96 Emergency Acquisition

Zhan Xiaobai waited inside the administrative hall, intending to discuss village affairs with several elders.

The first to return was Jian Ba. He rarely left the village, so upon hearing news of Zhan Xiaobai’s return, he immediately came to the hall. Entering with a smile, he asked, “Hehe, Xiaobai, what did you gain from your trip to Wuwei?”

Zhan Xiaobai smiled back. “There are gains. We’ve made progress on the village upgrade blueprint, but the cost won’t be small. I’m afraid we’ll be exhausted for a while yet.”

Jian Ba nodded and sat down beside him, casually chatting.

Soon after, Qiu Shui returned, visibly tired from her daily rounds inspecting the village’s defenses and security. Seeing Zhan Xiaobai, she smiled warmly. “Brother Bai, you’re back!”

Zhan Xiaobai nodded and invited her to sit nearby.

Finally, the enthusiastic Young Hero Chunqiu, Afei, and Li Asan arrived. The core members of Xiaobai Village were all assembled. Afei exclaimed joyfully, “Big Brother, we’ve been waiting for you! These past few days have been a blast—fighting every day. If I weren’t afraid of causing conflicts between villages, I would’ve led an attack on the neighboring village’s territory by now. Now that you’re back, it’s good to have you take charge.”

Zhan Xiaobai smiled. “Alright, enough of that for now. Let’s get down to business.” He motioned for Afei to calm down.

He then briefed everyone on several crucial matters. The first was his deal with the NPC Jiangjia Village, exchanging a large quantity of goods for a village upgrade blueprint. The second was the blueprint he obtained from a bandit stronghold, which, after verification, turned out to be a blueprint for synthesizing level-10 weapons. The third was that his reputation had reached 29 points, just one shy of qualifying to be the mayor of a medium-sized village.

Looking at everyone, Zhan Xiaobai asked solemnly, “What are your thoughts on these three matters?”

As everyone prepared to speak, Jian Ba broke the usual pattern of speaking last and instead was the first to voice his opinion. “I estimate it won’t be long before other villages learn of the way to obtain the village upgrade blueprint. Therefore, I believe we should act quickly. If this mission is leaked, the price of all raw materials in the market could soar several times overnight, placing enormous pressure on our finances.”

Li Asan hurriedly agreed, “Indeed, Elder Jian Ba’s words are spot on. We must act swiftly.” Both Jian Ba and Li Asan managed the village’s finances and thus understood the hardships well—every copper coin had to be spent sparingly.

The others had no objections and agreed to immediately begin acquiring raw materials. They all understood that securing the village upgrade was the top priority; other matters could wait.

After hearing their consensus, Zhan Xiaobai nodded. “Good. Jian Ba, immediately gather a group of 30 to 40 merchant players with high loyalty and have them stand by. Then, disperse them to secretly purchase raw materials from all villages within a thirty to forty-mile radius. This procurement must be kept absolutely secret; only the most trustworthy merchant players should participate. Deploy everything before tonight and aim to complete this acquisition silently within three days.”

Jian Ba nodded cautiously and went out to urgently contact his trusted merchant players. To ensure absolute security, he didn’t even reveal the nature of the operation as a raw material purchase—only that there would be a collective action and that they needed to assemble immediately. Given the frequent trade activities in Xiaobai Village, such a gathering of merchants was unremarkable and drew no suspicion.

After sending out the contacts, Jian Ba returned to the administrative hall and told Zhan Xiaobai, “In an hour, we can gather 30 merchants with sufficient loyalty. This number should be enough to complete the purchase; more than that might attract unwanted attention.”

Zhan Xiaobai nodded. “By the way, I have the price list from Jiangjia Village. Jian Ba, Li Asan, study it to figure out how to minimize resource expenditure while purchasing the maximum amount of raw materials from the market.”

He took out a detailed price list showing all the prices for low-level raw materials.

Jian Ba took the list and, along with Li Asan, went outside to the courtyard. Without paper, they used dry twigs to draw and calculate on the sandy ground—the most primitive method.

The others came out to watch their calculations.

Afei, curious, leaned in but was overwhelmed by the dense numbers and quickly stepped back, thinking to himself that this kind of work was unbearable compared to fighting.

After a short while, while Li Asan was still pondering, Jian Ba had already reached a conclusion using a simple approach.

He shook his head and sighed to Zhan Xiaobai, “I roughly estimated that the prices of raw materials on this list are about five to ten times higher than the current market prices. To purchase 100 strings of coins worth of goods, we’d need to expend at least 10 to 20 strings of copper coins, which is beyond our current financial capability.”

“Oh? Then how much funding can we muster now?”

“Our reserve is four strings; at most, we can allocate three strings for this. Of course, we could circulate copper coins from our village market, but that would greatly disrupt normal trade...” Jian Ba hesitated, then suggested, “I think it would be better to use +5-grade medicines and newly produced iron weapons to trade with other villages for raw materials. There’s strong market demand for healing potions and iron weapons, and their prices are stable. Players would be willing to accept them.”

“Hmm, that’s a good idea.” Qiu Shui did some mental calculations and added, “We can produce healing potions and iron weapons ourselves at very low cost, but they sell at high prices. In that case... we only need to spend about one string of coins to create ten strings’ worth of potions and weapons, which we can then trade to obtain the raw materials we need. Afterward, we use those raw materials to exchange for the upgrade blueprint from Jiangjia Village, valued at 100 strings.”

Young Hero Chunqiu was amazed. “Just that little money? This deal is incredibly profitable!”

Jian Ba laughed and explained, “Hehe, that’s the importance of commercial intelligence. Right now, raw materials are extremely cheap and not very useful, but once the news spreads that raw materials can be exchanged for blueprints, their prices will skyrocket. We simply won’t be able to purchase large quantities at such low prices. Also, there are different grades of raw materials; some are worthless and no one wants them, while others are urgently needed and costly.”

Everyone began discussing which raw materials would be the most cost-effective to purchase.

Zhan Xiaobai paced alone in the courtyard, contemplating how to maximize profits from this raw material acquisition. Hearing Jian Ba’s words, he had a sudden thought and asked, “Jian Ba, if this upgrade blueprint mission is made public, to what extent do you think the prices of raw materials like hides, ores, and herbs will surge? What would the short- and long-term trends look like?”

“Once the news spreads, prices could easily double or triple overnight. If villages scramble to prevent raw materials from falling into competitors’ hands, a tenfold increase within two weeks wouldn’t be surprising. In the long run, as more consumption channels open, prices will inevitably rise,” Jian Ba answered.