Sword Among Us

Within Baokang County was a stylish blacksmith’s shop.

There were thirty or so young ironsmiths from Beautiful Robes Faction and Mu Clan inside, and they were all energetic and full of spirit. They stood at their refining counters with heads held high and their chests puffed out while they looked at the tall and built man with a stern expression.

It was Mu Clan’s master, Thunderous Battle!

The clan had been built for less than a month, and it had been built on nothing. Yet not only had it managed to stand up tall and develop steadily, but also buy ten shops in Baokang.

Some of them were pharmacies, some blacksmith’s shops, some armor shops, and some sundry shops.

At the same time, they bought all sorts of high-grade resources from countless players focusing on their occupations in Baokang. A large number of herbalists, ironsmiths, tailors, and merchants entered the shops.

Even though Thunderous Battle was not a powerful player on Dragon Rank, he was high up in the Famous People Rank, and while their number of members made him only the leader of a standard middle-sized sect, he was the person with the greatest authority in Shennongjia. Regardless of whether it were the three local leaders of Baokang or Chivalry Sect, all of them gave vague hints that Mu Clan was their leader.

Thunderous Battle had also done some major things over the past few days.

He had the pharmacies buy large quantities of ingredients used to make Dew Pills, Beauty Melting Liquid, antidotes, high-grade medicinal pills, and the ingredients for the most popular medicine right thenat a price that was 50% higher than what NPC shops offered.

Once he got a lot of ingredients from the commission shop as well, he bought even more ingredients from the market with an offer that was slightly higher than the market price.

Just when everyone thought that Thunderous Battle had become an idiot from too much money and searched for people to gather up ingredients to sell to him, the sects that had been cultivating their herbalists in secret quickly sent out urgent notices. They claimed that they could not gather any ingredients, and they increased their offer for certain ingredients.

The price for medicinal herbs and other ingredients increased by leaps and bounds in just two days.

When a large group of merchants came to a realization that they had missed the chance to accumulate medicinal herbs, Mu Clan had already bought such a huge amount of medicinal herbs that the numbers could make anyone’s jaw go slack with shock. They then put them on sale at the commission shop at an even higher price to balance their financial account.

It was said that the mastermind behind the increase in the price for medicinal herbs was a female merchant who was a friend of the thirteen staff-using monks. She contacted Thunderous Battle and Happy and used a short amount of time to earn hundreds of millions of taels of silver by relying on the resources. With just one move, she pushed the price for medicinal herbs to more than twice its original price while earning hundreds of millions for herself.

However, based on the words of someone who was among the higher-ups in Mu Clan, the number of herbs in Mu Clan’s storage was not reduced. They just used all the medicinal herbs they had bought in exchange for money, which they used to fill up the clan storage.

Their herbalists, however, gained an unprecedented chance to develop their skills.

Dozens of herbalists continued refining pills, and in one shot, grade six and seven herbalists managed to become grade four herbalists, some of whom even reached grade three. They provided a large amount of Beauty Melting Liquid, Golden Jade Liquid, and even Jade Coagulating Powder for ironsmiths and tailors.

In less than three days, Mu Clan took action again. They spent one billion to buy tens of thousands of low-priced low-grade and middle-grade masterpieces that had been taking up space in the commission shop.

Those masterpieces were items whose prices had plummeted to the ground once the trend of refining items arose. Ever since refinement became the trend, many people made calculations and noticed that once a weapon or armor was refined the second time, the cost for materials would basically be more expensive than the weapon or armor itself.

So the low-grade masterpieces were instantly forgotten and abandoned by countless players. Everyone began to go after high-grade masterpieces or one-echelon masterpieces. Hence, the price for middle-grade and low-grade masterpieces dropped exponentially. In fact, some people had even begun to sell them to NPCs.

Middle-grade masterpieces sold for only tens of thousands of taels of silver could be found everywhere!

But just when everyone spat on middle-grade and low-grade masterpieces so much that their price was so cheap that they were almost sold at the same price as the items bought by NPCs, Mu Clan took action.

