Chapter 490 - Spreading a Net (1/2)
Chapter 490 - Spreading a Net
The fog in Gryphon Woodlands was too dense. Without a Dispel Fog Scroll, advancing forward was practically impossible. If a Thief couldn’t scout the path ahead, the likelihood of encountering monsters unexpectedly was too great, leading to the team potentially wiping. So, when players ran Gryphon Woodlands, they would use up at least one Dispel Fog Scroll, sometimes two or more even.
It would generally take at least 50 Dispel Fog Scrolls for a guild’s team to fully map out and familiarize themselves with Gryphon Woodlands. Only then would their gains from each run be more stable.
Gryphon Woodlands in the previous timeline was quite bustling. Guilds would frequently butt heads there
Nie Yan contacted Guo Huai,「Have some Mages visit Calore’s Magic Association. Look for an NPC called Izette and see if he’s selling any Dispel Fog Scrolls.」
「Dispel Fog Scrolls? Are they useful?」Guo Huai asked
「You’ll know when the time comes. Remember, these Mages have to be trustworthy. This information can’t be leaked under any circumstances,」Nie Yan said If the Magic Association was selling Dispel Fog Scroll now, he would immediately start hoarding them without question.
「Understood, I’ll arrange everything right away,」Guo Huai said. He realized from Nie Yan’s voice that this matter was important, so he didn’t dare to dally.
After a while, Guo Huai reported back with his findings. 「Sure enough, the Magic Association has Dispel Fog Scrolls up for sale. However, they’re way overpriced, 500 gold a scroll,」He couldn’t imagine why Nie Yan would be so interested in such a seemingly worthless item.
「Good! Buy all of them and mail them to my personal storage,」Nie Yan said.
「They have five for sale, that’s 2,500 gold in total!」Guai Huai said. He felt his heart ache. Even if they did have the gold, they shouldn’t spend it so frivolously!
「Hmmm? I didn’t mean just in Calore. I want you to have people go around the Magic Associations of every city and buy up all the Dispel Fog Scrolls. This includes the Satreen Empire too! We can’t miss a single one!」Nie Yan said. He wanted to create a network specifically dedicated to purchasing Dispel Fog Scrolls. Since these scrolls refreshed every five days at a set time, they could all be purchased in one go. He didn’t want other players to notice their existence. If this secret was well kept, the Dispel Fog Scrolls would become an exclusive item of Asskickers United!
Of course, Asskickers United couldn’t use up all these Dispel Fog Scrolls themselves, nor did Nie Yan have the gold to support this kind of spending for long. To satisfy his own needs, he naturally planned on selling them for a marked up price in the marketplace.
In the previous timeline, many players crowded inside the Magic Associations to fight over these scrolls. When a player got one, they could sell it for more than 3,000 gold. This was a trade where one could only profit, making back several times the initial investment. Many players went crazy over it!
If Asskickers United monopolized this market, aside from the enormous profits, Nie Yan would also have something to torment Angel Corps, Alliance of Mages, and Divine Protectors with.
The most important issue right now was to keep this secret well hidden. Then Asskickers United would rake in the profits later.
「Are you sure there’ll be a market for these scrolls?」Guo Huai asked. The Viridian Empire had close to 30 Cities and 60 towns. As more and more players entered the game, many towns would rapidly expand and establish Magic Associations of their own. Including the Satreen Empire, there were at least 100 cities between the two nations. To buy every Dispel Fog Scroll out there would cost at least 250,000 gold. According to Nie Yan, these scrolls refreshed every five days. That was to say, they would be spending 250,000 gold every five days. This wasn’t even including the transportation fees. If they didn’t make their money back, Nie Yan would have to do much more than making a few trips to the Underworld.
「Trust me, you’ll be in for a nice surprise when the time comes,」Nie Yan laughed.
「Alright, if you say so.」Guo Huai nodded. Fortunately, Asskickers United had grown quite a bit. They had close to 10,000,000 gold in assets and more than 2,000,000 gold on hand. Otherwise, he would never agree to spending so much money. After all, with so many people in the guild, they had to pay an enormous amount of gold every second. It truly wasn’t easy to keep up with all the costs.
Under Nie Yan’s orders, Guo Huai got to work. Many of the Mages in Asskickers United hid their identities by removing their guild emblems and set out toward the various cities in the Viridian and Satreen Empires. These Mages were all vetted, so there was no need to question their loyalty.
A few hours later, the net was fully spread. As for what kind of effect it would have, that remained to be seen. After sinking so much money in it, getting it all back would prove to be pretty easy. Of course, Nie Yan’s goal wasn’t only to simply recoup his investment. He also wanted to bolster the might of Asskickers United.
When the guild’s matters settled down, Nie Yan planned to visit the Temple of Light and undertake his Luminous Dancer class advancement quest. More recently, Alliance of Mages, Divine Protectors, and Angel Corps had been stirring trouble nonstop. Asskickers United had no way to deal with all of them at once, so they could only bear with it and remain on the defensive. An ordinary guild in a similar situation would probably be brought to the brink of financial collapse. However, Asskickers United, with the frigthening amount of money they had, remained virtually unaffected.
Aside from the threat of Alliance of Mages, Divine Protectors, and Angel Corps, as more and more players entered the game, more guilds backed by large financial groups were also starting to appear. God Executioner Sword and Penumbra Empire were two such examples. Every day new ones popped up, like Blood Moon, Hidden Dragon, Kings Landing, and many more. Conviction also started to gain a market share of the international gaming market thanks to their language translation system. An increasingly large number of foreign players, most of them backed by powerful organizations, started playing the game. Many of them belong to professional gaming organizations. They were still developing for now. But when they organized into guilds, their strength couldn’t be looked down on either.