Chapter 277: Means of Production |
Both parties were very satisfied with this transaction.
Compared to the tense situation in the script, I Love a Sword relaxed significantly. He took off his Daoist priest outfit and changed into a loose short-sleeved shirt and shorts. The two bid farewell to each other, and Bai Mu wasn't in a hurry to return to his room; instead, he went to the player market to make some purchases.
He still had over 10,000 points, of which over 4,000 belonged to Xiao Wei. With the remaining 6,000 or so, he spent 1,800 points to buy another cross sword with the 'Holy' attribute.
[Name: Azure Light]
[Type: Melee Weapon]
[Quality: Rare]
[Attack Power: Strong]
[Attribute: Holy]
[Equipment Effect: Automatically senses evil spirits and demons. The blade will glow and vibrate to alert the user. Damage dealt to undead and demon-type enemies +40%. Upon hitting a target, there is a 30% chance to trigger a 'Purify' effect, dealing an additional instance of holy damage and dispelling one layer of beneficial status from the target.]
[Note: A holy longsword engraved with runes, produced by a dwarf master. Azure Light has a little-known history; it was once held by a skeleton to slay a notorious necromancer.]
Fire, Holy, Ice, Yin, Thunder. Now he had sword and blade equipment of five different attributes. In addition to this, he also bought 5 Common grade katanas to use as backup ammunition for Sacrificial Passage. At 200 points each, he spent a total of 1000 points.
Next, he went to purchase materials for crafting talismans and alchemical pills. The cheapest kind was nothing more than things like 'candies' and 'bread'.
However, the quantity sold on the market wasn't as much as he imagined. Items like candies were basically only produced in low-grade scripts. Although the number of low-level players was large, one must know that F-grade players had not unlocked the market. And players who had unlocked the market rarely obtained this kind of low-grade item in new scripts.
This thing inherently didn't have much of a market and couldn't be sold very easily. Compared to listing it on the market, more people preferred to keep it for themselves.
Therefore, Bai Mu only managed to buy about 10,000 or so candy-type items, costing him a total of 1723 points.
Afterward, he returned to his Community room and began to fiddle with the 'True Interpretation of Talismans' and 'True Interpretation of Alchemy'.
What made him feel a bit depressed was that these two items actually didn't have an option for batch synthesis. He had to throw them in three at a time and click synthesize. One operation took almost a second.
He could only act like an assembly line worker, taking out three candies from his inventory, then throwing them in, clicking synthesize, taking out three candies, throwing them in, clicking synthesize...
He repeated this action a full 3,000 times, spending an hour mechanically clicking away, which eventually caused his eyes to go a bit numb. Upon seeing a candy, he would habitually throw it into the synthesis slot.
If Xiao Wei hadn't suddenly brought a bowl of beef noodle soup in front of him and told him it was time to eat, he almost wouldn't have reacted.
"Clearly there's no physical activity, so why does it feel more mentally exhausting than running a script?" Bai Mu shuddered, thinking to himself that the assembly line was truly a terrifying creation.
However, although mentally exhausted, he did indeed manage to produce quite a few alchemical pills and talismans.
From a full 3,000 operations, even with a synthesis success rate of only 1%, he still produced over 150 alchemical pills and over 150 talismans.
The alchemical pills were mainly 'Qi-Restoring Powder'. He synthesized 105 portions of 'Qi-Restoring Powder' and 43 portions of 'Vitality Paste'. As for the talismans, they were evenly split between Low-Grade Fire Talismans and Low-Grade Thunder Talismans, with 73 'Low-Grade Fire Talismans' and 78 'Low-Grade Thunder Talismans'.
Consumables like Qi-Restoring Powder that could restore Mana, although the Mana restoration was relatively low at 20 points per minute, still had a huge market. A stack of 10 portions of Qi-Restoring Powder could sell for about 200 points. The price of Vitality Paste was a bit lower; after all, it didn't heal instantly. A stack of 10 portions could sell for about 150 points.
Calculating it out, just the alchemical pills alone, if sold completely, could earn him around 2600 points, easily covering his costs. As for the Low-Grade Fire Talismans and Low-Grade Thunder Talismans, both were attack-type talismans. Not only did they have special attack effects against ghosts and monsters, but fire talismans could also be used to start a fire in certain situations. Thus, their price was the same as Qi-Restoring Powder, meaning the total value of these talismans was also around 3000 points.
Relying on the synergy between the Lucky Dagger and the two True Interpretations, after deducting the capital, he unexpectedly earned about 4000 points in an hour. This efficiency was frighteningly high, even faster than earning money by running scripts.
However, they were still just items at the moment. To truly turn them into cash, he still had to list them on the market and wait for the cash flow to return. This cycle wouldn't be too long; after all, they were all useful consumables. Although the market would saturate, his current output wouldn't reach the point of saturation. In about a month or so, they would all be converted into cash.
The only pity was that he couldn't do this kind of operation anytime he wanted, because the candies serving as raw materials for synthesis had just been bought out by him.
Using other items for synthesis was truly not cost-effective. Alchemical pills could only be synthesized using food-type items, while talismans required non-food materials besides candies. The materials were not interchangeable. He didn't know the principle behind this; maybe it was because sugar was also a raw material when Daoist priests drew talismans?
In short, cheap raw materials in small units like candies were almost non-existent on the market. He had checked earlier; besides candies, the most abundant items were bread, compressed biscuits, and instant noodles. The price of a bag of 24 pieces of bread was similar to a large bag of 300 candies, both around 50 points. However, the former could only be synthesized 8 times, while the latter could be synthesized over 100 times. Using bread for synthesis would only bankrupt him.
He could only wait for the candy reserves in the market to increase before he could earn another wave of extra income.
As for using the raw materials specified in the True Interpretations to synthesize... honestly, that would depend on market prices. At least based on the raw material prices he saw last time, he could at best manage not to lose money.
"Toiling away as coolie labor in a script is truly not as effective as reselling," Bai Mu sighed with emotion.
He deeply realized that to get rich, one still had to hold the means of production.
However, he didn't list all the alchemical pills and talismans on the market to sell. He kept 10 portions of Vitality Paste for himself as emergency use. The healing efficiency of this thing was higher than Health Potions, and in non-urgent situations, it could be used as a substitute for painkillers.
He kept 30 portions of Qi-Restoring Powder. The Mana bar was an important attribute. Xiao Wei had Witch's Aptitude and Blood of God, so she basically wouldn't lack Mana, but he was still quite short on Mana when casting skills.
As for the talismans, he only kept 20 Low-Grade Fire Talismans for himself, but he kept 30 Low-Grade Thunder Talismans.
The use of thunder talismans was broader for him; they could create noise and light to attract enemies. As for fire talismans, he had the Flaming Sword. Plus, this item was low-grade, and its damage was average, so he kept fewer of them.
On the very day he listed them, people bought them, and he received several batches of points.
It would probably take some time to sell everything, and no one had shown interest in the Constable class change book yet.
Therefore, he wasn't in a hurry to run a script. He planned to test the waters of that new mode first, stay inside for about 30 days, and by the time he came out, his cash should have all arrived in his account.