Soon people started to scope out my shop and see what I was offering.

A lot of snobby looking people would see some of the stuff, and make condescending noises or snide remarks.

“What are those? They look like sticks and stones who would sell stuff like that.”

“Those weapons look like they would break with a blow of the wind.”

I had expected stuff like that, since I knew a lot of those comments came from people that hated me and Kemoro, so I took glee in knowing that because of their arrogant remarks, they would get no access to any of the good stuff I had with me.

After some time a couple people did stop to look around at the items I was offering.

It was mostly young kids, who were probably students of a Martial School, as well as few guys that looked like they came straight out of Yupows neighborhood.

I figured this would be the quality of clientele I would attract with these kinds of items, but I didn't mind,I just wanted to get my feet wet and establish a customer base before I decided to go all out.

I decided to be hands off and not pressure any of my potential customers to buy anything as I didn't think that was my style.

It seemed to work as more and more of similar groups of people surrounded the area around my stand.

A person that was looking at some of the preserved beast meat and parts I had on display looked at my direction where I was sitting and inquired about them.

“ What's inside these sacks and pots, it looks like meat but from what animal?”

“Each sack is full of the meat of the complete carcass of a different kind of animal, the one that's in front of you belongs to the Regal Elk and its preserved in a fashion that it will last you for years, and even longer if frozen, allowing you to cut on food cost and focus on what truly matters, a fresh full carcass of a Regal Elk fetches around 2 gold coins in the common market, and the meat goes for around 2 bronze coins per pound, I’ll sell you the full preserved carcass for one gold coin or a bronze coin for a pound. As far as I know i'm the best prize in town when it comes to food, especially considering there are hardly any hunters in town.”

The person thought about what I said and after doing what looked like some mental calculations got a smile on his face and grabbed the sack of meat.

“Your right, food in the City has risen exponentially as the months go by; the imported food from Will City has definitely put me on a tight budget, this Elk meat is exactly what I needed, it'll keep my family fed for weeks. I'll buy the whole sack mister merchant. Here's your gold coin. I hope to do business with you again.”

“Likewise, Dear customer, thank you for your patronage.”

And just like that I made my first sale.

I had expected something like this to happen, as I too in the beginning, before I started hunting outside the city, noticed how stupidly expensive the food had gotten.

To become a food merchant or just a meat merchant, you had to have excellent storage facilities to keep the food fresh, usually consisting of cold containers or freeze tanks, so only a few food merchants that could afford such items existed throughout the City.

Anybody who hunted animals would either have to sell to them, give it away or consume the food immediately themselves; it didn't help that there were few hunters by profession in the City.

Common meat and vegetables methods did exist, but they were usually not very popular in the market and only lasted a couple months.

My preserving method was hidden knowledge passed unto me by the Toltemic that had come in handy more than once.

And now it had earned me a gold coin.

Others who were around and heard the transaction suddenly became interested in the beast meat sacks and containers, and suddenly swarmed the area and started asking me questions one by one.

“Mister Merchant, what kind of meat is this and how much for the whole thing?”

“That's the full meat carcass of a Green Hide Pig, it's some of the best meat anyone can get, it’s rumored to have special vitality enhancing properties, I’ll also sell it to you for 1 gold coin.”

“Sold, the pig meat is mine.”

“Mister merchant, what kind of meat is this?”

“That's the meat of a complete Trunk Hugging Boa Snake carcass, in total there’s about 500 pounds of meat preserved in that pot, snake meat is very valued and prized for its rumored medicinal properties, the Trunk Boa is a somewhat common non poisonous snake, but its meat still runs at about 5 gold coins for a full carcass or 10 bronze coins per pound in the common market, i'll sell you the full pot for 3 gold coins or 7 bronze coins per pound.”

“Mmm that's not a small amount of money, but it is cheap for snake meat, snake meat around the food markets, butcheries and apothecarys is cheap, if you can buy it for 20 bronze coins per pound. I'll take the whole thing.”

“Sir im looking for Orange Quail meat as part of my nutrition plan, it goes well with my nutrition supplement, do you have any of those?”

“Of course i do the only thing is that it isn’t freshly caught but preserved in the same method as the rest of the meat were it will last you for years and tastes great, i have Orange quail, Speckled Quail and Alarm Quail all of these are usually around 25 silver coins per bird i'll sell it to you for 15 silver coins per bird.”

“Awesome, I'll buy 10 of your Orange Quail if you have that many.”

“Of course I do.”

Everyone went crazy for the Quail, as it was affordable and nutritious.

In a matter of minutes I sold all the Quail that I had.

All 50 of them.

Eventually all of my other meat started to run out as well, that people in Martial Citadel truly were starved.

I even saw a couple of the wealthier looking Martial Experts buy some of the meat I had in large quantities.

