it on the internet? They may think that the map could be shared off-game.

However, that only went for people who didn’t know what maps were in EL.

Maps in EL weren’t like tabloids that could be folded out to see the map, but an in-game item that could only be used through the map-specific slot.

Moreover, screenshots and video recordings didn’t work while the map was up. And to use the map properly in Hellfire Desert, the map needed to be slotted constantly and had to be used like GPS navigation systems.

If users really tried to use it like a map and zoomed out as much as possible, they would actually lose their paths in this milestone-less desert.

In other words, there weren’t many shortcuts to the maps of Hellfire Desert.

Sanghyuk was planning to sell this at a very high price.

‘No matter how expensive this is, the users have no choice but to buy this map. They’d probably come back after a few days wandering in the desert.’

Sanghyuk thought that this map would definitely sell well since he himself had experienced how hard it is to wander around the desert.

He had earned a lot of money through enhanced synthesized skill books and enhanced items. However, he still had more to sell.

Since he had completed the map and put it under his copyright, he could copy the map using a single piece of blank paper, so he cost of manufacture was practically zero.

‘I need to rake as much as possible while it’s still possible.’

Sanghyuk knew that this kind of business wouldn’t work forever, so he was planning to rake in as much gold as possible for one last time through the map.