Li Nuo and Dinas followed Nelly and wandered around the east side of the islands until noon.
Nelly arranged lunch for Li Nuo and Li Nuo at the exchange. After the meal, Li Nuo and Nelly learned about some things and finally left the exchange on the grounds that they "still have to think about it."
Looking at it this morning, there are more than 300 islands with prices below 100,000 gold coins.
Except for Snow Mountain Island No. 1, which has been hollowed out of mineral resources, the other islands are small islands with a width of no more than 10 kilometers.
Such small islands are difficult to develop and utilize due to their small size, remote location, or numerous underwater reefs. Things like building magic ecological farms, large-scale magic water purification facilities, building ports, etc. cannot be realized on such small islands.
In addition, the security force on the east side of the islands is another important factor affecting the selling price of the islands.
The Deep Sea Branch is responsible for providing security services.
Almost every thirty kilometers, there is a magic sentry. It is an unmanned magic facility suspended on the sea, patrolling the sea between the islands.
Magical servants are the staff of the outpost.
Wherever a fight breaks out, the Magic Sentries will rush over immediately and use brilliant fireworks to notify the Deep Sea Branch to set up wizard strongholds between the islands.
After receiving the news, the deep sea wizards in the wizard's stronghold will immediately rush to the scene to handle the dispute.
The closer you are to the patrol route of the Magic Post, the closer you are to the Deep Sea Wizard's stronghold, the higher the quality of security services, and accordingly, the price of the island will also rise.
After taking into account factors such as the location of the island, the quality of security, topography, the number and size of safe havens, price and other factors, there are 15 islands that fully meet the requirements of Li Nuo and Li Nuo.
Among them is Snow Mountain Island No. 1.
Snowy mountain islands No. 1 to No. 3 are very close to each other.
Before mining, the three snow-capped islands were extremely rich in resources.
In order to prevent theft, the Deep Sea Branch established wizard strongholds and magic outposts near three snow-capped islands.
The wizard strongholds and magic outposts of the Deep Sea Branch will not be easily changed once established. Therefore, even if the mineral resources on Snow Mountain Island No. 1 are evacuated, it will still be within the scope of high-quality security services.
After Li Nuo selected 15 islands that met the requirements, he was not in a hurry to pay.
As he told Nellie, "He needs to think about it again."
However, he was not thinking about choosing one of the 15 islands.
What he was really thinking about was "stealing chickens."
He discovered a system knowledge that he had ignored, but was extremely important.
As we all know, before deconstructing something, if you have mastered the deconstruction results and knowledge skills related to such things, the deconstruction consumption will be reduced.
The system is usually expressed like this:
Based on your deconstruction results of XXXX, the consumption of this deconstruction has been reduced.
Or something like this:
Since you have mastered "XXXX Studies (Level XX)", the consumption of this deconstruction has been reduced.
The emergence of such two systematic texts means that what Li Nuo is trying to deconstruct is related to the deconstructive results and academic skills he has mastered.
So the question is, can this very common system knowledge be used in exploring island resources?
For example:
Before Li Nuo mastered the knowledge and skills like "Mineral Exploration", he threw the deconstruction technique on Island A and obtained the deconstruction consumption of A1 without any reduction.
Then, he mastered the knowledge and skills through self-study, and once again threw the deconstruction spell at Island A, obtaining the reduced deconstruction consumption data A2.
The difference between A1 minus A2 is the deconstruction consumption reduction value enjoyed after mastering "Mineral Exploration".
Under the premise that the reduction value is only related to knowledge and skills, it is not difficult to deduce a conclusion:
The greater the number of resources related to learning skills on the island, the greater the reduction in deconstruction consumption.
As long as you compare the reduction values of each island, you can deduce the amount of resources on the island!
Then, by comparing the deconstruction consumption reduction range of different islands with the resource reserves on the island data, we can further obtain rough data on how many resources have not been discovered by exploration.
This is system knowledge that is often overlooked by Li Nuo, but is extremely important.
As long as you learn and apply it, its effects are amazing.
To be able to think of this series of operations, Li Nuo had to thank himself for the mathematics he learned in high school and college. Because many of the ideas in these calculation operations draw on mathematical knowledge points such as "algebra", "derivation", and "limits".
