Volume 5 Chapter 5: Pioneer Merchant Group
After returning from the Fantasy Continent that day, Lemming, Awei and others reported several pieces of information to me.
During the month when Xiao Yi and I were traveling, the situation on the Cang Continent changed dramatically. The previous minor conflicts suddenly turned into a full-scale war. The apparent reason was the last dream upgrade. It seemed that the New Era Group deliberately encouraged offense and relaxed some of the conditions for starting a war. In addition, in an alliance war, the number of resurrections after the death of players on both sides was reduced from three to two, which was obviously not good for the defender.
In fact, after such a long time, the gangs are basically well prepared, and it is time to fight for supremacy. In addition, Fantasy has been open for so long, more and more players have joined, and with more people, friction will arise. As the saying goes, where there are people, there are grievances, and where there are grievances, there is the world of martial arts. The ambitious will initiate provocations, and the non-ambitious will be forced to fight back. When the allies are at war with someone, they have to help... Once the war is ignited, it is not so easy to quell. Therefore, whether there is an upgrade or a change in the settings, the era of melee will come.
The deeper reason is the motivation of profit. In Fantasy, the investment in establishing a gang is huge. Although there are people like Xiao Yi who don't care about the money and just play around, there are more people who still hope to make money by establishing a gang, at least to recover the cost.
Originally, if you formally establish a gang, you will have a base, headquarters, and members. You can make some money by opening stores, renting and selling houses, etc., but it costs a lot to maintain the smooth operation of a gang. It is good enough to maintain a balance between income and expenditure with this money, unless your gang can reach a certain scale! So the big fish eat the small fish, the small fish eat the shrimp, the cruel reality of the law of the jungle and natural selection is reflected in the fantasy!
During this month, there were endless mergers, amalgamations, alliances, and gunfights between gangs. The war was constant on the Cang Continent. Gangs disappeared almost every day, and new gangs emerged every day. The situation changed so fast that it could be described as "dazzling".
Under such circumstances, the Thunder Alliance had a big advantage - since the base was chosen in the remote area in the northwest, there were basically no other forces in the west and north of the Thunder Alliance. In the east was the Brotherhood Alliance of Bage, which had always had a good relationship with the Thunder Alliance and was a staunch ally. The several gangs in the south were not as strong as the Thunder Alliance, and they had established friendships with the Thunder Alliance during the battle to defend Pojun City. Some of them even formed an alliance with the Alliance. Therefore, the northwest corner of the continent maintained a rare peace.
On the one hand, this environment is beneficial for the Thunder Alliance to steadily expand its gang size and expand its trade market, but on the other hand, it restricts the development of the Thunder Alliance - it is not good to go to war with an ally for no reason, right? It is even more impossible to turn against Bage.
At this time, the base of the violent gang that once gave us a headache, now the branch of the Thunder Alliance, has become a breakthrough for our external expansion.
However, the Jinglei League has always been clean and reputable, and has never offended anyone. Although we fought the first alliance war in Fantasy and wiped out two gangs in one fell swoop, we were on the right side that time, and no one would say we were wrong. This battle was a great victory, and since then, no other gang dared to provoke us, especially since our alliance with the Brotherhood League was made public, and Xiao Yi and I were married, everyone knew that these three gangs were an iron triangle, and if any one of them was provoked, the other two would jump out to help. One of the three parties was rich, one was powerful (in fact, Myna was also rich), and one was famous. Such an alliance would make everyone wary.
As a result, Lonely and the profiteer were in a dilemma. Taking the initiative to attack didn't seem to fit the image of the Thunder League. But no one came to provoke them. The Thunder Group, which had been training for so long, couldn't find anyone to attack!
As the saying goes, when luck comes, it cannot be stopped. Just at this time, a idiot came to the door.
The leader of the Bajian League, Yijian Batian, a kid who was less than 20 years old, came to the headquarters of the Jinglei League one day and claimed that he was dissatisfied with my title of the number one dream master and wanted to challenge me to a contest.
At that time, Xiao Yi and I were enjoying a romantic trip in the West, so where could he find someone? The profiteer told him the truth and said that he wanted to discuss things with our leader, so he might as well come back in a few days.
This Sword Overlord was full of vigor and vitality, but his social experience was shallow. He didn't know that people's reputations were like trees, and that some people were best not to offend. At that time, he said some unpleasant things, saying that Bloody Sky was just a name, and that it was actually a coward, hiding in the west with its tail between its legs. He was given three days to come back and duel with me, otherwise he would publicly declare that he didn't dare to fight, and gave me the title of the best in the world!
If Lonely had received him, he would have fought on the spot. It was rare for a profiteer to have such a good temper. Merchants always believed that harmony brings wealth. Although he was also unhappy, he did not get angry on the spot. He just said that you did not make an appointment in advance and came rashly. There is no reason for our leader to wait for you. Please leave now. The Thunder Alliance does not welcome you.
Yijian Batian did leave, but he didn't know what was wrong with him. Seeing that the profiteer was so good-tempered, he thought that since the Thunder Alliance was led by a weak and vulnerable person, this gang must have no fighting power, and the victory in the last alliance war was all thanks to the help of the Brothers Alliance. So he had the idea of attacking the Thunder Alliance, and if he could win, he could become famous in one battle.
