Around 30 to 40 real world lenders operated in the Viridian and Satreen Empires. Very few had a capital of more than 1,000,000 gold. In fact, for an agency to have more than 300,000 gold was already considered good. They profited by collecting on the high interest rates from their loans.
Guo Huai went about contacting these loan agencies. Asskickers United was now a major power. It was a fairly simple matter to get a loan by using the income from their strongholds as collateral.
Before long, Guo Huai got in touch with more than 10 agencies and borrowed roughly 3,000,000 gold. He spent all of it on gems and runestones.
Nie Yan and the others had acquired roughly 40% of the gems in the market. The gems they bought were of high quality with excellent appreciation potential. He kept an especially close eye on Fire Resistance Gems, to the extent he planned on snatching up every last one of them. This was because several of the notable Level 60-70 dungeons required high fire resistance.
「What do we do now?」Guo Huai asked.「There's still so many cheap gems for sale. We can't possibly swallow them all up. With no one else buying, how are the prices supposed to recover like this?」
「We need to do three things. One, clear up the rumour about there being a secret gem shop. Two, sell off the Fire Resistance Gems, start with the quality rating 5 ones. Set the price at 1,200 gold, not 1 gold lower! Three, sit back and wait. In a few days, the panic will wear off and the people dumping their gems will take down their listings. With the gems on the market becoming scarcer, the prices will go back up accordingly,」Nie Yan explained. He had long since planned everything out. If Fire Resistance Gems suddenly doubled in value while the prices of all other gems were still falling, players would certainly take notice. Those with even a tiny bit of market insight would realize something was wrong. If they were quick, they would also start rapidly gobbling up gems. Like this, all the gems in the market could be swept up. When the time came, those who hoarded would profit immensely while those who didn't could only watch on helplessly. Perhaps the prices of gems would increase to never before seen heights.
「I'll get on it right away!」Guo Huai said.
「In the next few days, use the income from the Starry Night Potion Shop, Union of Assassins, and strongholds to pay off the interest from the loans. Any surplus will be spent on buying gems. Pass on the information to our trustworthy guild members too. Have the wealthy ones start acquiring gems, quickly, or else they'll miss the chance forever. Also, keep contacting loan agencies. If any of them are willing to lend us even just a little bit more, take it. So long as the price of gems hasn't recovered, keep buying everything up,」Nie Yan said. Two-fifths of the gems in the Viridian and Satreen Empires were in his hands. If all these gems were sold after the prices recovered, he stood to make at least 20,000,000 gold, and this was his most conservative estimate!
What could 20,000,000 gold accomplish in Conviction? It was enough to buy up all the strongholds owned by Alliance of Mages and Divine Protectors combined. It was enough to buy 20 Central Calore Auction Houses. It was enough to tear down the Cripps Stronghold and build it back up anew 50 times over. It was enough to upgrade every branch of the Starry Night Potion Shop to Tier 16. Even the main shop was currently only Tier 10. It was enough to deck out all 60,000 players of Asskickers United with excellent gear and still have gold to spare!
With 20,000,000 gold, Asskickers United would make Alliance of Mages, Divine Protectors, and even Angel Corps look like poor beggars. Combined together, these three guilds likely only had around 7,000,000-8,000,000 gold at their immediate disposal right now.
Asskickers United had always been known as a wealthy guild. But even they only had 4,000,000 gold on hand at the best of times.
What troubled Nie Yan was that he had no idea how to spend the 20,000,000 gold. If he left it to sit in the treasury, it would most likely greatly depreciate after some time.
However, this was all assuming he really did get the gold. Nothing was for certain right now.
Guo Huai started carrying out Nie Yan's orders. At present, players firmly believed in the existence of a secret gem shop. So, the prices of gems kept falling lower and lower. In a few more days, when players saw that the prices of gems weren't dropping any further, and the number of gems for sale was rapidly dwindling, they would definitely grow suspicious. All Asskickers United had to do was patiently wait for players to grow skeptical themselves, then start fanning the flames. It wouldn't take long before the prices of gems would return to normal. Add this to the fact that Nie Yan's side vacuuming up 40% of the gem market was enough to create a supply shortage, along with the previously inhibited demand being released all at once, the prices of gems were likely to skyrocket higher than ever before.