Their move left the whole playerbase in shock!

One night, the merchants in various cities noticed to their great delight that the equipment that they could not sell had been almost completely sold out. Some of them even had nothing left.

They swiftly withdrew the money!

When they entered the commission shop to investigate the matter, they found only some medicine, martial art manuals, resources, and some tools for the people focusing on their occupations on the commission shop page. The advertisements selling masterpieces that filled it before seemed to have been purged.

When the merchants started to realize that something bad was about to happen, notices regarding people making offers to buy items suddenly appeared nonstop on the information list in the commission shop.

[Buying low-grade masterpieces at a cheap price]

[Buying low-grade masterpieces at a cheap price]

[Buying a batch of low-grade armor at fifty thousand taels of silver]

Most of those people were ironsmiths from various sects. To increase their level in refining weapons, they had to increase the echelons of masterpieces, but the cost for high-grade masterpieces was too high, so they could only buy low-grade masterpieces.

Once numerous notices appeared, it became obvious that wanting to buy masterpieces using a low price would not work anymore. They had to increase their offers.

The initial tens of thousands were soon jacked up to one hundred thousand taels of silver per weapon.

However, that was still rather inadequate. There were simply too few masterpieces produced in the game, so when one of them appeared, it was instantly snatched away. In fact, there were some people who began to sell the low-grade and middle-grade masterpieces that they had just farmed up at the high price of one hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver to two hundred thousand taels of silver.

Many merchants regarded those prices in disdain and mocked those people for wanting to earn money so much that they had gone mad!

However, before they could even finished mocking them, announcements that those masterpieces had been sold appeared. Those notices swiftly vanished from the supply and demand page, affecting countless merchants so much that they felt as if they had just been smacked in the face.

At that moment, a person with the in-game name of Masterpiece Merchant began to appear on the commission shop page. He sold ten low-grade masterpieces in one go, and if anyone bought them in bulk, he sold them for two million and four hundred thousand taels of silver.

There was too little meat for too many wolves!

Many of the sects who had been lurking around hesitated for a moment before they squashed down the pain in their hearts. One of them went and resolutely bought their first batch of low-grade masterpieces.

And when one appeared, the second soon followed.

On the first day that happened, two thousand low-grade masterpieces were placed in the commission shop, which allowed Mu Clan to regain more than a quarter of the money they had spent!

And the commission shop still placed countless orders for low-grade masterpieces. In fact, someone even sent a messenger pigeon directly to them to say that they needed a large batch of low-grade masterpieces, and they were willing to pay a slightly higher price.

Kind Tycoon was the one who offered the highest price among the merchants. He offered two million and eight hundred thousand taels of silver for ten low-grade masterpieces, and three million and four hundred thousand taels of silver for ten middle-grade masterpieces.

Many merchants made some calculations for Mu Clan’s profit in secret.

The buying and selling of masterpieces allowed Mu Clan to earn at least 700% in profit, which meant that they had earned seven billion taels of silver…

Kind Tycoon even posted a thread for that.

He said that Mu Clan had eyed the explosive popularity of the weapon refinement and saw that everyone overlooked low-grade masterpieces. Then, they boldly dragged low-grade masterpieces back to their normal price. The handling of this matter, the courage to cut off all other means of getting low-grade masterpieces in bulk, and their method of selling the masterpieces they had bought maximized their profit, which was something that all merchants could learn.

It was because of those two amazing moves that the cash flow in Mu Clan increased by billions.

Besides, the remaining low-grade and middle-grade masterpieces were handed to the ironsmiths as if they were worthless produce. Happy and Thunderous Battle commanded the ironsmiths in Beautiful Robes Faction and Mu Clan to practice their refinement and increase their level in refinement.

They soon reached Skilled Level, so what they needed to do was to obtain a large number of first-echelon low-grade and middle-grade masterpieces from Thunderous Battle to push them to reach the second echelon.