Chapter 222 - Trump Card

Chapter 222 - Trump Card
Immediately after Shi Feng gave his command, Anna started making the necessary preparations.
Compared to a normal NPC, Anna was simply too smart. In just a short amount of time, she had already finished carrying out Shi Feng’s request.
During the time Shi Feng brainstormed on how he was going to utilize the Starstreak Trading Firm to earn 30,000 Gold, the entire Starstreak Trading Firm had also started its renovation. Following Shi Feng’s request, the first and second floors were outfitted with sales counters. The first floor sold only the commonly used items, while the second floor would sell exquisite and precious items. Meanwhile, the fourth to sixth floors were refurbished into workshops for Lifestyle players.
Out of those three floors, the fourth floor consisted of solely Forging Rooms, while the fifth floor consisted of Potionmaking Rooms. The sixth floor consisted of workshops for the remaining classes and a warehouse meant for the use of both NPCs and players.
Meanwhile, the Starstreak Trading Firm’s renovation had attracted the attention of many players.
Due to the footage of Shi Feng and Anna from before, plenty of players had arrived the trading firm to take a look out of curiosity. Yet, by the time they arrived, they discovered that the Starstreak Trading Firm was actually undergoing renovations.
This situation made all the players grow even more curious. Just what was going on here?
“Your Excellency Ye Feng, the matter you requested has been completed. Does Your Excellency have any other instructions?” Anna spoke gently as she walked up to Shi Feng, a tranquil smile on her face.
“Good. How many people did you manage to recruit?” Shi Feng asked.
“From the eight cities, we’ve recruited 245 Potionmakers. Among them, 209 are Basic Potionmakers, 29 are Intermediate Potionmakers, and 7 are Advanced Potionmakers. In addition, we also recruited 228 Forgers. Among them, 188 are Basic Forgers, 31 are Intermediate Forgers, and 9 are Advanced Forgers.”Anna took out a name list and place it on the table.
“That’s quite a lot,” Shi Feng was very satisfied as he looked at the number of NPCs on the list.
If a first-rate Guild’s upper management saw such numbers, they would surely be shocked beyond recovery.
After all, these were all genuine Potionmakers and Forgers; they were not apprentices. With such a frightening force, one could instantly turn a third-rate Guild into a Super Guild.
This was the amazing aspect the Starstreak Trading Firm. If it were a player-established store, they could not recruit nearly this many high-level NPCs. The best NPCs they could recruit would only be apprentices. On the other hand, the Starstreak Trading Firm had easily recruited this many Potionmakers and Forgers.
These NPCs were far more capable than player apprentices. The only downside was their slightly lower efficiency, slow improvements, and much lower growth potential.
“Your Excellency, I feel that it isn’t very appropriate to offer such a high salary. Since we are hiring so many people, we will also have to provide an equally large number of materials. We will take a huge loss through this transaction. If we continue down such a path, not to mention a month, the Starstreak Trading Firm will go bankrupt within ten days,” Anna said worriedly.
In order to hire all these people, the Starstreak Trading Firm had offered 30% more than the market price. The trading firm also had to bear the failures of these crafters. This was simply madness.
Moreover, whether it was potions or equipment, neither could earn them a lot of money. The sales of these items were similarly average.
Only those Master-level characters would earn a lot of money from their craft. Right now, they were simply taking a loss by recruiting so many people.
Anna truly could not understand why Shi Feng would invite all these people to work here. Wouldn’t it be better to purchase the finished products from these crafters? That way, their trading firm would not have to suffer any losses.
Unfortunately, Anna had no idea just how important these Potionmakers and Forgers were to the current players of God’s Domain.
“You don’t need to bother with this. The remaining thing we need is to convince the Basic Potionmakers to continuously make the Basic Recovery Potions and Basic Mana Regeneration Potions that they are adept at making. As for the Intermediate and Advanced Potionmakers, get them to make Intermediate Recovery Potions and Intermediate Mana Regeneration Potions. For the Forgers, get all of them to make only Whetstones,” Shi Feng said with a smile.
There were plenty of NPC Potionmakers and Forgers in God’s Domain. Meanwhile, only players with their own shops had the right to hire these NPCs. Otherwise, even when players provided the materials, these NPCs would refuse to make anything for these players.
