Without enough resources at hand, wealth was not very useful.
After all, if one was in a desert, what would the point of having bags of gold coins be?
Without a suitable marketplace, all gold coins were essentially worthless.
This was the case for Chen Heng right now.
For him, his territory was completely empty; let alone a marketplace, there were not even traveling merchants.
The long-term warfare had scared away even the adventurous merchants, and no one dared to stay in this region.
After all, there were no people to even trade with here.
When they were spotted by the savage Beastmen, not only would the Beastmen not want to trade with them, but they would also kill them, steal their goods, and even devour their corpses.
As such, even if Chen Heng had money, it was very difficult for him to spend it.
Thus, rather than money, what he lacked the most right now was food and weapons.
"Is that so…"
Hearing Chen Heng's request, Marley and Ali could not help but look troubled, "It's fine to pay partly in food and weapons… but the terrain and those Beastmen…"
They looked quite troubled as they spoke.
The situation was indeed quite troublesome. Not only was transportation difficult in this region, but there were many Beastmen scattered across the region.
To ordinary people, those Beastmen were a big threat.
The two Sorcerers would be fine, but to everyone else, they would be in great danger.
"I understand…"
Chen Heng said as he smiled, as he continued to speak calmly, "But I'm sure that if you're not willing, I'm sure that there will be other Sorcerers who will be willing to help me…"
Hearing this, the two people's expressions changed.
Following this, Chen Heng once again spoke.
"Of course, because of our friendship, I'm willing to provide some help," Chen Heng continued to smile as he said, "I can guarantee that in half a month, the Beastmen's numbers will greatly decrease within my territory. When that time comes, you can transport the food and weapons over."
"Is that so…"
Hearing this, Marley and Ali looked at each other, inwardly letting out sighs of relief.
With Chen Heng's strength as a Second Ring Warlock, his guarantee had great weight to it.
At the very least, a Second Ring Warlock's strength would be enough to deal with those Beastmen.
Putting aside if he could completely get rid of the Beastmen, at least creating a safe path should be fine.
"Your words put us at ease."
The two Sorcerers thought for a moment and could not resist the temptation of those items in the end.
"Don't worry, we will bring over the goods within the agreed timeframe."
Hearing this, Chen Heng smiled, "That will be good. I can also promise that if this transaction goes smoothly I can take out more things for us to trade. I have many more precious items…"
He spoke softly as he looked at Marley and Ali.
.........
Hearing this, the two Sorcerers' eyes lit up.
...
A while later, Marley and Ali walked out of the room.
Even after leaving, they were unable to calm down.
"Praise the Magic Goddess, our chance has finally come!" Ali tightly gripped his fists, looking incredibly excited.
Because Marley was older, he was calmer, but even he could barely hold in his excitement.
Evidently, what Chen Heng had said was very good news to them.
"It's very difficult to believe…"
Thinking of the things that Chen Heng had shown to them, Marley could not help but say, "Who would have thought that the Hatim family would have such a prosperous foundation…
"Even though most of those items were damaged, they are all incredibly valuable."
"Who would have thought we would have the opportunity to obtain these treasures, and all we have to do is pay partially in money and partially in food."
To them, this transaction was incredibly worth it.
To Sorcerers, only magic skills and magic items were incredibly precious. In fact, even if one wanted to spend their money, often they would not be able to find anything for sale.
From how they saw it, the things that Chen Heng had taken out all fell in that category.
The things that Chen Heng had taken out were all from that historical remnant where he had obtained the two Divinities.
That historical remnant seemed to have been there for a long, long time and contained many adventurers' corpses. Next to the corpses were many magic items as well as other materials; that was where Chen Heng had obtained those things from.
Even though they were just things left behind by the adventurers, given that the adventurers had progressed so far while bearing the pressure of the Divinities, they were all incredibly powerful.
The items and equipment that they used were naturally of great value. Even though they were damaged, they were still incredibly precious.
2,000 gold coins for one was not overpriced at all.
For Marley and Ali, if they could find a suitable place to resell these things, they would be able to make a great profit.
However, evidently, they would not do so unless they had no other option.
Moreover, in order to obtain these precious items, they only had to pay partly in money and partly in food.
Things were of different value to different people.
From Chen Heng's perspective, food was the most precious thing, while to the Sorcerers, food was just cheap goods.
As Sorcerers, they usually held noble titles but did not have to manage commoners like the rulers. As such, they did not need large amounts of food.
Moreover, even though the Kalo Kingdom overall lacked food, this was not the case for other places.
This was especially the case for places with Sorcerers.
Some Sorcerers specialized in agriculture, and all they had to do was set up a magic formation and cast some magic skills now and then to obtain a bountiful harvest.
In Aimu City, crops were not expensive at all.
Putting aside the costs of transporting the food, the amount that Chen Heng needed was not a big deal to them at all.
"Ali, I think we need a detailed plan," Marley said after calming down, "That person has many more good things…"
"I agree."
