13: Copy Gold Mine Sprite

This meant that the local branch only gained money, while its influence in the Empire barely grew.

According to the Dawn Merchant Guild, to increase their future transaction quotas, the influence of their branch was essential; therefore, the Dawn Merchant Guild branch wanted to be able to sell large quantities of knight armor in Mad Lion City.

After hearing this news, Arthur thought for a moment and knew that increasing the transaction quota was a lie; after all, a merchant guild wouldn't refuse to make money.

The Dawn Merchant Guild's request to sell locally was likely just the personal desire of the branch president, who wanted to use this move to elevate her status within the Dawn Merchant Guild faster. As for the transaction quota, it was just a pretext.

If this had been last month, Arthur probably wouldn't have agreed to this request from the Dawn Merchant Guild, as it would have inadvertently brought him more trouble.

But now, Arthur had a Sky Knight expert as his backing, so he wasn't as worried about trouble.

More importantly, the Dawn Merchant Guild didn't actually need to consult Arthur about where to sell the gold knight armor. Since they were now showing a cooperative attitude, Arthur saw no need to make things difficult for them.

Thus, he agreed directly!

On the Dawn Merchant Guild's side, after Matt delivered the news of approval, the branch president Avril, who had rarely smiled since being marginalized to the Counts Fief branch, now displayed an unprecedented smile on her stunningly beautiful face.

The guild manager Glenn, who had been standing quietly to the side, saw this and hurriedly congratulated her:

"The force represented by Paul (Matt's alias) has successively sold forty sets of gold knight armor to the guild, proving their strength. I believe there won't be any issues with future transactions!"

"Now that they have agreed, the knight armor will be sold directly at this branch, which will bring our branch at least hundreds of millions of gold coins in annual turnover."

"With such huge turnover, even the Dawn Merchant Guild in the Imperial Capital would likely pale in comparison to us."

"Moreover, selling such precious gold knight armor in large quantities will greatly boost our branch's reputation. I believe our branch will soon become the number one Dawn Merchant Guild branch in the Kate Empire."

"This way, I believe it won't be long before the President sees the Young Miss's efforts, and those who marginalized the Young Miss will have nothing more to say!"

"Indeed, so I am truly quite grateful to Paul and the force behind him!"

Compared to a month ago, Avril's face now clearly held many more smiles.

...

Meanwhile, Arthur did not know that he had inadvertently gained the gratitude of a young lady.

Now, having obtained the Count's permission, he had arrived at a gold mine outside the Count's city.

This was exactly where the Counts Mansion's sixth Sprite, the Gold Mine Sprite, was located.

For Arthur, who possessed a Portable Shop, gold coins were everything. Therefore, the first Sprite he copied was naturally the Gold Mine Sprite, which could continuously produce gold Ore, equivalent to gold coins!

Since a Sprite, after acknowledging a master, cannot acknowledge another master as long as the master does not voluntarily renounce the contract.

Even if the master dies unexpectedly, they will only die of grief and depression.

Such loyal attributes made these little ones increasingly endearing.

It was precisely because of the Sprite's loyalty that the guards at this gold mine were not as numerous as Arthur had imagined, consisting only of five Silver Knights and ten Bronze Knights.

Of course, this also had a lot to do with the gold mine being located right next to Mad Lion City; if they were to encounter an attack, reinforcements could arrive in an instant.

Arthur naturally knew all these guards, so he did not encounter any obstruction and was able to see the thumb-sized, golden, glittering Gold Mine Sprite.

After teasing the little one for a bit, Arthur proceeded to copy it, only to discover that to copy a Sprite, simply touching the little one wouldn't work.

At first, Arthur thought that Sprites could not be copied, and his heart skipped a beat.

But Arthur quickly realized where the problem lay. After copying the Sprite's original form, which was that piece of special gold Ore, he succeeded.

But Arthur was still not at ease and immediately clicked on the gold Ore item icon in the Portable Shop:

"A piece of gold Ore containing the power of miracles, nurturing a corresponding Gold Mine Sprite. A Sprite has a lifespan of one hundred years and can produce gold Ore worth 100,000 gold coins annually. Price: 10,000 gold coins."

(Note: Considering that this type of Sprite produces gold coins, if purchased arbitrarily, it would cause an imbalance in the Portable Shop's prices, so there is a limit: only one hundred can be purchased per year.)

After reading the explanation for the item in the shop, Arthur couldn't help but feel a little disappointed; as expected, he couldn't exploit the Portable Shop's bug.

If he could purchase them infinitely, Arthur could just find an uninhabited place, buy Sprites to mine, and silently obtain countless gold coins.

As expected, such a loophole could not be exploited!

But on second thought, one hundred Gold Mine Sprites a year was not a small amount; it was equivalent to ten million gold coins, so he shouldn't be too greedy!

Thinking this way, Arthur immediately felt much better.

After completing the copying, Arthur played with the Gold Mine Sprite for a while longer before leaving and returning to the city.

...

A month and a half later, it was now only one week away from the three-month deadline for Arthur's pioneering mission.

On this day, the scorching sun was high in the sky, yet Arthur was sweating in the training field, the palm-wide knight sword in his hand whistling as he swung it continuously.

"Cross Slash!"

Accompanied by a shout in Arthur's heart, the knight sword was swung by Arthur in the blink of an eye, unleashing two powerful slashes that cut the wooden dummy in front of him into four pieces.

After this move, a muffled sound came from within Arthur's body; it turned out that his strength had finally broken through from the Bronze Early Stage to the Bronze Middle Stage.

The improvement in his strength brought a smile to the face of the originally panting Arthur.

In fact, Arthur's strength wouldn't have broken through so quickly; after all, he had just broken through to the Bronze stage, and to break through again would take at least half a year, yet he had done it in just three months.

This was all thanks to the help of external objects.

First was a fist-sized Battle Qi crystal that cost one hundred gold coins; this was a special mineral that could increase the user's Battle Qi cultivation speed by about fifty percent.

Of course, relying solely on the Battle Qi crystal was not enough.

It was mainly thanks to a bottle of magic potion that Count Abergh had brought for Arthur a few days ago.

That was a special fruit similar to the Blood Quenching Fruit, which, after being concocted by a Potioneer—a branch of mages—became a potion specifically for accelerating a knight's cultivation speed, and it was extremely precious.

Just one bottle of potion had accelerated Arthur's cultivation progress by nearly three months, enabling him to advance to the Bronze Middle Stage during his pioneering mission.

Such a good thing, Arthur became a little addicted after using it once.

Although this thing was expensive outside, one bottle cost over ten thousand gold coins.

Being so expensive, plus its scarcity, this bottle of Arthur's was something Count Abergh had obtained with great effort, so it was no wonder Arthur hadn't heard of it before!

Besides, if this thing couldn't only be taken once a month, and if its effect on Bronze Knight cultivation wasn't the greatest, the price might have been even higher.

Of course, there must be more than one kind of such strength-enhancing potion; there should also be ones with huge effects on Silver or Gold Knights, but Arthur didn't need them for the time being.