529 Shop Promotion

Shi Feng quickly took the purple tablet from his bag.

The tablet displayed a single word:

Promotion!

However, this Promotion Order was not a Guild Residence Promotion Order.

In God’s Domain, all Promotion Orders were extraordinarily valuable, and among them were Guild Residence Promotion Orders and Promotion Orders for other specific establishments. However, of these Promotion Orders, the rarest was the Shop Promotion Order.

The tablet in Shi Feng’s hands right now was none other than the Shop Promotion Order.

All Shops set up by players in NPC cities began as 1-star Shops without exception, regardless of whether it was a 300 Gold Shop or a 1,000 Gold Shop. Only, a 1,000-Gold Shop was far more luxurious, and it had a few more available functions.

However, after a Shop was promoted to 2-star status, it would undergo a qualitative change. In particular, the benefits a Lifestyle player received would be significantly enhanced.

It was extremely difficult to obtain a Shop Promotion Order. Unlike a Guild Residence Promotion Order that could be obtained from Dungeons, a Shop Promotion Order could only be obtained through certain special quests. The only other option was to gain one from treasure chests. However, not just any ordinary treasure chest would drop the Promotion Order.

The treasure chest could not be below Level 40, and it must be Fine-Gold rank or above.

There was also a certain probability to obtain one from rank-less treasure chests such as the Twilight Treasure Chest.

However, the chances of obtaining a Shop Promotion Order were simply too minuscule. Normally, players would obtain it through a Challenge Quest. However, since it was a Challenge Quest relating to a Shop’s promotion, it was not so easy to receive or complete it. Such Challenge Quests were no less difficult than Epic Quests. Hence, there were extremely few Shops capable of completing them.

Because of this, the Promotion Orders obtained through treasure chests were extremely valuable, and countless businessmen would offer astronomical prices for one.

Shi Feng had only obtained this item due to a stroke of luck.

“With this item, I can finally monopolize White River City’s trade with the Candlelight Trading Firm.” Shi Feng returned the Shop Promotion Order to his bag and took out a Return Scroll.

Since it was no longer easy to locate Overwhelming Smile players, he had no reason to remain here.

Meanwhile, now that he had obtained a Shop Promotion Order, he needed to go and promote his Shop.

In God’s Domain’s settings, unlike in other virtual reality games where using one Shop Promotion Order would promote every Shop that player owned, players in God’s Domain required one Promotion Order for every Shop they owned should they wish to upgrade them all.

However, Shi Feng had long since made up his mind.

Zero Wing’s roots lay in White River City, so the Shop Promotion Order must be used on one of the Shops there. As for the Shops in Star-Moon City and Maple City, unless he had excess, he would not waste any Promotion Orders on these two cities.

After using the Return Scroll, Shi Feng returned to Maple City.

However, Shi Feng was in no hurry to return to White River City. Instead, he first went to investigate the Overwhelming Trading Firm.

Now, he had already heavily damaged Overwhelming Smile’s hidden trump card, which would severely impact its Dungeon-raiding process. He had also killed plenty of Overwhelming Smile’s elite members, causing significant damages to the Guild. Not to mention, due to a lack of resources, the development of Overwhelming Smile’s branch in White River City had also been wounded. If this situation continued, the gap between Overwhelming Smile and Zero Wing would only grow as more time went by.

The only fighting chance Overwhelming Smile had right now was the Overwhelming Trading Firm.

If the Overwhelming Trading Firm developed successfully, Overwhelming Smile would have the Coins required to fight a war of attrition against Zero Wing. In addition to its ample funds and enormous background, the Guild’s development speed would soar. After all, a massive organization such as Underworld possessed the mechanisms required to nurture experts. Only, everyone had yet to adapt to God’s Domain fully. Once they did, however, with sufficient Coins and funds, in addition to experts giving out pointers, it would be very easy for Overwhelming Smile to nurture a large number of experts.

Although Zero Wing seemed to prosper right now, in reality, it was still significantly inferior to other major Guilds, particularly in terms of training mechanics for experts.

God’s Domain was mankind’s second world. It was not a game with a short lifespan. A Guild’s strength was not determined by wins and losses. Instead, it was determined by how long the Guild in question could remain in power.