Immediately after leaving the island exchange, Li Nuo took Dinas to the free market in the trading area.
Liberty Market is a commercial plaza covering an area of more than 50,000 square meters.
Its core building is the Magic Item Trading Center. Countless shops are located around the white-walled trading center, crowding the entire commercial square.
After entering the market, Li Nuo and Dinas split up.
Living on an island, there are many necessary daily necessities that need to be purchased. Dinah took over the chores of buying daily necessities. She will stay in the department store of Liberty Market until Li Nuo comes to find her.
Li Nuo walked alone through the crowded streets, looking for anything related to knowledge and skills.
His goal is clear.
First, he needs to find academic books related to natural resources.
Regardless of whether it is a book about resource exploration or resource mining, Li Nuo will accept all comers. As long as it can unlock knowledge skills, it's a good book.
Secondly, he wanted to find books related to the Demon Thief Society and the ancient dragon clan.
The purpose of collecting books related to the Magic Thief Society is to find inspiration for the flexible use of "magic stealing".
"The Path of the Wizard" and "The Foundation of Magic" only briefly mentioned the extraordinary things learned by magic thieves, without explaining in detail what they did.
Today, the Demon Thief Society has become history, at least a thousand years ago.
This wizarding force is not as famous as the Dragon Clan, nor is it as influential as the Dragon Clan, so it should be more troublesome to find its historical data.
In contrast, ancient cultural relics related to dragons are not uncommon in free markets.
As a race that exists in legends, people have a strong curiosity and desire to explore dragons.
This has given rise to a large number of counterfeit products.
Li Nuo just walked through one street and saw no less than a hundred fakes made with modern magic techniques, and these fakes were all related to the dragon clan.
The number of fakes far exceeds the genuine ones, and the genuine ones have become one of a kind.
There are obviously so many races that have disappeared in the long river of history, why do counterfeiters focus on the dragon race?
The answer is related to the whirling continent 1,000 kilometers south of the Suman Islands.
The Feixuan Continent is the only place in this world where dragons appear. The Suman Islands are also the only human territory adjacent to the Whirling Continent.
More than half of the extraordinary people who come and go here in the Suman Islands are heading for the strange places of the whirling continent.
Spin, as the name suggests, is a continent that keeps spinning in the air. Under the action of centrifugal force, the Whirling Continent will throw the Dragon Clan's treasure out of the continent from time to time. These treasures will drag long tail flames and fall into the vast sea beyond the whirling continent.
Most of the dragon treasures have sunk to the bottom of the sea, and only a small part can be captured by ships squatting on the sea, and then brought to the free market for trading.
The Magic Item Exchange in the center of the Free Market was specially opened for trading dragon treasures.
Dragon treasure does not refer to "treasure produced by the dragon". As the overlord of the previous era, the Dragon Clan plundered the precious resources of other races and stuffed them into its own treasure house, becoming part of the Dragon Clan's collection.
Judging from statistics, less than one-tenth of the Dragon Clan's treasures that were successfully captured were self-made by the Dragon Clan, and the remaining 90% were trophies that the Dragon Clan robbed from other races.
What Li Nuo is looking for is research information on the Dragon Clan, or chronicles, geographical information, customs records, lists of Dragon Clan members, etc. written by the Dragon Clan himself.
Only these things can help him reduce the energy cost of deconstructing the island.
It would be great if we could find information directly related to "Longya Reservoir".
With this information, when Li Nuo tries to deconstruct the strange island related to Longya Reservoir, he will directly obtain the news of deconstruction consumption reduction, and then determine that this island is closely related to Longya Reservoir.
With clear goals and clear ideas, coupled with the extremely convenient deconstruction technique, Li Nuo easily found what he wanted.
This is a small shop huddled in the most remote corner of the market. A wooden sign with peeling paint hangs outside the door, with a line of slanted handwriting written concisely and clearly on it:
"Hideaway's store—my store only sells genuine products."
The owner, Hedwig, seemed to have just returned from the sea.
There was a heavy magic canvas bag on his back, and the cloak on his body was wet. As he walked, he left a series of wet footprints.
When Li Nuo arrived, Hedwig was facing away from him. He took out the keychain from the pocket under his cloak and fiddled with the keyhole on the door.
