NOVEL NEXT Chapter 158: The First Tycoon
The last box clattered open, marking the end of what felt like a treasure hunt. More than five hundred crates, painstakingly gathered by the expedition, had been emptied one by one.
The haul was generous enough to put a smile on everyone's face, though none more so than Evelyn and Whispering Petals, who somehow always seemed to stumble onto the best finds.
From those five hundred boxes, more than four hundred pieces of Uncommon-quality gear surfaced. Most of them, after a round of generous exchanges within the guild, would end up on the auction house, turning back a portion of their initial investment.
A dozen or so rare-quality items also emerged. Those never lasted long, either being traded hand-to-hand between their lucky discoverers or sold at a discount to guildmates in need.
Ryan managed to secure two useful pieces of gear—one for himself and one for Mia. He had even tried to buy Evelyn a rare-quality mail gauntlet, but she flatly refused, determined to purchase it with her own funds.
The real prizes, of course, were the epic-quality items. Only Evelyn and Whispering Petals uncovered such treasures. Ryan spent a thousand gold to claim the Heart of Defiance for himself, while Whispering Petals kept the other epic cloth piece without hesitation.
Beyond the gear, the group also racked up a considerable amount of Nyman Revivalist Reputation. Each crate yielded 150 reputation points, a generous return on paper, but still far from the revered status they were chasing.
"Alright, you can all carry on," Ryan said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he looked over the jubilant crowd. "I'll be switching to my alt soon to stock up on Enchanted Cloth Bandages. What are you waiting for? Mages, open a portal so everyone can resupply."
Mia was the first to respond, summoning a glowing portal to Stormhold Fortress. The group surged through it, one after another, until the shimmering gateway pulsed twice and dissolved into the air.
Ryan lingered only briefly before departing as well. Most of his money was tied up on his alt character, and the little he kept on his main had already been drained by recent gear purchases. With a quick farewell, he swapped over, bought out what he needed, and mailed the Enchanted Cloth Bandages back to himself.
At this stage of the game, most players were still focused on leveling, leaving the auction house relatively quiet. Even so, with the sheer volume of players, the combined inventory across all servers still reached a staggering thirty-two million stacks of items.
Among those, Enchanted Cloth Bandages—top-tier as they were—accounted for only a few thousand stacks. Enchanted Cloth itself was still notoriously hard to come by, dropping at a low rate from humanoids in the upper twenties. Naturally, that kept the supply of bandages scarce.
Scarce enough, in fact, that whenever Ryan and his crew moved in on the market, the auction house was stripped bare. Within hours, only a handful of dubious listings remained, the handiwork of opportunistic tricksters.
These swindlers posted single Enchanted Cloth Bandages at the price of an entire stack, cashing in on careless buyers. Later in the game such schemes would count as outright fraud, but for now they went unchecked.
One of their own guildmates fell victim. AJ bought three bandages at the cost of three full stacks. His furious shouts filled the Regional Channel of Stormhold Fortress, repeating again and again.
Each message cost ten gold. AJ raged over a dozen times before Ryan finally stepped in, pulling him back from further damage. More than a hundred gold had already evaporated, and the bitterest irony was that AJ had only been able to afford the shouting spree because he'd sold Ryan a rare-quality item for just over that same amount.
The consequences of the Enchanted Cloth Bandage sweep were immediate. When Ryan and his group returned to the Nyman Revivalists to hand in their supplies, the market had already shifted. The price of Enchanted Cloth Bandages at the auction house had doubled, climbing to eight or nine gold a stack. Even so, the total supply had ballooned to more than two thousand stacks.
For Ryan and his companions, the inflated price was still acceptable. Bandages remained cheaper than raw Enchanted Cloth, and they knew what was coming. Once more players reached the Dreadful Mire and discovered the Nyman Revivalist camp through quests, demand would surge, and the cost of Enchanted Cloth would skyrocket beyond anything they were seeing now.
After this batch of Enchanted Cloth Bandages was turned in, the auction house grew restless. Goblin Tycoons—those sharp-eyed traders who tracked every price movement—began watching the market, puzzled by the sudden spike in demand.
Whenever a new listing appeared, the bandages vanished almost instantly. The Tycoons bought everything they could, driving prices higher and higher until a single stack reached fifteen gold, more than fifty percent higher than the price of raw Enchanted Cloth itself.
By the time Ryan's group made their next run, Enchanted Cloth Bandages had become too expensive to purchase. On Ryan's orders, they immediately shifted tactics, buying up lower-tier cloth in bulk and converting it into bandages. The move not only saved money but also boosted their First Aid skill at a pace most players couldn't dream of.
The timing couldn't have been better. At this stage, every bandage they crafted could also be turned in to the Nyman Revivalists for rewards, making the grind profitable on both fronts.
Other types of cloth, however, proved more resilient. Unlike Enchanted Cloth Bandages, these high-volume commodities resisted manipulation. Their prices stayed steady despite Ryan's aggressive buying, and in some cases, even dropped slightly thanks to an influx of fresh supply.
"Boss, First Aid is capped! Should we keep turning in supplies?" Nightwalker asked, grinning. He had started with no First Aid skill at all, yet after burning through a small fortune, he had pushed it all the way to level 225. He had even skipped over the thicker bandages available past level 200, brute-forcing his way through with Enchanted Cloth Bandages alone.
"Do as you like," Ryan told him, "but don't forget what you owe me. The interest goes up a penny every ten days."
Most guild members were still strapped for cash, weighed down by unsold gear and empty pockets. Some hadn't even been able to afford bandages during the earlier sweep, forcing Ryan to lend them several hundred gold apiece just to keep pace. He expected repayment once their gear finally sold.
For Ryan, the loans were nothing more than pocket change. He could pull in nearly ten thousand gold a day. His alt had already reached the coveted Hundred Thousand Dollar milestone, a feat that sent ripples through the Goblin Tycoon community.
It wasn't like the so-called rich kids who simply bought their gold from shady studios. This was real money, earned straight through the auction house. That distinction mattered, and the Tycoons knew it.
On the forums, they had already given his alt a title that spread like wildfire: The First Tycoon.