The Gene of the Ancients (Rogue Merchant Book #2): LitRPG Series by Roman Prokofiev (top books to read TXT) 📕

neat amount. This income allowed the Watchers and other Northern warriors to lead a comfortable life; they even got money for their game subscription and a wage that supported them, so they could stop working and dedicate all their time to playing and mastering their battle skills.

“By the way, how are you transporting goods from the Bazaar and back? Do you have your own transport?”

“No, I was unable to force Komtur to cash out,” Green replied, wincing as if he had just eaten a lemon. “Mark my words, he’s a real Scrooge, watches every penny. Our allies, the Varangians, have a transporter, but I fell out with him. We arrange transportation via contracts.”

Logistics was an entire aspect of Sphere, a profitable industry with a whole lot of competing transporters. How would you move cargo from point A to point B if it didn’t fit into a player’s inventory? For instance, tons of mined ore, thousands of raw craft materials, or just furniture to furnish a house? Countries had NPC caravans traveling across them, but what if you needed to bring goods from another world, especially without direct portal connection? Help came from clans of players who made logistics their main source of income. Their flying ships, trucks, and barges moved across worlds, sometimes even crossing the dangerous Astral Plane, delivering cargo to everyone, everywhere. The process was simple. Everything was arranged via the contract system, in a few clicks. You set the departure point, the destination, the time, and the reward and published the contract. The transporter market, both big and small, was highly competitive, so there was no need to wait long.

“Who’s transporting your stuff?” I asked. “Can you give me the contacts?”

“I only used the Snails,” Green said. “They’re trusted. There are limits to cargo, but the guarantee’s one hundred percent.”

I nodded. I had read about transport alliance Escargot & Co, nicknamed Snails. It was a conglomerate of the biggest transporters consisting of three clans: Up, Down, and Crazy. Up only moved cargo to mostly safe Grey and Upper worlds, Down specialized in getting stuff into Netherworlds, and Crazy only traveled to the Astral Plane, requesting obscene money for that service. They had their own tracking site that could be integrated into the game’s interface: it had a handy calculator that, upon entering starting and ending points, showed you the price of transportation, the insurance cost, and the possible dates. There was also a cargo tracker, the time of arrival...basically, the guys had everything worked out. A professional job. Ordering transportation was no harder than buying movie tickets. Snails asked for more, compared to average market prices, but their company ran like clockwork, which was their main appeal.

In the meantime, Green briefed me on complex features of the clan interface. I was set as Trader, allowing me to see the contents of warehouses (partially), clan accounts, pages with links to rules, guides, and raid equipment lists, and so much more — an embarrassment of riches.

“Long story short, I had to spend two or three hours a day on this fuss,” he told me at the end. “Even more, if I needed to buy something big or go to the Bazaar. So, how about we take a trip there, I’ll show you what’s what? When can you do it?”

I considered his words. Well, what was the point in delaying the inevitable? I only had to visit Weldy and get the ready batch of Tincture of Fire.

“Right now. But first, I need to drop by Eyre and get something, so I wouldn’t go empty-handed.”

“Good thinking. Attaboy!” Green said, looking at me. “Small trinkets, but expensive, right? Fine, fine, I’m just asking. I also need to tie up a few loose ends. Okay, let’s meet in Eyre in an hour. Get a Teleportation Scroll in clan warehouse number three. Do you know where it is? You don’t? Fine, I’ll get it myself.”

* * *

 

Weldy had already completed the whole batch, but my inventory could only hold thirty vials. I paid her and took the recipe, rushing ahead. She wanted to talk to me about something, but I had no time. She seemed hurt.

“Are you ready, Cat?” Green was already waiting for me on the square next to the portal. He handed me a Teleportation Scroll. Its purple outline indicated it was a rare and expensive item, for a trader, it was an ordinary consumable. “Are we going?”

Without letting me answer, he unfolded his scroll and disappeared in an iridescent vortex.

“So, are we?” I asked myself and promptly followed suit.

Teleportation was instantaneous. The scenery changed as if I turned the page in a book.

The sky was pale crimson. The huge yellow-brown disk of an unknown star was setting down over the horizon, with a few smaller moons against its background. Gigantic grey towers reached the sky. And around me, there was complete and total pandemonium.

A hubbub of voices pierced my ears — people talking, beasts roaring, traders yelling. General chats buzzed, full of hyperlinked messages. I saw Russian, English, German, even some Chinese characters. How could all those people understand each other? The universal linguistics pack was expensive and not widely available...

We were standing on the stone base of a portal — the standard destination point of Teleportation Scrolls. Thick currents of players and NPCs surrounded the platform, everyone in haste to get somewhere. It was an unimaginable mishmash of mounts, pedestrians, and carriages. Birdies soared in the air above the crowd, amidst flying boats full of passengers.

So that was the famous Bazaar? I looked around. A city stretched out before me, reaching the horizon. But was it really a city? It looked more like an enormous, bustling marketplace. Dull pillars of colossal towers shot up from narrow streets between one- and two-story houses. I counted thirteen of them, but that was clearly not the end of it, with some