Hedwig was so big that from the back he looked like a giant bear with a hunchback.
After failing to insert the key into the keyhole twice in a row, Hedwig let out a dull sigh, groped in the magic canvas bag behind his back with his broad palm, and took out a pair of glasses with a strap and tied them to his face.
It seems that Hedwig has a little vision problem. After tying his glasses, he immediately saw the direction of the keyhole and successfully opened the front door of the store.
A musty smell that had not been ventilated and exposed to light for a long time wafted out of the house, and Li Nuo could smell it from a distance of several meters.
Hedwig bent sideways and squeezed through the door. Just when he turned to close the door, he noticed Li Nuo lingering not far outside the door.
Li Nuo also saw the appearance of this shop owner.
He has a big, furry face with a brown beard and hair, and his eyes are covered by coin-sized lenses. The combination of his broad face and tiny lenses gave him a somewhat comical look.
Hedwig faced Li Nuo, scratched his beard, and said with a slight hint of alcohol:
"Are you here to buy something? Hiccup~"
"Yes, I'm interested in those dragon teeth hanging on the outside of the backpack." Li Nuo raised his hand and pointed at the outside of the backpack behind him.
Hedwig reached behind him. There were many things hanging on the outside of his backpack, among which Ryuga was inconspicuous.
He used touch to identify what Li Nuo was pointing to, and said with a hint of alcohol:
"Oh, you said this, this is my lucky thing, I won't sell it for any amount of money. Hiccup~... I have some other things here that you may be interested in. However, I just came back from the sea and haven't sorted them out yet. As a result of this trip, I don’t have time to introduce to you what’s in the store right now, so just come in and take a look at it yourself. But remember, if you don’t want to buy it, don’t touch it.”
Hedwig waved to Li Nuo, inviting him into the store, and then began to sort out the things in his backpack.
The store is small in size, with the roof five meters above the ground. The surrounding walls are occupied by messy shelves, and the dim chandelier on the ceiling is the only source of light.
After Li Nuo entered the store, he looked around the scene in the room and knew that he was in the right place.
Just like what Hedwig wrote on the sign, the products here are all real and have indeed been collected by the Dragon Clan or originated from the Dragon Clan itself.
Most of the products are small objects of unknown purpose made of metal or stone, and a small part are strange things such as dragon teeth, dragon scales, dragon dander, etc.
Li Nuo used deconstruction techniques to determine the authenticity of these things, but their quality was really unflattering and they were all tatters.
Not only is it severely damaged, it also bears obvious signs of weathering and seawater erosion, which greatly reduces the quality of the product.
Li Nuo noticed that the deconstruction consumption of things originating from the Dragon Clan itself was relatively large, and it had nothing to do with the size.
The most typical one is a thumb-sized dragon tooth, which is yellow and full of dents and gaps. When the light shines on it, it feels like oil and wax are applied to the surface.
For this little thing, Li Nuo actually needed more than 10,000 energy points to completely deconstruct it.
Li Nuo took a closer look, but couldn't see any secrets from this dragon's tooth.
He turned back to look at Hedwig, who was packing the things in his backpack, and asked in a dubious tone:
"Is the dragon's tooth you put on the shelf really a dragon's tooth? It looks almost like a sharpened finger bone..."
Headway reacted violently to Li Nuo's questioning. He slapped the sundries in his hands on the table, stood up straight at the table, and glared at Li Nuo:
"Of course it's real! Everything I have here is real! It's all those bastards who sell fakes! Everyone who comes to buy something from me will ask me if the thing is real!"
Hedwig seems to have been tortured by his colleagues selling counterfeit goods.
Think about it, after a complete system and evaluation criteria are formed for selling fakes, public perception will be distorted by fakes.
After all, not everyone has sufficient knowledge reserves to distinguish genuine products from fakes.
Most buyers are new to the game or have only a little knowledge of the dragon clan. In this case, the words and routines carefully packaged by the fake sellers make it easier for customers to believe that the fakes are genuine.
If things go on like this, genuine products will be driven out by counterfeit products, resulting in a phenomenon similar to "bad money driving out good money".
For example, the dragon's teeth that Li Nuo refers to.
Some fake dragon teeth will be made to look crystal clear and flawless. These fakes were sold to low-end buyers who had no knowledge of the dragon clan.