After he returned, he mobilized all the members of the Bajian League and did not declare war. He was afraid that the Jinglei League would ask for help from the Brother Alliance, so he directly attacked the Jinglei League headquarters one night!
The profiteers and others did not take this small gang seriously. Although the Thunder Alliance attached great importance to intelligence work, they did not take into account gangs like the Sword Alliance with less than 10,000 members. Otherwise, no matter how many intelligence agents they had, they would not be enough. This time, Yijian Batian was really caught off guard!
Fortunately, the members of the Thunder Team are generally online for a long time, with more than half of them online at night, and they often have night training. That night, Xiao Wu was organizing a large-scale exercise with 2,000 people. After receiving the call for help from the headquarters, she immediately interrupted the exercise and led the team to rescue the headquarters.
The elite members of our alliance were indeed powerful. With a surprise attack of 2,000 people, they killed 7,000 members of the Ba Jian Alliance who had already broken into the defense line of the garrison, leaving their corpses everywhere. Together with the few members who stayed behind at the headquarters, they finally drove the Ba Jian Alliance out.
Yijian Batian tried to steal a chicken but ended up losing the rice. Although the system would not prohibit this kind of undeclared war, there would be very severe punishment afterwards, so few people would adopt this tactic unless it was absolutely necessary. The Bajian League failed in its sneak attack and was punished by the system, which seriously damaged its vitality and the morale of the members was low. They knew that they would be retaliated by the Jinglei League next. Seeing that the leader was impulsive and reckless and could not accomplish anything great, many members withdrew from the alliance. The gang that originally had more than 7,000 members was reduced to less than 5,000 members.
After the headquarters was attacked, Awei urged me to come back and then held a meeting to discuss revenge.
There is actually nothing to discuss. It is just like someone sends you a pillow when you are sleepy. It is so comfortable. I am worried that I have no excuse to start a war! This time we declared war on the Hegemony Sword Alliance. It is reasonable. As part of the penalty for sneak attack, the attacked party can fight a revenge war against the other party within a certain period of time. There are many preferential conditions for declaring war, such as claiming high war compensation and only paying a small amount of collateral. How can we miss this opportunity? If it were not that such a big event must wait for me to come back to preside over it, Ji Mo and his men would have sent troops to destroy the Hegemony Sword Alliance long ago!
In fact, our main topic at that meeting had nothing to do with the Ba Jian League, but was about planning and determining the development goals and implementation methods of the Jing Lei League in response to the current situation on the mainland. When the meeting was adjourned, I said, "I have something to do tomorrow, so let's destroy the Ba Jian League the day after tomorrow!" And that was how the matter was settled.
On the third day, the Jinglei League dispatched three thousand members of the Thunder Corps (due to the improvement of financial conditions, the Jinglei League has expanded the size of the Thunder Corps to five thousand), and cooperated with two thousand masters selected from the four major branches to set off for the Bajian League.
Although we declared war openly in advance, and although Yijian Batian tried his best to prepare for defense, the defense line of Bajian League was breached within a quarter of an hour by the thundering attack of Jinglei League - this was not because the opponent was too weak, but because the Thunder Corps was too strong!
The army rushed into the Bajian League's camp. Near the headquarters, Yijian Batian gathered his remaining men for a final resistance. He shouted at the top of his lungs, "Blood Sky, come out! Let's fight one on one! If you have the guts, don't use your numbers to bully the few. Get out here! If you lose, get out of here and go back to the Jinglei League!"
I really don't want to bother with this idiot. I'm having a great time killing people. Tiger Soul's soul power is only a few hundred, and through this alliance battle, the soul power value is increasing rapidly. I wantonly harvest the lives of the defeated soldiers of the Tyrant Sword Alliance. Isn't it a waste of time to fight you? And I'm sure to win. If I lose the duel, you want me to go back. How can he say such ridiculous words!
I made a gesture, and a brigade of archers from the Thunder Corps fired 300 arrows at once, all aimed at Yijian Batian, and shot him into a hedgehog. Before he died, he said his last words: "Bloody Sky, I will come back to avenge you..."
I shrugged. Revenge? Wait until you have the strength to match it before you say that! But I won't give you that chance, because my strength is growing every day, and the gap between you and me will only get bigger and bigger.
After destroying the Bajian League, we got a very ideal branch base, located between Tianshi City and Shenghua City. If I want to use troops in the area of Tianshi City in the future, I can attack from both the original violent group base and the Bajian League base!
Since the annihilation of the Tyrant Sword Alliance, the Thunder Alliance has become unrivaled in the western part of the continent. Although in terms of scale, there are five or six gangs in the west or southwest, such as Mingjian Villa, Shuzhong Tang Sect, Dark King City, etc. that are far larger than the Thunder Alliance. They will definitely be strong opponents of our alliance in the future, but in terms of combat performance, few of them have achieved such a good record as ours.
