The Charm of Soul Pets

Chapter 314: You Didn’t Treat Me Well Enough, Nightmare Palace

The transaction staff’s gaze was sluggish for a while, before he quickly realized that the young man in front of him was very likely an important figure who had come from even higher ranked Soul Palaces. His mannerism instantly changed.

“What’s the method of Soul Palace’s internal exchange? Explain to me the most fundamental aspects.” Chu Mu took back his soul capture ring as he asked a question.

The transaction staff had clearly become more serious as he hastily said: “There’s no problem with that. This subordinate knows that a talented young man like you has no time to understand these trivial matters, so this subordinate can explain to you the most basic method. Our Dun City Soul Palace, eh, according to what I know, the Soul Palace in every city has the same transaction method. There are always various treasures in stock inside a Soul Palace, for instance different young soul pets, special medicines, previous soul equipment, rare spirit items, valuable soul…

Dun City is the intersection city of several kingdoms, and if members in the vicinity obtain treasures and need to exchange it or change it for gold, they come through Dun City’s Soul Palace. Thus, Dun City Soul Palace’s transaction list always spans several pages. We should have everything except for some extremely special goods. Moreover, we can also get in contact with the Soul Palaces of other kingdoms and can take the goods from their stockpile. You can also buy things you want form here and we’ll deliver the items here by a certain time.”

Chu Mu nodded his head. The transaction method in Nightmare Palace was also like this and they had a large group of members especially in charge of transactions and making an inventory of the various treasures inside, classifying them into extremely large lists that they hung on the wall of the hall like a drawing. When someone saw an item they wanted, they could find relevant members to purchase it. They only had to pay the required gold for the item, or exchange an item in return.

Regardless if it was Nightmare Palace or Soul Palace, this transaction was profit oriented, thus allowing Soul Alliance and Nightmare Palace to earn a large portion of transaction profit.

The two of their transaction methods were different from the Merchant Alliance’s in that the two factions wouldn’t host internal auctions. Very often, it would exchanged through marked prices or an exchange of a treasure of the same level. The other more significant thing was that the two factions could use contribution points to obtain more convenience and a discount.

Discounts would enable one to purchase an even higher ranking good for a price lower than what it was marked on the market. This special discount was determined through one’s title and normally, the higher the title, the more the discount.

However, within this mechanism was a limit which limited the discount to a fixed amount of times a year, thus preventing higher level members from obtaining a profit.

This title based discount would cause a problem to arise. Nonetheless, where a majority of goods on the external market would fluctuate in price constantly. Therefore, if Soul Palace’s goods were still more expensive than on the outside even after the discount...

In this situation, it would be up to the members to determine if they were willing to pay over the extra price in exchange for contribution points.

Soul Palace’s contribution system was rather similar to Nightmare Palace’s and was determined most directly through the exchange state.

Generally speaking, there were three primary methods of obtaining a title in Soul Palace: the first was to approved honor in a significant competition.

The second was to donate a huge sum of money to Soul Palace.

The third was to unceasingly trade and earn the ‘value trader’ title. When one’s contribution transactions reached a certain level, this person would raise a rank in title.

It was worth mentioning that Soul Palace had a very strict regulation over the various tricks at obtaining a title. The moment one was caught using an unofficial method, he or she would ostensibly be delivered an exceptionally harsh punishment.

Furthermore, Soul Palace was extremely harsh towards the growth of young generation members and their requirements in soul palace were that they couldn’t obtain any discounts; nor could they obtain an even higher title through their family, teacher or elder. If a young generation member wanted a title, he had to follow in accordance with the aforementioned methods. 

This harshness included Soul Palace’s young masters. Thus, ‘young master’ wasn’t a title, but instead an indication of status. Practically all young masters had a tenth rank secondary decree; however, the secondary decree could only garner the protection and respect of Soul Palace members. It couldn’t be used as a true title and therefore wouldn’t allow the young master to enjoy any special privileges.  

As such, although Chu Mu’s identity right now was a Soul Palace young master, he was unable obtain any discounts in the internal market because he had a zero rank title in Soul Palace. This system was enforced extremely strictly in every city’s Soul Palace!

A title represented, aside from the soul pet trainer’s status, various benefits, so many soul pet trainers would think of as many methods as possible to participate in competitions, engage in Soul Palace’s internal trade or undertake its internal missions to accumulate contribution points to obtain a certain rank title.

Soul Palace had very clearly listed out the requirements to obtain each ranking title. For instance, in order to obtain a first rank title, one had to complete three requirements: trade, gold and title.

Trade pointed to money in Soul Palace’s internal market.

Gold pointed to giving Soul Alliance a sum of gold for no contribution points, almost like a one-time tax.

Title pointed to competitions, missions, positions or accomplishments to be considered for a rank.

