Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed The World - Chapter 703

Chapter 703: 703




Competition in the potion market was fierce . Everyone was undercutting their competitors in order to seize more market share, so profit margins were low . Even the Starry Night Potion Shop had no choice but to keep their prices low to attract customers . Major guilds were the largest consumer group . They often bought in bulk to save on expenditures . Even if they made insultingly low offers, the ordinary potion shops would still gladly oblige, for fear of losing out on a big order; it didn’t matter how meager the profits were . Some shops wouldn’t even mind losing money on one order if it meant securing a long time customer . From this, one could imagine how intense the competition was .

The small potions shops couldn’t compare to the Starry Night Potion Shop . They sold inferior goods and only survived by offering the lowest prices . This left their Alchemists in sore straits, often working 10+ hours a day for a meagre pay .

Most large guilds also had their own inhouse Alchemists . However, the production output was far from enough to meet the guild's demand . In this sense, the Starry Night Potion Shop was unique . No other guild had developed their alchemy department to such a scale . For the Alchemists of guilds like Angel Corps, God Executioner Sword, and Penumbra Empire to even meet 30% of the guild’s demand was already above the norm, let alone sell off their surplus for a profit . They still supplemented their needs by purchasing potions from outside .

Asskickers United had a total of 160,000 Alchemists, all of whom were elites that commanded high salaries . There were several million Alchemists across the Viridian and Satreen Empires . About 100,000 of them were skilled enough to join the Starry Night Potion Shop . Nie Yan’s target was these Intermediate and Advanced Alchemists . As for the low rank Alchemists, even though he would still accept a few promising talents, assimilating all several million would be a fool’s errand .

Nie Yan’s main focus were the Intermediate and Advanced potion market . There were simply too many low level potions . You could find them selling everywhere in stalls on the streets . Cornering this section of the market wouldn’t result in much profit anyway . Intermediate and Advanced potions sold for five gold at the cheapest and up to several hundred gold at the highest . Meanwhile, low level potions normally sold for one or two silver, with the lowest going as low as 50 copper . The added value was hardly worth it . It wasn’t realistic to focus on this . As long as he could pull the Intermediate and Advanced Alchemists to his side, he could control this market . As for those low ranking Alchemists, when they reached Intermediate or Advanced rank, with the Starry Night Potion Shop advertising high salaries, he refused to believe they wouldn’t be moved .

With all things considered, this market had boundless prospects .

At Nie Yan and Guo Huai’s command, Asskickers United started buying up all the Intermediate and Advanced-rank medicinal plants in the market . Low level medicinal plants generally weren’t put up for sale because you wouldn’t even make back the listing fee .


Nie Yan ran some calculations . If he wanted to buy up 50% of all the Intermediate and Advanced medicinal plants in the market on the same day, he would have to spend about 6,000,000 gold . Players consumed a lot of potions daily . As he depleted the market of medicinal plants, the previous reserves of potions would slowly run out . In another five or six days, it would start affecting the prices of medicinal plants .



The more gold Nie Yan poured in, the greater the effect on the prices of medicinal plants .

Ever since Nie Yan started raising funds, apart from Asskickers United, Holy Empire, Sapphire Shrine, the War God Tribe, Radiant Sacred Flame, and Battle Crazed Alliance chipped in as well . Nie Yan added everything up . Holy Empire had raised 2,200,000 gold; Sapphire Shrine 2,000,000 gold; the War God Tribe 2,800,000 gold; Radiant Sacred Flame 2,000,000 gold; Battle Crazed Alliance 1,900,000 gold; and Asskickers United and its five branch guilds 6,500,000 gold . Like this, they had over 20,000,000 gold, a number that was still rapidly rising .

Nie Yan updated the guild treasury . For a limited time, every gold contributed would net you 50% additional merit points . In an instant, the number of players contributing gold skyrocketed . Within the short span of a day, an extra 1,200,000 gold had been raised . Of course, this came at the cost of roughly 10% of the equipment in the entire treasury .

Such large movements from Asskickers United naturally attracted the attention of the Monet Financial Group .

. . .

God Executioner Sword guild headquarters .

Qin Han was anxiously awaiting word from Necromancer Vorderman . His skeleton army was currently on standby, only occasionally harassing the strongholds of Asskickers United . He didn’t dare to go forward before Vorderman returned .

