Chapter 27: Another Transaction

Yesterday, he was still unclear about the market price for a single question opportunity within the Mage Tower, but today, after experiencing the unspoken rules of the Arcane Garden, he could be considered to have understood the preciousness of a question opportunity.

Not needing to work for a month, only needing to help ask a question once—calculated by Xia Duo's wages, asking a question once is worth 3 Gold Coins.

However, the time gained from not working can be used to do his own things; clearly, if these are included, the value of asking a question once far exceeds 3 Gold Coins. Xia Duo cannot possibly ask questions for Dien every day; the service Dien provides is not worth that much.

Therefore, the transaction content must be renegotiated, or the trading partner must be changed.

However, since he missed the chance, Xia Duo does not intend to chase him to the Library to talk about it; after all, it is a seller's market, and he can bring it up whenever.

He still needs to hurry and finish organizing the dictionary, so that he can use the question qualification to make more preparations during his starting phase; at the very least, basic consumables like pens, ink, and paper cannot be lacking.

Now that he has the entire "Proverbs," Xia Duo first organizes the words starting with the first two letters from the first half, then proceeds to organize the words starting with the third letter.

Time passed extremely quickly while he was fully immersed; when Xia Duo had organized up to the 6th letter, the "lights went out," and the dormitory plunged into darkness.

It was 9 o'clock, and Xia Duo still had more than half of the letters left to organize, but Xia Duo believed that as he became more familiar with "Proverbs," his progress later on would become faster and faster.

……

The next day, Xia Duo woke up before the "wake-up light" just like yesterday, and by the faint light, he memorized for a while the Netherese words that already had phonetic symbols and definitions.

Once 5 o'clock arrived, he immediately went out to the first-floor cafeteria to get breakfast, and then, without needing to wait for the steward to arrange work like yesterday, he went straight to the Arcane Garden.

However, because of the existence of the unspoken rules, Xia Duo only showed his face in front of the Arcane Garden steward before going off to do his own thing.

Because Dien had given him the notes from transcribing "Proverbs" last night, Xia Duo chose not to memorize words, but instead prepared to finish organizing the simple dictionary first, and then memorize them directly through reading.

Memorizing words individually is not very efficient; Xia Duo had already noticed this over the past two days, but under the current circumstances, he just didn't want to waste time.

The entire morning, Xia Duo spent time organizing his own literacy tool, the small dictionary. It was just a pity that the 6 sheets of Parchment were simply not enough; apart from the space left for phonetic symbols and definitions, the rest was almost completely filled.

Xia Duo, who only had 5 Silver Coins on him, naturally could not afford a Blank Notebook, so he could only try to find a way through his question qualification. Thus, he found Sami, who was reading by the river.

Xia Duo did not hide the fact that he was learning the language, but went straight to the point, "Sami, I am sorry to disturb you, but there is something I must ask your advice on."

"What is it?" Although Sami was somewhat dissatisfied that Xia Duo had interrupted his train of thought, he did not refuse.

"I want to know how much those Ordinary Apprentices would pay to exchange for a question opportunity, if calculated in Gold Coins."

Sami suddenly laughed, "The value of the same thing varies from person to person. If you are willing, I am willing to pay 15 Gold Coins each time to exchange for your question opportunity. Those Ordinary Apprentices usually find it very difficult to directly produce 15 Gold Coins."

15 Gold Coins can buy a 100-page Blank Notebook, and all Xia Duo needs to pay is one question opportunity. Calculated this way, Xia Duo could earn 450 Gold Coins a month!

However, this would come at the cost of sacrificing Xia Duo's own learning progress. It might be feasible in the beginning, but later on, he might even need to trade question opportunities with others!

Xia Duo considered it for a moment and felt that trading with Sami would be fine, so he agreed directly.

However, Sami said again: "What I want to ask about are the specific courses of certain specific Mages. You must go to those Mages' Research Labs to attend class, and you can only ask the question after the class ends."

Upon hearing this, Xia Duo frowned. According to what Sami said, he wouldn't be able to attend his Enlightenment Class, and he wouldn't understand the Official Mage's class either, so the cost would be a bit too high.

Xia Duo told Sami that he was currently receiving Magic enlightenment, and Sami showed a knowing smile, "We can do it this way: I can give you Enlightenment Class in the morning, and in the afternoon you go help me ask questions. For every question asked, I will pay you an additional 5 Gold Coins."

That is equivalent to 10 Gold Coins per Enlightenment Class, and it's private tutoring, but after Xia Duo thought about it carefully, he gave up on the idea.

Compared to Sami, Xia Duo was more willing to trust the Enlightenment Class provided by the Mage Tower. Furthermore, if the transaction were to be interrupted after only a few times, wouldn't his Enlightenment Class be interrupted? It wasn't even certain if Jianaer would repeat the course.

It looked like he was taking advantage, but in reality, he would likely suffer a big loss, and it would make things complicated.

"Sami, I think that is too troublesome. I think it would be better this way: I will attend classes at my own pace, but at the same time, I can sell my own question opportunities. The target for questions for the next week is the Apprentice Jianaer. You help me contact whoever you know who needs to ask Jianaer a question. I don't care how much you charge them; I only charge you 5 Gold Coins each time."

The biggest problem currently facing Xia Duo—in the final analysis, it is simply a lack of money!

If he had plenty of Gold Coins, he could even hire an Official Mage to tutor him. Literacy would not be a difficult problem; there are plenty of magical spells that could allow him to learn Netherese Common instantly.

Having money has its way of playing, and not having money naturally has its own way. But Xia Duo did not want to spend too much time worrying about whether he was losing out; he wanted to obtain some basic learning resources as quickly as possible.

Just like the situation this morning, when the Parchment ran out and he couldn't continue organizing the dictionary, wasting time like this is the most shameful thing.

Time is the greatest wealth. He is already 24 years old, while Sami before him is only 18. He is already lagging behind; how can he not strive to catch up?

Right now, the only thing he can utilize is the question qualification. While he is receiving enlightenment, he might have many questions he wants to ask, but in reality, they don't involve his learning progress at all; they are more about satisfying his own curiosity.

Using the question qualification to exchange for resources and time is the optimal solution for Xia Duo.

Sami listened to Xia Duo's words and was silent for a moment, seemingly having heard the subtext in Xia Duo's words, and then agreed, "Fine. I will contact an apprentice for you, or you could call him a Merchant. He has already given up on the path of Magic and is focusing on managing resource integration among apprentices. I think you might have many opportunities to contact him in the future."

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. I will also receive a handsome commission for introducing you to him." Sami's tone was very flat.

Clearly, if Xia Duo could not ask questions for himself, Sami was not willing to waste time being a middleman, so he directly introduced Xia Duo to a middleman.

……

For the rest of the morning, Xia Duo could not continue organizing the dictionary and could only memorize the pronunciations and definitions he had already organized, continuing like this until noon.

Mages are very particular about efficiency, and apprentices are no exception. Xia Duo and Sami hurriedly finished their lunch and then went to the Library Layer together.

The "Merchant Apprentice" they were going to see had long-term rented a Transcription Room on the Library Layer to conduct his intermediary business. It was only because Xia Duo had only been in the Mage Tower for two days; otherwise, he would have known the name of this "Merchant Apprentice" sooner or later.