As time passed...
Night fell, and Su Ye finally woke up. He looked at the burning campfire.
Su Ye stretched his limbs. "You've worked hard, Talys."
"Your Imperial Majesty, this is my duty," Talys said without any emotion on her face, still maintaining that expressionless look.
Su Ye didn't say anything more; that was just Talys's personality. He opened the chat channel and checked his private messages.
Most of them were private messages from Brother Pian and Sister Pian. Damn, these messages were the most numerous. He simply blacklisted and deleted them all in one go. Seeing that there was no useful information in the private messages, he opened the friends' chat panel.
Su Ye only had one friend right now, and that was Little Merchant.
"Another message? What is it? Did she find the seed of technology?" Su Ye looked at it with some curiosity.
"Hmm?" A hint of surprise and shock appeared in Su Ye's eyes.
[Little Merchant: Big boss, are you interested in troop refresh recruitment cards?]
[Little Merchant: Are you there? If you're interested, we can chat privately.]
"troop refresh recruitment card?" Su Ye took a deep breath. Someone had already obtained this thing?
However, there were billions of novice lords in this batch. With such a large base, it wasn't strange for someone to get something like this.
How should he describe the troop refresh recruitment card? For some lords, it wasn't even as useful as a resource card, but for Su Ye, it was a god-tier card.
Don't think that no one would sell this; people definitely would. For an average lord, the daily recruitment quota was enough, or they might not even be able to use that much.
Don't forget, troops also consume food. For an ordinary lord, being able to maintain the daily recruitment expenses was already a good thing.
In fact, most lords couldn't even maintain the daily expenses of their troops; that was the normal situation.
So for an ordinary lord, this card wasn't as practical as a high-level food resource card. They didn't lack troop numbers; what they lacked were resources—actual, physical resources.
[Otherworld Traveler: I'm here. How much is it? How many do you have?]
Su Ye sent the message immediately.
On Little Merchant's side, seeing Su Ye's message, she immediately abandoned her private chat with another lord.
[Little Merchant: I'm here, I'm here, big boss! I have five troop refresh recruitment cards in my hand. The price is 1,000 gold coins each. What do you think, big boss?]
Su Ye looked at the message from Little Merchant. Five troop refresh recruitment cards. A glint appeared in his eyes. Five of them—if he refreshed the Fallen Heaven Sanctuary...
He would be able to get an additional one hundred and fifty units of Fallen Heaven troops.
[Otherworld Traveler: Deal. I'll take as many troop refresh recruitment cards as you have. Please help me keep an eye out and acquire more of them.]
Lin Xiaoxiao looked at the message from Su Ye, and her eyes turned into gold coin symbols.
[Little Merchant: Of course, no problem, big boss! I'm looking for the seed of technology you wanted; it shouldn't take long to find. I've sent a trade request, please accept it, big boss.]
[Otherworld Traveler: Okay.]
Su Ye looked at the trade request that popped up and directly chose to accept.
Five troop refresh recruitment cards obtained.
Su Ye was about to close the chat panel when he suddenly remembered he also needed seeds of darkness.
[Otherworld Traveler: By the way, please help me acquire seeds of darkness as well. Price is not an issue.]
[Little Merchant: Roger that!!]
In Lin Xiaoxiao's territory, she looked at the five thousand gold coins that had arrived in her account. She had spent five hundred gold coins to acquire the troop refresh recruitment cards, and flipping them gave her a tenfold return.
Being able to make this money was also due to her own ability. Su Ye didn't have such vast interpersonal connections. Even if he knew, it wouldn't change anything; without her, Su Ye wouldn't have been able to get these troop refresh recruitment cards.
"This guy's troops aren't simple. Sanctuary? mythic? Or epic, legend?" Lin Xiaoxiao thought curiously. Only with troops starting at these tiers would using a troop refresh recruitment card be most cost-effective.
As for using a troop refresh recruitment card on troops below the Sanctuary tier, it was possible, but only if one had enough resources to feed those troops.
Combined with the gold coins in Su Ye's hands, Lin Xiaoxiao wasn't stupid; she naturally knew Su Ye's troop rank wasn't low. But so what?
Every year, a few genius lords emerge among the novices. It wasn't anything rare.
"In comparison, this guy named One Leaf Knows Autumn is simply a huge idiot. I'm a merchant, do you understand what a merchant is? He actually wanted to buy on credit and set up a gambling agreement. He must have read too many novels, this moron." Lin Xiaoxiao looked at another friend's chat window with some speechlessness.
Messages were constantly flashing. If you want to get something for free, just say so, but a gambling agreement? Who's going to gamble with you? Am I crazy? You have nothing, yet you open your mouth and ask for a gamble?
He's simply a psychopath.
After hesitating for a moment, Lin Xiaoxiao directly deleted and blacklisted One Leaf Knows Autumn. Psychopaths should stay as far away as possible.
In Ye Xiu's territory.
Ye Xiu looked at the messages he had sent to Lin Xiaoxiao, a hint of confusion on his face. The other party had suddenly stopped talking. Why?
"In my previous life, this person was a famous great merchant and was even deeply bound in cooperation with Otherworld Traveler, which allowed that guy to always have enough resources to stay ahead of the novice lords. In this life, there's no reason I can't replicate that." Ye Xiu looked at the chat interface with an ambitious expression.
In his previous life, according to the information he knew, this Little Merchant and Otherworld Traveler had formed an alliance starting from the novice period until the very end. Their alliance never stopped; instead, it grew larger and larger.
Ye Xiu's plan was to win over Little Merchant first and then handle Otherworld Traveler, turning these two lords with vast resources into his Subordinate Lords.
That way, they could provide him with a continuous stream of nourishment.
After a long time, Ye Xiu looked at his chat interface. Did the other party fall asleep?
Thinking of this, Ye Xiu tried to send a message, but instead received a system notification.
[Ding: You have been blacklisted by Little Merchant. You cannot trade with her or message her privately!]
Ye Xiu's face froze. What was going on? Why was he blacklisted?
"Didn't that guy Otherworld Traveler say that when he first met Little Merchant, he used this kind of 'empty-handed wolf' gambling agreement? Could it be that guy was bragging?" Thinking of this, Ye Xiu's face darkened.
"That guy?" Ye Xiu rubbed his temples, carefully recalling Otherworld Traveler's actions. Saying things like 'I don't love money,' 'I'm not interested in money,' 'I'm face-blind and can't tell who's pretty,' and 'what I miss most is the carefree time when I was in school'—he was always full of hot air. It really was possible he was just talking nonsense.
"Huh?" Thinking of this, Ye Xiu was so angry he laughed.
Seeing that he had been blacklisted and deleted by Little Merchant and could not send private messages, it meant that during the novice lord period, he wouldn't be able to complete a single transaction with the largest merchant lord of this batch.
This was not a good thing for him. The good news was that she wasn't the only merchant lord; the bad news was that she was the biggest one in this session.