“Boss! Asskickers United has been amassing capital non-stop . So far, they’ve raised at least 20,000,000 gold,” Matchless Divine Sword said, his voice brimming with shock . A guild’s ability to raise gold was directly related to the solidarity of its members . Most guilds burned through their funds very quickly . Every day they had to pay out an enormous sum to their players just to keep everything running smoothly . However, to get gold out of these players was as difficult as ascending the heavens . With God Executioner Sword’s might, it would already be impressive if they could borrow 1,000,000 gold from their players . Yet Asskickers United had somehow raised 20,000,000! He couldn’t wrap his head around it .



Qin Han knitted his brows . “What’s Asskickers United up to? Why are they amassing all this gold?”

“We still haven’t figured that out yet . None of our moles know where this gold is going,” Matchless Divine Sword said .

With so many transactions happening every day, anomalies in the market were incredibly difficult to detect, especially since Nie Yan had spread his operations so far . His agents were buying up medicinal plants at the same time in every city . Under these circumstances, Matchless Divine Sword would have no way of telling where the gold was going .

“Monitor the situation closely,” Qin Han said in a heavy tone . Nie Yan was undoubtedly planning something big . Why else would he amass so much gold?

“Understood!” Matchless Divine Sword said . He dispatched an extra unit to investigate where Nie Yan was spending the gold .

. . .

Thunderfire City’s auction house, an ordinary-looking player in craftsman robes walked inside . He pulled open the auction house’s medicinal plants section, then started buying everything below a certain price range . Before long, he spent all of the 80,000 gold Guo Huai had entrusted to him . After which, he quietly disappeared into the crowd .

Several players had dumped their hauls into the auction house . Seeing everything being sold so quickly and the gold falling into their pockets, they were full of smiles .

“Business is pretty good today . I’ve sold all three stacks of medicinal plants for 20 gold . ”

“Nice . Me too . ”

“I’ll bring out my remaining stock and dump it tomorrow too . ”

As for some Alchemists in another corner of the auction house, they originally came here to buy medicinal plants to craft potions with . However, after discovering there were no medicinal plants for sale at a suitable price, they all left one after another . They were in no rush to buy, since their stocks could last them for a few more days .

A similar scene played out in the auction houses of every city . However, since the movements were fairly small, it didn’t attract the attention of players .

Two days, three days, four days, five days, the same situation continued . Even though some players had noticed on the initial few days that something was up, they didn’t really pay it much attention . By the time the fifth day arrived, the shortage of medicinal plants was becoming clear . The sellers started raising their prices . Most of the Alchemists decided to wait for the prices to drop back down, lest they failed to make a profit due to high material costs . An odd few helplessly bought the price-inflated medicinal plants since their shops were running low on stock . If they didn’t craft new potions, they would go bankrupt .

Many people believed the price of medicinal plants would eventually go back down . Market demand simply wasn’t that large . However, the era of low rank medicinal plants was already long over . The price of Intermediate and Advanced medicinal plant increased by at least 50%, with some of the scarcer ones shooting up in price severalfold .

Nie Yan returned to the Starry Night Potion Shop . For the sake of storing the medicinal plants, he had reserved a large warehouse only he had access to .

The medicinal plants here were Nie Yan’s life . If a problem occurred, Asskickers United would be done for . He couldn’t help but take certain precautions .

Nie Yan opened up the warehouse window and was greeted by a massive storage space . Each page had 5,000 slots . The medicinal plants were all stored here . They were neatly sorted and organized . Every page was filled to the brim . There were even tens of thousands of stacks of some medicinal plants while only five or six thousand stacks for others . One stack was 20 medicinal plants .

Nie Yan checked the number of pages . There were 600 pages altogether .

Currently, he had already gobbled up 60% of the medicinal plants in the market!

All the Alchemists in Asskickers United were hard at work . After receiving the medicinal plants, they started focusing all their efforts on mass-producing potions . Every single day a frightening number of potions was transported to the various branches of the Starry Night Potion Shop .

The prices in the Starry Night Potion Shop had all shot up by at least 50% . Some rarer potions even had their prices increase severalfold . However, this kind of price hike simply matched the price of the material costs in the market .

“Guo Huai, how much capital do we have left?” Nie Yan asked .

“6,000,000 . We’re running low . ” Guo Huai sighed . They had really spent money like prodigal sons over these past few days . Over 30,000,000 gold was gone just like that . Even if you had the money, was this the way to spend it?

“No worries, the price of medicinal plants has already snowballed . Even if we stop buying, the prices will continue to rise . ” Nie Yan chuckled .

Guo Huai pondered for a moment before understanding what Nie Yan meant . Them purchasing medicinal plants to influence the market’s future made sense . Just eating up 10% of the medicinal plants could affect the price, let alone 60% . The shortage in medicinal plants was bound to make prices skyrocket .