19: Chapter 19 Transferring from Left Hand to Right Hand

Luo Ning waved her hands repeatedly, stepping back two steps: "Share? What is there to share! Boss, you should take it all and combine them! I'm eating your food, living in your place, even my clothes are bought by you. How could I have the face to split the loot?"

"Besides, the things opened from low-level chests are useless for my talent anyway. It's better to hand them over to you to combine into high-tier treasure chests to maximize the benefits."

She patted her chest, speaking boldly: "It's a deal. From now on, whenever we encounter loot, the chests and materials belong to you. But if I need special materials, you can't be stingy!"

"No problem." Zhou An agreed readily. This girl was quite sensible.

He casually pulled the storm assault rifle from his waist and tossed it to Luo Ning.

"This gun is Rare grade. It has low recoil, high fire rate, and the bullets auto-recharge. The heavy firepower of that jetpack consumes too many resources. Keep this gun as your standard self-defense weapon."

Luo Ning caught the gun in a flurry, feeling the heavy weight and the swirling purple light, stroking it lovingly.

"Thank you, Boss! This gun is so cool!"

She hung the assault rifle on her waist, her expression becoming somewhat excited and mysterious: "Boss, now that you've given me this gun, don't call me for the rest of the day. I'm going into seclusion to lower my SAN value."

"Lower your SAN value? It's sunny outside, how are you going to do that?" Zhou An asked, confused.

Luo Ning chuckled, pulling out a black lump of flesh from her pocket that was sealed in a transparent glass tube, constantly wriggling and emitting an extremely disgusting, foul odor.

"When we were in the black fog earlier, I cut a piece of flesh off an aberration. As long as you open this thing, your SAN value drops really fast! Do you want to see?"

"Get out, get out, get out!"

Zhou An's face turned pale. He felt nauseous just looking at the wriggling piece of meat and quickly waved his hand.

"Just mess around in your room, don't bring that thing out! Also, be safe, don't play around and die in your own room!"

"Don't worry, I know my limits!"

Luo Ning clutched the glass tube excitedly and dashed into the new room Zhou An had partitioned for her, slamming the door shut.

The hall returned to silence.

Zhou An shook his head; this girl was really dedicated to her research.

He sat back on the sofa and opened the system chat panel.

The population count in the top right corner made him frown slightly.

[Current regional survivors: 1,894,520 / 5,000,000]

"Only a little over 1.8 million left..."

The double blow of the tenth-day monster respawn and the corrosive environment acted like the Grim Reaper's scythe, ruthlessly harvesting nearly 600,000 lives.

In the regional chat channel, the panic had gradually been replaced by a near-crazed upgrade frenzy. All survivors realized a cruel fact: a LV1 vehicle would only be torn to shreds in front of LV2 monsters.

In the Trading House, the screen was filled with requests for Tier 2 materials:

"I'm selling everything I have to buy 10 units of Tier 2 steel! I'll trade 100 units of Tier 1 wood! I'll add more if it's not enough!"

"Tier 2 composite rubber! Who has Tier 2 rubber! I'll trade my Basic Water Purification blueprint for it!"

"I beg you, big shots! I have over 1,000 units of Tier 1 scrap iron, I just want to trade for 100 units of Tier 2 metal so I can upgrade my vehicle to Excellent grade!"

Zhou An looked at these trade messages, his eyes gradually becoming scorching hot.

"The wave of upgrading to LV2 has finally begun."

He carefully calculated the numbers. In the first few days, because no one had upgraded, the exchange rate between Tier 1 and Tier 2 materials was about 3:1.

But now, the situation had completely changed!

Large guilds needed massive amounts of Tier 2 materials to arm their core members, and ordinary players, even if they had to sell everything they owned, had to gather the Tier 2 materials needed for the upgrade to save their lives.

And those massive quantities of Tier 1 basic materials, because they couldn't be used directly for LV2 vehicle upgrades, were being crazily dumped by all players.

Because this game had a one-way elimination system, there would never be new players joining to consume these low-level materials!

This caused the price of Tier 1 materials to experience an unprecedented dive!

Zhou An made a rough estimate. In the Trading House now, there was an extreme ratio where even 4 or 5 units of Tier 1 materials could only be exchanged for 1 unit of Tier 2 material!

"A 1:4 exchange ratio..."

"I have [Level Up!], my synthesis ratio for Tier 2 materials is always an absolute 2:1!"