However, there was a downside to getting these NPCs to make items. Simply put, they were slow. The number of items they could craft within a day was fixed. As for the advantage, NPCs had a much higher success rate, so they did not waste as many materials as players did.
Meanwhile, during the later stages of God’s Domain, as player-made items grew in abundance, the usefulness of these NPCs would similarly start to wane. Right now, however, these Forgers and Potionmakers were of great use to Shi Feng.
It was especially true for the Intermediate Recovery Potion and Intermediate Mana Regeneration Potion. These two items were very useful to players, as they could save their lives during a crucial moment.
Although these two items were common products, and their respective recipes were also available for sale at the Potionmaking Association, the players at this stage of the game were simply incapable of crafting them. Meanwhile, these two potions were only available for purchase from hidden NPCs, and only a limited amount was sold each day. They were items that a majority of the players in God’s Domain had no chance of enjoying.
If these NPC Potionmakers crafted these two potions, their success rate would be more than 70%. The materials needed to make an Intermediate Potion were only around 30 to 40 Copper, yet, each completed bottle could sell for 5 to 6 Silver Coins. If Shi Feng deducted the cost of hiring, he would still make a profit of 4 to 5 Silver Coins. So, why wouldn’t he carry out this transaction?
Players needed these items the most right now. If the Starstreak Trading Firm sold these items, they would make a killing.
There were also the Whetstones. This was an item that all players lacked. Currently, each stack of Hard Stones sold for 13 Silver Coins, while a stack of Whetstones sold for 40 Silver Coins. When comparing the success rate of Forging Apprentices and an official Forger, how could the former even hope to win over the latter?
The only problem was materials. As the Starstreak Trading Firm had previously only purchased finished products from Forgers and Potionmakers, they did not have any materials of their own stored up. Now, they needed to provide the materials for these crafters.
Although the trading firm could purchase the more common materials at low prices, Shi Feng needed to be the one to gather the materials required to make Intermediate Recovery Potions, Intermediate Mana Regeneration Potions, and Whetstones.
However, Shi Feng was not afraid of this. The herbs needed to make the Intermediate Recovery Potion and Intermediate Mana Regeneration Potion were not very expensive.
After all, these herbs were utterly useless to players right now.
The players in God’s Domain at the moment were still Apprentice Potionmakers. Crafting Basic Recovery Potions was already impressive. Why would they bother wasting materials to make unrewarding potions? As a result, the herbs required to craft Intermediate Recovery Potions and Intermediate Mana Regeneration Potions were very cheap.
As for Hard Stones, Shi Feng wasn’t worried. After all, he still had a humongous stock in his warehouse. He had enough for these NPC Forgers for a long time. Moreover, he could also continue purchasing them from Aqua Rose. He would not lack Hard Stones at all.
He would also sell these items in eight different cities. With all of these advantages, it would be challenging not to make a profit. Moreover, Shi Feng also revealed one of his trump cards.
Advanced Whetstones!
Advanced Whetstones were much stronger than a normal Whetstones. Not only did they recover twice the amount of a weapon’s durability, but they could also increase the weapon’s damage.
Shi Feng had already intended to sell each for 7 Silver Coins, and one stack would sell for 1 Gold, 40 Silvers. As long as he placed the Advanced Whetstones on the second floor, a majority of the players would fight over it, especially the large Guilds.
Oftentimes, just a 1% difference in damage could decide the victory or defeat of a Boss raid. Meanwhile, the Advanced Whetstone provided a 3% increase to a weapon’s damage. So, how could the various Guilds, who were currently in a rush to raid Dungeons, miss out on this item? They would definitely be in a mad rush to purchase them.
Previously, Shi Feng had kept all the Advanced Whetstones for his personal use. Later on, he passed some of them to his teammates, leaving him with 800 or so for himself. With this amount, the Starstreak Trading Firm should be able to last a relatively long time.
However, Shi Feng’s plans were not limited to this.
Now that he had such a large market available to him, he should fully utilize it as he would not have a similar chance like this in the future.
Hence, Shi Feng thought up this plan. He intended to fully manipulate the Starstreak Trading Firm to help him set up his own shop in the future.
Afterwards, Shi Feng left the follow-up work to Anna, while he departed the Starstreak Trading Firm alone.