Hearing Marley's words, Ali nodded, "We can't let others know; otherwise, we'll lose our opportunities in the future."
"Indeed."
Hearing Ali's words, Marley also nodded.
Before, in order to motivate them, Chen Heng had taken out many good things.
There were all kinds of magic items, precious materials, as well as some powerful experts' bone powder.
All of those things had come from that historical remnant.
Even though those powerful experts had fallen, their corpses were still precious materials, and even their bones could be refined into magic items.
As a Sorcerer, Chen Heng clearly knew the value of those things, so he did not leave them behind.
Before leaving that historical remnant, he had used flames to refine the corpses into bottles of bone powder to make it easier to take them out.
To Marley and Ali, that kind of thing was an incredibly precious resource that they were willing to spend money for.
Even though Sorcerers were rich, they had great expenditures.
Materials that Sorcerers needed were usually quite expensive, and some things were incredibly difficult to find.
For example, for some of the things that Chen Heng had, even if they had enough money, they would not be able to buy them under ordinary circumstances.
There were a limited number of experts in the world; how could there be enough to go around?
As such, they decided to work hard for Chen Heng.
They discussed for a while and came up with a plan before happily leaving.
Chen Heng continued to sit within the room from before.
After Marley and Ali left, he seemed to sense something and looked out and smiled.
"Sir…"
By the side, Herdosiri spoke softly as if he wanted to say something.
"What is it?" Chen Heng smiled as he asked.
"It's nothing…"
Hearing Chen Heng's words, Herdosiri hesitated for a moment before saying, "Sir, are you sure there will be no problems in giving them these things?
"If they take those things and sell them in Aimu City, then…"
"They should be able to make a profit, right?" Chen Heng said as he smiled.
"That is indeed the case," Chen Heng said as he got up and said calmly, "If they re-sold those things elsewhere, they should be able to make a big profit. That was why they were so excited."
"However, that is fine," Chen Heng continued as he shook his head, "If you want to do something long-term, you need to leave some breathing space."
Hearing Chen Heng's words, Herdosiri stared, not quite understanding.
Seeing his confused expression, Chen Heng could only continue.
"It's like this—if we were to personally bring those things to Aimu City, how should we go about it? How would we get there? Who would we send? How do we know that we would get a good price?"
Speaking to there, he paused before continuing, "More importantly, how would we transport the food and weapons back? What should we do if there are problems on the way? What if the food and weapons are stolen?"
Chen Heng looked at Herdosiri and asked a great number of questions.
"This…"
Hearing Chen Heng's words, Herdosiri felt stunned and understood.
"Even though you sold those things to them at a relatively low price, you transferred most of the risk to them. That was your true goal. I understand now."
Looking at Herdosiri, Chen Heng smiled and did not say any more.
He did not mention that another reason was that these things were not a big deal to him.
..........
After all, he was also a grandmaster refiner, so most of the magic items in this world did not have much value to him.
This was the real reason.
...
"Apart from food and weapons, he also wants a set of books on basic Sorcerer Meditation?"
Looking at the list that Chen Heng had given, the two Sorcerers could not help but feel surprised, "And also some basic materials…"
"Could it be that this sir also wants to gain the power of Sorcerers?" they could not help but wonder.
The things on Chen Heng's list were all things that beginner Sorcerers needed.
It seemed that he wanted to step into the Sorcerer domain, which made them quite surprised.
Everyone knew that Warlocks' power came from their bloodlines.
Because of their powerful bloodlines, Warlocks usually had exceptional talent in other things as well.
However, under normal circumstances, a powerful Warlock rarely bothered learning other things.
After all, their power came far too easily.
This power gave them a prestigious status, but it also made them lose interest and patience in studying other systems.
As such, a Warlock taking the initiative to study other systems was unheard of in this world.
The two Sorcerers could not believe that Chen Heng had such thoughts.
However, they did not feel that it was too strange.
Regardless of anything else, desiring advancement was always good.
Moreover, even though some of the things on the list would be quite difficult for others to obtain, for the two Sorcerers, obtaining them was quite simple.
Within Aimu City, even though such things were not everywhere, they were not too difficult to obtain.
Time gradually passed.
In the following period of time, Chen Heng's territory developed stably.
Every day, apart from doing training, he would patrol about, clearing out Beastmen.
Under his efforts, the numbers of the Beastmen in the surroundings gradually decreased, and they were now rarely seen around the town.
Of course, the situation was still the same as before in the further parts of the territory.
For Chen Heng to maintain peace in this small region was already quite impressive, and he was unable to expand his scope too much.
As time passed, the refugees in the surroundings began to gather.
Under Herdosiri and the others' management, the refugees were settled down. They established villages and began to cultivate land.
By now, they had missed the best sowing time for wheat and other staple crops.
However, despite this, they could still plant some vegetables.
Even though they could not count on these crops to fully feed everyone, it would at least make up for a portion of the food they needed.
