Chapter 1 The Potion Market

The potion industry was highly competitive, with everyone undercutting each other to seize market share. This drastically reduced profits, forcing even Starry Night Potion Shop to attract customers with low prices. Among potion makers' clients, the large guilds were the biggest consumers. They had money, and to save on guild expenses, they often purchased potions in bulk. Due to the huge quantities they bought, they would relentlessly drive down prices. The ordinary potion shops, in order to land such big orders, would accept them even if the profit margins were razor-thin, relying on volume to win. Some potion shops, in order to gain long-term customers, even accepted orders at a loss in the beginning, showing how intense the competition was.

Small, workshop-style potion shops couldn't compare to Starry Night Potion Shop in scale, the variety of potions they could make, and so on, but they still survived by offering lower prices. However, their potion makers were miserable, often working more than ten hours a day for unsatisfactory wages.

Major guilds also had their own exclusive teams of potion makers, sometimes of considerable size, but the potions they produced were generally only for internal guild use, and often couldn't meet demand. No other guild's potion industry could reach the scale of Starry Night Potion Shop in the Niu Ren Tribe. The potion makers of guilds like Angel Corps, Zhushen's Sword, and Light and Darkness Empire could only supply about 30% of their own guild's needs, which was already considered a high standard. It was even more impossible for them to have any potions left over to sell. They mainly relied on large-scale purchases from outside potion shops.

Niu Ren Tribe had a total of nearly 150,000 to 160,000 potion makers, all of elite level, and all receiving high salaries. There were millions of potion makers outside, with varying skill levels. Only about 100,000 of them were qualified to meet Starry Night Potion Shop's hiring standards. Nie Yan's goal was intermediate and advanced potion makers. As for low-end potion makers, although he would absorb some, it was impossible to absorb millions of them.

Therefore, he mainly focused on the intermediate and advanced potion market. There were too many low-level potions; they were sold by street vendors everywhere, and even if he controlled that part of the market, it wouldn't be of much value. An intermediate or advanced potion could sell for five or six gold coins, or even hundreds of gold coins for the expensive ones, while a low-level potion sold for one or two silver coins, or even just a few dozen copper coins for the cheap ones. The added value was small, and it was difficult to industrialize. As long as he controlled the intermediate and advanced potion makers, he would control the market. As for the low-level potion makers, once they reached the intermediate and advanced levels, Starry Night Potion Shop would offer them high salaries, and he didn't believe those guys wouldn't be tempted.

Considering all these factors, the market still had great potential.

Under the guidance of Nie Yan and Guo Huai, the Niu Ren Tribe players began to buy up intermediate and advanced medicinal herbs in the major auction houses. Generally, low-level medicinal herbs were not put up for auction, because putting them in the auction house wouldn't even earn back the handling fee.

Nie Yan estimated that to buy up about 50% of the intermediate and advanced medicinal herbs produced on the market that day would require about five to six million gold coins. Players consumed a lot of potions every day. As he bought up more herbs, the amount of herbs on the market would decrease, and the existing potions would gradually be consumed. Continuing to buy for five or six days would be enough to move the price of the herbs.

The more capital invested, the greater the impact on the price of the herbs.

Since Nie Yan started raising funds, the internal branches of the Niu Ren Tribe, as well as Holy Roman Empire, Garan Temple, Ares Tribe, Radiant Sacred Flame, and Berserker Alliance, all began raising funds. The fundraising went quite well throughout the day. Nie Yan tallied the results: Holy Roman Empire raised 2.2 million gold coins, Garan Temple raised 2 million gold coins, Ares Tribe raised 2.8 million gold coins, Radiant Sacred Flame raised 2 million gold coins, Berserker Alliance raised 1.9 million gold coins, the Niu Ren Tribe's various branches raised 3.6 million gold coins, and the Niu Ren Tribe itself raised 6.5 million gold coins. In total, they had more than 20 million, and the amount was still increasing.

In addition to this money, Nie Yan modified the guild warehouse system. For every gold coin donated to the guild, players could get almost 50% more guild contribution points than usual. This greatly increased the speed at which players donated gold coins. In just one day, the guild warehouse alone raised 1.2 million gold coins, but the number of equipment in the guild warehouse also decreased by nearly 10%.

Such a big move by the Niu Ren Tribe quickly attracted the attention of the Monet Financial Group.

Zhushen's Sword headquarters.

Qin Han was still anxiously waiting for news from the necromancer Bodman. His skeleton army was standing still, only occasionally harassing the Niu Ren Tribe's fortress. He wanted to wait for the necromancer Bodman to return before daring to continue his attack.

