500 bundles, 100 blueprints per bundle.
Hiss!
Chen Yu gasped by the window.
Wholesale?
He truly hadn't expected, before coming, that the circulation of legendary upgrade blueprints from the auction house would be so immense.
50,000 copies!
It was truly astonishing.
However, from this, a small detail was exposed.
Not fearing unsold stock even with tens of thousands of legendary upgrade blueprints showed that such blueprints had a huge market and their consumption could keep up.
“It seems the underground population is absolutely not small, and the area is vast.”
Chen Yu murmured.
In fact, Chen Yu had suspected this for a long time. Imagine billions of foreigners flooding into the underground, yet rarely encountering each other in the same area.
This represented segmented areas numbering in the tens of billions.
Before integration, small spaces could have an area of a hundred square meters, and large spaces could have an area of ten thousand square meters. Multiplying this by tens of billions.
May I ask?
Wasn't this an astronomical figure?
Chen Yu even suspected if he was no longer on the lovely Blue Star, but had traveled to Jupiter.
Of course—
These were just Chen Yu's idle thoughts when he had nothing to do; they held no real significance for him. However, the legendary upgrade blueprints at this moment were something he was determined to obtain.
It's just, why does it feel so noisy downstairs?
“500 bundles, this is a really large quantity this time.”
“10,000 gold coins?”
“Are they trying to rob us? When did a bundle of legendary upgrade blueprints cost 10,000 gold coins? They’re not even this expensive on the black market.”
“Right, where are they so expensive!”
Chen Yu listened carefully.
He was stunned.
Was it that the legendary upgrade blueprints were being auctioned bundle by bundle? Wouldn't that be too inefficient, taking ages to finish?
“Everyone!”
At this moment, the auctioneer Dai Bijiao’s soft and sweet whisper entered the ears of everyone at the auction.
“For this auction, the auction house has adopted a new model.” Dai Bi whispered with a smile, “500 bundles will be auctioned simultaneously. This means your bid will determine the final ownership of all legendary upgrade blueprints.”
Wow!
The auction house erupted in an uproar, with protests ceaselessly echoing.
“Why!”
“Auctioning 500 bundles simultaneously, aren't you trying to cut off the livelihoods of us individual buyers? When did the Elton Chamber of Commerce become a running dog of capital!”
“Protest, protest!”
The clamor was incessant.
In the past, when items were auctioned individually, these individual buyers still had some chance to participate, to get a small taste. Now, with 500 bundles being auctioned together, the transaction price would certainly be tens of thousands.
They simply couldn't afford it.
Meanwhile, Chen Yu was bewildered.
“What’s going on?”
“Why are these people downstairs protesting?”
“This auction’s participation method is by invitation. If you receive an invitation from the Elton Chamber of Commerce, you should have some strength. Can’t even afford tens of thousands of gold coins?”
Chen Yu muttered.
“Do you think everyone is like you? Getting hundreds of gold coins from opening treasure chests, tens of thousands from extortion, and millions from selling canned food?” the little demon appeared on Chen Yu’s shoulder and whispered, “The Chamber of Commerce’s invitations don't just invite wealthy merchants; they also invite freelance mercenaries and wilderness camp lords. These people don't have much money.”
“There’s such a thing?” Chen Yu exclaimed.
“Furthermore—”
The little demon, with its arms crossed, sat on the windowsill, dangling its little legs.
“Even if they have money, they need to spend it wisely. This auction doesn’t just have this one item. Are they going to forfeit all subsequent items just to buy upgrade blueprints?”
“The people downstairs buy these consumable items for their own use.”
“Not for speculation.”
“Now that they’ve lost the ability to participate, it means they’ll have to buy them on the black market in the future. Paying double, how can they stand it, even if it’s just a few hundred gold coins?”
“Also, even wealthy merchants.”
“If they can come to the auction in such a small city-state, how strong can they really be? Probably very few of them are richer than you.”
“If your canned food is included, you could be the richest person in this city-state.”
Hoh.
Hearing this, Chen Yu became full of confidence.
Richest person.
Had he really become so accomplished now?
Although it was just the richest person in a small city-state, it felt like being the richest person in his former small county town; it was still quite impressive.
“So what will the Elton Chamber of Commerce do now? It seems the people below are making a lot of noise.”
Chen Yu frowned.
“How would I know?” the little demon spread its hands. “If you ask me, if the Chamber of Commerce wants to retrieve funds, they shouldn’t invite these freelance mercenaries. They want to retrieve funds, cultivate clients, and save time and operational costs. Where can you find such a good deal underground? Trying to get everything, they’ll end up getting nothing.”
The little demon, with its arms crossed, spoke eloquently.
“I really don’t know who came up with this idea, it’s incredibly stupid!”
Achoo.
Ronnie, sitting in the private room, rubbed her nose.
“You’re being scolded, aren’t you?” the foxy elder looked at her with a smile. “I advised you not to do this back then, but you insisted on planning it this way. Now you’ve learned your lesson, haven’t you?”
“I…”
Ronnie, with a pouting little mouth, looked wronged.
She was the planner.
As someone who had passed her coming-of-age ceremony, even women from noble families needed to take over the family industries. This plan was her first attempt.
Confirming participants by invitation was also her idea.
Simply put, this auction was intended for Ronnie to try her hand. The patriarch of the Elton family had also agreed to confirm the participants by inviting old clients.
It was considered a small internal auction.
As the auction’s old clients, even if some problems arose during the auction, they should be able to understand and accept it, showing some tolerance for the auction.
Unfortunately—
Ronnie still messed it up.
She hadn't expected that the very first item officially put up for auction would cause such a big reaction, and mostly a negative one.
“I… I actually had good intentions,”
Ronnie, secretly looking outside, bit her lip and whispered.
“I know, Third Grandfather understands your intentions.” The foxy elder gently patted Ronnie’s wronged little head. “You wanted to save time costs and also maximize profit with this method.”
Ronnie, wronged, nodded with a pouting mouth.
She had attended several auctions and noticed that when auctioning everyday consumable items like legendary blueprints and upgrade guides, wealthy merchants seemed to have reached some kind of consensus and discussed among themselves for procurement.
The prices were simply not selling well.
She wanted to break this tacit understanding among the merchants using this method, but she overlooked the invited freelance mercenaries and wilderness camp lords.
“You must consider all aspects when thinking in the future,”
The foxy elder's tone was gentle. Ronnie pursed her lips and said,
“What should we do now?”
She was truly panicking, not knowing what to do. This was her first battle after taking over the family business, and she really wanted her father to see her capabilities.
Before the auction, she was full of confidence, waiting for her father’s praise.
Who would have thought—
Alas!
She truly wished for a hero, like in a fairy tale, to come and save her.
“Ding ding ding…”
Suddenly, a metallic banging sound echoed throughout the auction, followed by a rebellious whisper.
“You bunch of couch potatoes downstairs, please stop your prattling!”