"Right now, 4 Tier 1s on the market can be exchanged for 1 Tier 2. So I only need to use 1 Tier 2 to trade back 4 Tier 1s on the market. Then, use those 4 Tier 1s to synthesize 2 Tier 2s!"

"The price difference in between..."

Zhou An stood up abruptly.

"Perfect shorting! Left hand to right hand—this is a harvest machine with ten-thousand-fold profits!"

He first took stock of the Tier 2 supplies in his warehouse available for operation.

Tier 2 steel: 9,000 units!

Tier 2 composite rubber: 4,000 units!

High-density energy cores and other Tier 2 materials: 2,000 units!

"A total of 15,000 units of Tier 2 materials. This is my initial shorting capital."

Zhou An's fingers flew as he operated the trading panel. He split the 15,000 units of Tier 2 materials into hundreds of small orders of different quantities, scattering them into the massive stream of trading information.

[Anonymous seller: Tier 2 steel x 50. Demand: Tier 1 steel x 200]

[Anonymous seller: Tier 2 composite rubber x 20. Demand: Tier 1 composite rubber x 80]

...

At this moment, in the regional channel, everyone was red-eyed with anxiety over upgrading to LV2. Tier 1 materials not only took up weight in their hands but were also useless for high-end construction, like chicken ribs.

As soon as Zhou An's anonymous orders were posted, they were like fresh meat thrown into a pack of starving wolves.

"Holy crap! Someone in the Trading House is dumping Tier 2 metal at the normal market price of 1:4!"

"Grab it fast! I have exactly 1,000 pieces of Tier 1 scrap iron; if I trade for this 250 pieces of Tier 2 steel, my helicopter can be upgraded!"

"This must be some newbie who doesn't know the market, or a fool. Forget it, just snipe it!"

In less than three minutes, the 15,000 units of Tier 2 materials Zhou An had put up were snatched away by crazed individuals and the scavenging machines of various guilds!

Accompanied by dense "ding-ding" sounds, the supplies in Zhou An's warehouse underwent an earth-shattering change.

He lost 15,000 units of Tier 2 materials, but what he got back was a full 60,000 units of Tier 1 basic materials!

The massive amount of Tier 1 wood, scrap iron, and inferior rubber almost filled every slot in the system warehouse.

"Leeks, thank you for your hard work."

A cold smile curled on the corner of Zhou An's mouth, and without hesitation, he awakened the colorful Hextech [Level Up!].

"System, synthesize all!"

Brilliant seven-colored prismatic light flashed crazily on Zhou An's retina. The entire system warehouse seemed to have turned into a giant alchemical furnace.

According to the absolute 2:1 conversion rate of [Level Up!], the mountainous pile of 60,000 units of Tier 1 industrial waste rapidly melted, purified, and reorganized in the light.

[Synthesis successful!]

[Obtained: Tier 2 steel x 18,000 units, Tier 2 composite rubber x 8,000 units, other Tier 2 materials x 4,000 units!]

The light faded.

Zhou An looked at the latest data in the warehouse, gasped, and his heart pounded.

30,000 units of Tier 2 materials!

Just by flipping it once, it didn't even take ten minutes, and his total assets directly doubled! This was even more profitable than robbery!

"Stepping on my left foot with my right, ascending to heaven!"

Having tasted the sweetness, the madness in the depths of Zhou An's eyes was completely ignited.

"Again!"

He didn't hesitate to split the 30,000 units of Tier 2 materials he had just produced into countless small orders again, smashing them into the regional trading market at a 1:4 ratio like a torrential rain!

Zhou An watched the transaction records jumping continuously in the backend.

"Buy, buy to your heart's content."

Twenty minutes later, the 30,000 units of Tier 2 materials were sold out again.

In Zhou An's warehouse, he welcomed a staggering 120,000 units of Tier 1 materials!

"Upgrade!"

The seven-colored prismatic light shone again, and the 120,000 units of Tier 1 materials began to fuse, replaced by a full 60,000 units of Tier 2 hard currency shining with top-grade luster!

From 15,000, to 30,000, to 60,000! An exponential, viral explosion!

Zhou An looked at the long string of zeros in the warehouse, poured himself a large gulp of ice water, and forced himself to calm down.

"Still not enough."

Zhou An's eyes shot out sharp light, staring at the price curve still fluctuating on the Trading House.

"My goal is to completely squeeze this market's low-level supplies dry!"

"Keep smashing the market! Until the Tier 1 materials are drained by me, until the exchange rate drops to 1:2! As long as there is a profit margin, I will sweep them up until they don't even have a piece of scrap metal left!"