We also stopped when we were ahead, and did not expand blindly, but digested what I brought back from the West: First, the two Paladin NPCs, which are great guys! There are currently 500 million players in Fantasy, and there are at least 150 million on the Cang Continent, of which nearly one-tenth are knights. Excluding some special branches, most of the rest have to go through the Paladin NPC for the fourth transfer, and except for the two here, they can only go to the Western Continent. The road to the West is not so easy to go, and everyone is willing to get promoted first, improve their strength, and then go to the West to capture mounts.
By this calculation, there are about 10 million people who want to be promoted here!
When the profiteer saw the two NPCs and listened to my explanation of their uses, he fainted on the spot. After waking up, he almost jumped on the NPC and hugged and kissed and bit it. Fortunately, we held him back, otherwise he would be charged with attacking the NPC. And he immediately settled the accounts with us. If each player who was promoted was charged 10 gold coins, the total amount would be 100 million gold coins! 100 million gold coins! That is 100 million RMB, which is more than 70 million after tax deduction. After deducting the NPC's employment fee, system profit sharing fee, etc., the final income can be about 50 million. Those who own 1% of the shares of Jinglei League can share 500,000 dividends. Due to several investments and contributions, I currently own 25% of the shares of Jinglei League and am the largest shareholder. This time, I invited the NPC back. My role in this matter is obviously irreplaceable. After unanimous discussion, another 5% of the shares were assigned to me. I am going to make a fortune! In fact, 10 gold coins is a price that cannot be cheaper. Even if 100 gold coins are charged, the players are definitely willing to pay!
All the people present were core members, and basically everyone had more than 2% of the shares. Everyone was stunned. From then on, whenever they saw the two paladins standing in the headquarters, their eyes would immediately turn into a pair of ￥ shapes!
Finally, the profiteers set the price: a symbolic fee of 10 gold coins will be charged to the brothers of this alliance (there are also subsidies in secret, such as a small equipment reward or something, which more than makes up for the fees they paid, so as to encourage the brothers of this alliance to level up), 70 gold coins will be charged to members of the alliance, and those with particularly good relations, such as the Brotherhood Alliance and Tianshui Pavilion, can get an 20% discount on this basis (relatively speaking, the fees for our magicians to get promoted in Tianshui Pavilion are also very cheap), 100 gold coins will be charged to unrelated gangs or free players without negotiation, and hostile gangs are not allowed to get promoted in this alliance!
The profiteers have made a massive publicity campaign for this. Although there are still very few players who have reached level 60, and this income cannot be obtained immediately, the reputation of the Thunder League has risen to a new level. There are countless players who want to join the league. Although the conditions for selecting members are strict, the size of the gang has expanded from more than 30,000 to more than 50,000 in just ten days! What is more favorable is that there are knights who have reached level 60 to be promoted every day. These people are all masters of today. After dealing with them, after the vigorous recruitment of Awei and others, many free players have joined the Thunder League, and there are even examples of quitting their original gangs and joining this league! With the joining of this group of elite knights, I dare to say that among all the sects in the fantasy world today, the Thunder League is the most powerful in terms of the average personal combat effectiveness of the knights in the gang! Although there may be many undercovers sent by other gangs, as long as they are well controlled, the benefits will always outweigh the disadvantages.
In addition, we also put the issue of developing cross-continental trade on the agenda. Due to the time I spent in the Western Continent, although there are still very few players who have reached level 60, there are quite a few in absolute terms. There are more than a hundred people in our alliance, which is enough to organize a guard team to protect the goods going to the West. Those with Western professions can also be promoted there and then come back.
In Fantasy, you need to reach a very high level of merchant profession to form a caravan, which is a professional skill, and then you can transport a large number of goods over long distances. The profiteer has met this condition, so the first cross-continental caravan in Fantasy, the "Pioneer Caravan", was officially established!
We invested all the funds we had on hand, and I even had the nerve to borrow some money from Xiao Yi. We bought up almost all the gems on the market in the Cang Continent, and purchased a large number of exclusive equipment for Eastern professions, such as professional suits for Taoist priests and Onmyojis, etc., filling up ten carts. After replenishing enough supplies at the Jinglei League, we set off for the Fantasy Continent. If everything goes well, they will bring back a large number of Western specialties, and these specialties will be sold locally, which will eventually bring us several times the profit!
Originally, this first trade was particularly important, and I should have escorted it myself. After all, with an old hand like me who has been there once and knows the way, the safety rate would be greatly improved if I led the team. But I couldn't be away from the Jinglei League, and the profiteer in charge of daily affairs had left. If I, the leader of the league, were to go again, all the things would be placed on his shoulders and he wouldn't be able to handle it. Fortunately, a member of the guard team said that he had made a cross-continental trip during the internal test. Although there might be slight changes after the official operation, he was not completely inexperienced. This made me feel a little relieved. We are betting our entire fortune here, and whether we can get off to a good start depends on this bet. So before leaving, I found the profiteer and reminded him repeatedly, repeating one by one the things we need to pay attention to when traveling through the desert, especially reminding him to beware of mirages. Then I said goodbye to the caravan and secretly prayed for their safety.
As I watched the caravan go away, I began to worry about the things around me. Alas, these are troubled times, these are troubled times! The sea of blood is endless, please don't cause any trouble for me!
