latelenovela Chapter 372: Red Dragon Regiment Squad
Chapter 372: Red Dragon Regiment Squad
Quill Avenue."Huh?"
"When did two new shops open here?"
"There's even a prize draw, first prize is a full set of plate armor worth 20 gold coins."
"There are also many magic potions among the prizes."
"You can enter the draw just by shopping, the more you spend, the more draws you get."
"Bass, let's go in and take a look. Maybe we'll get lucky and win the first prize? That's a full set of plate armor worth a full 20 gold coins!"
In the core section of Quill Avenue, two shops right next to each other opened simultaneously, one being a weapon shop and the other a potion shop.
From the identical red dragon flags hanging on their signs and their relatively unified decoration style, it was obvious these two shops had the same owner behind them.
The new store opening, plus the promotional posters at the entrance and the flyers being handed out by staff outside, attracted quite a few people to join in the excitement.
The cheapest items in the shop cost only one silver coin. For many adventurers, while this amount wasn't exactly small, it was definitely not considered large either.
Moreover, items like arrows, poisons, and healing potions were essential needs for adventurers anyway. Where you bought them didn't really matter, and buying them here at least gave you the hope of winning a big prize.
If you were lucky enough to win a set of full plate armor, even if you couldn't bear to use it yourself, selling it for ten or twenty gold coins would be a substantial fortune for the vast majority of low-level adventurers.
They also weren't worried about the shop owner cheating.
After all, with just a little inquiry, anyone could find out who exactly was behind these two shops.
As a high-level adventurer leading an adventuring guild, and even possessing an extremely rare super mount like a red dragon, in the hearts of many adventurers, he was absolutely a major financial backer.
Someone like that, how could they possibly do something so shameful over a mere 20 gold coins?
Gauss and Aria sat on the second floor of the tavern across the street, eating lunch while watching the opening day situation of their shops.
"Looks quite lively."
"I wonder what the daily revenue will be."
Gauss took a sip of sake.
Since the Red Dragon Guild now had its own blacksmiths and alchemists, naturally they had to try opening their own shops.
After all, management and operations were handed over to the people below.
If they ended up losing money, they could always close them later.
As for the prize draw, that was also his suggestion, and it seemed to be working quite well.
In this world, at least in Falim, merchants weren't accustomed to using marketing tactics.
However, the good business wasn't purely due to the prize draw.
From Gauss's observation, many people glanced at the prize draw notice before entering the shop and then looked away. After buying things, they couldn't even be bothered to draw a prize, they were just shopping purely for the sake of shopping.
These people were mostly elite adventurers, or at the very least, those low-level adventurers whose aura was noticeably stronger.
Gauss speculated they might be making purchases based on the reputation of the Red Dragon Guild.
Even though the Red Dragon Guild was a guild that had been registered for less than a month, during this period, it had already gained quite a reputation in Falim, at least in the Southern District.
Just from what Gauss knew, the Red Dragon Guild had been featured in the Southern District newspaper several times.
The content included, but was not limited to, introducing the current members of the Red Dragon Guild, the location of its headquarters, its scale and status, etc.
Once, it was even featured on the front page, focusing specifically on introducing the Guild Leader of the Red Dragon Guild, that is, himself, his past numerous experiences, his rise to success, and a series of nicknames and related experiences, etc.
This was the advantage of operating in a big city.
If it were in a small town, no matter how famous you became, at most a few thousand people would know you.
But in a provincial capital city like Falim, every move you made could attract the attention of several times, even ten times as many people.
Positive reputation could be monetized most of the time.
For example, with two similar shops, some adventurers might choose to buy weapons and potions from his shops out of admiration and recognition for him.
After observing for a while, Gauss withdrew his gaze.
Opening shops in such a prime location was a high-stakes gamble that small merchants would stake their entire fortunes on, but for him, it was just a casual move, not really worth paying excessive attention to.
It was only because it was the opening day, and Aria said she wanted to see how things were going, that he even bothered to come. Otherwise, he wouldn't have bothered.
"Dimension Door lv3 (27/50)"
Perseverance yields success. Investing a large amount of time and energy in a short period can achieve remarkable results.
In just a few days, this rather difficult 4th-circle spatial magic had increased its proficiency from lv1 to lv3.
Among all the spells he currently mastered, the difficulty of Dimension Door was noticeably much higher than the others.
