Chapter 48: Brothers’ Lives Are Worth More Than Money

Although Jiang Yu was not very power ful or famous in this area, he was a nice guy, bold and righteous. He would rather suffer a loss himself than let others suffer. This personality allowed him to be on good terms with many people here. Otherwise, he would not have had the ability to register the horse team under the name of the Li Chamber of Commerce branch. This was not something that could be explained merely by those small registration fees.

In Green Mountain Town, since Jiang Yu had been around for a long time, he knew the ways of the world. He had a decent relationship with people of the same social class. Although they were not close friends, he could always find a way to get small things done. Lei Qing valued this trait in him and decided to recruit him to help with his affairs.

In the Heavenly Ridge Mountain Range, apart from the ones he used himself, Lei Qing had also obtained a few Entry-rank Bronze Crystal Cores. But he would not sell such precious items. However, he urgently needed to get rid of the miscellaneous items in his Spatial Ring. Most of these were scavenged from the battlefield, and a large part came from One-Eyed Dragon’s treasury.

The items were very mixed. If Lei Qing tried to deal with them himself, he was unfamiliar with the place and wouldn’t know where to start. But Jiang Yu could handle these trivial matters well. Since they might need to expand the team, they certainly weren’t planning to sell the high-quality weapons and warhorses.

They sold all the lower-quality items. Even things like lame horses and chipped blades found buyers easily. After all, in this world, there was always a market for horses and weapons. As for the Demonic Beast skins, he did not want to sell them. He could find a tanner to process them into soft armor linings. Lei Qing liked soft armor very much. High-quality soft armor offered good defense, was soft and close-fitting, did not hinder movement, and was very light.

Lei Qing’s high-quality rhinoceros leather armor was carefully crafted from the skin of a Silver-rank Silver-Horned Giant Rhinoceros. That rhinoceros armor alone was worth over a thousand gold coins. It was a birthday gift from his uncle when he turned eighteen.

His previous longsword, Ice Flame, was light, thin, and sharp. It was an excellent sword. When swung, the sword light was magnificent and beautiful, which easily deceived the enemies’ eyes. He had chosen it from the family treasury right after advancing to Entry-rank Bronze. It suited his fast and lethal fighting style perfectly.

With these two items, he had managed to escape and fight back time and again while being hunted by the Free Mercenary Group. Unfortunately, the rhinoceros armor was now badly damaged, and Ice Flame had many notches and could break at any moment.

Of course, he couldn’t just throw these two things away. He needed to find some skilled craftsmen to repair them.

After resting in the high-class guest room for two days, Lei Qing asked Jiang Yu to rent a secluded courtyard with a private gate to save money. The horse team stayed there together. Firstly, he needed to digest the experience gained from the constant fighting during this period. Secondly, he needed to calm his mind and recover from the mental exhaustion of being on the run for the past six months.

After discussing with Zuo Qianqian, Lei Qing decided to stay there for a while. On normal days, Lei Qing exercised in the courtyard, practiced his sword, and consolidated his experience. In the past six months, under the pressure of life-threatening danger and with some lucky encounters, he had broken through many times and improved very quickly. This was a good thing. However, breaking through too quickly could also make him restless in many ways. He needed some quiet thinking and summarizing to let those combat experiences truly settle into his instincts.

A truly strong expert was not someone who just possessed Fighting Qi cultivation. Any strong person who reached the peak grew by constantly summarizing, analyzing, and understanding themselves. Everyone had their own path of growth.

At the same time, while training himself, Lei Qing also guided Zuo Qianqian and Jiang Yu on how to cultivate and fight. He helped them study tactical routines that suited their different styles. Lei Qing even found time to give pointers to the adored members of the horse team.

Don’t think that Lei Qing was wasting precious time. Actually, by constantly spotting flaws in others, thinking of solutions, and guiding them to avoid mistakes, he was reflecting on and summarizing his own cultivation. While guiding others, Lei Qing constantly summarized his cultivation experience and accumulated his own foundations, which benefited him greatly and laid a solid foundation for his future progress. Of course, this was also an emotional investment in his followers. Lei Qing didn’t think he was the protagonist of those popular legend novels in the Imperial Capital, where one look of dominance would make countless people bow down and stay loyal until death.

More than ten days passed, and everyone was happy. Under Lei Qing’s guidance, the dozen or so members of the horse team all made some progress. There was even a young man in his twenties named Yang Tieshan who broke through to Elementary-stage Black Iron.

In this way, among the people around Lei Qing, there were now five Black Iron-rank experts. They were Zuo Qianqian, Jiang Yu, Miao Renjie, Cukas, and Yang Tieshan. Miao Renjie and Cukas were both vice-captains of the horse team. They were both Mid-stage Black Iron and had a great relationship with Jiang Yu. Under Lei Qing’s guidance, they also made some progress. Coupled with the gratitude for being saved earlier and Jiang Yu’s decision to join, the two of them did not reject this new boss, Lei Qing. Instead, they respected him even more.

As for Yang Tieshan, thanks to Lei Qing, he broke through the bottleneck that had troubled him for many years and became a Black Iron-rank expert. He also became a very loyal follower of Lei Qing. Although the others had not broken through, they had each made progress. With Yang Tieshan’s example, they all respected Lei Qing and looked at him with burning eyes. They wished they could follow Lei Qing twelve hours a day, dreaming of breaking through to the Black Iron-rank.

In just over ten days, although Lei Qing had not completely conquered this small team, at least everyone had accepted the fact from their hearts that they were now subordinates of Lei Qing, Young Master Lei. Lei Qing successfully integrated into the team and initially established his prestige.

The one with the most obvious progress was naturally Jiang Yu. With the effect of an earth-attribute Crystal Core and Lei Qing’s careful private guidance, Jiang Yu finally broke through the bottleneck that had troubled him for several years. He successfully advanced to peak Black Iron, just one step away from the Bronze-rank he had dreamed of.

The accounts for handling the trophies and purchasing equipment were also settled. Most of the income came from selling valuable antiques and calligraphy found in One-Eyed Dragon’s lair. After deducting some intermediary fees, the income reached over one thousand gold coins. Jiang Yu also dumped all the large amount of mountain goods he brought back to the Li Chamber of Commerce. Although the price was a bit lower than shipping them hundreds of miles away, it saved a lot of trouble. Including the capital and profit, there were over eight hundred gold coins, which was a considerable sum of money.

Adding in some cash from Lei Qing and Zuo Qianqian, the total came to two thousand three hundred gold coins. Three hundred gold coins were spent on forging leather armor and repairing equipment, as the labor and material costs were high. Lei Qing then made a bold move and spent the remaining two thousand gold coins to purchase ten sets of iron armor. This kind of iron armor was extremely expensive, with each set worth two hundred gold coins.

Such a big spending scared the members of the horse team. They usually didn’t wear armor, and even if they did, it was mostly tattered old leather armor. Iron armor worth two hundred gold coins per set was something they had never even dreamed of.

Only elite units in the regular army would be equipped with such expensive iron armor in small quantities. This was also purchased by Jiang Yu through his complicated connections with the Li Chamber of Commerce branch.

Facing those precious iron armors, Lei Qing said, “Brothers’ lives are worth more than money.” This won over many hearts again.

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