The Lord Demon King is Unfathomable!

At the harbor of Thunder City, Luo Yan stood on the deck of the ocean freighter flying the Purple Moon Flag, inspecting his Corpse Ghost Sailors.

These were the militia who had died in the battle led by Adela's Sheriff against the Earth Dragon Clan. Luo Yan had collected their souls and granted them a second life.

From the appearance, they were no different from regular humans; even their only flaw, the "smell," was masked by the strong fishy scent at the harbor.

A young man wearing a captain's hat approached Luo Yan and respectfully performed the noble salute of the Imperial Court.

"Honorable Mr. Colin, do you have any orders?"

Luo Yan glanced at him and casually replied.

"No, I'm just taking a look around."

The young man standing before him was named Lumier, Jack's right-hand man, and also a core member of the Brotherhood.

Long ago, this man was hit in the chest by a cursed harpoon. Due to a lack of a Priest to heal him, he was on the brink of death, but fortunately, he survived thanks to Luo Yan's intervention.

Since then, Lumier became a loyal follower of the Demon King and was one of the few in the Brotherhood to genuinely swear before the Demon King Statue.

Luo Yan was fairly satisfied with this captain recommended by Jack. The only shortcoming was his lack of ocean sailing experience, but the ship wasn't meant to set sail anyway, just to linger around the harbor.

While Luo Yan was inspecting his captain and sailors, another of his servants climbed onto the deck from the dock ladder.

Seeing those sailors standing solemnly like soldiers, Punk was inwardly shocked, thinking to himself that Mr. Colin's identity was indeed remarkable!

At least he had never seen so many disciplined sailors; these guys might have been retired from the Imperial Palace's Personal Guard!

Though he had never actually seen what the Imperial Palace's Personal Guard Captain looked like...

As his imagination ran wild, a voice more elegant and pleasing than the Divine gospel suddenly floated from ahead, interrupting his thoughts.

"What did Mr. Andes say?"

Mr. Colin on the deck didn't turn around but seemed to know Punk was there without looking.

"He basically agreed to your request, though not entirely..." Punk dared not slack off, reciting verbatim the content of his conversation with Andes.

Especially the last part about the fifty million gold coins.

After hearing Punk's report, Luo Yan raised a slight eyebrow in surprise.

From a modern perspective, he immediately understood what Yang Andes aimed to do, which was nothing more than trying to control the market and drive up the price.

However, that guy wasn't a modern person yet could see so far ahead; it could only be said he truly deserved the title "uncrowned king" who controlled Thunder City's economic lifeline.

The diamond Luo Yan gifted Andes was indeed valuable; auctioning for 10,000 gold coins was reasonable, and 100,000 was barely justified, but 500,000 was pure inflation, at least ninety percent was markup.

Yet the overflow of frothy bubbles wouldn't vanish; they could still overflow into other cups.

This was Andes' true objective!

As long as he controlled the diamonds in Thunder City and the Ryan Kingdom, he could inflate the price as high as he wanted, and with the nobles' typical behavior of buying pricey over suitable items, high prices would make them even more eager to open their wallets.

Of course, not just anyone could tell this tale; at least someone had to put up the initial investment of fifty million gold coins.

The average monthly income of Thunder City's citizens was about 2,000 copper coins; fifty million gold coins equated to fifty billion copper coins, thus showing how staggering this wealth was.

Anyone who could fork out such an amount without batting an eye, even Luo Yan had to marvel at how wealthy the Andes Family truly was.

However, everyone has their limits, even the richest person in Thunder City.

He only saw the profits from selling diamonds but hadn't yet seen the broader picture.

That was selling companies.

The Embrace of Dawn Hotel under Mr. Andor would be worth at most 50,000 gold coins, but in Mr. Colin's hands, it was worth at least 100,000 gold coins, with no upper limit.

Indeed, selling diamonds might yield a million gold coins yearly profit, but he could easily create a billion gold coin shell with some simple packaging.

A billion gold coins.

The Campbell Duchy's treasury might not even hold that much gold.

After reporting, Punk quietly waited for Mr. Colin's response, obediently closing his mouth without uttering a word.

Luo Yan pondered for a moment and said.

"Reply to Andes for me, and tell him I plan to establish a Colin Mining Company in Thunder City, managing the Colin Family's diamond mines on the New Continent. The current annual output is around a hundred thousand pieces, mostly small diamonds weighing 0.2 grams, with diamonds over 1 gram only making up one percent."

"Of course, we don't intend to sell off the treasures Earth has bestowed us based on weight and size alone; instead, we plan to create a grading system, where the most expensive diamonds are 5A, only released at quarterly fixed auctions, and the lowest F grade sold under another standard... We can discuss the specifics further."

Naturally, 5A's are non-movable awns, while F's are generally stone pulled.