Rebirth of the thief who roamed around the world (BOOK 4)

Chapter 704 - Frantic Market

When the prices of medicinal plants reached a breaking point, those selling them wouldn’t want to anymore. They would start holding onto their stock in anticipation of even higher prices. Those speculating on the market would follow in Nie Yan’s track. They would acquire medicinal plants and sit on them while they appreciated. The medicinal plants would rise higher and higher in value. So, Nie Yan didn’t need to pour in any more gold.

With a big stir occuring in the medicinal plants market, Qin Han immediately figured out the culprit. For the sake of interfering with Asskickers United, he mobilized the guilds under his rule to collect medicinal plants as well as dump all their existing stock into the market. His tactic did deal a blow to Nie Yan’s plans, causing the prices to fall back to normal for a time. However, after Nie Yan spent another 9,000,000 gold to gobble them all up, the prices rose back up. Seeing the prices of medicinal plants bouncing up and down, market analysts also got involved in acquiring the medicinal plants.

Seeing the situation wasn’t good, Qin Han could only helplessly follow the crowd. The prices of medicinal plants were soaring frantically. The players were in a frenzy. As the prices rose higher, more and more players tried to get their piece of the pie. Soon, there were practically no traces of medicinal plants on the market, and the few listed were ludicrously expensive.

Nie Yan didn’t expect it to escalate this far. All of a sudden, all the potion shops apart from the Starry Night Potion Shop became dumbstruck. They had no way of doing business. The medicinal plants on the market were expensive beyond belief while the potions being sold by the Starry Night Potion Shop were on par with the material costs, sometimes even below. If they continued buying medicinal plants from the market and turning them into potions, they would either be making zero profit or worse, even losing money. They had already burned through their previous stock. Their warehouses were empty. Their shelves were out of goods and they had no way of replenishing them. As a result, the various potion shops in cities and towns became cold and empty.

Nie Yan had people on standby at all the auction houses across both empires. Every time the prices of medicinal plants slightly recovered, they would immediately swoop in to keep the prices high. This was an incredibly expensive tactic. 6,000,000 gold wasn’t enough. However, more gold came in than he could spend. Before long, the 6,000,000 turned into 10,000,000.

Nie Yan checked the reports. In a short time, the income of the Starry Night Potion Shop exploded, earning 7,000,000 gold every day. Their profit margins had shot up to an average of 70%. If it was before, a profit margin of 20% would already be amazing. A 70% profit margin was an extremely frightening number. The reason for this increase was pretty simple. There was only one potion shop with stock, the Starry Night Potion Shop. Whether it was high level players or large guilds, all of them needed potions for levelling and running dungeons. Without potions, they couldn’t make any progress. They could only go to the Starry Night Potion Shop to purchase potions.

At present, the Intermediate and Advanced potions on the market were too expensive. Many players could only tighten their belts and reduce their usage. However, some situations absolutely required the consumption of potions. There were also wealthy players who didn’t care about a few more gold. Even if the prices were high, they would still buy. Like this, the Starry Night Potion Shop was flourishing.

At this time, anyone could tell Asskickers United was the culprit behind this incident. Bubbles like this weren’t uncommon. Scrolls, gems, equipment, all sorts of items had been inflated before, causing their prices to multiply severalfold or even several dozenfold. This was the market. Even though this bubble was started by Asskickers United, many people had joined in. When everybody was taking part in keeping the prices high, no one could really be blamed.