I'm Just a Beast Tamer

Chapter 54: Chapter 52: Teaching and Improvement

"You’ve done well this past month. Starting this month, I’ll give you a monthly wage of two taels of silver. In return, you’ll have more to do."

"From now on, I’ll be buying bone items that interest me. I’ll give you a base price, and you’ll go back and haggle with the vendors. Do your best to get the lowest price possible. If you can get it for less than my base price, I’ll give you a portion of the savings as a reward."

"Next, within a year, you need to learn bookkeeping. For every item I purchase, you will record in a ledger its purchase date, the initial price, how many times you haggled, and the final transaction price."

"If you master the bookkeeping skills I’ve described within a year, I’ll raise your monthly wage after that year is up."

「One month passed in a flash.」 Jiang Zuo said to an apprehensive Ruan Jianglan.

"Um... I’ve never been educated. I’m afraid I won’t be able to handle bookkeeping."

Ruan Jianglan was very happy to hear she could keep her job.

But when she heard about the bookkeeping, she hesitated before speaking.

"If you don’t know how, you can ask me. I’ll teach you. If you want a raise, you must learn bookkeeping within a year."

"Also, don’t go back to that settlement. It’s not safe. Find a safer place outside the city walls, closer to Lizhou City, and rent a simple house to live in. I’ll help you pay for half the rent."

Jiang Zuo was unmoved.

’This kind of bookkeeping isn’t complicated,’ he thought. ’Ruan Jianglan is still young. If she’s willing to learn, even starting from scratch, a year is more than enough.’

’Having Ruan Jianglan come here every day to report what she’s seen is one way to do things, but it’s far too inefficient in my opinion.’

’Over time, all sorts of problems are bound to arise.’

Jiang Zuo’s true goal was to mold Ruan Jianglan into a merchant capable of running a shop on her own.

That way, he could provide the capital for her to run a shop specializing in buying and selling bone items.

The shop wouldn’t need to turn a profit. Its main purpose would be to have all the bone items passing through Lizhou pass through its doors. It wouldn’t matter if it lost some money.

The thirty-thousand-plus taels of silver Jiang Zuo had gotten from the Black Fish Gang should be enough to cover his losses for many years.

’When the money runs out, it won’t be a problem,’ he mused. ’There are plenty of gangs outside Lizhou City. I’ll just find another one and rid the people of a pest.’

To this end, Jiang Zuo was now setting one goal after another, allowing Ruan Jianglan to learn gradually.

Jiang Zuo was well aware of the principle that a small kindness creates gratitude, while a large one can breed resentment. He wouldn’t give Ruan Jianglan too many benefits at once. Instead, he would make her feel that every advantage she received had to be earned through her own hard work.

"I understand! I’ll work hard to learn!"

Although Ruan Jianglan was intimidated by the idea of bookkeeping, she thought of her son and knew this was a rare opportunity for them to live a good life, so she secretly steeled her resolve.

Jiang Zuo gave Ruan Jianglan a month’s wage in advance. After she went back, she moved out of the nearby refugee settlement.

There were countless people like Ruan Jianglan outside Lizhou City. No one paid any attention to her departure or her arrival.

And starting that month, every day when Ruan Jianglan left, Jiang Zuo would give her a fish to take with her.

If anyone noticed her constantly coming to his place, she could use the excuse that she was able to buy cheap fish from him.

Ruan Jianglan began haggling with the city’s street vendors over items that interested Jiang Zuo.

At first, she was clumsy at it, but one day, she got lucky and managed to haggle a price that was significantly lower than the base price Jiang Zuo had given her.

After Jiang Zuo gave her half of the difference as a reward, she was instantly energized. She threw herself into mastering the art of haggling and became more and more eloquent.

Jiang Zuo watched her progress and nodded to himself in approval.

’In truth, the base prices I set for some of the items aren’t that low,’ he thought. ’It’s to let Ruan Jianglan taste some success.’

Gradually, Ruan Jianglan started to make a small name for herself among some of the vendors.

After all, she was a customer who actually bought things. As long as she was willing to ask for a price, there was a high chance of a sale if they could agree on one.

As for bookkeeping, once Ruan Jianglan decided to learn, it wasn’t difficult with Jiang Zuo’s guidance.

She became even more motivated to learn, especially after Jiang Zuo started giving her rewards from the price differences on top of her monthly wage.

In less than half a year, she could already skillfully maintain the ledger according to Jiang Zuo’s requirements.

After mastering bookkeeping, she even took the initiative to ask Jiang Zuo what she should learn next.

Jiang Zuo had her truly learn to read and write, taught her arithmetic, and also instructed her on how to categorize items.

He also revealed that if she could master these skills, he might open a shop in the future and let her manage it.

Ruan Jianglan didn’t doubt him in the slightest.

In all the time she had known Jiang Zuo, his word had always been his bond.

Besides, after spending more than half a year with him, Ruan Jianglan had gradually realized that Jiang Zuo was no ordinary person.

However, she didn’t say much about it, simply seizing the opportunity to study hard.

「A year passed quickly.」

As promised, Jiang Zuo raised Ruan Jianglan’s monthly wage from two taels to three taels of silver.

It might have only been a raise of one tael of silver, but many fishermen who toiled all year long, drifting back and forth on the Li River, barely earned that much in total.

Ruan Jianglan herself had undergone a huge, subtle transformation over that year.

She had changed from a timid, meek woman who was afraid of offending people into an eloquent person who could haggle back and forth with the vendors.

Her whole demeanor radiated much more confidence.

