The Merchant Seekers’ family ancestry started with a special business, theatre tours.
Grandfather Shang Bei established the “Wild Theatre Company”, recruiting extraordinary performers such as fishmen, fiery chickens, bully locusts and man-eating crabs, and performing them all the way around the cities to earn ticket money.
The Wild Players’ scripts and performances were much more poorly written than the proper plays at the Ale Theatre.
But the troupe had transcendental performers, something not found in the theatre, and as they performed commercially along the way, Merchant North made a number of improvements and innovations.
Later on, the “Wild Theatre Company” took the fierce transcendentalists and the beautiful and sentimental young girls as its key elements, and adapted them with some hunted folklore, evolving a kind of thrilling performance that could not be seen in the city.
Later on, Yao City officially banned the Wild Theatre Troupe from entering the city due to the overly revealing costumes of the actresses and the blood-red berries of the transcendentalists, which made the scenes of brutality and filth so indecent that it was officially banned from entering the city.
Because of the ban, the Wild Theatre Troupe became very famous.
Many similar troupes followed suit, using Beauty and the Beast as a buying point, with even larger scale and strange performances coming out all the time.
That’s when the Wild Theatre Troupe retreated in a hurry.
Shang Bei disbanded the troupe. Because of its fame, the Wild Theatre Company had become out of business, and he saw it only as business, with little interest in the theatre itself.
He took the money he earned and went north, settling in Crystal City, buying some shops and starting to enjoy life.
After Shang Bei’s death, the family fortune came into the hands of Shang Nan, Shang Xun’s father.
Unlike the hard-working and hardworking Shang Bei, Shang Nan grew up with no worries about food and clothing. He invested his money in the grain business, and as a result, he lost a lot of money and soon lost all his family’s assets, and sold his house and shops to pay off his debts.
After a drunken fight, Shang Nan got into a confrontation with someone, hit his head on a glass and died.
So it came to Shang Xun, who, excluding his name which shows a merchant family, was actually living in poverty.
He grew up making glass in Crystal City, also planting and buying flowers, and did many jobs in order to make money. Due to his cleverness, handiness and diligence, as well as his good looks, Shang Xun seldom went hungry.
Later he joined a team of archaeologists, starting as an apprentice and gradually becoming a young archaeologist.
Although this profession was not as poor as in the past, it was by no means a profession that could make a fortune.
Shang Xun joined the archaeologists, not because he had much enthusiasm for the underground world, but because, rather, the archaeologists were able to ride in the Earthbound Boat for free.
The Uzis were very friendly to archaeologists, and this was their way of showing goodwill and respect.
What Shang Xun liked was the Earthbound Boat.
He had always wanted to pilot this grand and marvellous land boat. Unfortunately, only the Uzi tribe could manipulate and drive this kind of carrier, and without being able to mobilise the Wu elemental, the Earthbound Boat was just a motionless stone boat.
When Phyllus, the King of White Bones, made the Furnace of Fire and Vapour known to the public, the whole world changed, and the Furnace and Fire reorganised and constructed many devices and props.
An idea came to Shang Xun.
Is it possible to use the Fire Vapour Furnace to transform the Earthbound Boat, so that instead of using the Elemental Wool as the core of propulsion, the Fire Vapour Furnace could be used by ordinary people?
In that case, he would be able to pilot the Earthbound Boat himself.
Shang Xun would always remember the time he took a ride on an earthbound boat. The shuttle-shaped boat turned rapidly on the ground, drifting sideways with panache and sharpness, the impact of the crazy acceleration and the heavy push-back feeling from the stone chair.
The short journey was like a dream.
Since then, Shang Xun never had a similar feeling on any other earthbound boat.
He later learnt that the driver at that time was none other than the famous hero, Mr Uluru.
Uluru was a marvellous archaeologist who had learnt from the late pioneering archaeologist Fabiani. He expanded on his mentor’s work with geology, exploring and discovering charcoal and fire wells, which greatly increased the Yao’s fuel reserves.
But fewer people know that Uluru is best known among the Uzi for his wild and aggressive groundwalking boat skills.
He was the fastest groundwalker, and was even so fast that he was often physically examined by the older generation of Wuzhi people, who suspected that he had partially melted inside his body and turned into a dangerous molecule.
Many people recalled a phrase when talking about Uluru.
–Flowerboat is an extension of Crystal City.
But very few people know that his real motto is.
–If you haven’t tipped the ground boat, you’re not driving fast enough.
This motto completely convinced Shang Xun.
He tried to find ways to visit Uluru to explore the possibility of such an improvement, but always came up short.