"Boss, the Niu Ren Tribe has been raising funds recently. They've already raised at least nearly 20 million gold coins," Shenjian Wushuang said. He was also shocked when he received this news. A guild's ability to raise funds was directly proportional to its credibility. Ordinary guilds spent money quickly, having to give a lot of money to their players every day to maintain normal operations, but getting money out of them was as difficult as climbing the heavens. Taking Zhushen's Sword as an example, it would be very good if Zhushen's Sword could raise one million gold coins from its players. The Niu Ren Tribe was actually able to raise more than 20 million gold coins. This was too terrifying.

Qin Han frowned and asked, "What is the Niu Ren Tribe trying to do by raising so much money?"

"I don't know. We haven't found any movement of these funds," Shenjian Wushuang said.

The volume of transactions in the auction house every day was so large that even if some anomalies occurred, it would be difficult to detect them, especially since Nie Yan had spread his operations so widely, buying herbs in so many cities at the same time, which didn't cause any fluctuations in the market. Under such circumstances, Shenjian Wushuang had no way of tracking the flow of Nie Yan's funds.

"Pay close attention!" Qin Han said in a deep voice. Nie Yan had raised such a large sum of money, so he must have a big plan.

"Yes!" Shenjian Wushuang replied, and he sent people to search for the flow of Nie Yan's funds.

Inside the auction house in Thunderfire City, a player wearing ordinary production profession robes, looking unremarkable, entered the auction house.

He opened the medicinal herbs section in the auction house and began to buy in large quantities, making bids for everything within a reasonable price range.

Soon, more than 80,000 gold coins were used up. After doing all this, he quietly disappeared into the crowd.

Several players in the auction house who had just sold a large number of herbs, with gold coins in their pockets, smiled happily.

"The herbs sold really well today. All three of my stacks of herbs were sold, and I got 20 gold coins."

"Mine too."

"Tomorrow, I'll bring out all the remaining herbs to sell."

As for the potion makers in another corner, they had originally wanted to buy some low-priced herbs to make potions, but when they found that there were no herbs at suitable prices, they left one after another. Anyway, there was still a certain amount of potions in their potion shops, enough to sell for a few more days.

Similar situations occurred in almost every city's auction house, but because the activity was relatively small, it didn't attract the attention of the players.

The same situation continued on the second, third, fourth, and fifth days. Although it attracted the attention of some players in the first few days, they didn't pay enough attention to it. By the fifth day, the shortage of medicinal materials began to slowly become apparent. Those selling medicinal herbs began to consciously raise the price of the herbs, while the potion makers, because the price of the herbs was too expensive, worried that no one would want the potions they made, so they were in a wait-and-see state, wanting to wait for the price of the herbs to come down before buying them. Some people helplessly bought the expensive herbs, because some of the potions in their potion shops had already been sold out, and if they didn't make new potions to sell, the potion shops would run out of stock.

Many people thought that the price of herbs would come down sooner or later, because the market demand wasn't that big, but the era of low-priced herbs was gone forever. The price of herbs soared day by day, and the price of each type of intermediate and advanced herb increased by at least 50%. Some of the rarer herbs even soared by two or three times.

Nie Yan returned to Starry Night Potion Shop. In order to store the herbs, Starry Night Potion Shop had specially customized a large warehouse, which only Nie Yan could open.

These herbs were Nie Yan's lifeblood. If something went wrong, the Niu Ren Tribe would be finished, so he had to be cautious.

Nie Yan walked to the warehouse, opened it, and immediately a lot of warehouse space appeared. Each page had 5,000 slots. The herbs here were placed in different categories. Each page had a large number of herbs of the same type, some with as many as tens of thousands of stacks, and others with five or six thousand stacks. Each stack had twenty plants.

Nie Yan looked at the number of pages, a full five or six hundred pages.

Currently, he had bought nearly 60% of the herbs on the herb market!

All the potion makers of the Niu Ren Tribe were gathered together. They received a large number of herbs and began to work hard, producing potions on a large scale. A large number of potions were transported to the various branches of Starry Night Potion Shop every day.

The prices of potions in the various branches of Starry Night Potion Shop had basically increased by more than 50%. Some of the more outrageous ones had soared several times, but even these prices were only just equal to the price of raw materials on the market.

"Guo Huai, how much money do we have left?" Nie Yan asked.

"Only five or six million left," Guo Huai said. They had really been spending money like water in the past few days. More than 30 million gold coins had been used up in a few days. No one spent money like this, even if they had it!

"It doesn't matter. The price of herbs has already entered an upward channel. Even if we don't buy anymore, the price will continue to rise," Nie Yan said with a smile.

Guo Huai thought for a moment and understood. Buying herbs was the same as speculating in futures on the market. One-tenth of the buying could move the price of futures, let alone Nie Yan buying so much. The shortage of herbs destined the price to soar.