Even though she had a young son, the number of men interested in her gradually increased.

However, Ruan Jianglan rejected them all outright.

’Although Jiang Zuo has never said anything,’ she felt strongly, ’if I were to find a man, I would probably lose this hard-won job very quickly.’

「Time flickered by, and another three years passed.」

This was the eighth year since Jiang Zuo had settled by the Li River.

『Beast Pattern Drawing skill has been upgraded to LV3!』

—Beast Pattern Drawing LV3 (0/5000): You have a deeper understanding of the principles and techniques of drawing Beast Patterns. You know that the power of Beast Patterns comes from the mysterious characters that form them, not from Beast Blood. However, your understanding of these mysterious characters is still extremely shallow.

As another incomplete Beast Pattern was successfully drawn, Jiang Zuo’s Beast Pattern Drawing skill successfully rose to LV3.

After a brief moment of dizziness, Jiang Zuo felt his perception of his surroundings suddenly become much clearer.

For instance, he could glance around and instinctively know what objects were on the floor, regardless of their size, without needing to look closely.

’My Spiritual Power has greatly increased!’

Jiang Zuo then looked at the skill description for LV3 Beast Pattern Drawing.

"Does this mean that as long as I have a deeper understanding of those tadpole-like characters that make up the Beast Patterns, I won’t need Beast Blood to draw them?"

"That makes sense. How could ordinary Beast Blood possess such miraculous power?"

Jiang Zuo thought for a moment and concluded that it must be so.

However, for him, he still needed to use Beast Blood to draw Beast Patterns for the time being.

Jiang Zuo immediately decided to test the success rate of drawing Beast Patterns now that his skill had upgraded and his Spiritual Power had been enhanced.

The effect was obvious.

Before the upgrade, Jiang Zuo could only draw about five incomplete Beast Patterns a month.

Now, when he tried to draw one again, he had a completely different feeling.

The moment his brush touched the talisman paper, Jiang Zuo had a premonition that he would succeed, and sure enough, he successfully drew an incomplete Beast Pattern on his first try.

However, Jiang Zuo looked at the skill’s experience bar: "0/5000".

Not only had the required experience for the next level skyrocketed tenfold after reaching LV3, but drawing incomplete Beast Patterns no longer awarded any experience.

’Drawing an incomplete Beast Pattern means my ability isn’t up to par, so it makes sense that it no longer grants experience at this level. I should be able to draw a true Porcupine Roar Beast Pattern now. I’ll probably get experience if I can do that,’ Jiang Zuo mused. ’The question is whether drawing an incomplete Tier 2 Night Cat’s Eye Beast Pattern would still give experience. If it does, I could switch to drawing that to get the skill to LV4 first.’

He didn’t have any particular need for the Porcupine Roar Beast Pattern right now; his priority was to grind his skill level.

Drawing the Night Cat’s Eye Beast Pattern required cat blood to prepare the ink.

But the thought of finding cat blood gave Jiang Zuo a bit of a headache.

Cats in this world also caught mice.

However, under normal circumstances, cats never got the chance. If a mouse dared to show its face, it would have already been caught, skinned, and boiled into soup by people.

Once skinned and gutted, their nutritional value was no worse than any other meat.

To the poor, they were a great supplement.

Cats were completely out of the equation.

Therefore, the cats in this world were either pets raised by the wealthy or practically wild animals.

This meant that cats were very rare in this world.

Jiang Zuo was willing to pay, so it wouldn’t be difficult to buy one. The problem was that a single cat had very little blood. Given his needs, buying them frequently would attract too much attention.

"Maybe I should try leopard’s blood?"

An idea occurred to Jiang Zuo.

He remembered that leopards and cats both belonged to the feline family.

He could test whether the Beast Blood had to be from the exact same species as the Beast Pattern, or if blood from a related species could be used as a substitute.

Like cats, leopards weren’t a common sight.

However, leopards were huge, and a single one could provide a large amount of Beast Blood.

Jiang Zuo had a storage pouch, and once the Beast Blood was made into ink, it could be stored for a long time.

Moreover, leopard’s blood was rumored to replenish one’s own blood and was popular among Martial Artists. No matter how much of it he bought, it wouldn’t seem strange.

Jiang Zuo immediately had Ruan Jianglan go to a butcher stall that occasionally sold leopards and place an order for some leopard blood.

He didn’t need to order too much before confirming if it worked.

In the following days, while waiting for the leopard blood, Jiang Zuo also tried to draw a complete Porcupine Beast Pattern.

「A week later.」

The first complete Porcupine Beast Pattern was successfully drawn by Jiang Zuo.

Jiang Zuo looked at his inventory of Beast Patterns. The quantity of his Porcupine Roar Beast Pattern had become 2.

His Beast Pattern Drawing skill experience also successfully increased by 1 point.

「A few more days passed.」

Ruan Jianglan brought a small bag of fresh leopard blood to Jiang Zuo.

Jiang Zuo immediately used it to prepare leopard blood ink.

After a week of attempts, Jiang Zuo actually managed to draw an incomplete Night Cat’s Eye Beast Pattern.

Leopard blood, from the same family, could indeed substitute for cat blood, and the effect seemed to be quite good.

However... Jiang Zuo sighed as he looked at his Beast Pattern Drawing skill.

Even an incomplete Night Cat’s Eye Beast Pattern didn’t increase his skill experience.

’To level up my Beast Pattern Drawing, it seems I have to stick to drawing the Porcupine Roar Beast Pattern,’ he concluded.

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