Chapter 24: Purchasing Weapons, The Grand Competition Begins

Yang Fan opened the mall and searched for the word 'weapons'.

"F-grade weapon: Spear. Price: 10,000 Faith Points.

F-grade weapon: Iron Hammer. Price: 13,000 Faith Points.

F-grade weapon: Breeze Sword. Price: 20,000 Faith Points.

…"

Looking at the weapon prices, Yang Fan frowned slightly. "This is a bit too expensive."

A single weapon cost over ten thousand Faith Points; besides that, there were armor and helmets.

Even for just F-grade equipment, arming a believer from head to toe would cost thirty to forty thousand Faith Points.

His current Divine Kingdom army numbered a full fifty thousand. If they were all equipped like this, wouldn't it cost around two billion?

"No wonder those gods who follow the War Path need to recruit so many Subordinate Gods. Just the expenditure on weapons alone is an astronomical figure," Yang Fan lamented.

With his current financial strength, Yang Fan was simply not qualified for large-scale consumption of graded weapons, and those common soldiers didn't deserve them either.

"The prices are too high. Help me search for ordinary weapons. I need to equip mortals on a large scale, preferably iron-made. The total price for fifty thousand sets must be within a million," Yang Fan continued his search through the intelligent lifeform.

"Filtering merchants… Recommended best choice: Ink Iron Mercenary Group Shop.

200,000 sets of ordinary iron weapons. Price: 4,000,000 Faith Points.

Merchant is currently online. You may ask if they sell separately."

Yang Fan clicked on the chat box and typed: "Boss, I want to buy fifty thousand sets. Is that okay?"

"1,000,000 Faith Points. Trade anytime," the other party replied instantly.

"Can it be a bit cheaper? I'm still a senior in high school."

"Small business, no haggling."

At that moment, on a distant planet, a man sat at a workbench smoking dry tobacco. He spat and said, "Another one playing the pity card. I've been a customer service rep for so many years, my ears are practically calloused from hearing these lines. Poor people are always the most troublesome. I still need to find a way to improve product competitiveness and earn money from the rich."

"Is there really no discount?" Doing such a large business deal for the first time, Yang Fan still wanted to push for it.

"No." The other party refused decisively. Having done business for a long time, his heart was as firm as a rock; prices weren't something easily changed.

"I'm from a single-parent family, and I have two younger sisters to support. I really have no choice…"

"Stop… I've sent you the link. Any lower and I won't be able to explain it to my superiors."

Yang Fan looked at the pop-up link: fifty thousand sets of ordinary iron weapons for the price of 800,000.

"This… negotiating business is this simple?" Yang Fan's mind was a bit dazed. Fearing the other party would regret it, he hurried to transfer the Faith Points.

"Transaction successful."

At that moment, the other party took two deep drags of his smoke, his eyes looking somewhat melancholy.

Just then, his door was pushed open, and two small heads peeked in.

"Daddy, big brother is calling you to eat," the twin daughters called out simultaneously.

"I know. How were your classes today? Did the teacher reward you with little red flowers?" The man stood up and picked up a daughter in each arm, speaking tenderly.

"Yes! Today we recited the Biodiversity Research Report in front of the whole class. The teacher rewarded us with one each."

"Good girls!"

…

With the procurement of weapons for the ordinary soldiers complete, Yang Fan prepared to equip each of those six Rank 1 Beings with a full set of F-grade weapons.

Finding another private shop, he clicked the chat box and typed: "Boss, can it be a bit cheaper? My parents died when I was young, and I raised ten younger sisters by myself. I really don't have any extra Faith Points."

"Get lost."

"The other party has closed the chat box," a system prompt from Taotao Network came through.

…"

Yang Fan felt as if a murder of crows had just flown over his head.

In the end, he spent nearly another 200,000 Faith Points to buy exactly six sets of Rank 1 weapons.

His liquid capital hit rock bottom again.

After putting all these resources into his Divine Kingdom, Yang Fan stretched and lay down on his bed to fall asleep early.

He had done everything he could. He only hoped he could stand out tomorrow and secure investments from those bosses.

Early the next morning, Yang Fan got up and headed to school.

This assessment was not in the Virtual World; the entire senior year faculty and students had to gather at Yang County No. 1 Middle School.

Three months had passed since the Day of Awakening, and Yang Fan stepped through the gates of Yang County No. 1 Middle School once again.

The school playground was very lively. There were over 2,000 students in the entire senior year. Even though the vast majority were from the Logistics Path, they were required to be present according to the rules.

"I heard Principal Hong Bing will show up today. That's a Rank 3 God, a big shot who's usually hard to even get a glimpse of."

"I heard from my elders that today's assessment site is a Divine Kingdom that the Principal conquered while fighting against Alien Gods in his youth. To nurture the youth, this Divine Kingdom is specifically used to raise various ranks of demonic beasts, and its coordinates are made public for student assessments."

"Really? Is an alien's Divine Kingdom the same as ours?"

"Pretty much, just the believers are different. We are the Human Race, so our believers are humans. The believers of those alien races include all kinds of demonic beasts, undead, and demons—all sorts of bizarre things anyway."

"Handsome, you know so much!"

"It's alright. My grandfather is a demigod and a chatterbox, so I've heard a lot of stories."

…

Yang Fan went to his spot and looked around curiously.

Ever since Rank 1 Beings were born in his Divine Kingdom, Yang Fan could feel that his senses had become much sharper.

The aura of Class 7, where he was, was the weakest. The aura on Li Shuhao, the strongest among them, was like a furnace, while the other students were barely flickering sparks by comparison.

But for Class 1 standing in the very center, even from a great distance, Yang Fan could sense the terrifying aura they emitted.

"Luo Bing, the genius of the Luo Family with a B-grade talent. Has she already reached such a level in just three months?" Yang Fan gazed at her back from afar.

Even though there was no change in the air temperature, an invisible chill made his eyes sting.

The other party's strength was likely several orders of magnitude greater than his own. With terrifying talent and the full support of her family, if he was running forward, she was driving a sports car.

Yang Fan took a deep breath and lowered his eyes, trying not to draw attention.

"Brother Yang, how are your preparations?" Li Shuhao greeted him.

"They're alright."

"Once this assessment is over, if you want to change your development path, my original proposal still stands."

Although Yang Fan had impressed him during the last Prosperity Evaluation, he still didn't think highly of the Divine Kingdom path Yang Fan had chosen.

Without combat-related talent and without family investment, how much could the strength of his believers change in a mere three months?

"Thanks." Yang Fan nodded gratefully; he knew the other party meant no harm.

The other genius of Class 7, Wang Zhenyu, was very quiet at the moment, constantly taking deep breaths. It was clear he was very nervous.

"Brother Yang, come to my house for dinner after the exam. It's been so long since I heard from you, we need to catch up," Zhang Pang came over and put his arm around Yang Fan's shoulder.

"We'll see. I've prepared a long time for today; I'm hoping to get investment from those big families."

"Pfft, give it a rest. We're in logistics; who would invest in us? My believers only know how to farm. For the exam later, I plan to send a thousand believers into the exam grounds to look around, and if they see a Rank 1 demonic beast, I'll just pull them right back.

This kind of exam usually takes ten days to half a month to finish every year. I'm too lazy to waste time at school," Zhang Pang rolled his eyes.