Eren didn't care much about the money right now.
He already had too many low-grade elixirs, and each of them could easily fetch him more than 100 million even if sold cheaply.
What he was more concerned about was clearing out his storage without alerting anyone, so he accepted the deal without thinking too much.
But for Marcus, it was something huge, a rare and brilliant opportunity in his life.
The moment Eren accepted the deal, Marcus's face brightened instantly.
"Thank you for giving me this chance… I promise I wouldn't let you down."
The tension that once lingered around him faded into sharp focus and excitement, and without wasting a single second, he grabbed his coat and gestured for Eren to follow.
"We should start right away. Please come with me."
Both of them stepped out of the half-ruined house, quickly booking a taxi and hopping in as it started to move across the city at a relentless pace before stopping in the middle of a busy industrial district.
"Please wait here, we will be back soon…" Marcus said to the driver, sending some money in advance before guiding Eren.
They arrived in front of a two-story building, where the smell of blood and iron lingered heavily in the air, with the name 'Crimson Yard' displayed on the board.
"Slaughterhouse?"
Marcus nodded his head before starting to explain,
"Monster corpses and food drops rapidly lose value over time, so we should make them the top priority for selling, and going directly to multiple high-end hotels would take too much of our time and even attract unwanted attention while yielding inconsistent deals, so we should sell our products to someone who has the connections to distribute them to those in need, and the owner of this slaughterhouse has the connections, manpower, and distribution network to handle bulk purchases instantly."
Just as he finished speaking, a bald man in his late forties approached them with a scrutinizing gaze, exchanging a few brief words with Marcus while Eren stood silently beside him.
"Please leave the negotiation to me," Marcus said before starting.
Eren only stepped forward whenever instructed, taking out items and placing them one after another onto the heavy inspection table where workers immediately began examining the quality with practiced efficiency.
The bald man quickly attempted to lower the price by pointing out that the monster corpses had already passed their prime twenty-four-hour freshness window and had lost their so-called "golden period", subtly trying to pressure them into accepting a lower deal.
But Marcus didn't budge in the slightest as he calmly listed out the remaining usable materials, the current market demand, and alternative profit routes the buyer could exploit.
Gradually turning the negotiation in his favor until he not only nullified the deduction but pushed the final price nearly twenty percent higher than the initial offer.
That left both the bald man and Eren momentarily speechless before agreeing, and just like that, the corpses of the Voidscale Basilisk and Grazing Stag were sold for a solid profit while the processed food drops followed.
With around two hundred pieces of each item being purchased at a strong price, and without slowing down, Marcus led Eren to several other dismantling houses across the district.
Repeating the process with seamless precision until nearly half of the food-related inventory inside Eren's storage ring had been sold in what felt like an hour.
After that, they moved toward the outer city where clusters of small-scale workshop owners had set up temporary camps to directly purchase wilderness materials from hunters, and there Marcus shifted his approach, negotiating aggressively yet efficiently.
The purchasing power of these people was low, they prioritized quality over quantity instead, so, Marcus presented bulk quantities of alchemy ingredients and blacksmithing materials, pricing them just low enough to remain attractive while still securing profit.
That resulted in multiple buyers stepping forward eagerly after brief appraisals and purchasing hundreds of items in bulk with visible satisfaction.
Their faces lighting up with genuine smiles as they secured resources that would otherwise be far more expensive through official channels, and as they departed for their respective workshops.
Marcus didn't stop for even a moment, continuing to guide Eren across various parts of the city and its outskirts, moving from one buyer to another.
The massive stockpile within Eren's ring steadily dwindled at an astonishing pace, leaving Eren quietly observing everything with growing amazement at the sheer efficiency, connections, and negotiation skills Marcus displayed.
This is a skills that could only have been built over years of knowledge and experience.
Finally, they arrived at a cluster of high-end hotels where traveling traders and merchants were temporarily staying.
And without hesitation, Marcus approached them directly, initiating conversations and negotiations with bold confidence despite the fact that most of them had never even considered this city worth trading in.
Yet as he explained the pricing advantages and proposed a simple but clever strategy of transporting additional goods along their existing trade routes for extra profit, their attitudes gradually shifted.
Intrigue replacing indifference as they began to see the opportunity, some even going as far as exchanging contact information with Marcus after being impressed by his insight and daring approach.
Throughout the entire process, from the very first merchant they made a deal with to the final negotiation, Eren noticed one clear thing.
'This was the first time Marcus had met most of these merchants, yet from start to finish, he handled everything on his own.'
Conversation, every calculation, and every risk without needing Eren to say a single word, leaving Eren with only one role, that is to silently take out the items from his storage and place them before each potential buyer, while Marcus turned them, one by one, into profit.
'This guy is the real deal!'
By the time evening arrived, the last batch of items that Eren wanted to sell had been cleared, leaving behind five hundred Nightmare Crystals, one Dusk Sovereign Core, 1,592 Low-Grade Elixirs, 178,179,000 Mid-grade Spirit Stones, and five drops of Blood of an Abyssal Predator.
The Nightmare Crystals were meant to feed his daggers, while the other rare materials were reserved for his evolution.
On the other hand, releasing such a large quantity of Low-Grade Elixirs and Mid-grade Spirit Stones into the market would undoubtedly cause a massive uproar, so Eren planned to sell them through the trading forum instead.
He had absolute confidence that the elixirs would sell like hot cakes, as he had already witnessed the demand firsthand.
The Lesser Elixir he had previously listed in the trading auction had already been sold, adding more than 1.3 billion to his account, and now, with another 4.7 billion earned today, his total had surpassed 6 billion.
Eren didn't even know what to do with that much money.
Once all the items were sold, Marcus stood nervously, glancing at Eren without saying anything.
Sweat formed on his forehead from the stress he was under, which made Eren smile faintly in amusement.
The calm and clever man from before was nowhere to be seen.
No one could blame him, after all, the 2% cut from the total value Eren had just made through him had already surpassed 94 million, reaching nearly 94.5 million.
Marcus couldn't help but gulp nervously.
Even he hadn't expected Eren to possess such an overwhelming number of items; the total value had far exceeded anything he had imagined when making the deal.
To him, even 1% would have been an insane amount, so now he looked at Eren with a mix of hope and hesitation.
'Does he think I would go back on my word?'
Eren simply smiled, took out his phone, and said, "Give me your bank details."
Marcus, his face lighting up instantly, quickly showed the details on his phone as Eren transferred the amount without hesitation.
Ding!
The notification sound rang out. Marcus hurriedly opened his banking app to check, but his entire body froze the moment he saw the number.
"…!"
He stuttered, "M-Mr. Eren… I think you made a m-mistake… You sent me 200 million instead of the amount we agreed upon."
Eren waved his hand dismissively.
"Take it. You deserve that much for your effort… And this won't be the last time I come to you. Even now, my team is raiding dungeons in this city, and I'll come back to you again with the same amount of materials. I'm looking forward to our future deals."