If the buyer knows something about dragons but not much, then fake dragon teeth that are deliberately made old will be put on the table by the seller.
With the blessing of magic, counterfeit goods have reached the point where they look like real ones. However, the cost of fake goods is as high as that of real goods.
Counterfeits can be made in magic workshops at low cost.
Authentic products require the shopkeeper to find the real source of the goods, or like Hedwig, go to the sea to capture the treasures flying out of the whirling continent, or go deep into the seabed to explore the forgotten things sleeping on the seabed.
Li Nuo understood Hedwig's mood and aggrievedness very well, and he deliberately used these words to stimulate the other party.
The reason... is very simple. It is similar to "buying headphones". If you don’t know which headphone is best under 300 yuan, don’t ask “What headphones are recommended under 300 yuan”, but say “There are no good headphones under 300 yuan”.
Although this method, similar to fishing, attracts hatred, it is simple and efficient, and it is most likely to stimulate honest people with real materials to come forward and speak out.
Hedwig is such a person.
Faced with Li Nuo's doubts, he complained unceremoniously about the fake, then took off his glasses, looked at the dragon's tooth pointed by Li Nuo from a few meters away, and said impatiently:
"Those are the teeth of the young dragon, that's why they are so small. To be more precise, they are the teeth discarded when the young dragon lost its teeth for the first time. This tooth is at least five thousand years old. It is normal for it to look tattered. Yes. The dragon teeth you see in other stores are basically fake..."
Hedwig suddenly said in frustration like a deflated balloon:
"Forget it, forget it, believe it or not... I can only say that everything I have here is real. I hate fakes even more than you..."
Hedwig put on his glasses and continued to sort out the clutter on the table.
Li Nuo nodded slowly behind him, basically understanding Hedwig's personality, personality and characteristics.
This is a relatively upright and stern deep-sea wizard. While other shopkeepers were lazy in the market by selling fakes, Hedwig chose to go to the sea to capture dragon treasures in person and sell them in his own shop.
Under normal logic, such a hands-on shop owner would have a lot of genuine products. He should have a better business, but why is he so depressed?
Li Nuo has many opinions on this.
One reason must be that the fakes are too real.
The second reason is that with dragons almost extinct, modern magic craftsmen have found materials to replace dragon materials. This resulted in almost zero demand for dragon materials in the magic manufacturing industry.
The third reason, Li Nuo thinks, is related to the cost of appraisal.
Before Li Nuo found Headway's store, he went to the appraisal shop in the market to check it out.
Appraisers certified by the "Erudition Association" can charge a starting fee of 100,000 gold coins for a single appraisal.
For appraisers who are not certified by the "Erudition Association", a single fee starts at 10,000 gold coins.
Regardless of the appraisal service provided by any appraiser, the price charged exceeds that of most fakes. In addition, when counterfeit products are sold, they are accompanied by an appraisal report, so naturally few buyers will go out of their way to pay someone else to authenticate them.
Under the intersecting effect of various factors, everything Li Nuo saw in the Hideaway store, whether new or old, complete or not, was exactly the same as what he had seen in other stores. It was like the store owners of other stores came to the Hideaway store specifically. Same as copied here.
In the face of fakes with such a degree of authenticity, if Headway's genuine products oversell, there will be no competitive advantage at all.
"How much does this dragon tooth cost?" Li Nuo asked.
Hedwig turned his head and glanced at Li Nuo:
"330 gold coins, no bargaining. Do you want it? If you want it, I'll wrap it for you."
"Well, it's quite expensive. Let me take a look. When was the last time you sold something?" Li Nuo asked again.
Hedwig scratched the beard on his chin:
"Uh... a month ago, I can't remember clearly."
In a situation where fakes can look like real ones, but the genuine ones are still so expensive, it’s a shame that the things can be sold at all...
Li Nuo squinted his eyes and looked around, thoughtfully.
He seems to have found a good way to gain a lot of energy points and master knowledge skills at the same time.
Sure enough, as soon as I left the corner of Midas Island, there were more magical things around me, and the small objects that could be used for passive deconstruction became more and more abundant. My arrangement for leaving Midas Island was indeed right.
The only bad thing is that you have to spend gold coins wherever you go.
(End of chapter)
