Global Lords: Me and My Calabash Kiddos

Chapter 47: Chapter 43: Becoming a Mercenary, Second Under Heaven

”Heh! You think that’s possible? Or if I run into danger right now, how do you expect to protect me?” Yi Tian laughed, thinking the Celestial Destiny Divine Race was so badass—turns out, they’re just an idiot once they open their mouth.

The Phoenix Race is super strong too, but they’re still trading honestly. Yi Tian’s seen even flashier names—like Great Emperor.

Yi Tian could figure out with his ass that this Divine Race is way less developed than Great Emperor.

People need self-awareness. Making promises you can’t keep just makes others look down on you.

”Pathetic Human Race, do you know who you’re talking to?” Tian Hen totally caught Yi Tian’s sarcasm.

”So what? You can’t help me, and you can’t even get to my territory. We’re not even in the same world now, and we’ll be in even more different worlds later.” Yi Tian replied to Tian Hen.

”You ant, believe it or not, I can wreck your auction with a single sentence.” Tian Hen couldn’t take it, pissed off to the point of getting dizzy, and threatened Yi Tian.

”Don’t believe it!” Yi Tian shot back without hesitation. Maybe Tian Hen has clout in his own district, but there are tons of districts in Celestial Dao World. Like, Purple Phoenix Moon Dance’s district is nine digits deep, and she never bothered to hide her identity.

Besides, Lords can change the auction house name whenever—Tian Hen’s words are just hot air.

”If you haven’t come to Celestial Dao World, or if my clan’s elders can’t get here, how about the Human Race? Not even good enough to carry shoes for the Divine Race.” Tian Hen raged.

”That’s the thing. Celestial Dao gives us that little lifeline, a chance to surpass you.” Yi Tian replied.

”Fine! I’ll give you one more chance: I’ll buy your Spirit Fruit with Celestial Dao Coin. Please don’t reject the Celestial Destiny Divine Race’s friendship.” Tian Hen laughed—so cocky this guy, has no idea how scary the Celestial Destiny Divine Race is. That Spirit Fruit’s vital; Tian Hen doesn’t want to lose out.

”Yeah right, like you can afford it.” Yi Tian mocked, totally doubting Tian Hen’s spending power.

”I’ll pay one million Celestial Dao Coin to buy all your Spirit Fruit.” Tian Hen held it in, trying to cut a deal with Yi Tian.

”Heh, keep your million and buy your kid some candy! Just one Five Elements Sacred Fruit is worth more than ten million.” Yi Tian replied.

”You’re crazy for money, ten million—who the hell could afford that?” Tian Hen shouted.

”Let’s wait and see!” Yi Tian said, and hung up the chat.

At the end-of-month assessment, Celestial Dao Stone listed S-level boss kills and captures at ten million Celestial Dao Coin per pop.

Translation: Someone definitely took down an S-level Lord.

After hanging up on Tian Hen, Yi Tian still got swarmed with chat requests—didn’t matter what race, he ignored them all, not letting anyone mess with his mood.

Throughout the Celestial Dao World, tons of people spread word of tomorrow’s High-level Spirit Fruit auction in the region chat. Some well-off Lords sold off stuff they’d hoarded, cashed in, gunning hard for the Spirit Fruit.

Especially a few S-level top young prodigies—they set sights on the SSS-level Spirit Fruit, the Five Elements Sacred Fruit. Every scrap of Celestial Dao Coin they could muster, ready to go.

Heading to the sewing room, Yi Tian spent two hundred thousand Celestial Dao Coin to buy a ton of fabric, making sure the Little Kiddoes could keep cranking out clothes whenever free.

Yi Tian finally had enough and shut down the auction house.

Meanwhile, in some eye-watering, mega-numbered district, inside a wooden pavilion, Purple Phoenix Moon Dance was fuming: ”You Wealthiest in the World, not only did you hustle me, now you won’t even accept my chat!”

Purple Phoenix Moon Dance heard in district chat that Wealthiest in the World was auctioning Spirit Fruit—most all of which looked super familiar. She instantly knew these Spirit Fruit were from the Spirit Fruit Trees she’d sold to Yi Tian.

She remembered Yi Tian saying the Spirit Fruit Tree had been drained dry by Rain Beast a while back.

Thinking back, Yi Tian was definitely bleeding her dry.

