Our bodies were feeling the strain from the constant portaling. I looked at the open portal in front of me with trepidation. At least this would be the last portal for a few days. After we stepped through, we found ourselves in a massive portal complex that had at least 100 portal stations. From what I heard, this wasn't even the only portal complex in this city. To call this place a city was an insult. The biggest city in the world should have a better designation.

Before the plague, it was a place where about 40 million people called it their home or were visiting. Now that number was down to 25 million, which still made it the biggest city in the world, but now real estate here was a lot cheaper.

It had only been open for unrestricted portal travel for a few months, which I was glad to hear about as I didn’t even know that travel was restricted here. The restriction ended when the world council announced that the plague had officially ended, having burnt itself out.

The attendant here gave me my requested information packet and then led us to a sitting area where I could go through the information. I learned the locations of markets and an inn where we could stay at. The general cost for everything was also included.

There was also information on how to access the arena vision. The arena was a world wonder and the main reason this city was so big. You could watch fights from any place in the city from any arena where fights were happening. You could see the fights close up, which was something no other place could give at such a scale.

The arenas themselves were also special as they always teleported the loser out before they could die. That didn't mean that you couldn't get injured or even maimed, which was also the reason that this city was one of the most popular cities for healers.

From the information, I learned that there were many smaller cities and towns that supported this giant city. Among those smaller cities were some that were called Academy cities where thousands of students learned their profession.

This place seemed incredible and I wanted to keep going through the information, but the sun was starting to set so we needed to hurry. The biggest problem that I immediately noticed was the heat. We were in a tropical climate, something that none of us was used to, but our levels were high enough that it shouldn't matter too much, especially for the first-rank people among us. The streets were packed, but the guards that I hired were doing a good job at keeping us together and keeping any pickpockets away from us.

We had to go down a few side streets before the amount of people started to lower. Here we had a more reasonable chance of finding reasonably priced accommodations and somewhere that actually had the number of beds that we required. It took us two hours to find it and 12 inns before we found an Inn, called Dancing Willow, that had enough beds for us all. The place was still huge, having five floors and having a bigger footprint than our apartment buildings.

I stayed up long into the night, trying to keep myself cool as I learned as much as possible. There were so many markets in this place, but because of the constant fighting, selling weapons here was profitable. Unfortunately, also buying raw resources to make those weapons was also expensive, but there should be a few materials in abundance that should have a lower price which will hopefully help me achieve my second goal.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

Of course, that would also depend on how good Rich’s bows actually are. If their price is high and I can buy the materials he needs to make more at a low enough cost, we might have a way for our nation to make huge amounts of coin. I left the question of whether Rich is willing to make the bows to someone else. I’m just here to evaluate if this is something that would be beneficial to us or not.

For this and the rest of the goods, I would need an excellent evaluator, but for that, I would need to find a reliable information merchant. I have a few leads, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. Today had been exhausting and I don’t think I will be able to relax until we are back at home.

The next morning, after breakfast, everyone in my room started to give orders to my subordinates on what they needed to do today. Their main goal was to do the beginning groundwork so making actual deals would be faster and I would already know where I needed to go. Everyone got guards, for myself I kept the four first-rank guards as I was carrying basically everything we brought. My first goal today was to visit the city-state's bank as I needed to open up an account there for the nation.

I was in a hurry yesterday but today; I was able to properly appreciate the city. The current place we were at looked a lot similar to the other larger cities that I’ve been to, it's just that the streets felt endless and when we started to get to the more important areas the houses' heights rose quite quickly. The amount of different architecture was also interesting, but I guess that’s to be expected in the most diverse city on the planet.

There are so many different races. All the four largest groups were decently represented, but humans and beastkin were the most popular. I even saw a few elves which I hadn’t seen before. I must admit that their beauty was over-exaggerated. When we finally started to reach one of the bank branches, we saw one of the tallest buildings we have ever seen, I started to count the floors and reached 14. How is that building even standing?

And I thought that other buildings that had five to seven floors were large. Even from this distance, I could read the building's name, Valour Vault Auction House. Auction houses weren't that popular back in the fallen Kingdom. Seeing one made me reconsider my plans on how to sell at least the second-rank bow. This needed some more information gathering but currently, I needed to focus on the bank.

The bank building itself was quite low compared to the others but its grandeur was on a different level. It was made from a smooth black rock with different shades of black creating an interesting pattern.

The guards outside were strong and while it was busy here, it was nothing compared to the rest of the area where it was hard to move simply because of how many people were around. The doors were open so we could just walk in but thanks to the information I knew that we needed to take a piece of paper from the correct place so we could get in line to open a bank account.

Even before I started to look where we could find those papers, I immediately noticed how much colder it was inside and without conscious thought let out a sigh of relief. It was so good to be in an environment that I was more used to. There were dozens of receptionists that had hundreds of people waiting for their turn. There were also receptionists who had short lines or none at all to the sides of the room.

To the left was what I was looking for and when I approached it there were many different instructions. You could get the paper with the number on it if you needed to take out money or pay your taxes and so on. There were even two options for making an account, one for an individual and another for a larger organization.

I picked the last option and received the piece of paper with the number 7 on it and under it reception table 42. Looking around, I noticed a larger table in one corner of the room that had a table with 42 written on it. I went closer to it and sat down on a nearby chair, wondering how this all worked.

After about a minute, the receptionist called out, "Number 7, please come forward. I repeat, number 7, please come forward." I guessed that was me. What a wonderfully efficient system. Walking up to it, the receptionist indicated for me to sit down and so I did.

"Good afternoon, sir. What is it that I can help you with today?" The receptionist asked and I promptly answered, "I am the head merchant of a nation that wishes to open up a bank account for this nation." For a brief moment, I could see how the receptionist froze, but the smile never left his face. "Well, I can certainly help you with that. To start off with, I would need the name of this kingdom and where you are located at."

"I’m sorry but I think there’s a misunderstanding. My nation isn’t a kingdom, it's run by a council and we are located quite far north on the Green continent." My words had an immediate effect which I could feel. The customary business happiness was replaced by genuine curiosity and joy. Then I remembered that this city-state was also run by a council. This might be a good opportunity.