139: Cooperation with Wanbaolou

“Holy crap! It’s an 80-level Epic set!”

Huang Chen held the ancient tome and couldn't help but curse.

80-level Epic equipment would require at least defeating an 80-level Epic boss to drop one or two pieces.

If a blacksmith could forge a certain part of an 80-level Epic equipment, then the blacksmith's status could almost be elevated to being on par with a patriarch.

And what did Talos drop for Huang Chen now?

This was a ten-piece set.

If Forbidden City had ten blacksmiths who learned the forging technique.

Even if they could only forge one set a month, Forbidden City could still acquire 120 Thunder Dragon Sets a year.

That's 1200 sets in ten years.

Excluding weapons, and not to mention other attributes for now, a single set could increase a Trial Taker's maximum HP by 500,000 × 9 = 4,500,000 points.

Coupled with Huang Chen's Lotus Halo, each person's HP would exceed ten million.

Combine that with the Northern Darkness Aura and Reflection... Imagine, during late-stage team battles, these 1200 Earth Element Users standing at the front, and those Trial Takers whose HP is still far less than a million throwing their skills at the Forbidden City camp.

The scene would be too brutal!!

Carefully putting away the Forging Tome.

This tome must be given to the most talented blacksmith in Forbidden City to learn in the future.

And they must only be given it to study after they are able to forge ordinary Epic-grade equipment.

Otherwise, even one wasted attempt would pain Huang Chen for a long time.

Just as Huang Chen put away the tome, Jin Wanliang's message arrived.

【Jin Wanliang: Brother, you’re awesome! An 80-level Epic-grade boss! I can't imagine how you fought it. Did the boss just stand there and let you hit it without fighting back?】

【Huang Chen: Brother Jin flatters me, it was just luck.】

【Jin Wanliang: Brother, stop being modest… As for hatching wyvern eggs and dragon eggs, it’s actually very simple. For a wyvern egg, just drip blood to make it recognize you as its master, then put it into your pet space on the panel. Nourished by your energy, it will hatch in just ten days. And because it hatches from an egg, you don’t even need to learn beast-taming skills. The dragon egg is a bit more troublesome; you need to nourish it with fresh blood every day, and it will hatch after 30 days. The captured dragon will be connected to you by blood and will serve you for life.】

【Jin Wanliang: And the dragon egg is a bit more troublesome; you need to nourish it with fresh blood every day, and it will hatch after 30 days. The captured dragon will be connected to you by blood and will serve you for life.】

【Huang Chen: Thank you, Brother Jin!】

【Jin Wanliang: It’s nothing! By the way, I saw that your team was rewarded with 1000 reputation points. Are you interested in a collaboration?】

After hearing Jin Wanliang's words, Huang Chen's mind suddenly sparked, and he slapped his thigh.

“Holy crap! How could I forget about the cash cow that is the shops.”

Huang Chen was then overcome with ecstasy.

20% of the properties in Central City are operated by NPCs, and the remaining 80% will eventually be sold to Trial Takers.

Star Abyss provides services for Trial Takers, so to ensure a competitive environment for them, NPC shops have regulated price floors.

For example, the retail price of five-flower jade dew is stipulated not to be lower than 10 gold.

However, the cost of five-flower jade dew is only 1.5 gold.

This is a profit margin of more than 6 times!

Although the five-flower jade dew of various races is in short supply, as long as you have a shop, you can purchase a certain quota of five-flower jade dew from NPC shops at a price of 3 gold per month.

Even if you resell it for 9 gold, that's still a 3x profit.

And it's not just pharmacies; Star Abyss also has equipment shops, auction houses, pet shops... In the previous life, all of these were goldmines, earning vast sums daily.

In the previous life, these properties were all bought up by the big players of various factions in the early stages.

And now, no one can afford these properties.

Because to purchase property, one needs the most important thing: reputation!

At this stage, apart from a portion of his Forbidden City members, very few Trial Takers in the entire Star Abyss can acquire reputation, and currently no one has discovered that these properties are for sale.

The more Huang Chen thought about it, the more excited he became, as if he saw countless gold coins waving at him, and tears of joy slowly flowed from the corner of his mouth... He must take them down, at least the core properties in each city.