The first rank required a total of: 

Trade - at least trading 20,000 gold coins worth of goods on the internal market.

Gold: Donating 10,000 gold coins or more to Soul Palace for free.

Title: complete one thing that would obtain one a first rank title, which was normally determined through: obtaining a ranking in a competition, completing a task given by Soul Palace, hold a position for a certain amount of time, doing something additional for Soul Palace...

These three things all had to be completed, but in truth, completing only one of the requirements to an even greater extent than required could obtain one the ranking for that title.

For example, in order to obtain the first rank title, one only had to trade up to 100,000 gold and didn’t have to complete the other requirements.

Or, one could donate over 50,000 gold to Soul Palace for free, or obtain 5 first rank titles.

Thus, in order to obtain a title by only completing one requirement, five times the normal requisite was required.

When obtaining a title, therefore, everyone would carefully consider how to do so. If one wanted to only use money, the required amount would be extremely large. 

The second rank title wasn’t very different in requirements: trade - reaching 100 traded items with the traded goods all above the second rank (10 first rank items was the equivalent of 1 second rank item)

Gold - Donate 30,000 gold coins to Soul Palace.

Title - Complete something worthy of obtaining a second rank title.

In order to obtain the title through only completing one requirement, the needed amount was five times normal.

The third rank title conditions saw a huge increase with gold needing to be 50,000; thus, by only trying to meet this condition, the required amount was 250,000 gold coins which was the same as the price of a low class commander soul pet.

As for even higher ranked titles, the required amount of money, trade and title was even larger.

Chu Mu gave it a rough glance and found that if he wanted to earn a seventh rank title in Soul Palace, he had to donate at least 20 million gold coins, trade the equivalent of 40 million gold and complete a task worthy of a seventh rank title! 

“Nightmare Palace oh Nightmare Palace, you didn’t treat me well enough!” when he discovered the requirements in order to obtain a seventh rank title, Chu Mu couldn’t help but let out a sigh!

Back when Chu Mu had come out of Prison Island, he was directly bestowed with a seventh rank Eternal Ocean Nightmare Prince title. If Soul Palace and Nightmare Palace had a similar contribution system, then Chu Mu’s seventh rank title was worth 20 million gold coins and the other requirements. Compared to Chu Mu’s present condition, it truly was a more superior condition.

Chu Mu obtained the seventh rank title naturally due to Prison Island, since surviving on Prisoner Island was equivalent to five seventh rank titles. Thus, Chu Mu didn’t have to pay any contributions to obtain the seventh rank title, and now he was inwardly regretting why he didn’t try and understand the system back then so that he could have at least obtained a few benefits from Nightmare Palace before leaving.

Chu Mu only understood a bit about the privileges of Nightmare Palace’s seventh rank title, but back in Gangluo City, Chu Mu was able to at least control ten Nightmare Palace subordinates to help him eliminate the Yang Family; this was the most direct embodiment of status.

Soul Palace’s titles also had these kind of privileges. What Chu Mu was surprised about was that seventh rank titles obtained many benefits and conveniences: first, he could receive seventy percent off of one eighth rank or below treasure.

Second, every year he could choose a suitable commander soul pet from Soul Palace’s internal departments. He would have priority picking and seventy percent off the price.

Third, every year he could obtain a seventh rank soul technique that was nearly 90% in completed degree.

Fourth, every day he would be given a seventh rank soul core.

Fifth, within Soul Palace’s scope, he could freely obtain healing from a support type soul pet trainer.

The other privileges provided convenient benefits, but the most important ones of the title were the first three privileges, especially the seventy percent discount off of an eighth rank or below treasure. 

An eighth rank treasure was practically over ten million gold coins, so seventy percent off was equivalent to a few millions only. If the price of the item was even higher, tens of millions of gold could even be saved!

These were even scenarios where he could save nearly 50 million in gold every month without having to assume any position in Soul Palace. If, therefore, he were to assume a posting in Soul Palace, according to the salaries given every month and the annual benefits, his earnings would be extremely high. 

Chu Mu had roughly calculated it himself where if he were to hold a seventh rank posting and worked there for a year, he could obtain 50 million and more in gold.

If he were to spend the entirety of the 50 million on one soul pet, he could strengthen a soul pet’s fighting strength to the monarch rank.

Titles were different than postings/positions in that with merely a title, one wouldn’t be constrained by Soul Palace and would be able to go wherever he or she wanted to.

On the other hand, a posting was similar to that of a Soul Palace Palace Lord. Every day, he or she would have to deal with Soul Palace’s internal affairs and complete a few required matters. Every month they would receive direct monthly salaries and receive direct power.

Seeing Soul Palace’s system, if Chu Mu obtained a title then held a position for one to two years, he would be able to obtain even more gold without having to earn money all day in the wilderness fraught with life threatening dangers.