One guy bought all 10 Mountain Buffalo Carcass sacks I had for 150 Gold coins, as there were other guys that tried to outbid him for one of the carcasses.

Back when I was a Commoner this amount of money would’ve instantly made me a wealthy man, but right now although the income was welcome I knew I was aiming for bigger things.

After most of the meat disappeared, most of the customers dispersed and moved on to other stands or went home.

I caught a couple other stand owners looking at me in either an envious or dumbfounded manner probably curious where I had gotten so much meat from.

Eventually things returned to normal and my stand was once again the ignored stand of the square to my competition's glee.

They were stupid though because unbeknownst to them I had already made 900 gold coins 1000 silver coins and 500 bronze coins in between all the meat that I sold.

Although I knew the conversion rate was rat-ass, 1000 Gold coins was supposedly equivalent to 1 platinum coin so I had almost made the equivalent of one platinum coin just in meat alone.

That was a pretty good day if I did say so myself.

Even though Ranker items were not so commonplace, with a good amount of gold coins one could buy quality items if you did your research or got lucky; case in point, the Guider and Slingshot I owned where things I bought with gold coins and the Inner Energy weapons in the weapons shop in the Citadel although expensive could be bought with gold coins as well.

Now being a Ranker myself I would say those items were definitely worthy of any Ranker level Experts arsenal, or could definitely help someone reach the Ranker Rank as they did for me.

Happy with my results, I relaxed back in my chair and waited for other customers to come, not really expecting anything else for the rest of the day.

After a while a raggedy looking bunch of kids with matching ugly uniforms came to my stand and started looking around.

When they saw the spears that I had, all of them got happy and excited and immediately approached me.

Sir are the prizes you have on those metal spears true.

I saw the kids' eagerness and I became a little confused.

I figured some low level expert might be interested in the normal weapons I had crafted but I had mostly set those things out as bait and appearances, as well as to see if they were even worth making in times I didn't have magical blood.

“ Yes young man, those are the prices of the metal spears 20 silver coins per spear, I wont say they're top notch weapons, but they’ll definitely get you out of a pinch and aren’t made for just one or two uses.”

Hearing my words the group got excited.

“Me and my friends are from a small Martial Club that isn't too Popular, but we have immense respect for our Master who is teaching us everything he knows despite us being poor and having little money. Still most metal weapons in the City don't go under 50 silver coins for the low quality ones, and even that's too much for us to get one weapon each. We’ve had to make do with wooden poles and self made stuff but the quality of the items we use is quite terrible and constantly break. Your weapons look much better than ours and perfectly meet our needs. I'll take 10 of your metal tipped spears.”

I had to admit the kids' story really tugged at my heartstrings, since I was a poor boy with high aspirations at one point in my life as well, I couldn’t help sympathize with their plight.

I knew it was bad business practice to listen to your emotions but I couldn’t help but want to help the kids in their martial journey.

“10 of the metal spears comes to around 200 silver coins, but tell you what, I just happen to sympathize with you guy’s martial spirit so I'll give you the spears for half price, give me 100 silver coins and the spears are yours.”

“Really! Wow thank you sir we won’t forget your kindness, you're really helping us out. I’ll remember you when I become a great Expert just you see.”

“ Yeah yeah, I've heard it all before, go enjoy the spears just make sure not to break them too fast.”

The kids laughed and after buying the spears they ran back down the street they came from.

They probably came from a slum neighborhood similar to the one I currently resided in, as I had noticed that many of the poorer folk of the City often got together on their own, or attended these so called trash or scam martial organizations, in an attempt to continue the ageless and honorable tradition of the City, of practicing Martial Arts.

Many times these crappy Organizations were all these people could afford to attend, and so the slums were full of these low level martial disciples who attended broke or poverty stricken Martial Organizations.

Still from Kemoro’s teachings these schools had value, as he had met many talented individuals and even borrowed and learned many unique and interesting techniques from these places.

Many times from a heap of trash a flower will emerge, I in a way am somewhat of a success story myself.

I was already a Ranker, that was a dream many poor commoners could die happy if they achieved.

But for some reason something still drove me forward, as if what I had accomplished so far wasn't really a testament of who I was.

As if something else was waiting for me, something that would help me prove my worth.

After seeing that people were actually buying my spears, people that looked like amateur Martial Artists who were just starting out, and were probably not so rich, came over and started buying the spears as well.

Soon I had sold well over 30 spears, and made over 300 silver coins.

The spears were more popular than I had expected, it was good to know that I could actually turn a profit out of making these.

I actually had a few ideas on how to improve them, so I made a mental note for the future.

Again after some time things calmed down around my shop stand.

Out of nowhere though a young kid in an expensive looking Martial Uniform showed up to look at the shop, I didn't really expect much from the kid, but he looked like he had money so I let him look around without bothering him.