The World Online

Chapter 99- Prelude

Translator: TeamTWO

Editor: Levs

For the following 3 days, the territory was very calm and quiet. In the blink of an eye, the system auction was nearing in and Ouyang Shuo started to gather funds in his territory.

……

3rd month 29th day, Shanhai Town's second sale of sea salt.

The Northern Saltworks had been expanded twice since the last sales. The third expansion of the salt pans on the 2nd month 26th day, its scale was 2000 mus. The expansion on the 3rd month 3rd day expanded the salt fields to 5000 mus. With an average of 500 units of salt per acre, minusing the time taken to build and expand the saltpans, the production of salt reached a staggering 3.5 million units.

The market sold each unit at 20 copper so 3.5 million units of sea salt would sell for 7000 gold, with the 20% trade tax, he would receive 5600 gold. Further deducting the costs of running the salt pans, the earnings were 5000 gold. Ouyang Shuo thought about the heavy taxes and it felt like his heart was bleeding.

……

3rd month 30th day, Langshan mining field presented its gold to the camp.

The Langshan Mining field currently have 1500 miners, 1000 of which were in charge of mining, the other 500 were involved in transporting and extracting the gold. The mining field could mine an average of 100 tonnes of gold ore, extracting out 2000 grams of gold which was at least 100 gold.

Deducting the costs of running the mine, in half a month, the earnings would be 1500 gold coins.

One mustn't look at the fact that the profits from the gold mine was lower than the salt pans and think that the salt pans had an advantage. The mine was set up for a shorter time of only half a month. The mines only had 1500 people as compared to the 2500 in the saltpans.

Using the average profits of each worker, one salt pan worker made 2 gold every month while one miner made 3 gold. This added with the fact that the Langshan mine didn't need to pay 20% tax, making it more profitable than the saltpans.

As for the financial income of the territory, ever since the wine brewery was shifted under the Finance Department, the financial situation got a positive improvement. However if one wanted to talk about profits, now wouldn't be the right time. One reason was that the territory was still in constant building and needed injections of money. Secondly was the Business Division using methods to stimulate the economy, hence needing cash to sustain it. Hence, as long as the Finance Department could maintain balance, Ouyang Shuo would be delighted.

After all calculations, Ouyang Shuo had 7570 gold on hand, making him confident for the upcoming system auction. At the current stage, even the richest Chun Shenjun wouldn't have over 1000 in gold. It wasn't that they weren't rich but their territories needed constant injections of gold, even only the military also needed huge amounts of gold. Only Shanhai Town, with the two golden gooses of the salt pans and the gold mines could have so much gold.

……

3rd month 31st day,

Gaia finally announced the system auction and real life exchange system.

"System notification: to celebrate three months of the game, the system will organize the first system auction on the 4th month 1st day. There will be many rare goods available so look forward to it! Reminder: players must upgrade market to intermediate grade before they can join."

The moment the notification went out, all the lords from the strong powers wanted to fight for the best goods. They rushed all the men under them to get more gold no matter what the price.

……

Handan Town, Di Chen asked Juedai Fenghua, "How much funds can we move now?"

Juedai Fenghua frowned and said, "After we upgraded to grade 3 town, we spent so much on buying building blueprints and upgrading to advanced barracks. The military doesn't have enough funds to expand, how can we have any money that we can move?"

"Then how? According to my family news, a rare weapon and equipment making blueprint will appear and we mustn't miss it. I'll go offline and try to gather some gold, since there's one day left maybe I can gather enough." Di Chen shook his head helplessly.

"That's the only way." Juedai Fenghua didn't have any other better method.

……

Pill Sun Town, Chun Shenjun called the financial butler of the territory and asked, "How much gold have we gathered?"

The butler laughed and said, "Lord, don't worry, after two months of building up, we can move 2 thousand gold and I believe no one else can compare."

Chun Shenjun nodded his head, obviously pleased, "Seems like not upgrading to a third grade Town was a right decision. Ever since the family got the news about the auction, we have prepared for 2 months, it's finally time to taste the fruits of our labor. Di Chen that fool, he extravagantly upgraded to a grade 3 town, he must be regretting so much now."

"Lord is smart!" The butler said.

……

In Swordsman Town, Feng Qingyang looked at his sister and asked, "Little sister, is there really no way?"

Feng Qingyue said, "Big brother, although we have gotten large amounts of money from Qingyang Sword sect, but these funds were used to buy secret techniques. In tomorrow's auction, we can only give up. We can only blame the family news from being too slow and not being able to find out about the auction early enough.”

Feng Qingyang was not willing, originally he had thousands of gold but because of the lack of information, he used it in the wrong area.

"Why don’t we sell some of the secret techniques to gain funds for the auction?"

"We definitely cannot do that, selling to the market will incur 20% tax, it’s not worth it." Feng Qingyue rejected.

"Okay, I'll listen to you." Feng Qingyang could only accept his fate.

……

Xiongba sat in the King Town, asking impatiently, "How? Have you discussed with Wandering Magic?"

An old man who sat opposite Xiongba nodded and said, "Lord don't worry, negotiations have went well. They agreed to lend all their gold to us, the conditions being after we create the equipment with the blueprints, that Fallen Leaves Village would have the priority of buying.”

"Good, he is a good brother, I can count on him on crucial times. How about this, we can't treat them too badly, tell them when we create the equipment we will give them 100 sets." Xiongba happily said, he was an old fox and managed to think of such a method to raise funds.

"Lord is a genius!" The old man said respectfully.

"Haha, to be the best, we need to be smart." Xiongba said with glee.

……

In Consonance Town, the four sisters gathered.

"Elder sis, tomorrow's auction, what strategy are we using?" The one who asked was Zi Luolan.

Bai Hua shook his head and said, "We have only 600 gold so we can only adapt to the situation."

"That's right, tomorrow let's focus on one or two goods and items that no one wants and get them. As for the popular ones then let the big powers fight."

"En, fourth Sister's suggestion is good, let's follow it."

……

The various powers tried to find gold, and the balance was broken, the price of game cash rose. From the original 1 copper to 2 credits it rose to 1 copper for 5. In the end, it actually went up to 10 credits, meaning 1 gold for 100 thousand credits.

If Ouyang Shuo sold all his gold, he would have instantly had 700 million credits. There was a period in time where he couldn't resist and wanted to sell a portion of his gold and buy it back when the price dropped, but in the end, he managed to resist.

One reason was that he didn't know what would be on the auction and secondly, it used a lot of energy which wasn't worth the time.

"System notification: To control the gold and credit trading, the system will open an item exchange platform on the 4th month 1st day 2pm. Players could exchange real credits and items. the system will take 2% as fees."

The opening of the item exchange could expand the trades and dealings in the game. Those powerful players could more conveniently buy more game coins through the platform.

Ouyang Shuo knew that the various powers would want to directly exchange credits to game coins but as it affected the game balance, the authorities declined. This item exchange platform was the end product of both sides taking a step back.

Listening to the system report, Di Chen and Chun Shenjun's faces turned green. The system lacked morals, purposely owning the system after the auction, not allowing them to sweep up all the game cash.