The closest he came was in the Valley of the Gods, where originally Shang Seek heard from his peers that Uruu had found rose seeds in the remains of the underground Rose Kingdom, so he gave them to Lord Pinkman, the apostle of the Valley of the Gods.
When Shang-seeker went there, he learnt that Ururu had commissioned someone else to deliver the seeds because he had found an odd mud puddle deep underground.
The lost Shang-seeker met a girl in the area.
Her name was Red Leaf and she was a florist in a rose garden.
The two quickly fell in love.
But Shang Xun quickly calmed down.
Compared to the flying dream brought by the Earthbound Boat, the love of a man and a woman seems too meagre and short-lived.
That is really want to get married and have children, it must also be after driving the earth rowing boat.
This boat must be opened.
He told red leaf: “I will drive the ground rowing boat back and marry you, wait for me.”
But in order to transform an earthbound boat, one must first own one.
Nowadays, the number of Earthbound Boats was becoming larger, but it was still firmly in the hands of the Uzi Clan.
Uda City would not openly sell Earthbound Boats, nor would they stray out – because the U contained in the boat would cause an explosion, and it was very dangerous to operate it without the Uzi Clan.
Even if there were Earthbound Boats that had been strayed out, the prices were so high that it was impossible for Shang Xun to afford them.
Just as he was displaying his mojo, things suddenly took a turn for the worse.
The five major cities jointly issued a bounty mission, inviting people with experience in magic medicine, medicine, pharmacy, engineering, smelting, casting, forging, construction, stonemasonry, carpentry …… and other related technologies to come to White Castle to help solve a major problem facing the scholars.
As soon as Shang Xun heard about the hefty reward, he rushed over without saying a word.
The receiving scholar described the problem.
Shang Xun was a bit surprised, there was obviously a better way to solve this problem, but the scholars preferred to use the most complicated means ……
White Castle was to cast spells in the dragon language so that people could cast spells as the dragons did.
Shang Xun listened in bewilderment.
A human was a human and a dragon was a dragon, to make a person comparable to the dragons, perhaps a very few had a glimmer of possibility, but it was impossible for most people to do so.
Whether it was the pain and dizziness of losing blood, or the cuts that cut through the skin, most people were unwilling.
Shang Xun thought about it for a moment.
It was rather close to his own desire to build a fire vapour stove ground rowboat.
He spoke out his approach.
The original expression of the scholar who was already impatient changed at the speed of light, and the scholar grabbed him and took him into the White Castle.
Next, Shang Xun met a series of legendary figures.
The King of White Bones, Phileus, was just like the folklore rumours, it possessed a hideous and ghastly skull and bones, but spoke gently and pragmatically, with no hint of a high and mighty stance.
Dragonborn Prophet Long Ji, with a set of mighty bat wings and mysterious tattoos growing on his body as if they were scales, the whole person appeared calm and introverted.
Prophet Shippo still had the same nonchalant look, patiently listening to each person’s words and then taking notes in his book with a feather quill.
The Dwarf Craftsman Hammer Endless, who usually said nothing, immediately became passionate and extremely buttoned up on details when talking about professional topics in crafting.
……
Merchant Seeker finished speaking his complete thoughts.
The halls of White Castle were silent.
After a good while, Fellows said to him, “From now on, you are a lifelong scholar of White Castle. If you have any requests, feel free to mention them.”
Shang Xun immediately said, “I want a groundwalking boat …… with a fire steam furnace to do the transformation.”
“No problem.”
Fellows’ skeletal palms clapped and made a clicking sound, “Everyone, if there are no objections, let’s start making an attempt with the new programme! All move!”
The scholars reversed direction and began discussing in groups.
……
Lu Yao got out of the shower and was blow-drying his hair when he noticed a reminder pop up on the simulator.
[The Yao Clan has created the Brass Hearth Dragon.]
[The Brass Hearth Dragon has caused a huge reaction amongst the Transcendents.]
[The Transcendents are in awe of the appearance of the Brass Hearth Dragon and have developed a fervent admiration for you, and their faith has been substantially increased.]
The upper right corner showed that Faith had increased by 320,175, and with the recent gains from the Fire Props, the total reserve of Flame of Faith came to 21.23 million.
Lu Yao did some calculations.
Transcendents in the believer population were still a minority, and Transcendents could bring in more Flames of Faith, but even so, they couldn’t make it to this order of magnitude.
In other words, the main impact of the Brass Furnace Dragon this time around was the radiation to the Transcendents in the outside world, causing them to be strongly impacted and subsequently offer their faith.
Good lord, artificial dragons huh? This little bit of crooked Transcendent Technology Tree would really surprise people.
Lu Yao hurriedly looked at the screen.