At this moment, another rumour quietly sprung up, saying how for the sake of rapidly accumulating wealth, the Century Financial Group had started a rumour about some secret shop that sold gems cheaply. Then, when prices fell and everyone was panic selling gems, they had started swallowing everything up. That fabled secret gem shop was nothing but a baseless lie.
Nie Yan and the others had carried this plan out covertly. No one could track down who was behind the gem market crash. So, why not pin the blame on the Century Financial Group? It wasn't like this would stain their already terrible reputation.
Reversing the mood in the market posed a certain degree of difficulty. But just like Nie Yan said, after a while opinions started shifting. In any case, Nie Yan and the others had bought when prices were at their lowest. No matter what they did, they wouldn't take a loss. Earning the return was only a matter of time.
Nie Yan continued grinding levels. With the Javelin Launcher, he could at least jump several levels. Besides this, Guo Huai had also helped him collect several hundred sets of Magic Runestones. After turning them in, he would definitely go up a few more levels. Before long, he would break through Level 100.
Nie Yan sped through a mountain forest with Gale Step. This was already a Level 120 map. However, he showed no sign of slowing down. As he gradually neared his destination, a large river came into view. Within the river was a forest of oddly shaped rocks. He recalled a Troll lived near a pile of rubble on the opposite shore.
Trolls were one of the races that lived in this forest. They were large and tall with immense strength. Their frightening close combat ability even overshadowed that of giants. However, they were dimwitted. Their intelligence was directly related to their age. An ordinary troll had extremely low intelligence. Only the ones 300 years or older, with long, flowing white beards and bordering on senile had medium intelligence. These trolls were often the spiritual leaders of their race.
Not to mention they were famous for their terrible sight. Their range of vision was only 30 meters. Anything beyond that was a complete blur.
The troll on the opposite shore was roughly three meters tall. It was dressed in ragged animal hide and wielded a large wolf tooth club. It wandered around aimlessly, restricted to a circular patch of ground with a radius of about 30 meters. Sealing off the space was a wall of flames roughly five meters high. Only players with at least 380 Fire Resistance could pass through it without dying instantly. Just a bit further out were numerous bizarrely shaped boulders that obstructed the player's sight.
Troll Dillons was a famous Elite in the previous timeline. This enclosed space resembled an arena. At best, a 20-man team could fit inside. One could imagine how terrifying it would be to fight a troll in such a cramped space.
On the perimeter were bizarrely shaped boulders. One could try climbing on top of them and try shooting Dillons from afar. However, there were very few places to stand, and it was extremely easy to be discovered by Dillons. Once you were, leaving the rock was impossible.
On top of this, this place was a mountainous area with rugged terrain. There was no way to bring something like a catapult here. However, Javelin Launchers could still be used. Not only Nie Yan, but people in the previous timeline had also thought of using Javelin Launchers to kill Dillons. But with boulders blocking their vision, it was impossible to use the Javelin Launcher to accurately hit the target. Not to mention within a 100-meter radius, there were only three spots where a Javelin Launcher could be fired from. Inundating Dillons with a shower of javelins simply wasn't possible.
Troll Dillons' health recovery speed was fairly slow. However, it still had more than 300,000 health. After dying, it would respawn within two hours. This was pretty fast for an Elite.
Before players reached Level 120, Dillons was an impossible to beat existence. His damage was simply too high. It was only later on when Fighters got their defense up that they managed to beat him. Dillons gave an extremely generous amount of experience, and the items he dropped were pretty good too. In the previous timeline, countless fights had broken out over Dillons. It was only after Victorious Return, Radiant Sacred Flame, and the other three guilds under the Century Financial Group took control of this area that the disputes settled down. It was reported for the sake of maintaining the interests of all parties, Victorious Return had a set rule that each guild would take turns grinding this place every day.
One could imagine what kind of enticing existence Dillons was.
Nie Yan surveyed the surroundings. He could faintly see a figure moving around in the distance. However, he couldn't confirm its exact position. He recalled from memory he stood in the right spot. He took out the Javelin Launcher and the Eye of Kirge.[1] These two items were required if he wanted to farm Dillons today.
"This is an unexplored area. I wonder if a Mana Key will drop," Nie Yan muttered to himself. Mana Keys were an extremely sought-after item. It only had a 1 in 1,000 chance of dropping from Dillons. One could imagine how rare it was. It was a Legendary-grade Special Item. He had only ever heard of it, having never before seen it in person.
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1. The Eye of Kirge is first found in Chapter 488.