"You want to sell your Ice Wood to earn enough money to enter the Warrior's Academy, correct?" the officer asked.

Shang nodded. "That's my intention."

"You don't want to wait for the yearly exams, right?"

"That's right."

"You do know that you need five gold for the exam?"

"I know. From what I've heard, the Ice Wood I have should be enough." 𝐛𝗲𝐝𝐧𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗹.𝗼𝐫𝗴

The officer nodded. "It should be enough, but there is one issue."

"Which is?" Shang asked evenly.

"How good are you at bartering and negotiation?" she asked.

This took Shang by surprise.

He hadn't even thought about that.

"I've never bartered in my life," Shang said.

Why would he need to barter? All the prices in the normal stores on Earth were standardized. Bartering only existed on TV and in pawnshops.

The officer nodded. "That's the issue," she said. "You're planning on selling your Ice Wood in Warrior's Paradise. However, no normal person will buy that much Ice Wood. Additionally, very few normal citizens are even interested in raw resources."

"This means that you have to sell it to a merchant wholesale, and merchants are very shrewd. If I already suspected that you're not good at bartering, the merchants will realize that with one glance."

"Even more, the merchants are not stupid. They will realize that you definitely are not a merchant but an aspiring warrior that wants to earn money. The merchants will quickly realize that the only reason why someone like you would travel so far with such a heavy load was to earn enough money to enter the Warrior's Academy."

"They know that you only need five gold. So, they will act like your load is worth six gold and will magnanimously tell you that they are willing to give you seven."

Shang listened to the officer's words, and he realized something.

He would have accepted that trade.

After all, he would have gotten even more gold than he needed. Additionally, he couldn't be bothered to research everything and negotiate with several merchants.

Shang wasn't interested in being a merchant. As far as he knew, this would be the only time he would ever do something like this. The quicker he got this thing over with, the better.

"So, my Ice Wood is worth more than seven gold in terms of wholesale?" Shang asked.

The officer nodded. "Yes."

"How much?" Shang asked.

"I'm not sure, but from what I've seen, seven gold should be too little for so much Ice Wood," she said.

"Hm," Shang said as he scratched his chin in thought.

"Now, let's come to what I want to offer you," the officer said.

Shang looked with interest at the officer.

"We have inspected your background and confirmed that your Ice Wood comes from an ethical source. You might not realize it, but the Mana Austerum burns through Ice Wood at terrifying speeds. That's also the reason why we monopolized Coldew Village's Ice Wood, but even that's not enough."

"The Mages in the Mana Austerum need even more Ice Wood, and they're buying it from the surrounding towns. However, the prices in these towns are much higher than the shipments we get from Coldew Village."

"In short, the Mana Austerum can never have enough Ice Wood."

At this point, the officer took out a new piece of paper, which had some fancy designs on the edges of the paper.

Then, the officer wrote down some things with deliberate strokes. The way she had written when she had taken note of the things Shang had said previously and now was very different.

After about a minute, she finished writing and took out a candle, which she quickly lighted.

A bit later, she put the molten wax from the candle at the bottom right of the paper and stamped it.

Lastly, she pushed the paper to Shang.

"This is a certificate for the origin of your Ice Wood," the officer said. "Go to the Mana Austerum and show this to the guards. If everything goes well, they should invite you inside."

Shang read through the paper.

It basically said how Shang had gotten the Ice Wood, but it also said that he was not one of the normal traders coming from Coldew Village.

"Officially, we only accept the official shipments from Coldew Village here directly since we can't be sure about the origins of other goods. However, since your background has been investigated, our reason for not accepting Ice Wood directly has been handled."

"However, it still isn't really official that you can sell it to the Mages directly. So, there's still some uncertainty."

Shang looked at the paper for a bit and then looked back at the officer.

"Speaking of, how did you investigate my background this quickly?" he asked.

"Every town needs a Communication Crystal to be officially recognized as a town," the officer explained. "We spent some Mana to contact the Central Wild, who then sent over an investigator to Coldew Village. They sent us the information, and that's how we investigated your background."

Shang remembered his journey to the Central Wild. It had taken him a couple of hours, but that was while pulling the heavy sled wagon. A warrior could probably run that distance in just a quarter of an hour.

Shang nodded and asked his next question. "The Mages won't try to scam me?" he asked.

The officer snorted at the word scam. "They're genuine Mages. They can't be bothered to waste their time arguing. On top of that, gold has nearly no importance to them. They only want to finish these unimportant and bothersome things as quickly and directly as possible."

Shang nodded. "Thank you. This means a lot to me," he said.

The officer nodded with a smile. "No problem. You helped me, and I helped you. Also, I see no problem with helping one of my future juniors."

"Juniors?" Shang asked, but he quickly realized what she meant. "Are you part of the Warrior's Academy?"

She nodded. "I'm currently in the later years. At the moment, I'm out gaining practical experience for my future as an officer."

Shang blinked a couple of times. "Aren't you already an officer?" he asked.

"Not here," she said. "I don't want to just be an officer in some random town. No, I want to join the Duke's official army as an officer."

The image of Duke Whirlwind shot through Shang's mind.

"Oh, that sounds nice," Shang said.

The two of them talked for a couple of minutes, now that official business was over.

However, the conversation ended pretty quickly after she noticed that Shang wasn't talking very much.

She assumed that he was disinterested in the conversation and went back to work.

In a sense, she was right.

Shang had noticed that he had become more and more disinterested in mundane things, and he couldn't bring up the energy to fake enthusiasm for a topic that didn't interest him.

So, he mainly gave very short answers without adding a question, making the flow of the conversation a bit choppy.

"Anyway, we'll see each other again in the Warrior Academy," the officer said with a polite smile.

Shang also gave a polite smile. "We will. I'm looking forward to seeing you again."

Then, the two nodded at each other and parted ways.

When Shang exited the building, he saw his sled wagon at the same place where he had left it.

Nothing was missing.

The Ice Mana also felt just as intense as previously.

After going through some guards, Shang walked away with his sled wagon.

Finding the Mana Austerum wasn't difficult since it was so humongous.

A couple of minutes later, Shang saw a gate in the wall surrounding the Mana Austerum.

The two guards at the entrance noticed Shang, and one of them calmly walked over.

When Shang felt the guard approach, his sense of danger activated.

This guard was even more powerful than the officer.

In fact, this guard reminded Shang of the people that had guarded Duke Whirlwind's garden.

Yet, this guard didn't wear any fancy armor, which meant that he was only a normal soldier.

This meant that the guard was probably a soldier in the Duke's actual army.

"We didn't expect an Ice Wood delivery so soon," the guard commented.

"I'm not an official trader of Coldew Village, but I have a document that should answer all your questions," Shang said as he handed over the document the officer had given him.

The guard furrowed his brows but took the document and read through it.

After reading it, he looked to the side and scratched his chin in thought.