Chapter 102: Discussing Commodity Prices

Wheel of Fortune: "Eat, eat, eat. All you know is how to eat."

The High Priestess: "Hehe, there's an old saying in the Dragon Country: Food is the heaven of the people."

The Emperor: "It'll be ready soon, wait a moment."

Gu Xiaobei spoke while simultaneously reading the chat and cooking.

The Emperor: "By the way, @The Chariot, I want to make a multi-functional kitchen machine. It needs to have many large stoves capable of steaming, deep-frying, stir-frying, and boiling. I'll cover your meals for a month, how about it?"

The Chariot: "Of course that's fine. What do you think about using mana as the heat source?"

The Emperor: "That won't do, my mana capacity isn't high."

The Chariot: "I see. Then I'll try making a low-maintenance magic machine."

Watching the chat between Gu Xiaobei and Orff, Lan Qingyou's brows furrowed. She felt as though there might be a turning point for a certain matter.

The Chariot: "Oh? What is it?"

The Chariot's interest was instantly piqued.

As someone who 'specialized in machinery', he joyfully accepted the 'challenges' given to him by the group members every single time.

Of course, they had to pay an equivalent price. However, since he already had Lan Qingyou's previous promise, he naturally wouldn't demand anything else.

The Tower: "An engine. A mana engine, or an equivalent object capable of driving mechanisms. I'll need at least ten of them as backups."

The Chariot: "Is that all? That isn't a very difficult matter. I designed a model previously when I was fashioning agricultural machinery for The Empress. However, since I'm making it again, I might as well update and iterate on it."

The Chariot: "I remember seeing someone holding the bookBasic Magic Energy Reaction Theoryearlier. Lend it to me so I can take a look."

The High Priestess: "I have it. Sent it to you."

The Chariot: "Thanks."

The High Priestess: "You're welcome."

Mm! You could even borrow books!

This was a pretty good thing!

As matters for scholars, one naturally ought to borrow. Buying and all that just cheapened the value too greatly.

Lan Qingyou's eyes lit up.

One had to know that because many people wanted to learn magical knowledge recently, books were becoming increasingly difficult to gather.

If she could borrow books internally, she wouldn't have to worry about the matter of books anymore.

She wouldn't even have to stare blankly and worry every time she saw so many books amongst the self-selected rewards.

It seemed she truly had joined a pretty decent organization!

The Tower: "@The Moon, I have a checklist here. Help me prepare these items."

The Moon: "No problem. When do you need them?"

The Tower: "The sooner the better."

The High Priestess: "What's this, what's this? It feels like The Moon is The Tower's little lackey."

The Moon: "Haha, rather than saying The Tower is my boss, it's more accurate to say she is my creditor."

Wheel of Fortune: "Tell us your story."

The Moon: "It's nothing much. It's just that during the last mana tide, I owed her hundreds of thousands of mana potions. I'm not sure of the exact number."

Wheel of Fortune: "..."

The High Priestess: "Hundreds of thousands..."

The Chariot: "My goodness! Is this something a human is capable of achieving?"

The Moon: "So..."

Judgement: "@The Moon, how are the commodity prices over on your end? I would like to negotiate a standard commodity price with you."

The Moon: "Private chat."

Judgement: "No, things like this are better discussed publicly."

Chu Yuan figured that since everyone felt the pricing aspect wasn't very public and transparent previously, he might as well discuss it openly right in front of everyone now.

This way, no one would question matters in this regard anymore in the future.

After all, the fundamental reason why he and The Magician, David, originally founded this manor was to give more scholars a better environment to research the magical knowledge of this world.

So that more people could adapt to everything in this world.

Therefore, whether it was regarding business or anything else, he had no intention of obscuring or hiding anything.

To put it plainly, as one of the councilors in the Kalim Supreme Council, he fundamentally didn't lack any of these resources. Thus, he had absolutely no intention of earning money from these people either.

Now that Shang Chuan, a merchant, had joined their midst, regulating commodity prices might conversely create some profit.

Of course, the most important thing was that once the commodity prices were set and agreed upon by everyone, the commodity prices of the entire Kalim Continent wouldn't experience massive fluctuations due to regional estrangement in the future.

The Moon: "Alright. There's actually not much to discuss anyway. In our district, The Tower is the standard for commodity prices."

Judgement: "?"

Although he had heard that commodity prices in Lan Qingyou's district were high, he hadn't expected them to be high to this extent.

Using mana points as a gauge wasn't a bad idea.

The Moon: "Mana points, yes. Using mana points to set the standard commodity price. 1 mana point is equal to one basic unit."

Judgement: "Uh... isn't that a bit too unrefined? Going by this calculation, just how exorbitant are commodity prices over on your end?"

The Moon: "Not that high, I suppose. We've all gotten used to it."

Judgement: "If the commodity prices on our end were calculated like this, it would roughly be equivalent to 3 basic units to 1 mana point."

Wheel of Fortune: "It's 5 units on our end."

The Empress: "It's roughly 2.5 units over here, I think?"

The Moon: "I see. The difference in our commodity prices is quite large! That truly does necessitate a proper discussion."

Pfft!

After typing out these words, Shang Chuan immediately covered his nose to prevent a nosebleed.

Don't panic. This was a normal physiological reaction.

This situation occasionally arose when a person was overly excited.

Good heavens. Were basic units sold this cheaply in other districts?

If he bought low and sold high, wouldn't he make a killing?!

Despite his excitement, Shang Chuan discovered the crux of the issue after a moment of careful thought.

It wasn't that prices in other districts were cheap, it was that the prices in District 666 were far too exorbitant.

Lan Qingyou's sudden rise had single-handedly elevated the unit price of basic units across the entirety of District 666.

1 mana point for 1 basic unit.

This was something people in other districts wouldn't even dare to imagine.

Or rather, District 666's anchoring standard was completely different from other places. It directly pegged itself to 'mana'.

Thus, under the witness of everyone in the group, the professional Shang Chuan and a fellow like Chu Yuan who represented the Supreme Council engaged in a 'consultation'.

The concluding outcome was that the Supreme Council, represented by Chu Yuan, decided to negotiate a currency system to operate, while conveniently also manufacturing some forms of currency.

Such as gold coins, silver coins, and the like.

Of course, this outcome could ultimately only represent the decision of the Supreme Council or those willing to cooperate with them.

Whether each individual district further down would actually follow it was an entirely different story.

To tell the truth, Lan Qingyou was quite dissatisfied with this.

In her eyes, a one-to-one ratio was the only way no one would suffer a loss.

After all, regardless of whether it was 1 mana point for 2 basic units or 2 basic units for 1 mana point, there would always be people suffering a loss.

As a result, Shang Chuan merely responded with a single sentence: "This is business, this is circulation. In this world, there is fundamentally no such thing as a true win-win or genuine fairness."