Perhaps this was because it involved spatial properties.
So, it still wasn't enough.
Currently, the casting time for Dimension Door had been shortened by him from several seconds to a stable one second. One second was very short, but to achieve the instant teleportation flash effect he envisioned, it was still too long.
The higher the level of combat, the more every fraction of a second counted.
The outcome of a battle, even life and death, often depended on clashes measured in hundredths of a second.
The Dimension Door spell was quite dependent on proficiency. He needed to raise it to lv4, lv5, even lv6.
Although it could still be useful now, the higher the proficiency, the better the effect of this spell.
But the higher the skill proficiency level, the more difficult it became to improve. And this was already the result of him keeping Dimension Door permanently in his Secondary Core Spell Slot.
Even his only core skill, the Gauss Barrier, currently only had a proficiency of lv5 (153/200).
There was still some distance to lv6.
He had to practice, practice more.
Just as everyone was eating lunch, a crow descended from the sky and landed beside Gauss's feet.
After communicating with it, Aria looked at Gauss.
"What's up?"
"Bruno and Toga have come to the Red Dragon Guild headquarters looking for us."
"Oh?"
Gauss nodded.
"We'll head back after we finish eating."
...
Gauss and the others didn't delay for too long.
Returning to the Red Dragon Guild headquarters, several short figures were already sitting at the table in the reception hall waiting for them.
"Gauss, long time no see."
Bruno raised his hand in greeting.
Toga, meanwhile, was examining the room's decorations and the scene outside the window of the headquarters.
"Long time no see." Gauss nodded and, along with Aria and the others, found empty seats and sat down.
"I thought you had already left Falim?"
"What have you been busy with lately?"
Bruno glanced at Toga beside him and chuckled a couple of times.
"Nothing much."
To be more precise, they had been indulging in pleasure and debauchery these past few days.
They spent all day wandering between various taverns in the city.
It was only when Toga couldn't stand it anymore that she put an end to their life of wine and meat.
"Gauss, I wonder if your Red Dragon Guild is short on manpower?"
Toga looked at Bruno, who had been silent the whole time, knowing he couldn't bring himself to ask, so she took the initiative to speak.
"We are."
"Are you coming to help me?"
Gauss smiled and nodded.
The strength of the dwarves before him was only somewhat weak from his perspective.
But for most adventurers, they were already considered experts.
Especially Toga at level 6, Bruno at level 5, plus one at level 4 and two at level 3, and each of them was a skilled blacksmith. If they went to join most adventuring guilds, they could probably pass quickly.
Their willingness to join the Red Dragon Guild was partly because they planned to settle down near Falim, and partly because of the debt of gratitude from Gauss saving Toga some time ago.
Gauss agreed so quickly also because, relatively speaking, he knew their background. The character of these dwarves wasn't a major issue.
A normal adventuring guild didn't have just one main team; it often had several squads, even dozens of squads.
These squads might usually operate independently until there was a major objective, then they would gather together for a hunt.
It was just a matter of opening one more squad.
"Then please guide us well from now on, Guild Leader."
Toga stood up and shook hands with Gauss.
The other dwarves also came forward to shake hands one by one.
Just like that, in a few sentences, the Red Dragon Guild's combat force instantly doubled from the original 5 people.
Dwarves had rather impatient temperaments.
After officially joining the Red Dragon Guild, Gauss introduced them to Steward Ivan, and then they eagerly headed toward the blacksmith shop.
Actually, in this team, apart from Toga and Bruno, the remaining three dwarves, Tebben, Sean, and Rick, were more oriented toward being blacksmiths than warriors.
Having just joined the Red Dragon Guild, they also wanted to showcase their skills in front of Gauss, their Guild Leader.
Coincidentally, because they had been traveling outside, they hadn't done any blacksmithing or forging for a while. Now, seeing the blacksmithing tools, they couldn't help but feel their hands itching to get to work.
For dwarves, blacksmithing was a hobby in itself.
"Gauss, don't worry about them."
"Let them be."
"They just want to swing the hammer themselves."
Seeing the somewhat apologetic look on Gauss's face, Toga explained.
"Mm, I'll pay them wages according to the normal standard."
Gauss didn't expect the young dwarves to be so enthusiastic, officially starting work on their very first day in the guild.