However, Huang Chen's excitement immediately waned.

Central City has five major cities, and each city has 9999 areas.

Even if he bought one in each area, that would still be 49,997 properties.

Not to mention reputation, even the cheapest property costs over 100,000 gold, and core areas are even more expensive!

Even calculated at the minimum standard, that would be 5 billion gold coins.

And Forbidden City's current liquid assets are less than 70 million gold.

However, Forbidden City doesn't have money, but Myriad Treasures Tower does!

This should also be the reason Jin Wanliang sought his cooperation.

After all, NPCs can only purchase a portion of the shops in designated areas.

And after trillions of years of development, these shops have been completely divided among the various remnant races.

Thinking of this, Huang Chen immediately replied to Jin Wanliang,

【Huang Chen: Brother Jin, how do you plan to cooperate?】

【Jin Wanliang: Brother Huang, you provide the reputation, and I'll provide the money. We'll buy as many shops as we can. After purchasing them, we'll operate them together, and the profits will be split 50/50!】

Getting 50% of the profits just by providing reputation seemed very good.

However, the tens of thousands of taels for purchasing the property were merely a drop in the ocean compared to the millions in monthly profits later on.

Huang Chen looked at Jin Wanliang's message and couldn't help but smile.

【Huang Chen: Brother Jin, I can hear your abacus from Jinling City!】

【Jin Wanliang: Brother Huang, you jest. Business is all about asking for the sky and settling for the ground. Why don’t you tell me your thoughts, Brother Huang?】

【Huang Chen: Currently, Forbidden City has about 100 people with reputation, and only about thirty of them have over a thousand. With our current strength, we are definitely capable of spending this reputation first. After the shops open, does Brother Jin still think Forbidden City will be short on money?】

【Jin Wanliang: You can't say that either. It takes time for shops to develop and make money. If Forbidden City invests all its money into this, it will inevitably greatly slow down Forbidden City's development. I don't think Brother Huang wants to see that. How about Brother Huang names a price? I believe this will definitely be a win-win transaction.】

【Huang Chen: 10/90?】

【Jin Wanliang: Brother Huang, you're joking...】

【Huang Chen: Brother Jin, currently there are tens of thousands of people in Forbidden City over level 50. They definitely occupy more than 90% of Area 49101. If these people of mine go all out to farm reputation during this time, can Brother Jin imagine how many shops we could buy? Moreover, you know how fast our leveling speed is. If I get another 100,000 people to level 50 in a short time... There aren't many people in Central City right now, so aren't high-reputation quests ours for the taking? Calculate how many shops we could buy then!】

After Huang Chen sent this message, Jin Wanliang fell into a long silence.

A 10/90 split seemed exaggerated, but for Jin Wanliang, it was definitely a business that would yield huge profits from a small investment.

Huang Chen didn't believe Jin Wanliang wouldn't be tempted by this lucrative opportunity.

About ten minutes later.

【Jin Wanliang: 20/80! If Brother Huang agrees, I will immediately go and mobilize funds from my family.】

According to Huang Chen, Forbidden City definitely had the ability to acquire enough reputation to purchase 100,000 properties in a short time.

100,000 properties, even at an average of 200,000 gold per property, would require a colossal sum of 20 billion gold coins.

And in reality, it could be even more.

Such a massive capital investment certainly couldn't be decided by Jin Wanliang alone.

【Huang Chen: 15/85, that's my final bottom line. If not, I believe that even if Forbidden City develops slowly, it will eventually acquire this many properties.】

Although 100,000 properties seemed like a lot, when distributed across all regions, it was only about two per region.

If possible, Huang Chen believed Jin Wanliang would definitely want more.

After all, each set was only tens of thousands of gold!

According to the information Huang Chen obtained in his previous life, the transfer price of a single NPC shop generally started at tens of millions of gold.

Compared to that, the price he offered would be absolutely irresistible to Myriad Treasures Tower.

【Jin Wanliang: Good! I need to report to my family.】

【Huang Chen: Waiting for your good news.】

Closing the contact list, Huang Chen then looked up at the core area of Jinling City.