In the past, there had been many Guilds that had prospered greatly for a period. However, after some time had passed, they still crumbled and eventually faded out of existence entirely. Based on this, one could easily tell the gap between Guilds. This was why Shadow had remained a second-rate Guild in the past. It was because the Guild had only been recently established and did not possess the necessary mechanisms to nurture experts. Although the Guild had succeeded in establishing such mechanisms during the middle stages of God’s Domain, said mechanisms were far inferior to that of first-rate Guilds. In the end, the gap between Shadow and the first-rate Guilds of God’s Domain only grew wider as time went on.

Hence, Shi Feng wanted to establish such training mechanisms as soon as possible and produce an endless stream of experts for Zero Wing. Only then could Zero Wing become a true powerhouse.

This was also one of the reasons why first-rate Guilds looked down on Zero Wing.

They all shared the same thought: “You are only strong right now. What about in a few months? Let’s see how you fare in one or two years.”

All Guilds that had achieved the status of a first-rate Guild possessed a history over a decade long; some had even survived several decades.

When Shi Feng arrived before the Overwhelming Trading Firm, he could see a constant stream of players enter and exit the Shop. As for the Candlelight Trading Firm, which was only a short distance away, although the Shop also had plenty of customers, there were significantly less than the Overwhelming Trading Firm.

“Overwhelming Trading Firm’s items sure are cheap. I can buy another stack of Advanced Whetstones with the money I saved!”

“That’s right. Not only are the items cheap, but I never expected that it would also push out a new product. Unfortunately, the Shop didn’t have many for sale, and I didn’t have the chance to buy one.”

“Are you talking about the Magic Damage Potion?”

“Yeah, that’s right; it’s that item. I’m an Elementalist. If I drink that potion, it can increase my magic damage by 5% for half an hour. It would help significantly when I’m grinding monsters or raiding Dungeons.”

Shi Feng had initially planned to enter the Shop to investigate. However, upon hearing the conversation of a few players who had just left the Overwhelming Trading Firm, he could not help but stop and listen.

Magic Damage Potion? Shi Feng was not a stranger to this item. The recipe for the potion only had a chance of dropping from Level 20 Hell Mode Team Dungeons. However, its production difficulty was very high. At the very least, one needed to be a Basic Alchemist. Even then, the success rate of crafting one hovered around 20% to 30%.

Sure enough, I cannot underestimate Underworld. I just established a Shop at Maple City, and already, there is someone capable of producing such a potion. Shi Feng was not particularly surprised at discovering this information. Overwhelming Smile was a massive Guild. Its members didn’t consist of purely Combat players. The Guild nurtured a large number of Lifestyle players as well, so it was only natural for someone to be capable of producing the Magic Damage Potion.

However, this was not good news for the Candlelight Trading Firm.

The Magic Damage Potion was not unique to the Overwhelming Trading Firm. Zero Wing had also obtained a few Magic Damage Potion Recipes. However, even now, the Candlelight Trading Firm had yet to successfully nurture a single Basic Alchemist, so they could not produce it.

Shi Feng decided not to linger. Immediately, he headed to the Teleportation Hall and returned to White River City.

Upon arriving at White River City, the first thing Shi Feng did was head towards the City Hall and upgrade the Candlelight Trading Firm next to the Auction House to a 2-star Shop.

When a Shop was promoted to 2-star status, the building itself could also undergo an upgrade. However, a significant sum was required for the reconstruction.

Without hesitation, Shi Feng spent 1,000 Gold to reconstruct the Shop. The reconstruction did not take much time at all; it was done in just a dozen minutes or so. Suddenly, the three-story-tall Candlelight Trading Firm rose to five-stories. It became an extraordinarily eye-catching display beside the Auction House, attracting the attention and discussion of many players.

It was common knowledge that Shops could only possess a maximum of three floors. Throughout the entire God’s Domain, there had yet to be a single player-owned Shop that had more than that. Yet, now, the Candlelight Trading Firm’s Shop had five.

“Guild Leader, what did you do?

“Why has the Shop suddenly gone from being three-stories to five-stories tall?”

After the reconstruction of the Shop completed, Melancholic Smile contacted Shi Feng immediately, unable to help her curiosity.