Strictly speaking, they hadn't even joined the Red Dragon Guild yet, as they hadn't registered their organizational relationship with the Adventurers Guild.
But he wouldn't let the dwarves work for free either.
"Big girl, want to spar?"
"You?"
Albenia lowered her head to look at this combative little person, and suddenly felt her own hands itching too. But before that, she still turned her head to look at Gauss for his opinion.
"Go if you want to."
Gauss shrugged, looking at this pair of female warriors with the cutest height difference who were both quite belligerent.
But in terms of combat power, Toga was undoubtedly at an absolute disadvantage.
On one hand, it was due to size. On the other hand, Albenia was also one professional level higher than her.
Not everyone could treat level differences as meaningless like he could.
Under normal circumstances, a 1-level difference, even if it didn't involve crossing stages like level 5 to 6 or level 10 to 11, was still significant, especially for the same profession.
But in this Red Dragon Guild, the one who could serve as Albenia's best opponent, besides him, was probably only Toga.
Even though Shadow had reached level 6, and Aria's strength had leapt forward after her successful class advancement, they weren't frontline, wide-open-and-forceful warrior types, so Albenia rarely chose to spar with them.
As for finding Gauss, most of the time he didn't have time.
Either he was carrying out some small commissions in the surrounding area, or he was training his magic alone.
Now she finally had a teammate she could "go all out" with, and Albenia couldn't help but feel somewhat happy.
Even though the other party was a bit short, she wasn't picky.
The two of them ignited their fighting spirit and walked together toward the training ground.
The floor tiles and facilities there were built at great expense and could withstand attacks from Master-level professionals.
"Then I'll go watch the fun." Aria also seemed very interested and even casually invited Gauss. "Are you coming?"
"I'm not going."
Gauss shook his head.
He still needed to continue practicing Dimension Door. He wanted to know how much the casting time could be compressed at lv4 proficiency.
"Shadow, are you coming?"
Shadow was just about to shake her head when Aria already placed her hand on her wrist. Shadow smiled helplessly and could only choose to follow her.
As for Serlandul, he had long since run off to exchange alchemy insights with Ivan.
His relationship with this Dragonborn warlock had improved quite a bit recently.
Gauss analyzed that it might be because priests with healing abilities and alchemists had considerable similarity in their professions, and also because neither of them were truly pure-blooded humans—one was a half-snake person, and the other had a thin draconic bloodline.
For the Red Dragon Guild, which was already on the right track, Gauss was happy to see this kind of development.
He couldn't have every member revolving around him twenty-four hours a day.
Not only would the members be unable to do that, even he himself couldn't stand it. He needed personal space too.
Blue light glowed beneath Gauss, and the next moment, his figure appeared a hundred meters away.
First, raise the Dimension Door proficiency to lv4. Then, next, accept a commission with a Commander-level monster, accumulate enough Commander Points, and advance the [Sturdy Scale Bloodline] from blue quality to purple quality.
After all these were completed, he should be able to smoothly break through to level 7.
Regarding this pace of improvement, he himself was quite satisfied.
If he could maintain a speed of one level every few months, he had hope of reaching level 10 before the end of the year.
By then, his actual combat power would probably be considered quite good even within the Transcendent stage.
Of course, this was just his current plan. Whether things would go so smoothly later wasn't certain.
Level bottlenecks existed for him as well.
It was just that for others, this bottleneck was a high wall, but for him, it was like a small step.
But no matter the difficulty, it still required spending some time.
And the higher the level, the more difficult it became to improve. Although currently he didn't feel much change in difficulty, he didn't dare guarantee it would always be like this in the future.
"Just go for it."
He snapped out of his thoughts.
Only to find that at the end of the alley, a man's shopping bag had fallen to the ground.
And the other party was piously kowtowing to him repeatedly.
"Huh?"
This person... what does this mean?
Gauss scratched his head.
He looked left and right, confirming the man was indeed kowtowing to him, and his face grew even more puzzled.
"Dimension Door."
As blue light flashed, his figure disappeared from the alley once again.
Even though he had reported practicing spatial magic to the Adventurers Guild in advance, he still needed to minimize the impact of his practice and not affect the normal lives of the residents.
What Gauss didn't notice was, at the moment his body disappeared, a trace of special energy, so weak that even magnified hundreds or thousands of times it was almost completely undetectable, flowed into his body.