”No way! My Spiritual Power is S-level, but my physique, agility, and strength still aren’t good enough. Gotta have Five Elements Sacred Fruit. Our Phoenix Race does Body and Spirit Dual Cultivation—even if I spend twenty million, it’s worth it.” Purple Phoenix Moon Dance muttered.

She knew these SSS-level Spirit Fruit could cleanse your body and boost potential. Not something S+S+SS could ever match.

”Damn profiteer!” Just thinking of Wealthiest in the World made Purple Phoenix Moon Dance’s gorgeous face twist with hate.

...

”Teleportation Talisman purchased successfully. Do you want to become a Mercenary?”

Celestial Dao Stone pinged inside Yi Tian’s mind.

Yi Tian hadn’t really planned on becoming a merc. He’d been eyeing bigger, fatter-bonus businesses; merc work is risky and doesn’t match up to his worth.

But after seeing the perks, Yi Tian immediately bought the Teleportation Talisman.

Celestial Dao Stone picks a thousand King of Mercenaries every year—rewarded with ten million Celestial Dao Coin and a mystery prize. Plus, these Kings of Mercenaries get tickets to secret spaces to hunt for treasure.

Yi Tian’s super sensitive to stuff like ”secret spaces,” ”treasure,” and so on. Feels to him that this secret space will be a mega dungeon. Scoring a ticket would be a huge challenge too.

Yi Tian knows that within Celestial Dao World, there are tons of Lords stronger than him.

King of Mercenaries isn’t just about being strong enough.

Three requirements for King of Mercenaries:

One, mission success rate.

Two, number of missions.

Three, mission difficulty.

Celestial Dao World counts four months as a year, so Yi Tian’s still got plenty of time.

”Become a mercenary!” Yi Tian told Celestial Dao Stone.

The moment Yi Tian confirmed, the Teleportation Talisman turned into a beam of white light and merged into the Celestial Dao Stone.

Yi Tian’d heard from Fire Dragon and Gu Qianqiu that traveling far in Celestial Dao World, you’d have to teleport.

No matter how hard you run, even an S-level Indigenous People running for life couldn’t cross a corner of the map.

”Please choose your Mercenary callsign.”

Mercenary callsign! On Earth, all the special ops and mercs have cool callsigns—Dragon Fang, Wolf Fang, Tiger Fang, Dog Fang, whatever. Yi Tian wasn’t new to callsigns.

Mention of picking a callsign had Yi Tian racking his brains again—naming just ain’t his thing, not even for callsigns.

How do you pick something badass, meaningful, and lowkey at the same time?

Man, so conflicted!

Too bad Baidu’s not around to help him search.

”Yi Tian, if I swap it, it’s Tian Yi, or Tian One—it literally means Number One in the world. Isn’t that way too cocky?”

”My auction house is already Wealthiest in the World, this time I’ll keep it humble.”

”Let’s go with Number Two in the world!”

So in the Mercenary System, Yi Tian set his callsign to ”Number Two in the world.”

”Scanning Lord’s three-dimensional attributes, talents... Lord’s current strength is [Quasi-B-level], eligible to choose B-level or C-level Mercenary.”

”C-level works!” Yi Tian’s got Five-Colored Divine Light, Mountain Lifting and Cauldron Carrying, Dragon Bow.

But those are trump cards—taking B-level missions right now would be risky, possibly fail.

Failing once ruins the perfect win rate.

Yi Tian wants to be Mr. Perfect.

”Please adjust your status, set your hiring fee; C-level Mercenary, minimum price is 10,000 Celestial Dao Coin.”

Yi Tian checked his status—mercenary mode has two types: active and rest.

Once in active mode, you show up in the matching level zone; employers can pick you up for missions.

Celestial Dao Stone will then ping the merc immediately, and merc can decide yes/no based on employer’s info.

If the employer fakes info, merc can bail with no fail counted.

If the employer’s got a hidden agenda, merc can kill the employer, still counts as mission complete, no penalty.

If the employer info is real, and merc bails due to not being able to win, that’s a failed mission.

Fail and you get zero hire fee.

Mercs can get hurt or even die. You gotta be holding the Celestial Dao Stone to teleport, so there’s times you get attacked and can’t whip it out.

All merc mission count and success rate is public, no hiding.

Each mercenary job is eight hours long—over eight hours and it’s auto-fail.

Yi Tian set his own status to active, and hiring fee at the minimum 10,000 Celestial Dao Coin—chasing mission count first.

This price prevents high-level mercs doing ”1 Celestial Dao Coin” jobs just to cheese their win rate.

Right now, there’s fewer than 100 active mercs, all B-level or above.

Yi Tian’s the only C-level Mercenary; for normal Lords, he’s basically a lifesaver.

B-level hire: minimum 50,000; A-level: minimum 300,000; S-level: minimum one million.

Regular Lords simply can’t afford it!

”Congrats, Lord, you are now an honored Mercenary, callsign: Number Two in the world. Mercs value reputation. There’s a Mercenary Manual in the system—please check it out carefully.”

All set, Yi Tian finally wrapped up his mercenary signup and waited for missions to roll in.

”Hey guys, what’s the plan for tomorrow’s Spirit Fruit auction?” In the region chat, a bunch were discussing the Wealth Tower’s auction.

”I’ve got all my savings, ten thousand Celestial Dao Coin—can that buy me a B-level Spirit Fruit?” Turtle Race’s Gui Jie.

”Brother Gui, your three-dimensional stats are only about sixty, right? You might as well spend that 10K Dao Coin directly on upping your stats. Heard a B-level Spirit Fruit only gives you 10 attribute points.”

”Yeah! B-level Spirit Fruit’s good for Lords with three-digits in the stats, for us, 10K is whatever.” Black Stone Star Human Race Shan Dashan.

”Emperor Shan still hasn’t broken triple digits in stats?” Someone teased Shan Dashan when they saw him pop up.

”Not even close! Gotta spend Dao Coin developing the territory, who’s got the attribute points?” Black Stone Star Human Race Shan Dashan.

”Hey, where’s Brother Pig? Isn’t he the chatty one? Usually he’s talking all day long, but it’s already afternoon and he hasn’t said a word?” Someone was curious what Pig Boar was up to.

”Guys, I’m doomed—[Large-scale Crematorium Design Map]*1. Got it in a Silver Treasure Chest yesterday, is Celestial Dao hinting something at me?” Pig Boar hopped out, face like he’d lost his grandma.

”Haha, pure coincidence, look how spooked you are. You think you’re Wealthiest in the World or something? Celestial Dao’s giving you hints?” Sheepman Race Yang Yangyang.

”Brother Pig, I say you’re about to hit the jackpot! If you use the crematorium right, you’ll rake it in. It’s all depends on your courage—if you’re scared, then forget it.” Earth Human Race Yi Tian.

”Yi Tian bro, what makes you say so?” Pig Boar asked, confused.

To him, the crematorium was borderline useless—why build one just to fry a few Indigenous People?

”I’m telling you, as long as you build it well, then charge 100 Dao Coin per corpse, your business will boom. Our territories are tiny—maybe you can bury one or ten, but after every raid, if you have to bury enemy corpses, soon your whole territory’s littered with graves. Some don’t care, but most will be totally stressed. You can’t imagine, but tons of folks are sweating over how to deal with hundreds or thousands of corpses. I checked your crematorium—five furnaces, can burn in batches, super-efficient. Just hire a few cronies to help, your business will be off the charts, raking in gold every day.” Earth Human Race Yi Tian.

”Brother Pig, wanna do it? If not, sell me the design.”

”I’ll pay 50,000 Dao Coin, hand it over! Dead bodies don’t scare me.”

”I’ll pay 70,000!”

”I’ll pay 100,000!”

With Yi Tian’s heads-up, the crematorium turned into a hot commodity instantly.

”PiaoChe Crematorium, grand opening tomorrow—everyone in the district gets 20% off. Hope you all swing by often! Yi Tian bro always gets half-price.” Pigman Race Pig Boar.

Thanks to Yi Tian, Pig Boar’s eyes were shining—decided right then to start PiaoChe Crematorium.

”Deal! You said it yourself.” Earth Human Race Yi Tian.

Yi Tian’s got a lot of enemies; if he’s unlucky and gets a thousand corpses at once, some he can handle, some he can’t. Getting Pig Boar to burn them up—even if it costs some cash—is totally worth it.

”Mercenary system prompt: An employer has sent you a mission request. Mission: Eliminate Fierce Beast Flying Leopard. Flying Leopard three-dimensional attributes—strength 308, physique 280, agility 359.”

”Accept mission? Accepting will teleport you to the employer’s coordinates.”

While everyone was chatting lively in the regional channel, Mercenary System pinged Yi Tian’s first mission.